There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
nytimes.com
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The train was disgustingly dirty and the employees were surly and unhelpful.
Having taken dozens of train trips in Japan since 2001 I was incredibly excited for the American train experience. It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again.
All Amtrak lines are operated a little differently, AFAIK. As far as the West Coast is concerned, I find both the Pacific Surfliner and the Coastal Starlight to be pleasant and enjoyable (although not very affordable). The Northeast Regional on the East Coast is pretty affordable, runs often, and makes traveling between cities in the Northeast megalopolis without a car pretty trivial, which is nice.
All that's to say that I wouldn't judge Amtrak by its least-used routes.
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.
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.
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 ;)
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.
I assume Canada has a similar history/present.
That said, Amtrak came into existence because most of the private rail companies had failed or were failing. Had the federal government not stepped in, we'd arguably have no long distance passenger rail service outside the Northeast Corridor (where Amtrak basically makes the money that it then loses on pretty much every other route in the country).
The US rail network is optimized for freight hauling (and it's largely owned by freight railroads and maintained at private expense, and those railroads turn a consistent profit). It also works well -- for its intended purpose.
If you want to move 3000 miles at 45 MPH remarkably cheaply, and you happen to be (or live in) a cargo container, the US rail network is built just for you!
This is not a bad model: the public retains the land and tracks, and provides them for private enterprises to run trains on, subject to some sort of coordination so you don't have wrecks.
That's similar to how many airports work, how the Interstate Highway System works, etc.
However, for historical reasons it's not how the US system operates, and it would be very difficult for the government -- absent a lot of spending that I doubt the public has the appetite for -- to acquire the land and rights-of-way.
On routes where Amtrak actually controls the underlying trackage, it operates quite well. Where everything goes to shit is when Amtrak operates on others' track.
If we really wanted a good passenger-rail system, what we would need to do is build dedicated passenger rail lines, totally separate from freight rail. The two types of trains are so different today that it doesn't make sense to run them together. High speed passenger trains do best on banked track, and not having freight trains around for them to run into allows you to use lighter rolling stock. Acela trains have been described as "rolling bank vaults" because of the collision protection they have to have -- simply because they're liable to collide head-on with a fully loaded freight train. There's no good way around it, except to stop mixing the two up.
No it doesn’t. Amtrak owns the lines between Baltimore and DC. I used to commute it every day for two years and it was awful. Amtrak struggles to adequately maintain the northeast corridor, because as a result of government-imposed mandates, its operating profits from there go to subsidizing service on lines nobody uses. Similarly, Amtrak is just shitty at logistics and operations—planning around track work, giving updates about delays, keeping trains in working order, etc. Again, they have no mandate to turn a profit (unlike government owned rail lines in Europe) so they run like the DMV, rather than a rail carrier.
If the wrong people get in charge (and very likely if the ideology is widespread) they make little effort to improve things other than to cut costs.
Competition usually improves things, it's true, but natural monopolies are still problematic.
Also, would you then be consistent and argue that the government shouldn’t be spending so much on highways for cars, since it’ll just waste that money too?
I have total faith that we could privatize Amtrak and have it be just as execrable in comparison. And then it would be sold off for parts, some assholes would get tremendously wealthy, and we wouldn't have any passenger rail network at all.
Private enterprise is great when taxpayers pay for the expensive part.
The USA has large areas of sparsley populted land where flying for long distance, and car for the the closer area are hard to beat. This is way different from more densly populated Europe and even more densly populated Japan (especially when excluding Japan's motain regions)
If there were drive more more trains this would first require massive investment in infrastructure, to build both: the medium distance lines through populated area (for example along the east and west coast) as well as a network of connecting services fading out in the suburbs of the hub. Hardly anybody wants to go from hub to hub. If they need an car for "the last mile" anyways it's likely they won't take the detour to the train station and then having no way to continue on the other end ... If instead they can drive the complete distance.
Successful railways need a network connecting complete regions providing enough potential for a frequent service.
Building that requires huge support by politics/society.
This has basically nothing to do with the fact that it is government-run.
I don't know if you noticed, but building massive infrastructure cost a shitload of money for private enterprise as well.
The question I'd ask is, other than preserving the way of operating that amtrak has, is it worth the subsidy - I'd say yes, preserving the knowledge of how to operate LD trains is important, so is offering the rural communities it serves transportation, I'd like to expand rail service even.
Of course, the people proposing/pushing for the idea and the people implementing the idea did not share a lot of membership, so the implementers put a person deeply opposed to the project in charge. Of course, no projects of use got approved, most of the projects that did get approved were obviously pointless and tedious, and they were constantly thousands of jobs short or what was needed to employ everyone who wanted work anyway.
So yeah, that's why we have the "digging and filling holes" analogy for useless make-work. Ideas are fine and all, but it doesn't matter for shit if you have an antagonist implementing them.
My wife and her grandfather took the train from Portland to Minnesota in the fall of last year. There were a number of issues with the service on the train that make it bad enough, but the speed of the train is a major problem of why these trains are somewhat worthless for travel. Freight trains get priority on the rail lines so many times the train was stopped for possibly hours waiting for freight trains to pass.
On my wife's trip the refrigeration went out at some point so cold food was no longer available, nor was food that required refrigeration before it was cooked. Fortunately they disembarked soon after that happened. The rest of the train was still a day or so from Chicago and those passengers were stuck with god knows what to eat.
Basically Amtrak has to keep to a specific schedule, if ut misses it's window it loses the priority it had.
For a transcontinental trip: drive a car or a van.
That said, Amtrak engines are also often leased to other freight companies so you can frequently see freight trains being hauled by Amtrak branded engines.
http://utahrails.net/pass/amtrak-mail-express.htm
It stopped in 2004, presumably due to declines in mail volume. (Which I wonder if it would make sense again now, due to more mail-order package shipping.)
Anyway, it's not really "freight" in the sense that most people think of a freight train. It's all Amtrak rolling stock.
They still do offer Express shipping services between some stations. It's a very cheap way to send something between NYC and Washington for same-day arrival, especially if it's a big box. You have to have someone go to the train station on either end to get your stuff, though. They move them around on the passenger trains that have baggage cars (the 'named' trains, typically at least on the East Coast).
>> The train was disgustingly dirty and the employees were surly and unhelpful.
