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And so your point is that providing a needed and desired high-quality service at a price point which average customers can afford is a notion too quaint and old fashioned for our modern times? That is your view of progress? If so, I have this little quote from C.S. Lewis in The Voyage of the...

http://streamlinermemories.info/SF/Scout.pdf Read page 16, and weep....

In the other thread (Return of the Lark) it was mentioned that at one point Budd had drawn up plans for a Hi-Level sleeping car. Here's the floor plan, from Dubin's More Classic Trains:

One of the tricks of the trade was 'make-aheads.' Soup, appetizers and such were ready to go. As soon as the waiter left with your order he would be back with your first course right away, and while you were working on that the chef would be busy working on your entree. You don't have to 'rush'...

With the full staffing which I mentioned above, it was possible to serve the best of hot fresh food and still turn tables every 30-40 minutes, for six or more complete seatings during a meal period. A single 48 seat diner could feed a train of 300 passengers. Yes, the diners still lost money...

According to Santa Fe, the normal staffing of a 36- or 48- seat dining car in transcontinental service was: Four cooks (Chef, cook, third cook, fourth cook. The third cook did mostly prep and cold items (salads, sandwiches), fourth cook was largely clean-up.) Six waiters, one for each pair of...

Okay. I'm going by memory here from a story I heard over 20 years ago and I'm not certain what has changed in the meantime. But, as best as I can recall: The station was, originally, owned by Southern Pacific. The station was part of the portfolio of real estate which ended up under ATSF...

If the city or county owns & manages the station, they'll probably be reasonable. But if it's Amtrak...well, back in the '90s there was a short-lived weekend passenger service between Houston and Galveston called the Texas Limited (which operated over UP/ex-GH&H). They initially operated out of...

The bus will almost certainly be open seating. On the train from Longview it's up to the specific crew/conductor, but they're generally receptive to requests to change if there is room.

Coach on the train from Seattle to Pittsburgh will be much more comfortable than a bus, and about the same speed. The bus will be cheaper. Coach on the train will be faster than driving a car, unless you drive straight through. But if you drive straight through, you will NEED those two days in...

Yes, they did. At least in the timetable I'm familiar with the Imperial dipped below the border twice: Once for fifty miles just east of Calexico, and then between Tecate and Tijuana (37 miles) on the way to San Ysidro and then San Diego (over the route which would later become the San Diego...

The Penn Texas began in 1948 when the Texas Eagle was inaugurated as a coordinated streamlined service upgrading from the old heavyweight Sunshine Special. The latter continued operating for several years, but as a secondary train. Actually, at first the NYC-St. Louis service operated under the...

I just thought I'd break in and mention our two hotel highlights from our 2016 circle trip...both in Canada: For Vancouver, BC, we stayed at the Rosedale on Robson Suite Hotel downtown. It was a short cab ride from Pacific Central station, and it was wonderful. Every 'room' is a suite with a...

Not necessarily all of the subsidy. I'd suggest making an amount essentially equal to the current subsidy available for number of seats provided, occupied or not, plus an additional incentive subsidy tied to revenue ticket sales. Edit To Add: To tie this back to topic, I'd put a differential in...

Tie the subsidy to ticket sales. Leverage the consumer's dollar.

That would actually be my preferred solution, perhaps with inspection stations at the state line where you could register your mileage leaving and re-entering if you were going to be traveling extensively. But I trust government to never implement a simple solution when a complicated and...

Watch for that to be made illegal as well. "Your papers, please? Ach, und cell phone?"

With the decline in gasoline use it was inevitable...and it won't stop until Big Brother has a neverending, Internet-searchable (by the 'right people') log of every mile you drive and every address which you stop at. Sigh. Perhaps I should go to Amish country and buy a horse and buggy?

With trucking you mainly have two kinds of companies: The giants who own hundreds or even thousands of trucks, run their own terminals and fuel depots, and are largely self-insured. Then there are the small operators who lease (not own) a dozen or so trucks and whose home 'terminal' is a rented...

One item I didn't see mentioned: Freight, mail, and express...especially mail. When I worked behind the scenes at Hobby Airport in the '90s their employees told me that their business model was to break even on mail and air freight; the passenger revenue was gravy.