Crossing the USA by Train
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On the first route (westward) I took the southern route and on the return trip (eastward) I took the northern route, through Chicago. I stayed in youth hostels (except for a couple of cities where I had friends and relatives), and didn't have a fixed schedule so delays were usually tolerable.
While in San Francisco, Amtrak went on strike for about a week, and my pass was extended correspondingly. An extra week in San Francisco was fun! But again, I didn't have any fixed deadlines so it was all good.
All things considered, the unreliability of the system makes me loathe to travel long distances by train, unless my plans are flexible. However, one huge upside is the views, especially in the middle of the country. In fact, some train lines even exist largely to tout their views, e.g. the Rocky Mountaineer (a Canadian company). Train travel is much more leisurely, and a great way to meet people.
These days many Amtrak routes are actually covered by bus, which may come as a surprise when you get to the train station and are told to board a bus. This is not immediately obvious when booking online, although you may be able to tell by reading carefully; the telltale sign might be as subtle as the icon (bus vs train) shown for that leg.
I don’t know if there are provisions for that in law like there are for airline flights that are canceled or otherwise unable to fulfill their carriage obligations.
I rapidly concluded long distance train travel is not viable.
On one occasion I had two days of travel booked, and the very first train was an hour late, which led to a missed connection, and that was it - there was no way I could make my next train, and I lost some hundreds of euros of booked tickets and accommodation, and the compensation offered - if I had the will power to fight through the incredibly hostile claims mechanism on-line - was 30 euro. I was also stuck, as I had left my origin (a long-term AirBnB) and the next place I would live was at my destination. Fortunately, I was in Paris, so I travel to de Gaulle and booked a flight to my destination (where it was then necessary to book a hotel for an night, as I was a day early); I paid some hundreds more euros to complete my journey.
Essentially the problem is that the longer a train journey, the more late it will be, and if you miss a connection, you can lose everything afterwards; but you have to book everything in advance, because the main train routes are fully booked if you try to buy a ticket on the day.
So it just doesn't add up.
Going from one country to another is normally one train company, from the origin country, and then moving on from that city - in another country - means a different company, from that second country, and so on.
The neverending "refugee crisis" (the official reason several countries have introduced checks within the Schengen area) has allowed more frequent checks, but it seems fairly random whether or not they happen. Out of perhaps 10 overnight journeys, I've not been checked going south or east, but around half the time I've been checked going into Denmark from Germany.
It's so disruptive that I no longer take the overnight train into Denmark. You should prepare for it — put the passport in the mesh holder so you can just hand it over — but I find it difficult enough to sleep on a moving train anyway.
Having recently visited Germany via plane, they have certainly gotten stricter/performative. Leaving Munich for London and despite already have presented passports to immigration, they had police checking passports on the gangway to the aeroplane…
The situation in eastern Europe is more variable, but the reservations aren't generally as prohibitive as in France.
Likewise a delay from Berlin to Geneva (only two countries, but a long trip) and again no problem with my re-route. Ended up 30 minutes late
If you have bought multiple tickets covering the journey, there are a few European agreements that may be relevant in the event of a missed connection:
- Connections between certain high speed services allow you to 'Hop on the next available train' (HOTNAT) if both services are members of the Railteam alliance
- Connections between most services on international journeys are protected by the newish 'Agreement on Journey Continuation' (AJC)
It's definitely confusing and it's far from perfect, but the situation is improving.
I love Italo, Snälltåget etc. but it's best to use them for a well-contained itinerary.
Additionally to AJC rights typically the traveller's insurance covers reaching destinations in case of train delays. It's not as grim as the grandparent makes it sound.
In Finland the causes for delays can easily be read from an open data API. Having looked at it, it is completely ridiculous: The conductors seems just to enter some more or less random code at every station.
I doubt any insurance will pay for any kind of missed connection, no matter what.
Costs of alternative transport and accommodation due to missing a connection within public transport is covered in my insurance, unless the reason is a strike, bankruptcy or negligence of the passenger. And only if the connection is not the transport operator's responsibility.
As an example in their marketing material, they use a public bus breaking down on way to the airport.
I haven't used this coverage but I think it shows that there are insurance policies to cover missed passenger-designed connections.
My insurance, too, does not pay in case of strike. Strike is seen as force majeure in many contracts.
I would agree with the EU. Employers have the bigger power on the labor market, it's their responsibility to keep working conditions good enough to avoid strikes.
One big difference between train and plane is that, for planes, it takes me only a few clicks on one single website to book a multiple legs flight across most of the world, transparently using several companies and I dont have to carry my luggage around.
I rarely find the same for train.
Air travel is a mess but it is still much better integrated than train for long distance.
I’ll take the train over the plane any day. Just show up, board the train, put your luggage in the rack, done. Leave from the city center and arrive in the city center. There is legroom. You can walk around. Bring your own whatever you want however big you want it. It just doesn’t compare for me.
Edit to add: taking the train in Europe that is. Idk about NA.
As long as you're just traveling with one company it's usually fine - especially DB, you can usually just hop on the next train.
However with a journey spanning multiple companies you're out of luck... and with seat reservations on TGVs you commonly have to wait until the next day.
It's something that shouldn't be too hard to fix: Give passengers an easy and forgiving way to continue their journey (and make the causing company pay) - ideally this should automatically show up on the App and give the passenger options of new connections etc.
None of this fixes seat reservations on TGVs though, which are also annoying for offers like Interrail/Eurail... EU should probably start regulating seat reservations /s
And train travel is not like plane, if you have to wait, say 4-5hours in a big city you can easily put your luggage in a locker and spend an enjoyable time in that city as the station is usually located in or near the city center and you aren't locked in a terminal nor do you have to account for extra time to pass security.
I have an upcoming transatlantic flight next week. Train is obviously not an option for this one but I will have to spend 4-5 hours at Paris CDG airport for a connection. I have to stay in the airport, pay an awful lot of money for any drink or food I and my family will need instead of visiting a monument/museum and have a nice lunch in the city...things you can do easily by just stepping out of a railway station.
I loved all of them, worst train journey I had was Tokyo to Osaka... landed in Japan, slept overnight at an Airbnb and got up to get on the train to Osaka, but we missed our first train... was not a problem catching the next one, but we decided to eat lunch first. Got on the next train and got about 1/3 of the way to Osaka when the train had to stop due to a typhoon. We were stuck in the train for hours, by the time they let us off (we were stopped at a station, but not at the platform) it was too late to book any lodgeing anywhere near the station, and all the food was sold out everywhere nearby. We ate snacks we brought with us and slept on the train station floor! It was an adventure for sure. But things like that can happen when flying too and are quite rare on Japanese trains.
Don't have any experience with cross country train travel anywhere else, but I love doing it in Japan!
Switzerland already has a unified system, where the main train operator SBB and the local public transport operators use the same ticketing system. Both monthly passes are available and a half fare card, which reduces the price by a lot(not half, as is suggested by the name of the card). The Swiss people are so used to travel by train they pretty much treat it like their own living room.
Of course, it's technically possible, and not really all that hard. But is it politically possible? I doubt it. The EU doesn't even look like it's going to hold together long-term. If the various quarreling nations of the EU couldn't come together after all these decades and make a continent-wide railway system by now, I don't think they're ever going to.
I wouldn’t count on it.
Most people travel during vacations and typically choose air travel over spending extra vacation days on a train. Likewise, bullet trains don’t make much economic sense across national borders, as few people commute daily between countries for work (in the European Union).
The only way to make train travel economical is by artificially increasing costs of air travel or the costs of owning a car. This has slowly been happening already, but will likely lead to a larger divide within the EU.
Doesn't have to be artificial. The environmental damage from air travel is a real cost which could be put back on air travel.
In the US in particular, so many costs of automobiles are externalized that they genuinely appear to be a decent deal. They're not of course, we just pay for them through other esoteric routes instead of on the sticker.
