The American Railway Explorer has come to a dead end. Billionaire Philip Anschutz ahd thought of starting this project in which travellers would be taken on a rail tour of places such as Crater Lake, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton national parks. But apparently this plan will not take off anytime soon. The most obvious reason seems to be the exorbitant rates.
The tour package it seems was priced around $900 a day, which was expected to rise to a whopping $1500 a day. I am not surprised that people were not too keen to pay that much money to sit on a train and see these places. Though the Denver based railroad was promising to give “world-class food, comfortable on-board accommodations, and memorable on- and off-train experiences,” I guess $1500 would be a bit too much.
These guys should have learned some thing from the American Orient Express that ran similar tours, but went bankrupt in the year 2008. Their prices infact were about $200 less than what these people were asking for. Anschutz company already owns lodgings in Yellowstone, Death Valley, Crater Lake, and Zion national parks, among others. So it would have been very convenient for him to run these tours in these areas. But alas, this will not be the case.