> On my wife's trip the refrigeration went out at some point so cold food was no longer available, nor was food that required refrigeration before it was cooked. Fortunately they disembarked soon after that happened. The rest of the train was still a day or so from Chicago and those passengers were stuck with god knows what to eat.
Stuff like this makes it feel like the USA is falling apart from being a 1st world nation, crumbling in bits and pieces into a 3rd world one.
And even rich people in the US are satisfied with pretty terrible experiences because US culture is so disconnected from everything else that they don't get that things are a lot nicer elsewhere! Nothing like visiting someone's multi-million dollar home with worse plumbing than cheap 1-room studios elsewhere in the world.
That's exactly the wrong take-away!
Amtrak is totally irrelevant for trans-continental travel. There is a "daily" departure from Seattle to Chicago. I.e. one train per day. Probably a few hundred passengers on a good day.
I just did a quick check and there are 7 non-stop flights tomorrow from Seattle to Chicago. Average air travel time is about 4 hours. Cheapest fare for tomorrow is $262.
So this train exists for a few tourists and for a few people who can't or don't want to fly. Everyone else takes a non-stop plane and gets there in hours not in days.
It's an indication of the USA's wealth and bounty that we are willing to waste billions of dollars a year on useless vanity projects like this. Long distance Amtrak runs at a loss, the US congress provides $1.3 billion a year to make up the difference. In addition there is a $650 million subsidy for passenger trains between Washington DC and Boston. That's arguably something useful, since the route is heavily traveled. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/21/amtrak-gets-n...
It's kind of a "nature preserve" of socialism in the US.
In the US, Canada, and Mexico trains are for freight. Even if you’re in the Northeast Corridor a bus is usually a better option if you aren’t driving or flying. Europe uses trucks for freight.
This mentality weirds me out. As in: Why are we explicitly valuing the time of companies over the time of actual people? Companies can probably adjust to getting their shit 8 or 12 or 24 hours late (or, if they can't, they can charter a plane). It's a lot harder to deal with for people who need to be somewhere.
It can be frustrating to experience long delays if you have a tight schedule, but otherwise I think it makes the most sense to just relax and enjoy the view.
I'll be taking the California Zephyr (Chicago to Emeryville; said to be one of the most picturesque routes) this May, which I'm quite looking forward to. It will be my first time riding that line, and my first time in a sleeper.
Very true. Although I've had some awful delays on airlines as well, and given the choice between being stuck on a passenger train and in a plane, I'd take the train every time. (Though admittedly the airlines have gotten slightly better about not leaving passengers on planes to stew in their own juices on the tarmac for hours and hours. But it took some people really slapping them around in court I think.)
To the railroads it gets higher priority. But if a freight train bocks a passenger train the railroad gets fined by the hour (quarter hour?).
However, the freight railroads often just eat the fine as a cost of doing business. Like delivery companies do with parking tickets.
Unfortunately, for various political reasons that part of the law has almost no teeth so freight companies openly flout it or treat the meager fines as the cost of doing business. It's a big part of the reason that passenger rail sucks in the US.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/29/...
Apparently the freight haulers have tried to get them to stop publicly blaming them like this.
I've done the Empire Builder back-and-forth between Seattle and Chicago, or Saint Paul about six times in the last six years, and never had anything like that happen. I can only assume that things have improved since your trip.
The worst thing I experienced was a four-hour delay in Milwaukee because of a broken down freight train blocking the line. But we were free to get out and walk around and stretch our legs.
That makes you quite lucky, and you eventually got married. Most couples don't know if their future marriage is seaworthy until they hit their first major storm.
Good to be aware longer train rides might not be as nice.
What would work quite well, though, would be something like the Auto Train: you can get an overnight ride that ferries your car and you don't have to drive the thoroughly boring drive of the Great Plains.
Found the problem.
I think this was specifically a train for fun and scenery. The destination is part of the point too but this wasn’t marketed or intended as transportation as a means of getting from point a to b.
In short I’m sure your experience is a reliable indicator of at least some of the state of train travel in the us. But it can be better than this, as a niche industry.
But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really.
And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by.
One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.
It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.
That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.
https://www.metrotransit.org/northstar-line
The lines that goes between the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, and St Paul are light rail, and are faster than what would normally be considered a "tram" or "streetcar".
I mainly mentioned it since the parent comment was about a group of girls getting on the train purely for the experience of being on the train, and my experience seemed pretty similar.
Don't know that it terribly matters one way or the other though I guess.
So there are some tram/streetcar/light rail systems out there (like the one in New Orleans) that consist of individual railway vehicles, and are thus not trains.
I don't think it would have been many children's first trip either, just a cheap morning's entertainment for the nursery...
Haha when I took Caltrain daily to mountain view this was my nightmare. Bluetooth headphones and a white noise app were a requirement.
Those field trip days, and the rides home on baseball game days... I do not miss that commute.
I grew up in the eastbay, and at least while I was growing up, the bart train was a friendly environment of people interacting with one another. Obviously it came with some not so pleasant things (i.e. homelessness and unwanted touching) but more human none-the-less.
The complicated area of railroad tracks probably doesn't help either. Someone is paying for them and the maintenance is frequent judging by the business my friends working on the railroads get.
1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.
2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance.
3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is that they've become giant malls that want to get people through them, so landing fees have steadily gone down (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).
4. Some airlines (more specifically Ryanair) fly to cheaper/more outlier airports. If you take a Ryanair flight to Paris, you're landing in Beauvais Airport, which is almost halfway to the english channel. You'll then have to take a bus. When in europe, I usually prefer Easyjet for the reason that though they're more expensive, you're landing at an airport with decent transit to the city you're visiting.
5. There's no frills at all. If you're just flying with no luggage, you won't believe how cheap it can be (I flew from madrid to london for 25 euros). But the fills aren't cheap. Checked baggage is more than the cost of the flight, food is a rip off, etc.
Also, trains in europe are still often state-owned (not the case everywhere, I know), so they're forced to run uneconomical lines for political purposes, etc.
Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.
My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.
I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.
[1] https://www.corriere.it/economia/17_marzo_18/cento-milioni-a...