In Germany and many other Western European countries these costs are accepted by society, while in Poland and many other Eastern European countries they are not, especially as they mostly affect the poor.
Non-commuting business travel is also very common, including to cities in neighbouring countries.
Personally I love trains, and they're my preferred means of travel. But they aren't very practical, especially when you have time limitations... and at the moment they are very expensive.
Obviously business people travel by train from say Glasgow to London, or London to Brussels, or Paris to Geneva, or Brussels to Amsterdam, or Amsterdam to Hamburg, or Berlin to Prague, or Prague to Budapest, or Vienna to Zagreb, or Stuttgart to Milan, or Milan to Marseille
Just because a business traveller might not do a 12 hour trip doesn't mean they don't do a 4 hour trip, and those 4 hour trips all work together in a reliable network.
Atlanta (5m) to Charlotte (1m) is 250 miles, Charllote to Richmond (1m) 300 miles, Richmond to Washington (5m) 120 miles. Population in brackets is the "urban area" population.
Seems crazy there isn't a half hourly service from Richmond to Washington DC to me, and an hourly service to Atlanta. The 6AM from Atlanta would go through, calling Charlotte around 8.30, Richmond by 12, and Washington by 1pm. The 7am would get to Washington for 2pm, etc.
Would many people do Atlanta to Washington? Probably not. Would they do Atlanta to Richmond, or Charlotte to Washington? Probably. At least with a european culture. 4 hours is deemed to be the "it's not worth flying" level.
(That said this year I've done London-Leipzig, Berlin-Geneva, Geneva-London, and New York-Miami for business on the "more than 6 hour" this year)
There are frequent delays, especially in Germany [0], but it was always easy to get a confirmation from the railway companies, and I was always able to take a later train. I never had to pay more, and I even got quite a bit of money back if the delay was relevant. Even if I booked the tickets at different operators.
I also usually use a buffer of about 4-5 hours in the middle of the ride. This can compensate some delays, and if on time, it's nice to visit whatever city you are in.
[0] I heard that some Swedish trains are too slow for the express connections in Germany. The trains must take detours or stop every few hours to let the faster trains pass.
I left early in the morning to get to Paris in time for the train, and that was the only train that day, and that train left early because it had a long way to go.
It's a single hop.
With a train, when I'm travelling across multiple countries, necessarily I will take multiple trains; which then brings the problem of missed connections.
Was downgraded to economy and rebooked on a Tornoto-Amsterdam-MAN arriving 7 hours late, having had very little sleep.
Plane travel isn't viable for those travelling on tight schedules.
Learned that United airlines is not to be trusted. Not viable, in your terms.
That's irrelevant: the weather was probably bad somewhere else, and that caused cascading delays that affected your flight.
This way, they never have to pay people when they get bumped for overbooking.
Anyway, I haven’t done business with them for a decade for this exact reason. Maybe it’s different now.
Then the #%*$&@! at the connection gate was happy to close the door in my face as I ran to it. Knew I was coming and didn’t care.
They could have said mechanical but didn’t. Leads one to believe it was a canned BS response.
So what are we advising u/casenmgreen, travel by horse-drawn carriage? Anyone know whether those are viable means of transport for a time-boxed holiday?!
A vile organization. When they later dragged a paying customer out, I was not surprised.
This is one thing that Amtrak does well. I've read many accounts of people missing a connection and being put up in a nice hotel by Amtrak with meal vouchers and a shuttle to/from the station. Still it's not a good way to travel if you have a deadline, and it often costs an order of magnitude more than flying for long distances unless you're willing to spend multiple day/night cycles in coach.
The problems come when you travel is across multiple train companies.
So if you don't like the reverse gambling (no extra costs if you win, potentially several 100% extra if you lose) you should buy an Interrail pass (Eurail for those not living in Europe). It's often not cheaper than a single advance tickets, but it gives peace of mind that you still have a ticket if connections fail. (You should not try to heavily optimize pass days against schedules though, otherwise you have the same problem, your pass might run out before you are back where you need to be.)
But that does not help you much if every train for the day is already booked out.
Short train connections are a gamble here, and worse still that risk isn't properly communicated to travelers as the official SNCF trip planner will happily schedule passengers on very tight transfer windows with no warning. I'm travelling across France soon and the planner put me on a a 9 minutes connection just before the longest leg of my trip, which is a 10h overnight train.
There's no way I'm going to gamble my entire holidays on a 9 min delay, and thankfully my ticket lets me take an earlier train for the 1st leg, but I pity the clueless tourists who blindly follow the planner and end up with their plans ruined.
Viable FOR YOU
Many people use long distance train travel and find it very viable
In contrast to that, you can get a 7hr direct flight for about $430 (delta, round trip, luggage not included).
Or a full size sedan for about $500 (one way, 3 days, does not include estimate of $400 on fuel).
I wish trains were more affordable because (I think) the experience is worth it.
Dates lined up for me on a trip late last spring and I enjoyed it. Would consider doing again.
The northeast corridor sales they've been doing recently are quite something. I swung NYC to Boston for a mere $16 (usually 10x more, especially on the weekends - and the other way was $20). Even at that price my car had only 3 people left by the time we were in Rhode Island.
It'd be nice if we had something that showed a calendar with prices for each box airline style, though. Someday...
- one personal item, 25 lbs. (12 kg) and 14 x 11 x 7 inches, and
- two carry-on items, 50 lbs. (23 kg) and 28 x 22 x 14 inches each
checked:
- 2 Bags Free - Up to 50 lbs. and 75 linear inches*
- 2 Additional Bags - $20 each
- Oversized Baggage (76-100 linear inches*) - $20 each
so ~ 300 lbs of luggage and the oversized stuff you can take is comprehensive. (bikes, ebikes, surfboards, skiis, musical instruments, golf clubs, guns, etc...)
https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/baggage-policy/baggage-specia...
Checked baggage service in my experience is rare, and actually figuring out whether it is available is hard. It appears it isn't available on any NYP-ALB service, so unless you're starting from Albany, checked luggage would not work for this trip. It used to be available at some (maybe 10% or fewer) stations on the Pacific Surfliner route, but is 'suspended', so it appears it is now only available on very long distance routes. So if you have a connection, you likely won't be able to check baggage. If your connecting short route does offer checked baggage, you'll need to make sure your connection is at least two hours.
Carry-on items can be larger than on a plane and 50lbs, but the trains are poorly fitted to accommodate these, and you'll need to handle the luggage yourself. On the NYP-ALB trains in my experience, for example, there is one luggage rack for large luggage, able to fit perhaps eight pieces at most, for an entire car; since it can be converted to a bike rack, if a single passenger checks a bike, all that storage goes away. There's sometimes space on the floor toward the ends of the car, and sometimes not, and using it is unclear. The remaining option is overhead, so you'll need to be comfortable lifting those 50 pound items above your head while surrounded by impatient people. Just to get them on the train, you'll also need to carry them up rather difficult steps, while surrounded by impatient people. You also need to keep in mind, while placing your luggage, that different doors may be in use at different stations, so if your luggage happens to be in the wrong direction for the the flow of exiting passengers, you'll have a challenge getting to it at a short station stop.
You may need to pay to check luggage on a plane but you can typically wheel it right up to the check-in counter and right out from baggage claim (to a cab).
When I took a ship into NY earlier this year, I decided to just pay to have the luggage shipped home given that I was taking Amtrak in a couple days. Big logistical win that was well worth the few hundred dollar cost. Trains are great in many cases but the ability to bring on huge amounts of luggage is not one of their advantages. (I didn't have a huge piece of luggage but it was wheeled and moderately heavy. Reasonable to pay so as not to deal with it.)
Maps showed about 1 day and 18 hrs so I accounted for 3 day rental but lodging slipped my mind. So probably another $200-$400, if leaning towards economy options.
