"In fact, the D&S and the C&TS today run trains aimed at the same market (pleasure travel) that D&RGW targeted with the San Juan. The fact that the San Juan never really captured its intended market is why it was discontinued."
Whoa there, Padre.
Yes, indeedy, D&RG and its descendents have promoted leisure travel from the first days of the San Juan extension - no argument there. But if the target market for Alamosa - Silverton travel had been leisure, the "Colorado - New Mexico Express" would have been discontinued around, oh, October 1883 or so. There weren't that many swells dropping their shekels in Silverton, especially when the first snowslide ran above Needleton.
In fact, the term "passenger train" is a misnomer, and the train itself is a great example of a solution looking for a problem. A locomotive, cars, track, and a crew were not only expensive, they were underutilized by simply hauling "butts in seats." So rather than haul a coach or two, the railroad found other, non-retail customers looking for reliable, scheduled service:
Mail (a single customer, the Post Office)
Small shipments (Railway Express)
The Pullman Company, which "bought wholesale and sold retail" (a traveler riding in a section was not a customer of the D&RGW)
And businessmen love stable revenues, which is why they prized customers like the Post Office, the Pullman Company, and The Railway Express Company more than they did the fickle, demanding, summer-only leisure traveler. George Pullman, Railway Express, and the Post Office paid the D&RG whether their cars were empty or full - D&RGW had to spend money advertising to fill its coaches, and had to haul those coaches empty if it failed.
By the 1920s, even the railroads realized that the combination of better roads and affordable autos and trucks meant that they were no longer a monopoly, and since the Government maintained the roads, they weren't the lowest-cost provider either. Dad took the bus instead of the train, or bought his own car. Aunt Martha's package arrived on a truck instead of a baggage car. Rio Grande created RG Motorways to hold on to some of that business (the profitable bit - boxes don't require green plush seats), and the "San Juan's" ledger figures got even redder.
But the most loyal customer of the "passenger train" was, in fact, the Post Office. The story was repeated on lines all over the country: when the intercity mail switched to trucks, the ICC allowed the passenger train along that route to go away.
Which, I'm willing to bet, is what killed the "San Juan" - not "oh, well, we've tried for 70 years to reach the leisure traveler, and it's not working, let's quit."
JAC
(PS - Next time you board an aircraft, keep in mind that under your feet are the modern equivalent of the RPO and the baggage-LCL cars. Plus ca change . . .)