As a european who moved to the US recently, this was mind boggeling the first time I boarded a plane in the US. I arrived at the airport expecting a typical 10 minute boarding time, but kept getting more surprised at how inefficient they managed to make boarding a plane as time passed. Just the time spend waiting in the plane at the gate before they let you get out seems to be longer in some cases than the typical turnaround time for euro flights.
Your statement that "As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile" definitely has some merit, but... trains are only more fuel efficient per passenger if they are as full as planes. An Airbus with 180 passengers might beat a train in per passenger miles if the train is not loaded.
Considering that, trains definitely are cheaper for highly utilized routes (commuting routes, for example), but for a leisurely trip across Europe, an Airbus packed to the gils could be cheaper.
By american standards, both methods are dirt cheap.
Ryanair cuts every cost you can imagine. No free water or pretzels, tiny seating area, no first class, outskirts airports, no checked or carry on, tarmac boarding.
On trains you get sufficient space to stretch your legs, a power outlet, wifi, unlimited baggage etc. and you get to arrive and depart in the city center.
I think the pricing is based upon consumer value more than service costs.
And that's the catch. I've been told that years ago it was better, but try to catch a train to a secondary city in New England and you'll often find that the only offering is an occasional Amtrak branded bus.
I don't disagree that some other services might be alright, but that's clearly not one of them.
1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity
2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.
3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).
4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.
More of an issue for lumbering freight trains than passenger trains though.
Answering your question, on the issue of price they note that no fuel tax is is paid on airplanes fuel and no VAT (21%) on flight tickets.
I think it’s a clever win/win play: reducing short haul flights in favour of railways not only reduces emissions and noise pollution, but it also frees up some capacity at Schiphol.
And there’s been some success already: the house has accepted a motion to eliminate the Schiphol-Brussels route.
Düsseldorf-Munich for 26,70€ including reserving a seat.
Kiel-Düsseldorf 29,90€. To get back, 26,90€.
Kiel-Munich and back for 53,80€.
Not even Ryanair is that cheap, especially when you consider that with trains you don’t have to go through security, have none of the check-in times and other bullshit, and can take luggage without paying a 60€ surcharge.
You just have to check sites like https://bahn.guru/ to find the cheapest connections.
For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation
You're either repeating outdated cliches from the internet, or you must not live in a large metropolitan area with passenger train service.
Looking at the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas in the US, you're already at nearly half the population of the US. And I know from the experience of having ridden commuter rail in most of those that most of them have commuter rail, i.e. passenger train service.
You've got to go pretty far down the list to find one without commuter rail or even a subway/light rail system (which I'm not counting as passenger train service).
If it isn't the majority, it's at least a normal experience for a huge swath of the population.
"Yeah, we have passenger train service"
"good passenger train service?"
"Hey, lets not get ahead of ourselves"
So we were sitting there wondering if the same storm that eroded the tracks had maybe eroded the cliff around that boulder, allowing it to tumble down through the oil tanker to send us plunging into the flood waters below.
Brooding over that was less fun than the distraction of the sing-along.
I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience.
I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer...
Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs...
Great memories.
Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved.
I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance awkward; we try to sit quietly and pretend it isn't even happening, eg. not even looking at the person making the disturbance. eg. some people arguing at the back of the bus probably won't make people at the front of the bus turn around or tell them to shut up.
I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.
Yes, even if the guy is really good. You can stand not being the center of attention for a few hours.
I don't have as much of a problem with street-corner busking, in large part because it can be avoided, but even that drives me nuts when I can't get away from it (outside a place I work, for example).
I love music, and when I'm in the mood, I'll seek out a street performance. City parks are great for this, and I think they're an appropriate venue. A rail car is not even remotely appropriate, and a subway station during your unavoidable morning commute, with loud brass instruments and a shitty PA system, echoing off the walls, ought to be a crime.
Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire
Jerry and I share sentiments on this.
John Belushi concurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpNQ9AJYgU
How much does it cost?
If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights, it'd be more comfortable than an airplane's economy seats, and the ridership would probably be higher (which would lead to lower costs). As it is, long-distance rail travel in the US is an expensive disaster.
But compared to a one way flight, which can be had for as little as 100 bucks it's still pretty steep.
Alas, the experience certainly cannot be compared. It's not about getting to the destination, when you take the train. You pay for the entire experience.
A sleeper for one is ~1'800$. About 300 more if you're two.
That's about half of a yearly train pass for Switzerland (2nd class). The pass allowes you to travel in virtually any mode of transportation without restrictions. Except for taxis, some boats and some mountain railways.
So yeah, that's pretty steep.
But that price includes the sleeper and meals. If you view this as the vacation itself, it's not far off the price you'd be paying for hotels and meals.
That said, a sleeper car on Amtrak gets you: a flat surface to lie down on, your own toilet (note the toilet is just there in the roomette, next to the bunk, prison style), access to a shower (your own shower in the rooms, one per car for the roomettes), access to the first class lounges, and includes meals in the dining car.
Rooms have a slightly wider lower bunk versus roomettes to sleep 2 (skinny) people and an enclosed toilet so you don't lose mystery from your romantic or work relationships. Roomettes are too small for a first world prison cell but have the beds oriented parallel to the direction of travel, which many people find more comfortable -- the rocking of the train is more soothing and less jarring.
If you have the time, don't mind paying four-star hotel prices for a two-star experience, and hate flying or have a medical condition that makes it infeasible you should definitely consider it.
Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.
This sounds like fun. I wonder if there are any European routes that are as long/uninterrupted that I could try that on.
I went London-Japan overland but my longest single segment was two and a half days (Moscow-Shymkent), and that was about right - time to relax and do nothing for a bit, but by the third morning I had definitely spent enough time in the same compartment, as nice as it was.
The London to Ft. William sleeper, when there's leaves on the line?
With spotty cellphone reception, so if you want to disconnect from constant connectivity that's also an interesting way.
It's a great experience, but if you're thinking of just sitting in there and programming in a room with a view, keep in mind that the scenery changes and is pretty amazing, which might distract you from programming.
You should take a TGV, you'll realize that at 300kph you don't see the sights.
https://www.amtrakvacations.com/blog/3-important-things-to-k... (just googling 'amtrak sleeper' gets you this info!)
The NY<->Chicago line had toilets in the compartment - but I mean in the compartment, not a separate bathroom. So not so great.