5 days * 8h/d * ~73 MPH will take you from SF to NYC, which only needs 4 hotels on the way. However, if you’re including stops in that 8h or fail to avoid traffic it can take a lot longer.
If you're spending all day driving, might as well fly?
Though, there are other reasons to do it, like if you're moving stuff along with your car.
As such 5 days is just a reasonable baseline. It lets you see the country along the way, have some slack, and show up without being exhausted. Got an extra day, week, or month and you can find plenty of things to do along the way, but you still need to account for the underlying distance. Alternatively, if you’re in a hurry there’s plenty of ways to cut that down.
Most of the times I've driven across the US, I was either moving, or transporting a vehicle.
For transportation it mostly stops making sense over 1000km, anyone's time is more valuable than any price difference. The only exception is overnight sleeper trains between major cities.
If you have lots of money to burn, a train with the sleeper car or roomette is a better experience. You can at least lay down and have more room to relax, the windows are less grimy, you get better shades, lights, and much more room to lay down and relax.
The whole point of mass transit is it's not a car, so comparing it to driving is apples and oranges.
Greyhound buses run more-or-less on time. The routes are direct, they're predictable, and they will take you where you want to go. They also don't have a dining car, spacious bathrooms, room to walk around and stretch your legs, etc. If somebody has diarrhea, everybody on that bus is going to know it and smell it.
Amtrak is more comfortable in every way. It's also usually late, and subject to delays because of low rail priority. You can't really count on it for anything other than "it'll leave eventually" and "it'll get there eventually". While on the train, it's really quite pleasant - as long as you don't care about arriving when the schedule said you would.
I can easily believe that trains are more spacious and the seating is more insulated from odors.
But my experience riding trains is that they sway/shake obnoxiously while going around curves. Where as busses like Megabus are a very smooth ride the entire way.
> room to walk around and stretch your legs
My experience with busses is that there are somewhat frequent stops where people are encouraged to walk and use the bathroom. Which isn't a complete fix, but it does serve to substantially mitigate those problems.
I've only used one long-distance Amtrak train (as an international tourist), and it was more comfortable than any long-distance bus I've ever used. Loads of legroom, a power socket, a large toilet at the end of the coach, a big window, a decent seat. There's a table if you book it, e.g. for a group of 3 or 4.
My journey was ~12 hours during the daytime. I wouldn't want to sleep overnight in that seat, but it's still going to be better than a bus.
Example with plenty of pictures of inside the train: https://www.seat61.com/california-zephyr.htm and https://www.seat61.com/UnitedStates.htm
I finally got a roomette experience after Amtrak introduced the lottery for lower prices (and to fill empty seats). I really loved the roomette, and the reintroduction of the dining car (I'm old enough to remember when everyone got to dine...). If I had lots of money I would take it all the time.
But most of my experience with Amtrak is coach. On long trips, it's very hard to get comfortable when trying to rest/sleep. Even if you get a window seat (so somebody isn't waking you up to get up), and manage to find a good position to lay in, the whole train is shaking and bumping and banging at odd times, and the cabin is freezing. Add to that the coughing and talking on phones and everything else and it's not a great time. By the time you arrive the next day you feel like you've been in an MMA fight.
The bus is slightly better. It's still not comfortable, but the ride is much smoother, and generally it's a little quieter. You often get a straight shot for 2-5 hours of just steady movement and light rocking, and then a break where you can stretch your legs or use the bathroom (don't ever poop on the bus!). Sometimes they're late, sometimes they're not, and it's always chaos trying to figure out which gate is which route. But in general I don't feel as beaten up and tired after I finish the bus route.
The other reasons to use the bus is it goes where the train doesn't (we have extremely limited rail lines in the US), it's cheaper, and runs more frequently to more places. Buses also take highways where cell signal is available, so if you have a hotspot you have internet; on Amtrak the internet usually doesn't work and on longer trips there's often no cell signal. The bus is definitely a more fraught journey, but the train ride literally makes me feel worse. I guess it depends on the person.
I should add that Amtrak is going to be a much better experience (maybe the only choice, next to a plane) for people with disabilities or the elderly. Long-term parking is also often available at Amtrak facilities, unlike many bus depots. And I will say that the Amtrak quiet car is a thoughtful respite from noise, even if some people don't respect the rules. But I wouldn't travel on any of these lines without ear plugs and an eye mask.
I completely disagree with this. The point of mass transit is to move people from one place to another. I routinely compare driving, trains, planes, buses, and ride shares. They all have pros and cons and it really depends on the trip.
Yeah, I also think it's unfortunate that flying is so much more affordable. But, as another passenger said on the train, taking the train is also three times the experience!
And when you have a sleeper ticket, three meals a day are included.
It says 3 days and Google Maps says ~2day drive time so I'm assuming either the passengers or driver swap busses at several points.
That would be a miserable trip and I'd pony up the extra money to fly though.
Time passed so much faster than flying. Being able to take in the scenery, get up and walk around, have a mean w/some wine, etc. couldn't be beat.
I understand the sentiment you are trying to convey, but if you need the price to be lower to be worth it, that's the definition of "not worth it" :)
It is a nice experience, worth the time; I was not sensitive to the price. I booked last minute because it was a spur of the moment trip, and iirc we snagged a bargain rate because of that.
one interesting thing I didn't expect, there were a large number of Mennonites/Brethren riding the train (they did not ride in sleepers), all sexes and ages, including very cute little toddlers wearing full "formalwear".
As a European used to efficient train travel, it was kind of surreal that not only was the passenger train very slow (maybe 1/3 of the speed I’m used to), but it also made long stops to make way for cargo traffic.
It felt like a bit of Wild West time travel to spend days on a train in the amazing landscapes. The food in the dining car was surprisingly good, but got boring by the third day.
Passenger trains between major cities in Europe are in the 200-280 km/h range.
The problem isn’t the big country, it’s the slow trains (that even get deprioritized after cargo, to add insult to the injury).
I don't know which country exactly you mean, I live in central Europe (Slovenia) and no train goes over 200 km/h, most go 60-80 km/h.
Also, every time I'm at the train station in Ljubljana (Slovenia's capital), there's an announcement about the train from Budapest being ~40min late. And it's a way shittier looking train than the local commute ones going 60.
The distance between Paris and Strasbourg is >400km, so even the "slow" connection has an average speed of ~200 km/h. The actual regional train connection (TER) takes nearly 5 hours with plenty of stops in between. Slightly faster non-regional but non-TGV connections only exist on lines that are not served by TGVs.
One took maybe 6 hours. The other 12+ or some such. The 12+ hour took almost the same route, but stopped at every. single. town.
Woe to the person wanting to go from Ottawa to Toronto, and buying the wrong ticket. This is pre-Internet so research was less common and easy, and if you have no idea it could matter...
I recall this being named the "milk run".
When I was visiting France some years back and took the TER train on the way from Paris to Strasbourg (300mi / 500km), and that crawled. On the way back, we took the TGV, which flew.
If you look at booking tickets on SNCF's website, the difference is stark: about 5 hours via the TER, versus a little under 2 hours via the TGV. (From that perspective, it's a little funny to describe the TER as crawling, seeing as that's not meaningfully different from driving that distance.)
There are some portions of Amtrak that have comparable max speeds (notably, the Acela) but even then, the average speeds on those routes are nowhere near 200km/h.
There are of course many benefits to taking even the TER over driving the equivalent distance: you don't have to be laser-focused on driving (especially in a foreign country where you might not speak / read the language or necessarily know the rules of the road), you don't have variation in travel times due to traffic (which, by driving, you would only contribute to), reduced per-passenger emissions, and so forth.
Much of Western Europe has yellow, orange, red and purple lines, i.e. lines over 200km/h.
Parts of Central and Eastern Europe do not, as you say.
Edit
Rare = majority of tourists in Europe go to specific cities and countries. There are trips between countries but it is rare to go around ALL Europe by train. Trains are significantly more expensive that flights.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/487572/leading-european-....
