I will always elect to be stuck on an Amtrak than stuck on a plane or in an airport.
I'll take a book to the observation car and read next to the Mennonites doing their knitting and love every minute of it, no worries from me.
I'll take a book to the observation car and read next to the Mennonites doing their knitting and love every minute of it, no worries from me.
Amtrak isn’t allowed to be successful
Either way rather be stuck on a train then a plane anyday
The actual sane solution is to shut down those routes and run buses. American heavy rail outside the NEC is better suited for freight anyway. Build new dedicated corridors for fast passenger services, or stay home.
By contrast, on the railroads, Burlington Northern Santa Fe or whoever purchased the rail from the decrepit husk of bankruptcy that preceded it, and upgraded it, and installed all the new safety equipment, and maintained it over time. The capital involved here is, by and large, private.
So there shouldn’t be any surprise that the situations are different.
I don’t know why you want to drag in manufacturers, though. It seems to muddy the water.
The reason the freight companies own those rails is primarily from the land grants made my the federal government which came with obligations, such as providing passenger service. Amtrak has trackage rights because the freight companies wanted to divest their passenger rail operations. Maybe an unwelcome guest, but essentially a former part of their own operations.
Anyhow, buses are an insufficient substitute for passenger trains and already available from other operators. If they were sufficient people wouldn't be on the trains.
But the argument of “is this justified given the history?!” should take a back seat; certainly Congress is able to force the industry’s hand whether or not it’s justified. The first question should be whether it’s a good idea in the first place, since rail is doing useful things for the US economy, which would ultimately shoulder more costs for it than the railroads themselves as a business.
Damaging the supply chain and raising prices across the economy while putting more trucks on the taxpayer-funded roads emitting more carbon dioxide is a steep price. Incremental improvements to the reliability of seldom-used cross-country routes through the sparsely inhabited West at speeds of about 60mph aren’t worth that price.
If only, one of the best investments for NA would be an actual HSR network outside freight. California is trying and there are so many people who are doing everything they can to stop it. Including musk inventing an impossible alternative he never invented to build[1], hyperloop, as HSR would compete with tesla and hurt his sales.
[1] https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article26445107...
Half a dozen news stories about passengers getting trapped on planes that were sitting on the tarmac from the past 30 days alone.
I'll take being "trapped" on a train that has a cafe car, numerous bathrooms, power outlets, likely cell phone service or wifi, plenty of room to walk around, and considerably more leg room and seat-reclining...over being trapped in a metal tube, crunched into a tiny seat, with a bathroom that probably won't function past a few hours, limited food, no power, and nowhere to get up and walk around.
Not to mention, if you're anywhere near civilization, if push comes to shove: you have at least some possibility of being able to just leave. On a jet airliner in an airport, you are completely trapped.
Federally airlines should be required to deplane passengers after a certain amount of time, or immediately if the plane becomes too hot/cold, runs out of water, or the bathroom stops working....and the flight crew criminally punished if they don't. But that will never happen because of airline industry lobbyists.
A personal preference.
On the train there's more room, you can move around, and the atmosphere is more relaxed.
Some people like planes. I saw an HN comment where someone said they took lots of "flights to nowhere" over COVID and used the plane as their office. I don't understand that at all. But to each their own.
I will say the views are unbeatable.
It's hard to agree with that. There are some amazing train routes through Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Germany that keep me looking out of the window the whole way.
The ground fading away, the tiny cars, glittering rivers, seeing it in reverse for landing. That is something I'll wax poetic about. But if I could take the train the rest of my life I would.
Clearly the middle ground here is to bring back zeppelins. /s
I was waiting for a Ryanair flight from Friedrichshafen when one of the Zeppelin NT craft flew past, heading over the Bodensee towards Switzerland. It looked simultaneously classic and futuristic, the sort of shiny utopia future of 1950s sci-fi book covers. I envied HARD.
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...
Final decision vests with the TSA agent at the desk.
But there are needles which are short metal/plastic parts, with a long flexible back (eg for circular knitting) which are very unlikely to cause an issue: the point is smaller than a pen.
But I'd like to see more investment in rail & a better coach experience, absolutely.