The California Zephyr (Chicago<->SF) has common toilets. The one in our sleeper car was broken for the whole trip, for which Amtrak only gave us the slightest nod of recognition.
https://www.amtrak.com/onboard-the-train-sleeping-accommodat...
Here's a recent article that I found that describes the sleeping cars in detail: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/trai...
That would be 3 days on Amtrak, or about 6 hours by plane.
I'd guess that for most cases flying instead of taking the train doesn't mean we spend the 6 days that we would have spent on the train (round trip) in a Los Angeles hotel eating expensive restaurant meals. I think most people would simply leave home later and leave Los Angeles earlier if flying, so that the time difference is spent at home eating whatever they normally eat.
Note that some people use Amtrak because they are afraid of flying. This way of looking at the prices does not apply to them.
Personally, I sort of want to do at least a section of the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr at some point. And I'd also like to take a transatlantic liner (well, the Queen Mary 2) from NY to Southampton. But probably only once and I'm fully prepared for the idea to be more enticing than the reality.
But even so, it was a wonderful experience. The Chinese landscape is nothing short of awesome. And the culture that unfolded was completely unknown to me, so constantly interesting.
One thing that really made me take notice was the wide range of people. On the way to the Shanghai train station, we had walked by a Lamborghini dealership (I don't recall ever having seen even one of these in the USA) - there's a not-insignificant population of filthy rich people in and around Shanghai. But on the train we saw people peasants using an ox to plow a rice paddy of only a fraction of an acre. The degree of inequality was hugely wider than America or any other nation I've seen.
EDIT: the Shanghai airport maglev train was an interesting experience just to say I've gone 300+mph on a train, but otherwise totally boring.
I’ve also done Shanghai to Changsha and Changsha to kunming like that. It gets interesting west of hunan.
China rail have pretty bad hygiene at that time. The passengers freely throw their trash on the floor and out of the window. The attendants swiped the floor every few hours. Every time they pushed a mountain of peanut husk away. There was a peasant family on board with a baby. The baby needed to relief. So the parents held him up to have him shit on the floor. The attendant saw it and really lost it. She scolded the hell out of the family.
Cattle?
People sometimes aren't just stacked, they're squashed.
"Don't sit with the cattle" is (IMHO) pretty harsh, and unnecessary.
And, for the record, cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats, in the days before the bed capsules. It's not a cabin but it might be the least-cramped train seating you will ever encounter.
This is true, they're FAR better than standard airline seats. On the other hand, if you're going NY to SF you're going to be sitting in them for 3 days, so they better be comfortable.
After MacWorld we did a little sightseeing, then took the Coast Starlight to Portland, where we changed to the Empire Builder back to Chicago.
Except what actually happened was that an avalanche in the Cascades held us up until a work train called "Snowball" showed up to clear the tracks. It had a massive snowblower, a plow, a flat car, a crane car, and a couple of coaches full of workers and equipment.
We then missed our connection, so they loaded us on double-decker buses that raced to catch up with the Empire Builder. It was very memorable.
My family went by train from Flagstaff, AZ to Trinidad, CO for a wedding and the observation car was amazing, it was part of the Southwest Chief route [1].
Even through what you'd think would be boring stretches of New Mexico not one scene wasn't awe inspiring. We got to see landscapes out of westerns and mostly away from roads/main bustle, but you'd be surprised how there is always something to see and almost always people living out there. We had to go through the Rockies in historic coal mining country Colorado and had to stop once for freight trains to go by, but the views were amazing. It is fun to lookup what you are going through on Google maps and finding lots of interesting stuff. Trinidad, CO was a nice little interesting historical town, once a border town, where Fishers Peak was a guiding landmark for settlers on the Santa Fe Trail, with Native American, pioneer and Spanish history, that has a Masonic cemetery, old limestone masonry buildings and underground tunnels for coal, once the sex change capital of the world, and today it is now a cannabis hot spot [2].
Best part of the train is the view and you can get up and walk around unlike on a plane, the rides are longer of course but more flexible to move while traveling which is nice. I brought my laptop to work but the views were too good to pass up.
If I had more time I'd love to take the train all across the US. I wish there were more trains simply to see the less busy areas and interesting viewpoints you can't see from the road.
Amtrak does leave lots to be desired in terms of technology, price, the food (dining car wasn't good) and general areas like maintenance, but the observation car was difficult not to be up there the entire time.
[1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes/southwest-chief-train.html
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/health/trinidad-colorado-smal...
But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over.
If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.
(I do recommend the California Zephyr, and second the parent's suggestion of spending the whole of it in the observation car, but skip the part of the route between Chicago and Denver; Denver and onward is where the real action's at.)
I did two of them and they are some of the best travel experiences I had in my life.
And it still exists (just for the record):
https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass
But of course the times have changed.
The huge thing about this was that for most young people at the time the 18 years birthday meant a lot, in most EU countries that was (is) a "threshold" you become to all effects an adult and getting an Eurail ticket was the first "totally independent" travel experience without the family, and you got for an all in all affordable to everyone amount of money "freedom", you met a lot of other young people doing the same, you could try to start a conversations with someone (a "peer") in (actually usually much improvised) other language, you could visit places you had only read about in books, etc.
It was a great experience.
"I traveled alone on the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon (two nights/almost 48 hours) in June 2018. I wanted to get a sleeper car but waited too long to book so my only option was a regular seat. I knew I’d be unhappy if I went straight through two nights with no bed and no shower, so I made a stop in Whitefish, Montana for 24 hours. In the end it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved Whitefish and was happy to spend some time exploring the beautiful scenery I’d seen whizzing by. The sights around Glacier National Park were literally breathtaking.
As far as the train itself, I spent most of time in the observation car, and as a solo traveler I was happy to find everyone was very friendly. I’m only 5’2” and luckily didn’t have a seatmate so I could pretty much lay all the way down at night. A lot of people brought pillows and blankets, but I was ok without. Ear plugs and an eye mask were the key to getting any sleep. There were delays here and there which didn’t bother me because I had a very loose schedule anyway.
I don’t have enough good things to say about my trip! I’m looking for an excuse to take another long-haul train."
People have their own stories, so hopefully this gives another perspective.
Its not an airliner, or a bus, or a car, and that's a good thing.
https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-rail...
