San Diego Comic Con

Any news of how Amtrak is benefitting (or missing opportunities) from this year's Comic Con?

Not sure about Amtrak, but the San Diego trolley usually runs FOUR (4)! car trains!

Pretty impressive to see four light rail cars, makes a LONG train going around tight corners, looks great.

In this video, http://youtu.be/7MsOu9YWW64, you can see some of the four car San Diego trolley trains.

Last year there was a thread on this very thing and it said that the Surfliners between LAX and SAN were wall to wall with people on most trains similar to the Race Days @ Del Mar! Biz Class was entirely Sold Out so SRO was the norm in Coach!

Not sure if they jacked up the buckets like they do during Holidays on some Routes, but that would probably be a smart idea to increase Revenue!

Well, jim, that was my question. I remember the headaches from last year. It's not making huge news, so I wonder if the trains are packed this year, or if more trains were added, or if rates were raised, or if (*gasp*) ridership decreased after last year's fiasco.

There should have been a HUGE way to cash in on it with just a bit of preparation.

The lack of news, though, seems to indicate that there are no horror stories like in the past. Just want to know what changed.

VentureForth said:

Any news of how Amtrak is benefitting (or missing opportunities) from this year's Comic Con?

Click to expand...

As someone two takes the Surfliner weekly. The train was PACKED in coach with standing room only plus Business Class completely sold out weeks in advance. Also when they raise prices for the holidays or events on the Surfliner, its really nothing major. Like 5-10 dollars more than usual. Now you want to talk about ripoff, its the hotels that charge $800 dollars a night. Pretty much the trains were sold out from the first one in the morning till the second to last one. But I also did hear from the conductor that the last train leaving SD was just as bad since it is a Coaster combo train.

So no new service, eh? I really would have thought that Metrolink and Coaster would have teamed up with Amtrak to max out the trains.

Otherwise, crowed is OK - lunatic chaos as described last year not so much.

VentureForth said:

So no new service, eh? I really would have thought that Metrolink and Coaster would have teamed up with Amtrak to max out the trains.

Otherwise, crowed is OK - lunatic chaos as described last year not so much.

Click to expand...

Not sure about the Metrolink and Coaster but I did not see any new trains on Amtrak website. I do know that during busy times, that they will add an extra business class car but not sure which train they do that to or even if they did do that this time around.

I know that I took he city tram from old town to the convention center daily. The early morning run downtown was almost always light with open seats. But the evening, end of day, run was packed with standing room only and the Saturday/Sunday commute had people packed to the doors.

I recall the stories about insanity last year on the train, folks getting to San Diego, to Comic Con.

Thanks for the information about it this year, it sounds like no big problems...

What changed ?

I grew up there, when Santa Fe RR was taking passengers from San Diego to LA.

Cheers, Peter