1980 called and wants your attitude back.
Unless you actually want to travel around ALL of Europe (or even all around a few countries in Europe), in which case trains get cheaper again, thanks to things like the interrail ticket.
I'd like to add a perspective on the contrast between Europe and the U.S. in this context. Having partially lived in both regions (across various European countries, though my main base is Buenos Aires, Argentina), one of the things that bothers me most about the U.S. is the car-centric culture. It feels almost artificial in 2024, as if it’s been taken to an extreme (I say this with a grain of salt). I don’t intend to start a flame war, but it’s surprising to me that in many areas where a 45-minute walk would be natural, there are no pedestrian paths. I’m not suggesting that cities like Los Angeles should be entirely pedestrian-friendly, but there are places where basic walkability is neglected, despite the infrastructure being suitable.
What I want to convey is that it's difficult to compare both regions' approaches to moving, and say that the article is amazing!
I took GP to mean the last of these, which I think is uncommon, even in cities (I mean, public transport is right there, right?)
Oslo
to Stockholm
to Copenhagen
to Hamburg
to Amsterdam
to Brussels
to Luxembourg
to Paris
to Nice
to Monte-Carlo
to Milan
You can get from London to Paris by train in less time than it takes to go from Manhattan to boarding a plane at JFK.
It's BS. In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens. You do not in fact need to get to airports hours in advance, and security theater in airports is still excruciating, but you can get PreCheck or Clear and cut the time way down. There is some time advantage to boarding trains, but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours.
Paris and London are only 213 miles apart! It's about 2/3rds the distance that SF is from LA, much less say SF to Seattle or NYC to Chicago. Rail travel works great in Europe because distances are small, density is high, and the cities grew up centered around rail infrastructure.
only in countries where they neglected building train stations before the cities grew to todays sizes. but even then it's not true. US cities are less dense, so it should be easier to find space. train stations are also much much smaller than airports and trains don't make as much noise as airplanes. there are many more reasons not to build airports in the middle of a city, none of which apply to trains.
the main problem for trains is finding a route for the track into the city. that can be and is solved with tunnels though. or the chinese approach where the high speed trainstations are sometimes built away from the center of the city and instead the center is connected by a dense network of subway lines. a process that started less than 20 years ago but now puts many chinese cities at the top of the list of the largest subway networks in the world.
If you want to build a transit hub outside the city center and link it via subway, that's no easier or more convenient for a train station than for an airport.
London Bridge, a major station, was rebuilt.
Euston Station has a planned large expansion.
It's impossible to build an airport in a city centre.
Just driving to the airport in Denver is nearly an hour for most of the city. It'll take a half hour to get from Uptown Dallas or Frisco or Saginaw to DFW. It's like a half hour to get from Orlando International to any of the Disney resorts. About 20 minutes from downtown KC to MCI. All of this is without any time parking or going through security and assuming traffic doesn't get bad.
Dallas has a train station downtown. Same with Fort Worth. Kansas City Union Station is downtown. Manhattan has several train stations. A lot of cities have a big train station downtown, as many cities were built around the train station. A decently sized train station uses considerably less space than a busy airport.
Which of these seem easier for the people in the city to actually get to and use?
Dallas Union Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aMwyguz98hptWPNo6
DFW Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5iUpUoqvUkhJr1D98
Penn Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JysFmwFhc3cwqHLC6
JFK Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MHWe4UM4wCk9iL1F7
Don't get me wrong, I agree even door to door air travel will usually be faster when talking about the kinds of distances a lot of US travelers go at and often people act like a train is 0 minutes of time getting to/from the station, but arguing the whole travel time getting to/from the airport and dealing with more security is only 20 minutes is a massive stretch for a ton of Americans. Most people should budget probably an hour before their scheduled boarding time to deal with the about half hour drive, the time navigating the airport, and the time dealing with security. Plus add another half hour after landing to actually get someplace interesting.
My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center, you aren't building a train station in its center, in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it. We're all at the mercy of history here, unless you're going to try to build a new planned community where there currently is only light population.
LAX, sure, it is mostly surrounded by the city on three sides, but the sprawl there means the vast majority of the city sees 30+min traffic. Meanwhile Union Station there is right downtown and far more central.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/iKfLwgvCpapoCA6R8
It's incredible how your first two examples are such massive swings and misses at naming cities which have airports more convenient for their city than their train stations. In both the train station is more central to the actual city with a lot of people having a shorter walk to the station than most would have as a drive to the airport. About the first city in that list where the airport is actually more conveniently located is Las Vegas but largely because Amtrack just doesn't serve Vegas by train at all. Sounds like you didn't bother actually researching the list at all and just put down some cities that came to mind. Did you bother actually looking where the train stations were in comparison to the airport?
Another example, New Orleans. It is a half hour drive to/from the French Quarter. It is like a half hour walk from the train station to the French Quarter. Assuming the train and the plane arrived at the same time one could walk there from the train station before you even left the parking lot of the rental car agency.
> My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center
Just continuing to ignore most historic US cites (and the vast majority of the large ones) do have train stations in the middle of the city
> in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it
Just continuing to ignore the massive difference in land use requirements for even a medium airport compared to a train station. Just look at those Maps links I shared earlier. Look at how much space Penn Station in Manhattan uses. Think we can build an airport like JFK or even La Guardia in that same footprint? How would they even take off/land? Its way easier for a city to build a train station in its core than to put a whole airport with multiple runways and taxiways and tons of hangars large enough to hold a 737. It's incredible you think they're on the same level of scale to build in terms of land use.
Like, this is pure fantasy. It's just people who have some kind of weird identity built up out of "liking trains" ignoring the actual world.
I said, "there's about a 20-40 minute advantage to train stations" and you're like trying to go to bat for the idea that an intracity commuter station which is 12 minutes from the airport somehow disproves that.
Used to be, decades ago, just show up and go to the plane like it was a bus. Some dude would take your luggage and throw it into the cargo hold.
You'd be boarded and gone in 15.
When landed, they'd open then cargo hold and hand out luggage.
I had this experience in a transfer to a prop plane in Mexico. Fast, easy, quick.
What's most stupid about security for rail passengers is that the original fear from 9/11 doesn't even apply - you can't hijack a train and crash it into a skyscraper!
London had terrorist attacks from the IRA long before 9/11, including attacks on the transport network. There were 13 in 1991, of which 4 were on trains or at stations.
The new delays are for the passport checks. What used to be ~10 seconds for each EU citizen — is the passport/ID card valid and does the face match? — is now 60+ seconds for British people entering the EU, as the official must check they haven't stayed more than 90 days in the last 180 etc.
Hint when they ran a BART feeder to SFO the first thing the TSA did was start patrolling BART with drug dogs and arresting people for having pot.
To go back to the first example, Seattle to Chicago is a 4 hour (scheduled, which already includes taxi time at both ends and a buffer for late departures) plane ride. Even a TGV running continuously at top speed (320km/h), with no stops, would take 8.5 hours to complete the same journey. Wikipedia tells me that the fastest start-to-end scheduled speed of a TGV is only 280 km/h, which would take over 10 hours.
Or do you expect that fast trains would unlock a lot of travel between Chicago and Seattle?
A 19 hour plane trip from New York gets you to Singapore.
Fast trains are great for journeys up to about 600km. For crossing continents, planes win, whether rail enthusiasts like it or not, and a future of transport that involves “just don’t fly” as the only solution to climate change is an absolute nonstarter in most of the world.
“just don’t fly” as the only solution to climate change.
It's a daunting task and one that may be impossible to achieve.
You see a lot of “just take the train” in centrist and left-leaning British media (example provided below).
Easy to imagine in the UK. Not so easy from, say, Perth, Western Australia.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200218-climate-change-h...
What we need are high speed trains between nearby city pairs. Short-haul flights both waste fuel, don't get up to speed, and have their travel times doubled by TSA security theater and airline boarding nonsense. A Shinkansen-spec high speed train (320kph/200mph) would beat the plane on 200-400 mile trips, both in terms of convenience, carbon emissions, and luxury.