Still have half the trip left to write about, which I'll do bit by bit.
Thank you for writing it.
As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.
But by 24 hours in it started to stink and I hadn't slept well. By the end of the trip I was cranky and exhausted. And it really smelled in the train (and this was with it just 25% full)!
I've never done it but I read about how it's basically 3 days of sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone and there's no showers. Can't imagine what that would be like in a car filled with 50+ people.
I did take the Amtrak from CT To Boston once and it wasn't too bad, but that was a few hour trip. Much different than a few days.
I think there are two kinds of people in the world. One kind needs a sleeper for the trip to be enjoyable, the other couldn't care less. I used to be the second kind, but I don't think I am anymore.
I can't even sleep in a hotel unless there's a dead lock.
I have done the sleeper car from Chicago to Los Angeles with my parents. Lucky we had one with a private bathroom, as my dad has stomach flu most of the ride. I think the possibility of a shower, and maybe even a private bathroom are the only reasons I'd shell out more money for a sleeper over coach.
I often take Amtrak from NYC to Chicago (and back) and just love it. The trip is about 24 hours each way. Train riders are generally friendly. Someone always has a couple of guitars, so it's fun to play and sing along. The bar car is typically friendly and the food car is generally pretty good eats.
Also, some of the stopovers in small midwest towns are a few hours long so you can get out, stretch your legs, and find a nice quaint diner or something to change things up. I've had nothing by great times on the train. Of course YMMV.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall
> find a nice quiet diner
Oh, are you getting out snd having dinner and sleeping and then catching the train again the next day? That sounds fine.
What line did you ride? From my brief search, it doesn't seem like this is usually the case.
When I was on sabbatical I took life at a slower pace. And riding the train was just an amazing beautiful slow experience. Sometimes we just go through life to fast, and a nice slow train does the body well
This is not a comforting observation...
You meet people from every part of US culture (North Dakota oil field workers, Portland hippies, LA actors...) all unified by not being in a rush and a dislike of flying. On trips outside the NE corridor, the train attaches an observation car which becomes an incredible place to talk the night away with fellow passengers.
You have to be flexible, in sound physical shape, and have a month and $2k to part with (or you can just take on a few Wordpress theme contracts and call it even) but it's a truly wonderful experience for a certain person at a certain stage in their life.
They aren't organized (I just dumped them), and Gallery2 is showing its age, but if you'd like to see a bunch of photos from on-board the train, here you go: https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/travel/sf_via_amtrak_nov_2009/all...
Yes, the trains are often late. Yes, it's slower than flying and maybe even driving. But it's a journey. You can show up 15 minutes before the train leaves and still make it on board. You can bring snacks and some beer, meet people you never would've talked to otherwise, see parts of the country you'd never see otherwise.
You get to travel for the sake of traveling -- a rare pleasure indeed.
But I can't help but feel that this author wants to dislike trains. He wants everyone to understand how awful and slow it is. And they went into this story with a chip on their shoulder, and were disappointed to find that the trip had value.
But the trains aren't just about cross-country travel. They travel through small towns where people rely on them for trips to larger cities. If you live in Mount Pleasant, IA, you can take the train into Chicago just as fast, and far easier, than driving. Want to go from Salt Lake to Denver in a blizzard? Trains will take twice as long as driving but you can sit there and safely watch snow-capped peaks go by instead of worrying about driving your car off the edge of a mountainside. Pick any 2-6 hours train trip on the map, and those are the majority of passengers on Amtrak. And I have frequently run into retired people heading to Iowa to pick up RVs, because Winnebago contracts delivery of RVs out, and it is a nice part-time job to get a one-way train ticket, then drive a RV to someone's home and get paid for it all.
In short, the purposes serve by Amtrak have as much variety as reasons people get in their cars. It is a valuable service to those who need it, even if authors for the NY times aren't the 'target audience'.
I thought I was the type of person who would ride a train. I wanted to get from Denton, Texas to Temple, Texas. This was simple. The booking website is exactly as bad as mentioned. I finally got one that promised me a four hour trip with a short bus ride on each end. Alright, cool, that's fine. So I schedule to arrive about thirty minutes prior, except the train is delayed two hours. That's half the ride again, on a delay! This causes me to miss my connection, and the next train wasn't scheduled until tomorrow. I cannot imagine anyone trying to use Amtrak for actual travel, when reliability and timeliness matters.
I haven't been able to discover if this is something that is specific to the United States, or how that calculation is made. However, I am of the opinion that there is always a good reason to ride trains, particularly in the US: increased demand for train travel.
Other than those two flights, I have abandoned all long distance travel for the rest of my life, or until largely carbon neutral and safe travel exists. I believe that such technologies will be produced in the medium term.
[0] - https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/03/20/earthtalk-airplan... [1] - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218772_Climatolog...
It's a perfect place to zen out and burrow into a book / creative project for a few days. Plus, you can just show up right before the train arrives and you're on your way (perfect for people who run on wizard time, like me).
You definitely have to prepare a bit if you want to get a decent night of sleep in coach, though. Here's a short survival kit: -Tylenol PM / Benadryl (or your preferred sleep aid of choice) -Warm clothes / travel blanket (it can get cold) -Pillow/neck pillow/some way to keep your head immobilized -Earplugs + noise cancelling headphones -Eyemask -Patience/equanimity
I guess time that's available to people has shortened so much that they can't afford to engage in fun once in a while. Even the damn vacation feels so hectic and stressful. I guess that's because most people's idea of vacation is going to new country/city that they have never visited(totally unfamiliar with things there) and try to cover all of it in 1-2 weeks(all they get in a year).
https://media.viarail.ca/en/press-releases/2015/10-july-2015...
The next step would be to repair the tracks, which are shared by freight and passenger, which makes the ride worse.
One thing I do blame Amtrak for is that they don't always announce their delays as soon as they were known; I took a train that was delayed for two or three hours immediately after picking me up because CSX spit decided to rearrange a bunch of freight trains directly in front of us, and my cousins waiting to pick me up at the station at the other end said that the arrivals board claimed the train was on time up until a few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive, and then ticked up the arrival time by 15 or 30 minutes at a time until we actually arrived.
