Hoosier State is really cheap; which way is best?

Iowa Pacific's Hoosier State is selling tickets for a whopping 1 dollar . . . how and why are they doing this?! This is great, but it surprised me so much I thought it was bug in the reservation system, until I saw other people talking about it.

maxbuskirk said:

Iowa Pacific's Hoosier State is selling tickets for a whopping 1 dollar . . . how and why are they doing this?! This is great, but it surprised me so much I thought it was bug in the reservation system, until I saw other people talking about it.

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Right out of the MegaBus Playbook,! ( and you can bet there's a very Limited Number of these cheapie tickets!)

One or two tickets per train.

Wow. That is amazing. All the train loses is 60 bucks per train, and you then have 2 happy people who might want to ride it again

The whole point is publicity for the service. You mentioned that other people were talking about it too, so it proves it works!

I think these promotions are known as "Teasers"... They lure you to the site, you can't get the cheap deal, but you are there and they may sell you something else... which they couldn't if you weren't on their website.

Ed.

Ed calls them Bus Buster fares. There are two per train if I remember correct. They are designed to compete directly with Mega Bus. And just like Mega Bus there is a limited number.

And Ed can afford to sell MORE $1, $2, $5 seats per train, than MEGA BUS or BOLT DOG can

rrdude said:

And Ed can afford to sell MORE $1, $2, $5 seats per train, than MEGA BUS or BOLT DOG can

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Can he? His costs are relatively fixed (and relatively staff-intensive,) and I'm not sold the State of Indiana wants to pay more in subsidy just so Iowa Pacific can sell more cheap fares. On the other hand, gas prices are lower than any time in recent history, and in the case of Megabus there is a very low staffing and overhead cost (they typically don't have buildings and they don't have on-site ticket agents. The only cost is the cost of the bus with maintenance, lease/purchase payments, and gasoline, the cost if any of using the curb or parking space that they pick up and drop off at, and the cost of the driver(s).)

It seems that the Megabus model has a lot more room for cheap fares than the Hoosier State model does.

At the end of the day it all depends on how much of the cost can be accounted for from sources other than the fare box. As far as infrastructure costs go the buses have a definite advantage in the current auto centric setup of hidden subsidies.

Is it better to ride the Hoosier State northbound IND-CHI or southbound CHI-IND? I don't care about inconvenient arrival/departure times at Indianapolis, just comparing breakfast/dinner, scenery, etc. Thanks!

Edit: I'm thinking about riding this in the winter, and sunrise is around 7:15am (8:05am at Lafayette IN), and sunset 4:25pm (5:25pm at Lafayette IN), so going south there would be no scenery to be seen.

Still, does anyone know how the dinner is on the 850 going south?

We took it south had a great dinner. We were returning from a trip west on the Zephyr and east on the Empire builder. So scenery was a moot point.

My theory on train between Indy and the windy. There was no delay on the rails today. As compared to the pileups on the interstates because a little snow.