Happy New Year everyone! The new thread about a upcoming trip to England is interesting. One thing the original poster wanted answered was what would his wife find interesting while he (and she) rode various British trains. I got to wondering about how we, ourselves, would rate our museum/tourist train rides here in the United States? Without being scientific, a rough thought. The criteria would be:

1. How is the ride itself? VERY Scenic; Somewhat scenic; A scenic spot or two; Not very scenic; Not scenic at all.

2. What about the destination? VERY interesting for those non-railfans including which might include shopping/restaurants/other items of interest; Some interesting items that non-railfans might be able to do; One or two places/things for non-railfans to do while stopped; A place for non-railfans to walk around such as paths/neighborhoods/business district; Nothing at all to do.

Note that there are 5 categories in each, and to give it some sense, let's assign the numbers 5-4-3-2-1. In other words, in the first category, VERY Scenic gets a 5 while Not scenic it all gets a 1. The best rides would get a total of 10, the worst rides a total of 2. Some notes; on-train experience not considered and length of ride not considered. Also, since this is a DESTINATION survey, trains that go out and then push back without allowing passengers to detrain, would not be part of this survey.

Some quick examples; Durango & Silverton would get a 5 + 5 for a 10. My museum, the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum ride from the museum in North Judson, Indiana to LaCrosse, would get a 3 + 1 for a 4. (These are MY estimations; others might disagree.)

Again, not scientific. Just something to possibly do on a New Years Day, especially if football bowl games are not your thing.

Les

It is a good exercise, Les.

An interesting follow-up would be to compare the scores with what folks on Trip Advisor say.

Rob