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Who is their target market?
Hercule Poirot?
The market is people wanting a vacation experience of being on a train.
My family's considered something similar, mostly because of one of my children's allergies that make plane travel more risky. Helps that I have lots of PTO/work remote and we homeschool the kids though. It's only like 26-30 hours for us.
The Amish.
In case people think you are joking, I want to clarify that you are not joking. Amish, and similar groups like some Mennonites, absolutely vacation by train
You know I have seen them downtown near union station and I always was sorta curious why.
Correct. And they absolutely vacation in Florida.
And they don't seem to wear sunscreen
I guess... I am the target market... I take Amtrak from Savannah, GA to Washington DC (about 12 hours) to visit family at least once a year. This new route is basically the same service, but instead of terminating in NYC, it now goes to Chicago (two other trains still follow the route up to NYC). It's much more comfortable than the bus and way cheaper than flying; it's usually about $100-120 for a coach seat round trip. Now that I can get a one seat ride all the way to Chicago, because I've never been, right now I'm planning a trip there next spring once I get my tax return.
Nobody except the few dedicated train fans. The government requires and subsidizes just enough that it exists, but hardly anyone actually uses it. If you can fly you do, if not you take a bus.
You aren't wrong, but you are being a little unfair to Amtrak. You always see people saying the same thing about amtrak and other forms of public transit as well as services like the post office. Yes, amtrak receives subsidies, but prior to covid, they had a 99% farebox recovery ratio, i.e., 99% of the cost of a ride is covered by the fare, and the remaining 1% by subsidy. Covid dropped travel numbers across the board, but they are still forecasting 86% for this year
Compared to the interstate highway system, which is covered 0% by fares, Amtrak is performing incredibly efficiently. By mentioning that amtrak is subsidized, you are insinuating that driving is not.
It's quite useful in the one part of the country where the service is good: the Northeast Corridor. It makes traveling by plane downright stupid in a lot of cases. If only more of country's rail were even that good, which isn't even a high bar to clear.
Yes, the Acela service makes a lot of sense. But even that is limited by poor track conditions.
And CSX, but you're not wrong