Thank you, my intention was to show that even though there are a lot of different objectives you can achieve with a once-daily schedule, many of them are unfortunately mutually exclusive and therefore you are stuck with painful tradeoffs which decimate whatever markets you can actually serve:I like what you've done here. An observation - which I assume you were also making - was that the ideal timings at endpoints or key stops enroute don't always provide the most scenic experience and vice-versa. It's the balancing act between an "experiential" train and one that provides relevant transportation. That said, it would be fascinating to run various scenarios based on these charts IF the opportunity ever arose - which, as we both know, it won't.
For instance, the idea of serving all cities at daylight rather than some in the dead of the night is certainly appealing (and also allows for lower operating costs), but makes it impossible to be competitive on time and cost against the plane, car or bus. I mean: who is going to travel by train from Vancouver to Toronto if it requires forced layovers in Kamloops, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay and Sudbury, thus taking a week and costing you 6 hotel nights on top of the rail fare…?
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