The 2,785 road miles between NY and LA would be 14 rail hours compared to the six a plane takes. Not competitive in the slightest, and not a serious mode of travel, but I'd consider it. The three days the train currently takes sounds like the worst of a road trip combined with the worst of a plane trip.
See recent video "I Spent Over 12 Hours on an Amtrak Train (on purpose)":
It is one of the most amazing train trips in the world, and tbh the article doesn´t really do it justice. The day the train spends slowly going up and down the rockies, are just incredible, the scenery is amazing, and you get to know other passengers and the conductors along the way. Had some great card games in the scenery car.
I wonder how that worked out for them. Hopefully well!
You need to go significantly higher in the nearby mountains to actually feel the effects of elevation on your breathing, fatigue and brain.
It's not actually unknown to get altitude sickness in Denver, it is one of the things the city warns about - going skiing at higher altitudes as well of course - but poor health, and just the speed which you change to that altitude, even on a train, are issues.
As an European myself, try to do a train trip in south of Italy and then discover if it's efficient enough
I suspect that the most upset and vocal users of the Deutsche Bahn are the commuters who need to be at work at a specific time yet still travel ~100km or more on hourly RE/IC trains. In that situation it's frustrating to have to catch the train a whole hour earlier to be safe.
Here in Munich the S-Bahn trains typically go every 20 mins during the day and sometimes every 40 very early or late. So that's already a problem if you want to arrive for work and can't just start 30min earlier, the regional trains often go every hour as you mentioned.
So yeah, if you live where there's a subway or a bus then the 10min thing works, but just a tiny bit on the outskirts with only the S-Bahn it often sucks. I was very glad when I moved from "need to take S-Bahn or bus to work, or to the subway" to "walk or bus to subway" neighborhood, even if it's roughly the same distance to the city center, and both decidedly IN the city, not the outskirts.
The trains ran on thyme.
In the South you have thoughts and prayers. A trip Bari<>Milano (900km) is mostly around 8-9 hours, going further south elongates the journey incredibly.
This is a huge issue. Cargo trains legally have to yield to passenger trains, but in recent decades cargo trains have been made longer and longer, so they no longer physically fit into the passing sidings (which usually are built for 75 cars). It's a mess.
https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/08/justice-departmen...
It turned a 9-hour trip into a 15-hour trip.
Sometimes because the passenger equipment breaks, or wasn't available. (One way that can work is, if the train is hours late arriving at the endpoint, that equipment isn't available to become the next train in the opposite direction.)
Sometimes because a passenger becomes ill, or even dies, or (as ars said) becomes unruly enough to need arresting.
Sometimes because some driver wasn't paying attention, and ran into the train (or into the freight train ahead of the passenger train).
Sometimes because of weather. (Two feet of snow since the last train passed can slow down a train significantly. Either too much heat or too much cold lowers the safe operating speed. Too much rain can cause problems, too.)
And so on, and so on. Sure, a lot of the time it's the fault of the freight railroad. A lot of the time it's not, too.
https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
> For over 50 years, freight railroads have been required by law to provide Amtrak with “preference” to run passenger trains ahead of freight trains.
Amtrak is a joke either way. The train I took from Chicago to Las Vegas was over 24 hours late, hit a car, flattened the wheels in the emergency braking so they could only go about 20mph to the next station where they had to change out the entire train, then had a mechanical breakdown, and when we finally arrived they had lost our luggage.
This entire page is an attempt by Amtrak to explain why the trains are always waiting for freight traffic. I've taken the train many times, and they yield to freight traffic for hours every trip.
To Amtrak's credit - we complained and they refunded our entire journey.
You are used to train journeys of more than 2800 km (more than the distance from Lisbon to Warsaw) with an average speed of over 170 km/h? Where can I find such an itinerary in Europe?
To travel 3000 km on a high-speed train, Japan and China certainly offer the opportunity. Beijing-Guangzhou is 2230 km and operates at 350 km/h.
They have no incentive to add more sleepers, which would be a pain in the cock to procure, for a service that loses money. Amtrak should not be required to really care about that last part, but they are.
This simply not true. Federal Laws says that Passenger trains have priority but the law is never enforced. Freight traffic is suppose to take by-passes to let passenger traffic through and freight traffic is never suppose to block the line. However, again, the laws and rail rules are never enforced. Think about it, why would cargo have a higher priority than human traffic? Is cargo getting there an few hours later or earlier going to impact anything? With humans, it will totally impact their schedule and how often trains are used.
If the Department of Transportation wanted people to start taking trains again, they would come down hard of rail companies that slow down passenger traffic.
Freight in the US optimizes for minimal crew hours. That means longer consists that no longer fit in sidings. Expanding sidings costs money and is thus verboten.
Even if the freight takes 3x as long to get somewhere they can have each crew take a leg then leave the train unattended. The railroad doesn't need to pay for overnight stays or overtime and only one or two crews are "active" in a given segment ever. Or to put it another way the limit is "we are paying for one crew on this segment of the line". Freight lines up on either side as that limit of 1xCrew shuttles whatever they can back and forth within that segment. Then you make the consists longer and longer to "buffer" the bottleneck.
I assume part of the "enforcement" issue is US DOT would need to order the railroad to back trains up or do other nonsensical things that would only create more chaos and delays because as I mentioned most consists can't fit on existing sidings anymore and AFAIK the law has no provision to order the railroads to extend the sidings nor order them to do the physically impossible.
> Think about it, why would cargo have a higher priority than human traffic?
My understanding was essentially it came down to who owned the tracks. More money in freight, more of it, hence priority given by private enterprise. The speculation is moot though.
My understanding is that most rail lines are privately owned. Is that incorrect as well?
My fear is that some influencer/personality is going to start posting about the train system, and then it's going to become a crowded mess :P It feels a bit like a well kept secret right now. I think one of the things that makes it so enjoyable is that it's so uncrowded most of the time. I almost always get two seats to myself every time I take it (in coach). And there's somehow always a table available in the observation car whenever I decide to go there. Or you sit with someone and make a new friend :P
Would highly recommend!
And I've also found you don't have to book as far ahead with trains. Eg for tomorrow, that same trip is $287 by plane, or $60 by train.
Personally, I want to take the Chicago to SF train, and do a few day stops in various cities instead of getting the sleeper car. So it would probably be about ~1w of travel.
The zephyr is a destination, not a mode of travel.
Riding the train when I was I young was a memorable experience. I wondered if it would even be around when my daughters were older so wanted to give them that experience too.
We enjoy it every time.
As far as influencers, I love this guy on YouTube that has done a lot of train travel videos: https://www.youtube.com/@DownieLive
I wonder if I've gotten lucky with emptier trains because I generally tend to travel early in the morning? Not sure, it might just be luck; I hope you get to experience another train trip with fewer problems!
In japanese and korean media (my experience is with a ton of anime and k dramas, more in the former than the latter though) trains are very common casual and serious backdrops for a variety of scenes, either within the train, at the station, or just a train passing by on the bridge in the background.
In Hollywood/American TV, it's always cars, with the occasional airport/plane. It riles me up quite unreasonably that shows/movies set in New York fuckin city with 24-7 subway service, and characters are shown trying to catch a cab in Manhattan in the middle of the night to go 20 blocks away. At least Marvelous Mrs. Maisel acknowledged this directly as a class thing for some characters and other characters took the train, but most movies just assume the American viewer cannot relate to someone using the subway.
Of course it’s because these shows are shot in LA, and they have Manhattan street sets built and ready in Hollywood studio lot, but no subway set.
The first scenes to take place in a subway (to my knowledge, anyway) were in the 30th episode, which was called "The Subway". And indeed, most of the episode takes place in a subway.