It wasn't Amtrak's fault I was 3 hours late, but it was their fault my cousins just had to hang out at a train station for 3 hours instead of leaving and coming back later.
If you are ever tempted, just fly. It's cheaper, much faster, and you can spend the time and money you saved on something interesting.
- The seats were large and comfortable enough. But I'm a small sized person.
- The trains were on time.
- The stations were not renovated or nice but functional. Boston station was good enough. NYC, a bit confusing.
- There was food on board. It was okay for 3-4 hours ride.
- Wifi didn't work. Data will disconnect near big buildings or under tunnels.
- It's not clear which station we are in. Maybe they could have a digital screen that shows some info?
I much prefer those routes to flying. But Penn Station in NYC really is a disaster. (It's a long and sad story dating back to the Penn Central bankruptcy.) Although things are slowly being fixed up as part of a massive building project.
I spent 45 days traveling the US about a decade ago, during a transitionary period from work to grad school. Visited a bunch of friends in different states and really had a great time.
The clientelle for multiday Amtrak trips falls closer with travel backpackers and RVers - people who really care about the journey over the destination (since air is far superior to get you from A->B fast and reliably). Lots of interesting folks who also are doing this for whatever-their-own-reasons.
Not-sure-if-obsolete tip: I snagged my rail pass from a retiree on Craigslist for half price. Turns out Amtrak employees get friends-and-family rail passes as perks and a few of them end up on the resale market.
The trip was about ~16 hours total, including some time arriving early enough to line up to load my car, and time waiting for car unload.
Each carriage had an upper and lower half, and the lower half was further divided into restrooms and sleeper bunks on one half, and general seating on the other half. I just got a regular general seating ticket, which was fine because my trip was only one overnight - seats were spacious, reclined fairly far, had electric plugs and so on, and had a key advantage: the lower general seating compartment was a dead end. Only people sitting there had reason to come in, so it was quiet.
The upper half of each carriage linked to the other carriages, and was how everyone moved back and forth and got to the dining carriage. There was another carriage (top half) set aside as an entertainment space, with TVs and tables, reading area, decks of cards, bar, etc. People sitting in the top area had the less pleasant situation of sitting along the path everyone had to use to move around the train.
I thought the food was just fine. Yeah it isn't fine cuisine but it was tasty and included in the ticket.
Anyway, I'd like to try a longer train ride sometime, I know some folks who really enjoyed a Trans-Canada train vacation that included one or two overnights off the train. It sounds kinda fun, I'd spend my time reading, bring along some compact boardgames and a portable console to play.
It was a great experience and I met some great people. Never had a sleeper, and that just made it easier to mingle with my fellow travellers.
I remember playing hours of chess with some old dude in the smoking carriage, and the shitty cans of margaritas at happy hour served from the train bar.
Unlike jumping on the plane, the train journeys were an integral part of the travelling experience, rather than just a method of getting from one city to another.
Edit: Note that he did this during some leave time he had accumulated.
Now it's a twice-weekly tourist service. I was sad at the thought that train service had fallen so low, but discovered instead that I really enjoyed the change of landscape as we traveled and spent most of the 11 hours looking through the window. I was sorry to see all the now-closed country stations we went through (including my own: I had to drive into Adelaide to get the train and then 45 minutes later pass through my starting point) as the trains really did knit the little towns together in ways cars have not.
I also spent a lot of my childhood traveling on (steam!) trains in India, probably because of cost.
I think that's why a friend and I took the trans Siberia express in the 1980s when we were in our 20s. It was super fun but the opposite of what I wrote above: USSR was so huge that the view outside the window was largely monotonous, but the action on the train was fun (everyone was super friendly).
Its not just that its the train use, its the fact that you want to cross America at all! The perception is that it is a large foreign land full of lots of things that can go wrong solely due to incongruent laws.
(Mid 1800s) Cross a border and be sold into slavery by bounty hunters? Check
(Fiction, but is it?) Transportation breaks down and you are surrounded by mutated hillbillies in the desert? Check
(2010s+) Highway robbery of all the money on you by some random municipality's police themselves under protection of the state? Check
(2010s+) Get thrown into an old people's home under a guardianship racket that the doctor's and the court system are all invested in? Check
Be kidnapped and sold into illegal sex slavery?
Be kidnapped and sold into legal sex slavery in the desert without adequate means of getting help?
But yeah none of that is likely to happen and these are irrational fears, but you can ALSO just fly over all of that noise.
https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...
Now if only open-source writers could fall under that umbrella!
[0] https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...
Train hopping is for those who need it. Give it respect and don't treat it like a sport or touristy thing.
Story time... More than a score of years ago I was a young man traveling south from Seattle with a group of other kids. And old hand (I'll call him Jim) took us under his wing and showed us a bit of the ropes, how to ride the rails. The train folks are pretty old school. Level-headed, and not unkind.
At one point we stopped on a siding. Before long an older man in overalls and a cap came down, walking the line. He could have walked out of a 100-year old photo. We kids were spooked and hid in the back of the car, but Jim just sat calmly in the open cargo door, in plain sight, and waited for the train man to reach us. When he saw us he was very calm and quiet, he greeted Jim and they had a very mellow and civil little conversation. Before he left to check the rest of the train, he picked up a rusted old loose train spike from the ground and showed us how to use it to spike open the cargo door so it wouldn't be able to slide shut and trap us or injure us.
At a yard near Tacoma we tried to jump on a slow-moving train and the bulls stopped us. They were pretty kind considering, and they said that if we had been boarding a stopped train they wouldn't have bothered us, but a few weeks earlier a guy had tried to hop a moving train and tripped and fell and lost both of his legs, and that's why they stopped us that night, they said. Jim had a warrant out for some BS so they took him in. The next morning we tried to go see him but none of us knew his last name so the (very friendly and sympathetic) officer at the station's front desk couldn't tell us anything about him. We had to leave and I never saw him again. (Way before cell phones were common. Feels like 1800's now.)
I remember getting rained on while riding on some tanker cars. They have these niches in the bulkheads at each end that are just large enough for one or two people to curl up in. We took turns in there with the rest of us huddled around to try to block the rain. It might sound crazy but it was a lot of fun.
