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Comment by burcs | Hacker News Reader

This is a beautiful visualization, I still wish we invested more into this infrastructure.

Taking the train seems to double the duration of my trip over driving. Not having to drive is not a bad trade off though, if I have the time to relax.

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I take the Capitol Limited(Chicago <-> DC) most of the time when I go back to home.

Pros:

+ Comfort. You basically get a first class seat with cafeteria access. You can also purchase a whole room, but is less affordable than a plane ticket if you're traveling alone.

+ Regularity. The train leaves at the same time everyday both from DC and Chicago.

+ It reaches parts of the country not easily accessed by an Airport. If you need to visit someone in middle of nowhere USA, Amtrak might just be a better option.

+ Price. Book it in advance and you'll be saving ~$200 in airfare.

+ No TSA to check your luggage, some trains allow you to bring your bike, and there's always plenty overhead space.

+ Easy access to outlets for charging devices.

Cons:

+ Long! Chicago to DC takes 17 hours. Chicago to San Francisco can take two days. SW Pennsylvania is snaking route that feels like forever. It's really a question of how much you value your time.

+ No WIFI on most trains, so bring a book if you cannot scrum up a hotspot.

The time it takes isn't that bad. It's a relaxed and more comfortable experience. You are experiencing parts of the us you normally wouldn't see.

17 hours is fairly quick. But the timing is fantastic. Amtrak leaves after work in Chicago and arrives at hotel check-in time in DC the next day

Sleeper cars are nice

Quick? That's 1100km in 17h. 65km/h average. Regular, non-high speed should be able to do max 160-200 km/h, achieving average speed - including stops - over 130km/h, which is 2x faster.

It has a lot of stops, also theres issues with track speed limits. Additionally, it's running on freight rail, not passenger rail. So theres no hope of hitting 130km/h. (80mph in freedom units) On top of that our cars are grandfathered in and can't be replaced at the moment.

>It has a lot of stops, also theres issues with track speed limits.

Outside of major cities, it's generally a thing where you pour in money and faster track speeds come out.

>Additionally, it's running on freight rail, not passenger rail.

In many countries, there are no such distinctions outside of HSR which has it's own requirements - it's all mixed use. In Poland freight trains use the same 160-200km/h tracks as passenger railway, and move aside to let faster trains go through. Also they use tracks more when there are pretty much 0 passenger trains, like in the middle of the night.

>On top of that our cars are grandfathered in and can't be replaced at the moment.

I completely do not understand that part. Your railway cars can't hit 160km/h?

The problem is the freight railways own the track and amtrak doesn't. Legally amtrak has right of way over the freight trains but the freight companies routinely flout this and cause delays as the law is unenforced. Amtrak keeps track of these incidents which they publish on their site here: https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance

I guess that's a politics issue, the freight companies can chuck money at lobbying to make sure they don't have to give way.

Hopefully with some decent lines appearing in the US, Brightline and California HSR in the future people will start to experience better rail and this stuff will get more focus.

Amtrak trains can hit 80-90 mph, even the big ugly beasts. Some are rated to the lowest of high speed rail, but the track has to be updated with positive train control (PTC) to go that fast in the USA, and freight railroads have no need or desire to install that.

People from Europe don’t quite realize just how much freight the US moves by rail. It’s absolutely batshit.

> U.S. freight movements will rise from around 19.3 billion tons in 2020

Outside the Acela corridor is there a passenger train that achieves that in the US? Maybe the new Brightline. I've ridden the Amtrak Cascades quite a bit between Portland and Seattle. It's a scheduled 3.5 hour ride that usually takes closer to 4 hours. Driving takes 3 hours if you're lucky usually closer to 3.5, although I had a 5 hour return trip by car from Seattle one time when I left at 4pm on a Friday.

Point is, Cascades is one of the better services outside the NE corridor and it still tops out at only 75mph (120km/h). The average trip speed is closer to 50mph (80km/h).

We have a long way to go to achieve anything resembling European levels of service. Japanese levels feel like an impossibility.

I used to take the Amtrak Acela from Boston to NYC a few times a year for business travel and it was very enjoyable. I always looked forward to the ride, which is absolutely not something I would ever say about driving or flying these days. Comfortable, scenic, quiet, possible to work (or just relax and watch a movie) in your seat, reasonable food and drink available in the dining car. Step off the train and you're in the heart of the city.

That said it would be much tougher to justify if work wasn't footing the bill. A single round trip is up around $500 per person unless you are willing to leave at the crack of dawn. Doing this regularly, or with a family, would get prohibitively expensive for most people. I definitely wish rail travel was more viable and accessible in the US, it's got so much going for it.

