70s-child wrote:Problem is they are not typically profitable. The Amtrak is making huge losses for instance, and I would be surprised if the Rocky Mountaineer is breaking even.
In that case, I suppose its future will be limited, and that will show that (according to the principles of capitalism) the service is *not* worth that much, after all. (I'm not saying that I fully agree with the principles or philosophy of capitalism, or that I may not favour other possible systems - just that capitalism *is* the system by which things of this sort are organized in many countries.)
70s-child wrote:The thing is, in North America, most people prefer traveling by car or by air.
Got to admit I feel the same way now - and I suspect lots of Australians feel similarly - I think we're almost as much a car culture here as the U.S. is; I don't know what the situation is in other countries such as the U.K.
As I said before, I was once very keen on trains - I even sometimes took the overnight train to Adelaide or Sydney and then came back the next night, purely because I wanted the train ride! You probably can't get much more fanatical than that.
But, as I also said before, trains in Australia have changed now, and the things I liked most about them have gone or changed, and I'm not much attracted to the idea now, and my ideal way of a holiday would be to drive a car, and just feel free to wander round exploring this or that district as the fancy took me, and stay in motels along the way, and not having everything too tightly scheduled ahead of me. And if you fly or go by train on a holiday, you do have the problem of transport at the other end: you either use sometimes inadequate or inconvenient public transport, or you have to expensively rent a car. If you are in your own country and can conveniently take your own car from the start, that seems the best solution to me. If you are going overseas, then air is the only solution, plus renting a car at the other end.
70s-child wrote:So trains typically end up making losses, and then the management tries to minimize the losses by ramping up ticket prices, which of course doesn't work either!
Sounds like the wrong approach to me. If they're ripping people off, they should perhaps just be less greedy and charge a more reasonable price; or if the service they are providing genuinely does cost that much to provide, and their profit margin is reasonable, maybe the answer is to try to find ways of reducing the cost of the service in ways that customers will find acceptable, in return for paying a lower fare. Rather than just guess that, maybe do market research, or surveys, and the like.
(Rocky Mountaineer management, if you want me to consult for you, I'm here!)
Regards, Michael.