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Did anyone see the recent PBS presentation of the "Most Beautiful Train in tbe World". It was about the SP Coast Daylight. A lot of old, color footage of the Daylight in its run between LA and San Francisco. It was truly a spectacular train, and a spetacular route. The beautiful black, red, and orange paint scheme really did make it a standout.
I did not know they retained their steam locomotive until the mid 1950's, when most trains had already converted to diesel. There were a couple of points made, in the presentation, which I think are of interest, today. I know it was a different era...different economics, different ridership, etc. They mentioned that about 1/4 of the passengers rode the Daylight for pure transportation purposes. The other 3/4 rode for pleasure. It also noted how popular the lounge car was (it was then called the "cabin car"). The documentary stated that the entire cost of each train was paid for by the revenue from the cabin car, alone.
It makes you wonder why Amtrak would not consider a pure luxury or delux tourist train, somewhere, as an experiment to see the public's enthusiasm (which I think would be huge). You have to wonder if Amtrak's increasing tendency to go after the bottom line and lowest denominator may yield diminishing returns. Anyway, I hope you get a chance to see the presentation if it appears on your local PBS station:
PS - I posted this at work, tonight. When I got home and tried to play the link, above, on my dial-up computer, it was pretty much unwatchable as it downloaded in segments and took forever. So, sorry about that. If you have broadband, DSL, etc, it should be ok.
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