The subway set for this show was rented from Warner Brothers and was sent to the Seinfeld lot in several pieces on trucks. It was apparently a huge PITA and presented a lot of technical limitations.
They assembled it on springs and had a bunch of crew shake the car to simulate movement. They had to light it using stage lights, manually simulate the mechanical opening of the doors, etc. And it was apparently difficult to do anything but a closeup without it looking fake.
They redecorated it for each of the different subways that it was used to depict (in the episode, different characters are simultaneously taking different subways to different places).
After the episode, the set was disassembled and placed back on the truck to send back to WB, but the truck driver went under a low underpass, which the set struck and was destroyed. As a result, Tom Azzari, Seinfeld's Production Designer, led a small team within the show to design, engineer, and build an entirely new subway set, fixing all the technical problems while they were fresh in the team's memory. They even got actual subway light fixtures and pneumatic doors. This set was used for the remainder of the show, and went on to be used in other shows and films as well.
(There are a few interviews about this process on the Seinfeld DVD extras, Season 03 "Inside Looks")
Almost everything set in London uses either the disused Aldwych Station on the Piccadilly Line, the disused Charing Cross station on the Jubilee Line, or the Waterloo and City line at weekends when it is normally closed — sometimes even when the setting ought to be a much larger train and style of station elsewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station#Use_in_me...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross_tube_station#Use...
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/filming-and-photography/fi...
As for locations, a quick Google search found a genuine New York City R17 subway car[0] that can be rented out in LA. The Sierra Northern Railway--a freight carrier in California--has rented out[1] its rolling stock, facilities, and tracks to film productions for nearly a century. They've got quite the roster, spanning multiple eras. There's also Amtrak, the various local/regional metro systems, other rental companies, and even private collectors if they need something specific.
As for stations, that's even easier. Various urban backlots have underground subway station entrances[2] where you could characters exiting the station. Or the station platform itself is just a long room; you don't have to show the actual tracks, or you could composite in a train moving across the frame, etc. Plenty of permanent sets can play that role. Set designers do far more with less all the time. Hell, you can just reference it off-screen for a sitcom. That's a huge chunk of Seinfeld (or any sitcom). Shit happens, everyone reacts...often poorly, with hilarious results.
0. https://www.thevillaserena.com/subway-car-standing-set.asp
2. https://www.alamy.com/subway-entrance-in-the-soho-set-area-b...
Except for the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Classic:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles
I moved out of NY almost a decade ago, but car-centric America still feels more foreign to me than Tokyo does. On LI, if my family had to drive off the island, we treated it like Europeans treat driving to a foreign country. In SLC, it's entirely common for people to spend 10+ hours on the road as if it were nothing. Hell, I've done it myself. Still feels weird.
I then went down to Miami, train was fairly full - not many stayed on the entire trip but I wouldn’t expect them to, they got off at various stations along the way. Everyone I head in the dining car was American.
So you can take a train to New York, or DC, or a number of lesser cities, and not need a car when you arrive.
Had I flown to Miami I’d still need a taxi to my hotel, just like I did from the train station. I don’t get that argument.
There are three rental car locations close to Copenhagen Central Station. (Not within it, but within the distance you'd walk around an airport terminal.)
Miami station has car rental, I haven't checked any others.
If I’m going further afield then why would I need to get off the train downtown.
When I hire a car at home or the office it gets delivered to my drive.
(unless you’re in one of the dead zones, I suppose. No metro in Georgetown.)
One can also book seats in night trains -- which I've never understood, btw. That only seems logical as a last resort when you need to be somewhere but got no money to get there, when you're planning to sleep the day away at your destination, or enjoy the prisoner's dilemma where you hope the potential co-passenger decides not to "defect" (buy a ticket) such that the seat next to you is free and you can lay down and sleep at night. But anyway, more on topic, I am wondering if the laying down is what you mean or something else in addition
Think of them as more like a lounger/recliner. Not the most comfortable you'll ever sit in, but it's reasonably easy to sleep them in, and even more so if you're young. Someone next to you matters only if they snore or smell.
2) Depending on train you have a small desk so laptop work is possible and comfortable
3) I don't get travel sick on trains while working
4) Toilets are large, many
5) Bar/restaurant on board?
6) On-off boarding usually happens in city center
(From personal experience, not in U.S.)
However you can take the 1310 from LA to Phoenix, then half an hour wait before the 2245 to St Louis, and a 1h25 wait at 0720 for a St Louis to New York.
66 hours with 64 hours on the actual bus, miserable for both you and your fellow passengers.
It wasn't that miserable, but it was sort of miserable. And I was 17/18.
The Hot Dog or the Jumping Frog?
Another awkward thing about bus travel in the US in particular is if you get off anywhere that isn't a major city, you're often stuck on the edge of a highway miles away from any accommodation that might be available in the town the bus is supposedly servicing. Most people get picked up by friends with cars to get where they're actually going, so if you hitch your pack and walk to town you really are gonna look like a hobo.
To be honest, if where you're going is on the train line, the train is better in almost every way. Much more comfortable, nicer views, somewhat better food, sometimes (but not always) more convenient stops. But there's a lot of Turtle Island the trains don't go and you'd miss so much if you didn't take the bus. Unfortunately even bus service is getting rarer. I remember wanting to visit a town of around 25,000 people and was shocked to discover there was no way to get there at all. I would have had to walk 20km from the closest Greyhound stop, which is absurd. I emailed a local museum and the curator offered me a lift back and forth, which was kind, but holy heck. Imagine being a kid stuck in a place like that! Just bananas.
- Amtrak: "national passenger railroad company of the United States" "receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization"
- VIA: Canadian rail operator (and a ton of other things, but this is my best guess)
- Turtle Island: "a name for Earth or North America" (heh)
- Greyhound stop: greyhound is a bus company
- hobo: poor person traveling by train hopping. (My dutch brain wanted to read it as "hol-bewoner", cave-dweller, since the word stress works out to emphasize the same sounds and given the context of perhaps arriving disheveled or so, but good that I looked up the right connotation)
I use Turtle Island as a shorthand for "the US and Canada", since it is/was a term used by indigenous peoples who lived in the area that's now split by that border. It feels a bit less inaccurate to me than saying "North America" when you are not including Mexico.
The most annoying normal, happy-path thing for long-distance travel on Greyhounds is the periodic stops for driver changes. They happen without warning - it doesn't appear as a layover when booking, it seems like a normal stop right up until you get to it, when all of a sudden everyone is asked to get off the bus for an hour or so. You have to decide at the start what stuff you want to take, because you won't be let back on the bus in that hour. During that hour, you'll wait in the bus station, which is pretty much always a run-down, filthy building in an awful part of town. There might be a store if you're lucky; there will at least be a vending machine and a (nasty) bathroom. I don't know if they do these stops overnight, but I have had them happen pretty late when I was trying to sleep.
And yeah, that's just a bit of an annoyance - under normal operation. If something goes wrong? That's the really great part - Greyhound has effectively zero customer support. As far as I can tell (or as far as they make it seem), no customer-facing employee actually has the power to do anything, or any special visibility into the system. The agent in the station, if there is one, will refuse pretty much any question and just tell you to call the customer support number. Once, at one of those driver-change stops, the new driver just... didn't show up? The station agent refused to talk to anyone beyond periodic updates every few hours (which were little more than "the driver might be here by X time", as X kept increasing) and yelled at people to call the customer support line, who also seemed to have zero idea what was going on - and of course, you guessed it - told us to talk to the station agent. It's kind of beautiful, in a Kafkaesque, Catch-22 kind of way, if you ignore all the human suffering it inflicts upon its riders, who are generally the poorest people in society.
A new driver did eventually show, after ten hours of overnight waiting for what should have been a one-hour stop. Obviously, everyone missed their connections, but thankfully at the next major station, the agent helped us out- just kidding, she told all of us to call the customer service number. (I'm still mind-boggled by what the actual purpose is of a station agent if not to rebook people.) Based on some of the interactions we had, I suspect the customer service agent just sees the exact same "change your ticket" UI you do from the booking website. And obviously, as far as I know, nobody got any sort of voucher or refund; nobody was put up in a hotel.
