Wither Amtrak?

[poltr1]

Those of you who have been to Europe -- or live there -- know that passenger train travel is the best way to get from point A to point B. They have the TGV, the Trans-Europe Express, and other fast rail systems.

Here in the States, passenger rail is a distant third behind airplane and automobile travel in terms of popularity. This is despite having a huge rail infrastructure throughout the country. Why? Is it that the other transportation systems are so heavily marketed? Has the passenger rail line company -- Amtrak -- done something wrong over the years? Or is it that people just love traveling by plane or by car?

I think we had a good passenger rail system up until World War II. Then came the interstate highway system, and jet aircraft.


For me, if I want to go somewhere, my first choice is the car. I think it's easier, cheaper, and more convenient to drive than it is to fly. I think flying has many hassles involved, especially after 9/11. I've got to be at the airport two hours before the flight takes off. The security checks. The lines. Delays and cancellations. Plus the idea of being cooped up in a metal tube for hours on end doesn't exactly thrill me. Especially when I think about things like wind shear and turbulence.

If I had a choice between airline travel and train travel, I'd rather take the train, even though it would take longer. As I said in my last post, it's a more leisurely way of traveling. But apparently I'm in the minority. Otherwise we'd have an excellent passenger rail system -- one that was heavily used and didn't bleed red ink.

Would more people take the train if more cities were serviced, or if the schedules were different? Cincinnati has 2 trains arriving and departing every other day -- one at 1am, the other at 3am. That's not the most convenient time to be traveling to a sparsely populated train station that is either in a downtown area or the middle of nowhere.

I may be wrong on this -- and I hope I am -- but the only profitable line Amtrak has is the high-speed Acela, running between Washington DC and Boston, with stops in Philadelphia and New York City. I'd love to see high-speed rail come to other areas of the country, but lots of infrastructure improvements would be necessary.

What about taking the car with me? There are only two places where thats possible -- Lorton, VA, and somewhere in Florida. I'd love to be able to drive to any train station in the country, drive my car onto the train, and then ride to my destination, from which I could drive away.

There's talk about putting in a passenger rail line between the cities of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. I'd definitely ride this train if it were available. Especially if I could rent a car at my destination.

Lastly, I've hard that train travel is a "greener" choice than airplane or automobile. If I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint, and if these figures are correct, I'd do it by taking the train.


These are my thoughts, somewhat organized into bullet points. If you've taken the train, I'd love to hear about your experience and/or opinions.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

One BIG problem in the US is the huge distance between cities and other points of interest. There's a relatively small handful of corridors in the US that have Europe-like distances between cities. One of them, obviously, is the Northeast Corridtor between D.C. and Boston. Another is the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor. You could probably also do something in the L.A./San Diego/Inland Empire triangle. But for most of the U.S., even high-speed rail would turn intercity train travel into a multi-day affair, whereas a jet airliner can get you between the most distant city pairs in the lower 48 in a matter of hours. When you have US-style distances to cover, trains are a lose.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Trains can't make much of a dent in the New York-Los Angeles business, but there are huge numbers of trips over such distances as San Francisco-LA or Detroit-Chicago, where if you could upgrade the tracks so the trains consistently moved at 100 MPH when they moved, trains could seriously win. If you want to go downtown to downtown, the train station is probably already there, but it takes an hour (and is a logisitical problem) to get from downtown to the airport, and another hour at the other end. Add to that all the security theater and other stupidity at airports, and it takes as long to get from Chicago to Detroit by plane as it does by car, even though the plane is only in the air for 45 minutes. Train travel could be just as fast for these frequent short trips.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

It's only a matter of time before they implement security theater on trains as well. For that matter, the days of unreserved coach seating on Amtrak on the NEC went away after 9/11, much to my disappointment. That'll do away with that time advantage.

The logistical problem of getting from the downtown area to the airport in many US cities is actually more of a people problem than an infrastructure problem. Cab drivers fight expansion of public transport to the airport tooth and nail in many U.S. cities.

Another "people problem" is the reluctance of people in smaller cities and towns to allow tracks to be built through the town if the train doesn't stop there. What you end up with is a train that does in fact connect the two endpoints but makes so many stops in the middle that the trips take too long. This was long a problem with the NEC in coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island. Amtrak stopped in every little jerkwater town between New Haven and Providence. The Acela has alleviated that somewhat but unless you have the big bucks to travel on it, you're still stuck stopping at every wide spot in the road.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

http://egoldberg.livejournal.com/5682.html

[poltr1]

I forgot about this. Did they ever apologize to you?

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

Not in any meaningful sense.