Re: Spirit of Washington dinner train cancelled
Author: Ross Hall
Date: 10-30-2007 - 16:41
Welcome to Washington, replace a dinner train with a bike trail. Remember to bring your sack lunch with you on your bike!! At least two of my sources say it's dead for good. They say that the train was well established where it was and no matter where it relocates to it will take too much expensive marketing to change the flow of tourists, diesel reaching for $4.00 per gallon, mandatory raise in Washington Minimum wage to $8.00++ (and state taxes tied to wages rising accordingly), train needing a repaint and some due for refurbishment, all combining to make relocation the final and most costly straw. Besides, I think the winery tour was a bigger draw than most thought. Really sad to see it go. With the increasing number of tourist operations shutting down or reducing operations, it's possible that some decent passenger equipment will get cut up in the years to come.