A different time, I had my luggage go missing from the cargo area from under the bus. The driver told me it might have mistakenly been offloaded at an earlier station (cool. thanks.) and told me to talk to the agent inside. You can probably guess what the agent told me to do.
And there's all the issues the others mentioned - mainly the thing with them closing their actual station buildings and just picking up and dropping people off on the roadside or at random gas stations.
I didn't mean for this post to be this long, but it truly kind of depresses and amazes me how bad of a system it is. It is falling apart at almost all levels. People talk badly about Amtrak, but as mentioned elsewhere, they'll at least put you in a hotel if you miss a major connection. Budget airlines are uncomfortable but at least have actual gate agents, and even the worst airport is vastly cleaner and more comfortable your average Greyhound building.
There are some redeeming factors. The buses themselves are usually comfortable and decently clean, and most if not all have power outlets, although often not at every seat. The "weird/gross passenger sitting next to you" thing is exaggerated, though I have had one bad one. The Wi-Fi exists but is generally completely unusable, but if you have a hotspot, it'll generally work pretty well since you'll be on major highways the whole time.
But the punchline to it all? It's not even that much cheaper. It's, like, maybe half the price of an airplane ticket.
For the route I take it's around $30 for the plane, and $70 for the bus. The bus takes around 8 hours, the plane takes around an hour and a half but then you have to factor in extra time at the terminal.
Of course, as I found out recently, sometimes your baggage will just get lost or stolen and there's not much you can do about it. So that's fun. (At least on Amtrak there's a proper checked baggage option for some routes, and the overheads are big enough to put airplane-sized carryons in.)
Even with a suitcase it's still cheaper than a bus.
But yeah, it is pretty ridiculous. Like you said, pay the same price as the plane ticket, if not more, for the privilege of getting to wait in rundown station buildings and the excitement of knowing nobody is there to help you if your bus breaks down or just doesn't show. Honestly, I have to imagine that one of the only things propping up Greyhound on routes like those is the fact that you can ride it without ID.
Hi there, nice to meet you! I've take the train:
San Diego to Redding
D.C. to New York and back
St. Louis to Chicago and back
St. Louis to Little Rock
St. Louis to Kansas City and backUsually it’d be for going into DC for the weekend to party, or up to Baltimore or something. Certainly not uncommon.
The train moved at a frustratingly slow speed (< 10 mph) for probably 30% of the trip, but aside from that I liked the more relaxed atmosphere of the travel and it was overall more comfortable.
The train itself was a bit bumpier than I expected and the wifi was not very good. Those things and the slow speed would mean I could not imagine taking a much longer trip than this one. With the extra time and hassle of dealing with an airport, this one balanced out as probably only being slightly slower travel but it was less expensive and more relaxed. If it were Seattle to San Francisco, as an example, the slowness would be too much for me. The comfort and amenities like wifi and food would have to be a lot better than they are.
But others might be amazed that I'm around 40 years old and have never owned a car.
I do not live that far from an Amtrak station but there is only one train a day, it takes forever, and does not go anywhere that I am typically traveling.
Still my preferred way to do the trip if the timing works as I can get stuff done whilst on the train. The WiFi is pretty bad - but if you have a cell plan that covers the US and Canada you’ll have coverage for all of the Canadian side, and a decent amount of the US side.
Depends on the type of bike. Sometimes parks and trails.
These days, if it's serious mountain bikes, they're driving to places with wilderness trails to ride on. If it's road bikes, they might be driving to "rail trails", sections of old railroads that have been converted into long multi-use trails that are popular with cyclists because they're generally flat and straight and go through some interesting scenery.
And wouldn't it be the same no matter what mode of transport you choose? What if the plane breaks down¹? What if you break an ankle while walking a long distance? What if your horse walks away? You'll always have to rely on aid from others pretty much no matter what happens to your mode of transportation
If you're going to be in a place where you're alone, like when hiking, the advice I heard is to tell someone where you're going and when you're checking in. I guess the same goes if you don't expect to receive aid from passing cars?
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#/media/File:Nu... Compare ~1000 fatalities per year from "hull-loss accidents" in the 80s compared to it being pretty much unheard of today
You clearly do not understand what bicycling 6000 km unaided and heavy load means. Everything breaks down constantly.
Chains and sprockets last only 2000 km, unless you constantly rotate 3 chains.
I bought new tyres 3 times. And then I had a problem with 622mm rim, there was only "700C" type racing tyres in Wallmarts.
And I also broke back axle, because Samsung-type axle was not yet invented. Luckily Minneapolis had America's one good bicycle shop.
And at the end and I started loosing spokes. I had spares, but you need certain heavy tools to remove screw-on sprocket. Getting new spokes of certain size is impossible anywhere in America. Probably mail-order from China.
And then if you throw the oldest chain away after 10000 km, the sprockets will last 30 years. This is how some had done the world on one cassette.
If the derailleur snaps off while you are 100km from anything, you're fucked unless you happened to pack a spare one and all the tools required to swap it.
1. Cut the chain using a chain drifts (can be small, sometimes included in kits)
2. Detach the speeds cable and remove the derailleur (hex key, included in kits).
3. Measure minimum possible chain length, cut it.
4. Close the chain with a missing link (get a couple spare ones, they’re cheap and small)
In fact many MTB enjoyers got a chain drifts and missing links with them even for a 2h ride : chains are at higher risk when crushed again rocks and trees.
> why would a bicycle break down without notice
Accident aside, you literally feel the bike parts wearing, or at least when they approach endlife. There’s also regular quick checks you could perform on your bike to keep the macanist away.
Tip: get the sleeping car and eat every meal they offer, especially if you travel by yourself. You'll be sat with random folk who almost always have interesting stories to share.
I love rail travel when I’m in the EU, but it simply doesn’t make sense for the US and its geography.
Here’s my wild opinion so feel free to disagree and point out the shortcomings… Air travel could be a lot nicer, like the days of TWA and on plane lounges; and before you got tased for getting out of your seat to walk around.
We flew home -- and even though the flight time was about 5.5 hours - it was stressful and a let down. Your family's milage may vary.
But just like European trains don’t only run from Lisbon to Moscow, US trains could very easily set up popular routes from small, medium, and large cities that are around 100-500miles from each other. The new Borealis route, which is nothing more than an additional short run of the Empire Builder, from Chicago to Minneapolis started turning a profit a few days after it started running.
What do you get when you add up all the obvious city-pair routes in all regions? You get a transcontinental system that while likely not most people’s first choice for a NYC-LA trip, is possible without being painful. Not unlike the system that existed before the subsidized highways destroyed the private passenger rail system in the US. We know it’s possible here because it already existed.
If trains were more prevalent, each would become more of a hub and cities would grow around them.
There are no airports situated on top of said landmarks.
Got an Amtrak Roomette. It cost a fortune (relative to flying.) Could not fall asleep at all due to the jerky motion.
Do not recommend.
I have no idea why anyone would prefer this to flying.
Had expected the train to do like 60 km/h or so because there is no rush, everyone's sleeping, saves costs (wear and energy), easier scheduling by having the same speed as freight, and if the trains normally handle more-than-double speeds then this would be butter smooth. Nah, not a chance. From start to finish it felt like it was springing from station to station, with pretty old equipment so it was loud, plus every station of every tiny village was bright because no curtains, and the shaking and squeaking around curves and especially points/switches were madness.
Asked the passenger from my cabin who got off at the same stop in the morning: he slept great!
Maybe when the novelty wears off and you get used to it, it gets better? I can report back when I do this next time, but for now I'm also left wondering if it's a personal thing. (I'm sufficiently concerned about the rate of climate warming that I'll definitely try this again, it's only a matter of when I'd travel to a sufficiently far destination)
Interesting, but would book a room if traveling this way next time.