I agree with most of your post, but just out of curiosity: how far in advance were you making your NYC<->BOS bookings? I've done the NYC<->WAS Acela dozens of times in the last decade and NYC<->BOS maybe a dozen times, and my roundtrips are typically $250 if I book around a month out.

I was looking at NYC<->BOS for the beginning of November, and was shocked to see $20 each way available if you're willing to get to the station at 6am.

To be honest my job changed during the pandemic so I have not made the trip in several years. Before making my post I went on the Amtrak website and priced out a trip in mid October. It was about $225 each way before tax etc. If you were willing to get on the 6am train it was a few bucks cheaper. I'm happy to concede that you could get better deals booking further out etc, I didn't spend time checking.

Hell, I'd love to be wrong. Because again, I enjoy traveling by rail. If I somehow accidentally priced the literal worst case, that's good to know.

500 insane when bus is 30

I’ve been on a few busses where $500 to get off would have been a discount.

top front of megabus has been good to me. but now i have an airport in short walking distance so i take that

It is worth remembering that traveling by train has essentially zero overhead aside from the trip time. You arrive anytime before the train leaves, you get on the train, you get off the train, you don't have to think about considerations such as parking.

But (outside of the NEC) you do have to worry about 10+ hour delays (the most extreme delay I had an interaction with was being delayed by 2 hours because yesterday's train was in front of us and delayed by about 24 hours.

If you’ve ridden any long distance trains you’ll die on the rails eventually where they just give up, put everyone in a bus, and you go to the other direction train which they just turn around.

The problem in the US though is that once you get to your destination you are probably in a city dependent on cars because of such poor walkability and public transport, so now you have to rent a car as well.

Looking at travel from Austin to SF, taking a train is a longer duration trip and costs more.

One way on Oct 20th, Kayak has a flight for $119 and Wanderu has a train trip for $662 that is 3 days and 8 hours in duration.

If I could take my car on this train it might be worth it, from a cost and logistics standpoint train pretty much always loses.

I say this as someone who grew up enjoying the metro in dc and ny and use rail and ferry's when overseas.

Until infrastructure, subsidies and other externalities are addressed train travel will not be competitive, I have far more hope for level 3 self driving cars than I do for walkable cities and train travel parity.

Amtrak has an auto train route from ~DC to ~Orlando.

It was (and may still be) Amtraks only profitable long distance line.

> ... you are probably in a city dependent on cars because of such poor walkability and public transport [ .... ] If I could take my car on this train it might be worth it ...

Take your bike!

Yeah so I'm not going to take my 2 year old and 1 year old and all associated baggage to the hotel on my bike.

Would you try to do that on public transit, if it was better?

Europe here, and yes, that's what people do.

France here. I do take my bike everywhere (RER, TER, TGV… I've never had a car and rented <10x in my life, at 37 y-o). But it's getting difficult to find/book a place in most fast trains, especially between Paris and Loire Valley as there are too few racks available and biking is becoming more popular. I wish all major train stations had 24/7 bike renting service, including for bikepacking.

I am actually aware of that. I was trying to discern whether or not the person I was replying to is actually criticizing public transit infrastructure in US cities or has just accepted that you need a car (easy to understand why that might be, even if it is not necessarily true).

My kids could travel on public transit easily when it’s a good day.

There have been numerous times when I’ve been very glad that I had a vehicle to load them all into to contain the current detonations occuring.

I have no objection to using a train, if it's actually point-to-point.

(but like, actually point to point. not, get to downtown and walk another 1.5 miles or wait 45 minutes for a bus transfer).

Give it a couple of years and you can put them on a Tern GSD or similar.

(Don’t know if Amtrak would carry that. You can just about get away with taking them on UK trains.)

For routes where the bike area is first come first serve, how common is it for them to run out of space?

I’ve never seen it be a problem the few times I’ve noticed, but the conductors also bend the rules (hopefully not the bikes!) to make it work.

> Taking the train seems to double the duration of my trip over driving.

Part of this is that there's zero enforcement of the theoretical legal authority that Amtrak trains have over freight transit. Everything ends up slow and delayed almost everywhere because of incredibly predictable issues with passenger trains stuck behind much slower freight trains.

The only real way to enforce this would be to forbid freight trains that are longer than the longest siding within 30/60 miles.

If it were just a matter of time being longer I would do it more often. However, it is also way more expensive when traveling with two or more people.

Would you pay higher taxes for it?

I would. We could tax everyone like $20 a year and basically double federal Amtrak grants.

Or we could reallocate existing money, maybe stop subsiding people to grow corn to make gas and spend that money on improving railroads. Or buy one fewer F-35 every year or something. Lots of options, we don't spend very much on Amtrak right now.

The subsidy is about $2b, or $7 per person or $15 per household.

Some of that subsidy also indirectly goes to the freight railroads.

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