I feel this is very good news. With gas prices shooting through the roof and airline travel seemingly seeking to frustrate and irritate in every way mankind can possibly devise, it's high time that we returned our eyes to affordable cross-country mass transit.
My view is somewhat filtered by fond memories of travelling by Amtrak between Portland and Seattle and Pasco in my college days. Despite occasional lapses from schedule, travelling by train was far more comfortable and enjoyable than virtually anything else available to the student budget.
I think that, with a running start provided by adequate funding, this is the perfect time to return a functional passenger rail system to the American market.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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My experience with Amtrak is pretty much uniformly bad, but I'm still happy to see that there continues to be some sort of alternative to airlines for long distance travel. This is especially important given how ridiculously unappealing airline security has gotten.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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My wife and I took Amtrak from Oakland to Portland and back a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic! No security checkpoints, no cramped seats (we got a sleeper car), good food, nice view, easy to walk around, showers, a video game and movie car.
I'm going to start taking the train more often for vacations, the airlines are getting more expensive and worse service, while the Amtrak makes a real effort to make your trip easy and fun.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I searched two different fares. One going from Tucson to LA and one from Tucson to Baltimore. Both were substantially higher than flying. So in my situation at least it isn't affordable. It would be nice though if they could provide an affordable alternative to flying.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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I had a post all ready to go and it got eaten.
Suffice to say, I love the ideal of rail and I'm glad Amtrak is being funded...but the service as it stands is unusable for me personally.
Detroit to Tampa would cost twice as much as flying and take nearly two days of travel time. That's a trip I'm planning on taking later this year to visit a friend. The only nearby city I'd really consider taking the train to over driving would probably be Chicago, or theoretically some other nearby midwest city like Indianapolis or Columbus. Since any such trip would be with at least one other person, driving, with gas split between one or more people is still considerably faster and cheaper than rail.
For where I live, gas isn't expensive enough, and rail isn't cheap enough, to make it a viable or smart alternative to driving or even flying. People aren't going to choose rail over flight or driving unless the factors align. People I think choose a transportation mode based on a couple different criteria: 1. Price 2. Speed 3. Comfort.
When high speed rail and modern cars come along, and with what I'm guess will be increase use prices will come down a bit, I think it'll really be a contender. But right now? It takes forever and it's too expensive, so why would I use it?
I don't hate rail, I want BETTER rail.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I've made a number of trips from NYC Penn Station to Central PA in the last few years--Amtrak is the best way to do it. Now, I'm no big fan of federal subsidies, but the rail industry is one I can get behind.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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I could possibly think of getting behind railroad subsidies if it was available to all people. With the lack of rail availability, I think it is wrong for the government to use national money that just benifits a few, sorry but that is my personal opinion. When I did have Amtrack available to me, often I still flew because the cost of flying was either cheaper or just a little more in cost which made up for the lost time of riding the rail. But the cost of Rail travel will also probably increase as gas prices go up since the rail industry here is dependent on oil also!
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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I took AMTRAK for the first last week and greatly enjoyed it. Like was said above - comfortable seating, no security checkpoints, no need to get there an hour ahead of time and then wait half an hour for baggage. It's not as fast, but when you take away all the surrounding time it takes to fly, for travel up and down the coast it is great.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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If Amtrak is such a viable alternative cross country transport, why do they need tax payer's dollars to fund it?
Posts: 212 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I can see they argument for funding rail terminals and the track, but not the cost of operating the rail line. Should taxpayer start paying Delta to fly their planes?
Posts: 212 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I'd love to take rail for any long trip where watching the countryside go by is part of the point. Going along some portion of the Pacific coast is one such trip I'd like to do some day. If I can do it b rail in segments, with a day or two spent at points of interest along the way...it's in my top 5 dream vacations (the list that doesn't require winning the lottery first).
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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This country needs a better rail system... and that's all I'm going to say to avoid getting into rant mode.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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It is my hope that, at this point, the market has changed such that a nationwide train system can be profitable... Or at least as self-sustaining as, say, the U.S. Postal Service. And that with success, some of the difficulties people have had with Amtrak in the past (including limitations on routes and some routes being overpriced) might be allayed.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Amtrack sucking is congress' fault due to the restrictions on their operation that were mandated by law. We could have a great national train transportation system if we were smart about it.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Maintaining one in the northeast especially I would imagine would be quite self-sustaining. Same thing along the West Coast- connecting all the major cities of CA at least. The problem is cities like Chicago and Houston- the Midwest would have the hardest time making it worth the money I would imagine. The Southeast would also be somewhat difficult- if you could connect Nashville, Atlanta, Birmingham, St. Louis, New Orleans, maybe some cities in FL.
I would love to see a great long distance mass transit system in place in the States. They would need some good security though- the danger of trains isn't that they would run it into buildings, but that would blow them up in a major city somewhere. Obviously.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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There's going to be a ballot initiative in CA this year to get funding for a super high speed rail system that would connect a lot of SoCal together, and would be nearly as fast as flying (when delays are taken into account) and cheaper too. It's all electric too, so, depending on the power source, it won't go up as gas prices do. Besides, locomotives have made huge leaps in efficiency that cars sorely lag behind in, comparatively.
I don't see the Midwest as a problem at all. I don't know why Chicago would connect to Houston in that system. If you're doing a Midwest route, you're connecting Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and the big cities in Ohio like Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati. To start. Then if that's successful I could see it adding some cities more west, like something in Iowa or Nebraska, and the Twin Cities and something in Wisconsin. Eventually regional networks would connect into a national framework, and something local would become something national, and it's all just keep adding more service, routes, track and lines until demand was met. The problem is that no one wants to provide funding to make the first part happen, they want to jump to the last step.
Amtrak as is I don't think will satisfy most people, not until gas prices and air fare doubles from what it currently is. Add a high speed efficient rail service into the mix though, and then you've got something.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I loved the train rides I've taken-- LA to Flagstaff, LA to Santa Barbara-- but right now it's impractical for longer trips. I'd love it if it became practical.
Unfortunately we won't be overnighting to Flagstaff again any time soon; we just don't have it in our budget to get a family sleeper car and the kids in regular seats is impossible. At the price it becomes to get a family sleeper, you might as well drive.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Lyrhawn I wasn't saying that Houston and Chicago would connect, rather it would demand a lot more materials and labor than some of the more densely areas of the country. I used those two as examples of big cities in the center of the country.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Anything outside of the Pacific coastline and the northeast is going to be spread out, that's just how the country is arrayed. But I still think with high speed rail it'd actually be quite profitable. The bright side too I think is that much of the land in that part of the midwest is pretty flat, unlike big swaths of the west or the mountainous northeast. I'd think with modern technology, laying track (if that's really even necessary, I don't know if they can use existing track or not) and what not wouldn't be that difficult. The midwest is nothing if not rife with skilled laborers looking for work.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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