But I can't recommend it as an adventure. Visit the Grand Canyon, or volunteer in a remote place, or something if you want adventure. Train hopping is for those who need it. The old school respect and kindness that passed between the train folks and a group a homeless kids trying to travel hundreds of miles with no money was one of those secular sacred things that deserves respect. Trains are awesome.
I've enjoyed several 3-day trips (no sleeper) from the midwest to the west coast a great deal. Apart from the scenery, there's the honesty and storytelling ability of the landscape. Travelling through towns and seeing what the townsfolk seldom see. The weather sweeping across vast plains and mountain forests.
If you know some of the history of areas you're moving through (which is very easy to do these days), no audiobooks or iPods needed. Fellow passengers may have remarkable stories to tell - even with no words spoken. Oh, and that 'no smoking inside' thing? Don't take that too seriously, keep an eye open.
Unless traveling across an ocean there will be a way to get there without a plane that only takes the 2-3 data I'd be out of action anyway.
One of the very few down sides of this era is that the fast passenger liner isn't a thing any more. Titanic sank trying to get to New York quickly. I can get a passenger ticket to New York today, from Southampton where I live, but now it's a leisure market, they don't schedule them for rapid travel just as a cruise, so it's not practical to go back and forth that way.
The high speed rail is good too if you want to be quick, both in China and Japan (though Japan is much more expensive); I took the Chinese ones frequently but longest haul I did was Shenzhen to Shanghai (8 hours or so) and that was both smooth, nice views and comfortable.
Some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see, assuming you aren't in a hurry
Trains can be much more social.
I've done short-on-time utilitarian driving trips too (all interstates, etc), and I'd definitely choose the train over that.
It also doesn't constrain your other leg, which can be flown if it fits your needs better. If you're only going one way, I'd recommend going east to west on the train. The train novelty will get you out of the dense Northeast, and then you can settle in after Chicago.
Amtrak. Not even once.
Me and my buddy split the sleeper car cost (~$750 each). That also included three meals since it was a 24 hour trip. And at that time the food was good.
It was really fun actually. Yes, it was long, but we enjoyed the trip. Seeing the east coast up and down was neat. Talking with random people who are there.
I'd definitely do it again, but only for special trips.
Context out of the way, AmTrack was great and mostly on time with some killer scenery and no WiFi in economy. We really enjoyed the 30 hours or so plus the 2 hour bus ride. The train from Van to Winnipe was also fantastic in Economy, albeit a little uncomfortable and much more dated than the trains in Cali. It was just me solo, so I made some friends and got some work done, if I was single I'd maybe find a closer friend. Killer scenery. Highly recommended but it will cost you to be comfortable or pretentious.
- Moscow to Vladivostok
- Moscow to Beijing
- Moscow to Ulaanbaatar
I haven't been myself, but it's one of those things one should try once before they die. And there are even movies set in Transsib. [3][4]
[1] https://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway
Shanghai - Beijing sleeper trains are great value, and during 8 hour Guangzhou/Shenzhen - Shanghai day trips, you can work comfortably.
What I am really asking is, how reliable is wifi/internet and is it available through the entire journey?
I would not mind a workcation this way, but probably could not afford a satphone’s data plan.
But I can't think of a better workcation spot if you can be offline periodically. For me, the train is simultaneously relaxing and stimulating, a perfect place to zone in on work while still embarking on an adventure.
Edit: Apparently there is WiFi on some Amtrak trains, but I wouldn't count on it.
In May, myself, my wife, our two kids (8, 6), are amtraking from Chicago to San Francisco in a family sleeper. I'm excited. We've enjoyed our (much shorter) amtrak trips from Ashland, VA to DC.
That said, I did once survive a 24 hour delay on Amtrak between Chicago and Oakland. It was the middle of winter and track was splitting, so the train would move a few miles and then wait a few hours for the crew to replace the broken rail.
I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people, something I consider the point of travelling (yes landscapes are lovely but I am a Homo Sapiens Bigot)
Could you take the train, but instead of a non-stop journey just jump off when you pass through an interesting town, and then resume your journey the next day?
If anyone eants real stories about what its like for a female in hardcore tech not a priveleged woman in pro women tech events all the time (and honestly, traumatised to go in fear of the dillemma of how do I encourage women while simultaneously warning them of what an emotioal nightmare it is wading through biases much like the ones that exist in this conversation but not as a one off hn comment threads but interwoven in the fabric of your everyday interactions with coworkers, tech scene friends and original first impression to college peers) while not diacouraging them that hey deapitw the building, the perao al dignity you'll gain from prpving yourself if your willing to put in the effort and quite honestly lets be real, the security that financially you'll never hage to depend on a man, that the day he hits you you can take you and your children and leave his sorry ass behind and never have to worry about money or atleast meeting the basic needs of your family, is nkt the high money whire rich men on wallstreet feel bjt its a high you should feel everyday when you wake up in the morning when you ask yourself what is the minimum level of bullshit your willing to put up with and what is not, is forever worth it.
Especially when passing through Washington state national park. At that moment all of us agreed that the trip was worth it.
Well that's charitable...
What does this even mean? Do you only get a minor case of food poisoning if you eat it?
TIPS: * Don't cross Texas in a Greyhound. * Don't go to New Orleans Amtrak coach from DC.
New Orleans coach was 2004. The rowdiness, smells and movement in the train gave me the only migraine I've ever had. I could barely give directions to the cab driver for my hotel and slept 16 hours.
This is the money quote, I think.
Of course, the cost to build this might drain the treasury for the foreseeable future...
I've personally completely stopped flying.
I suspect few people in Sweden would recommend traveling Stockholm to Madrid by train
It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
This is just the work side of things. What about family? A loved one is sick, or dies. Should I not travel to be with them, to help, to grieve with my family? Should I ask for a teleconference into the funeral?
The people arguing with you that they need to fly are almost certainly in places like the US, where even local trains are a pretty terrible, expensive experience relative to flying (or driving, on the shorter end).
I'm 90% of an anti-car zealot that lives in the densest city in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US. I would love to be able to reasonably take a train when I travel, but the ticket prices are astronomical and the reliability is horrendous relative to buses, airplanes or driving costs.
Europe had a pretty decent overnight train network in the 90s and even into the 2000s.
Then flying got cheap and people basically didn't want to take those trains any longer. Most disappeared.
What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?
More onerous security procedures at airports, including pat-downs, extremely long lines, needing to show up 3-4 hours early, etc.?
