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Cape Flyer service turns profit for second year
Good move to cut the service from Labor Day to Columbus Day. I rode it last year in September and there wasn’t even enough people to fill one car. There was one car and the snack car open. Don’t think I would use the service again as there was not much to do in Hyannis except walk around and visit the overpriced tourist shops and restaurants on Main St. It’s a short walk to the harbor but once you’ve been there 15 minutes there wasn’t much else to see. Better off to drive and then have your car there to get you around abit. There did not seem to be any traffic back-up at all the weekend I visited. A friend who goes to the Cape regularly says that to avoid traffic you just need to leave at nonbusy times and there should be no problems. The trip was interesting though and if it wasn’t for the long layover might have been more fun.
I fondly remember riding “The Cape Codder” from New Haven to Woods Hole to meet the Nantucket ferry… Great vacations back in the fifties !
The patronage in Sept-Oct 2013 was not really “low” but it was definitely less than during the May- Labor Day period, so it affected the bottom line and was not repeated this year. Many visitors do come to Cape Cod in the Fall season. One improvement would be to increase speed - these trains at present operate in a very leisurely way.
The Ridership was low during Sept-Oct last year because it wasn’t advertised. Nobody knew the train was still running. If they had advertised Memorial Day to Columbus Day from the beginning, they might have seen a different result.
Like Robert, I too have wonderful memories. In 1938, my mother and I took the New Haven’s Day Cape Codder from Grand Central to Yarmouth where my uncle picked us up to take us to their cottage in East Orleans. It was the first long train ride I had ever taken. The cars were comfortable and spacious. In New Haven a streamlined Hudson replaced our electric. In New London there wer hugh strange locomotives with feedwater heaters hanging over the smokebox…Central Vermont. I’ll never forget that ride.
Robert, your comments exemplify one of the fundamental problems with passenger service. Once you step off the train, you’re dependent on another mode to get you around. Walking just doesn’t get you very far very fast, which limits the usefulness of the service. If someone is picking you up, great, but people traveling to the cape, unless it’s a single family member joining the rest of their family already there, need to get to their final destination, which if it’s too far from the train to walk, they might as well drive the entire trip. It’s great that the bus helps increase the train’s reach, but I wonder if adding the cost of the bus to the overall operational cost of the train would make the train go from making an operational profit to actually loosing money. Still, that the train makes a profit is a great thing in another respect: it gets the budget conscious and anti-tax people out of the debate when it comes to funding.
In order for passenger rail to succeed in rural or non-metro areas, there needs to be some comprehensive planning done on the part of railroad, state and local officials. Affordable car rentals, taxi and bus services need to be present as apart of the whole transportation system. The Cape is a perfect example. It has the population to support a passenger rail option, but public transport off the train is minimal.