Someone can definitely do worst, that's out of discussion. We are looking at the upside potential.
The picture of this post show interstate trains that are old, slow and dirty. I'm sure standards can improve.
(It's a figurative example I'm not sure there's a train from Seattle to SF)
I'm just saying, this is such a rare use case that it's not as high of a priority as expanding the roads that 80% or more of the residents in a city use daily. Whereas for freight it makes a ton of sense.
(fun fact, there actually is a train route there!)
As some who used to travel for meetings quite a lot to a city 3 hours away by high speed rail, it really isn't. Once you take into account that you can show up for your train 5 mins before it leaves, plus the fact that the train station is almost always much closer to where you want to be, the difference in time between trains and planes pretty much disappears for shorter trips.
Plus the train is just so much nicer and more comfortable. It's quieter. Your seats are much bigger and have more legroom than even the nicest business class seats. You can get up and walk around if you want. You often have a restaurant car where you can sit and grab a drink or something to eat. Train travel is just so much more relaxing compared to flying.
You just can't do that in the US, outside some very select situations (like going from somewhere inside DC to Manhattan NYC). From SF to Seattle, how do you get to the station in SF? In Seattle, how do you get from the station to your destination? What do you do to get around in Seattle? Generally, you need a car, which means renting a car, which is really expensive. The US is set up to handle this at airports pretty well: you get off your plane and go to the Hertz counter and pick up a car (and then after your trip is over and you've returned the car, get arrested for auto theft when Hertz reports your car as stolen--don't use Hertz). I haven't tried trains on the west coast, but on the east coast, I've never seen train stations set up with rental car counters.
Even for flights which take 45 minutes in the air, I’d never expect to get to the airport, through security, through all the boarding and unboarding nonsense, and from the destination airport to where I was actually going, in 3 hours.
IIRC last time I was in Seattle airport, after I got off the plane (which was late, of course), I spent half an hour just walking through airport and to the rather inconveniently located light rail. Everything involving flying takes forever.
The US population is fairly concentrated around the 'edges'. About 40% of the population lives in a coastal county:
* https://ecowatch.noaa.gov/thematic/coastal-population
And two-thirds of the population with-in 100 miles (160 km) of the border:
It's not like 1905 when you could just walk from your home in Smalltown USA to the local train station, buy a ticket, and get a ride to the nearest city, and get out and walk from that station to interesting places.
Any train trip, even if you look only at the eastern states, is likely to require a car ride on one or both ends to get to/from your source/destination to/from the station. If you have to drive an hour just to get to a train station, and another hour to get from the destination station to your final station, it's probably faster and easier and much cheaper to just drive the whole way. Don't forget dealing with parking, car rental, etc.; you'd probably have to take taxis, and those are quite expensive.
The fundamental problem here is density. America doesn't have it any more.
So if the US government would wanted to build out cross country passenger rail they would either have to build new tracks, or use eminent domain to take back control of the existing tracks. Both options would be very expensive and wildly unpopular.
For example, by limiting the maximum length of a freight train.
Then relatively minor subsidies (e.g. additional passing loops) could be used to improve reliability.
Most of the European railway companies have been privatized and there are companies that run the rail network and companies that run the train. Subsidies are not a thing in many of the European countries
The CA high speed rail is targeting a 2h40min travel time between SF and LA.
The flight saved you more than an hour.
Maybe if it was far cheaper than flying there might be more demand.
How early do you need to get to the train station?
Not to mention if you miss your train how quickly can you jump on another train?
I’m not arguing it’s not a nice alternative, but there is a reason why flying is still highly in demand even with high quality rail systems like in Europe.
You can jump on another flight faster than you can jump on another train? I rarely fly more than a couple times a month, but for me this is never true.
When I took the trains in Europe I’d show up early, get tickets, find out what platform.
And stations in the middle of cities? Maybe, but unlikely building new infrastructure in existing cities.
And sure, if I want to go from SF to LA, there are 20+ flights per day. Are there going to be 20+ trains?
Why would you do that? Were you worried the train would depart early? Boarding a train is immediate.
> And stations in the middle of cities? Maybe, but unlikely building new infrastructure in existing cities.
1) "Maybe?" 2) The post to which you responded asked about a hypothetical Shinkansen style train from SF to LA, not one connecting El Segundo and Millbrae.
> And sure, if I want to go from SF to LA, there are 20+ flights per day. Are there going to be 20+ trains?
Going from Tokyo to Osaka is like taking the subway in terms of train frequency, so a lot more than that. There also aren't sprawling terminals to traverse on either end, which you quite likely will be forced to do when changing flights.
Let's talk about punctuality. If you think you're content don't look at the numbers for Shinkansen. As for air travel, clearly if you favor flying narrowbodies between cities only a few hundred miles apart you're an extremely patient person, but did you realize your flights between SF and LA will be lucky to break 90% on-time reliability? As a lifelong non-rev I do everything I can to avoid short flights like that.
Only better if you live in the center of town.
In Tokyo, they’re fast partly because you don’t need to trek to the airport (yes, even Haneda) and deal with security etc. You just… get on the train and bam are downtown in the next place.
Even on the East Coast, there used to be way more rail lines that took passengers -- if this were a hundred years ago, I could have walked a mile or two to a spur which would take me to one of the mid-sized cities connected to The Big City by commuter rail; now they're mostly rail trails.
The railroads deliberately killed the passenger business because it has worse operating ratios and needs more capex. Investors and execs believed (and still believe) railroads are in long-term managed decline so capex and labor costs must be avoided wherever possible.
To give an example: Caltrain used to run all the way to LA. It was a profitable line the day Southern Pacific killed it. They used shills to buy up all the tickets for phantom riders then used the low passenger boarding numbers to justify to the US Railroad Commission that they should be allowed to close the route.
This strategy or variations of it were used all across the USA to deliberately kill profitable passenger service because it made the company financials look better: no need to buy or refurbish passenger cars nor pay stewards and conductors. Operating ratio looks better? Mission accomplished! Making less money doesn't make sense but profit is almost irrelevant if you think the whole business is in long-term decline. Better to kill anything that might require future capex or labor and instead optimize to get the most juice with the least squeeze of existing fruits.
Much like the shutdown of public transit across the USA. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a semi-documentary for which the real-life villain General Motors was convicted of monopoly action in federal court! But the judge only fined them $1 because all the movers and shakers thought cars and airplanes were the future so who gives a crap about public transit, trains or the lot?
Passenger train service and public transit were systematically dismantled on purpose by elites who thought they knew better.
See Abandoned & Out-Of-Service Rail Lines map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4...
Well the US is the 3rd largest country in the world, with the 3rd largest population, and in terms of rail tonne-km is also 3rd.
I.e. it sits where you'd expect, per sq km and per capita.
Passenger wise though it's 10th.
Chicago to Denver is mostly flat, and at least when I did it, mostly in the dark. Salt Lake to Reno is also boring, but surprisingly the section of rail around Tahoe doesn't have good views either. If you've driven on 80, or 50 or 89, you've seen better terrain.
As other comments have said though, the timeline is unpredictable, since freight takes priority. So you could easily end up in the dark around Grand Junction, CO and miss out on the views.
Sure, it takes four times longer, but it is about 20 times more comfortable.
wefunder.com/train
It’s a great experience, and something I wish more people tried. The cross country train that is, coworkers optional :)
I started throwing the trash in the bins and an Amtrak staffer came through and told me "You don't have to do that- that's someone else's job" Someone else was nowhere to be found though.
I took the Amtrak several times from southern to northern California and it was always just bearable.
The train experience in the USA is pathetic and depressing.
I have since moved to a "poor" country in Western Europe and the train experience here is MUCH MUCH better than Amtrak in the states as is most everything else.
BTW is this article generated from social media posts?
I love this expression!