Also, smaller and smaller seats on planes might encourage more use of trains. How do people from the Netherlands (tallest in the world on average) handle flying these days?
First & foremost, US rail is minimal in terms of routes offered and significantly more expensive. Compared to planes, it's at least double the cost, and 4x to 5x the cost if you want a bed and shower throughout the multi-day trip.
Second, the US is also significantly larger, making train travel much less practical. The longest trip through Sweden is roughly 1,000 miles top to bottom. That's most of a full 24 hours day in a train. In the US, it's about 3x that from New York City to California.
The problem with the US isn't size, it's political will. America simply does not want to have high-quality, high-speed train service.
Trains are extensive in Europe in part because each country was able to make (relatively) smaller investments in their own networks. As time went by over the decades, these grew and were able to connect with each other. That type of gradual growth wasn't possible in the use where small incremental changes weren't useful. Decades ago, and still today, many routes that would be useful would need to span hundred of miles where there are no intervening points of interest. Meaning a massive investment would be required for a single point to point route.
It's too simplistic to point toward a single variable for something of this sort. Many variables come together to reach this point. Political will is only part of it, but even then, you have to ask why isn't there political will? It often has as much to do with economic and geographic realities, not a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. See our build out of the US interstate system beginning in the 50's as a counterexample to our lack of build out for trains.
What recent reduction in scope? Letting aside all the confusion caused by either communications incompetence in the Newsome Administration or deliberate intent to provoke controversy, all Newsome announced was:
(1) that construction work and related land acquisition would be focussed on the already-designated initial construction segment, which was already the case (hence, the name “initial construction” segment.)
(2) That environmental work would continue on the rest of the Phase 1 SF-LA alignment, but the state would not fund more than environmental work until outside (federal, private, or other) financing was identified. (That only the ICS was funded for construction, and that outside funds would be a precondition for other construction was already the case, too; focus on finding such additional arrangements had focussed particularly on the planned initial operations segment, which overlaps with, but does not include all of, the ICS.)
(3) That the Phase 2 extensions to Sacramento and San Diego weren't getting any work (which they haven't been forever; they've been drawn in as future expansions but not covered in any of th recent business plans.)
Or, in sum total, basically a reiteration of the status quo as if it were new policy.
And yes, it really is a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. You can see it in everything else going on in the US these days. No, the 50s interstate system is not a counterpoint, because that was 60-70 years ago now, and things in this country have changed a lot since then. The US was good at lots of infrastructure in those days, not just highways.
I have further evidence on my interpretation of geographical circumstances greatly influencing this issue: Canada.
Canada has roughly similar ridership as the US. US has about 1.7 rides per person, Canada has about 2.1. Might seem a fair bit higher, but compare it to a country like the UK, which has 26 rides per person, and that's not even counting the London Tube. Why?
Because the US and Canada face very similar geographical circumstances.
Maybe my interpretation weighs geography slightly too much, but if so, yours seems to weigh it not at all. That simply isn't supported by either the data available or the historic evolution of rail travel in the US.
I really don't see what's so difficult to understand. For the most part it's a point to point network, and every link, due to the points being further apart, costs significantly more to build. The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great, but more comprehensive than the middle 90% of the country where geography is as I have described.
Canadian cities are generally farther apart than US cities, except for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. All the Canadian cities are just on the other side of the border, which is the longest undefended international border in the world.
>The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great
Not great is a severe understatement.
>I really don't see what's so difficult to understand.
I don't either. San Diego, LA, and SanFran are not that far apart, and would be well served by a high speed rail like they have in Japan and China and Europe. Yet we don't have it. Same goes for the northeast corridor. These cities are no farther apart than the cities served by HSR in these other countries.
It's about 1500 miles from one end to the other, and not exactly "dense".
Sure it's small compared with Russia or Canada, but it's larger than most.
Realistically anything upto about 500 miles shouldn't need flights -- that's 2-3 hours on a train.
Once you go over 1000 miles then train stops making sense, it's 5 or 6 hours compared with 2 on a plane. 5 hours might work for an evening meal/relax, departing say 4pm and hotel by 10pm. With decent wifi and power you could probably push it to 7 or 8 hours, so maybe 1500 miles if it was high speed all the way.
A sleeper train (which probably wouldn't be high speed) would work at about 1000 miles in 12 hours, leave at 9PM after dinner, getting you there for shower, breakfast, and a 9AM meeting. Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)
Agreed. When the option exists, it's so much nicer than flying.
At one point in my career I traveled from Amsterdam to various other European cities for 3-5 day work trips fairly frequently. Where direct overnight train connections existed, I would try and use those rather than get up for a 6am flight. For example Amsterdam - Copenhagen used to exist as an direct overnight connection. The cost for a private sleeper cabin with shower and breakfast was, I think, about €500 -- less than a flight + an extra hotel night. The trouble was getting my company to reimburse it, because it didn't fit neatly in their travel reimbursement policy's categories and rules.
These city groups would also work with French style TGVs
Miami to Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta
Seatle/Portland/Vancouver
SF/LA/San Diego/Vegas/Pheonix
With sleeper trains you can connect New York to Miami in 12 hours, LA to Seattle, Chicago to New Orleans. You need the trains to run at about 110mph, which is normal local line speed.
No it hasn't. This might be true in your direct social circle, but I know enough people who shuffle between Sthlm and GBG a few times a week on the plane to prove otherwise.
Not in the Sweden I live in. Sure there is some weak social pressure to fly less and some companies have a policy that you take the train if it's less than 3-4 hours or so (of course with SJ being SJ a 3 hour train ride has an annoying tendency to take 4-8 hours), but no one expect you take the train Stockholm-Umeå.
However, I really enjoyed the tongue in cheek humor.
I really like it for about the first 3/4.
Then we took forever to get the last little bit done. I looked into it and apparently out west Amtrak has an atrocious record for on time service.
It's a shame because it's a great way to travel if you can take the time. It's comfortable, I had power and wifi. The food isn't great but oh well. I'd rather take the train than my car, driving is dreary. I'd rather take it than the bus, which is just god awful.
I really wish we would put in the time to make our trains better. Passenger tracks and high speed trains would be awesome. Instead we waste time and effort on Elon's tunnels.