Ok, the loop issue is heating up again, it was bound to happen. So lets stand back and try to give things as dispassionate a look as possible.
First, the crow pie. Last October
I posted this piece about the possibility of the loop running this year. I did reserve the possibility that the CHS or Railstar would buy #12, but other than that, I said: "Believe it I will when see it I do." Technically I haven't actually seen it, but I do believe it's running. I didn't think they could do it, they did, and I was wrong. They get the last laugh, and they deserve it. They've put a hell of a lot of work into this, and they deserve a HUGE amount of credit for attaining a truely impressive feat.
Having said that, there are some things that Railstar can't do, they simply don't have the physical plant. Accommodating as many as 1800+ passengers a day is one of those things. They've accomplished a HUGE amount, but net ridership simply will have to decline. It's not for lack of effort, but for lack of equipment.
As a consequence we can predict that there will be people who can not be ticketed for the train they want. There will be people who rode it last year and now find that things are different and that they prefer the way things were. We can't blame Railstar for this, they're doing their best - and doing more than many thought they could do. But people aren't getting the same service that they used to and we would expect that some of them would be unhappy. The RR itself probably wouldn't see many of these (except at the ticket window), but the local merchants would.
Overall, this situation was and is predictable - this part I / we had right. And it isn't going to get much (if any) better any time soon.
One last point, the fact that had nothing changed is one thoroughly whipped lump of severely beaten horseflesh. Please don't point out that had the old operator been kept everything would have been rosy. That's the bridge that's been burned, the path not taken. It's long past time to live with it and move on.
Don
