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Comment by munk-a | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I were (up here in Canada) looking for a nice mellow train ride with scenery, out of Vancouver you can catch a train to Jasper and on northward to Prince George but... the cost of both of us to ride and have a cabin for two is 5k, so alternative to taking a 4 day train ride is flying out to london three separate times for the weekend. Alternatively we could book a fancy hotel room in down-town for two weeks and have a ritzy stay-cation.

I don't know why continental american train service is so stupidly over priced and inconvenient, but I really hope at some point they realize they are currently uncompetitive and could actually make more money offering a better service for a more reasonable fee.

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Because countries' railroad networks tend to optimize either for freight or for passenger service. They compete with each other. America has one of the best freight networks in the world. https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2011/06/29/freight-as-pa...

Canada Post is doing the same thing. Probably all others too.

Their continuous response to lower revenues is to raise prices.

This just feeds ever-more innovation in the message and package delivery markets, sabotaging themselves.

Canada Post is doing that to their letter service which I think is just a write off at this point. Their package service is amazing and far exceeds the US though. The existence of flex delivery boxes has made it less terrible to receive packages if you live in a Condo/Apartment and is beloved by my fellow non-detached-home-owning co-workers (which, given this is Vancouver, is everyone)

The package service comes at a price though.

Canadian shippers could only dream of US rates for first class mail packages and flat rate boxes with insurance and tracking.

Canada Post did a good job of privatizing outlets, and as you said, leveraging that network for the last mile.

What Vancouver is missing is staffed front-desks like Toronto ;)

Coming from the US the last thing I want is a US style post office, I love my 7/11 post pick up spot (though my current one is now a shoppers I assume US folks won't recognize that)...

Dedicated post offices are incredibly silly, embed them into stores, and offering to reimburse clerks for the time they spend actually dealing with mail is wonderful. It means that instead of having one location in little old New Westminster we've got 6, downtown vancouver (just the penisula up to chinatown-ish) has 14 post offices in 2.3 sq. miles... that's way better than some gigantic greek revival building in the middle of town that absolutely everyone has to spend 30 minutes on a bus to get to.

At least in the US, I think it's the combination of cheap airfares + the tracks being owned by freight companies, so there's not a ton of profit incentive to make it better and attract more riders.

I assume Canada has a similar history/present.

Amtrak is a government subsidized entity with monopolies on certain passenger rail, it really doesn't have a strong profit incentive.

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