Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Amtrak funding
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
I have to disagree about the length of high speed rail. As I have noted before, one cannot fly from Dallas to any of the Springfields. These stops add at least an hour to an airline fiight., probably more. It is not given that a connecting flight will leave in an hour. <br /> <br />Recently I checked American Airlines web site for the cheapest fare, and Amtraks web site for the fare between Dallas and Chicago. American Airlines with any number of one stop flights ran $525 round trip coach, while Amtrak ran $274 round trip coach. Yes, the one stop flight took 5 and a half hours, whereas Amtrak if it ran a 150 mph average TGV Thalys trainset on dedicated track could accompli***he journey in 6 hours, practically the same time. Amtrak would be competitive...the distance is 920 miles. Yes, for a price, one could fly non stop to Chicago and save three hours. <br /> <br />I am willing to accept as a trial building the north and east legs first. I expect a huge increase of ridership on the high speed trains from the midwest to the northeast and from the southeast to the northeast. So much so, that the trains would run practically full and with more frequency. For example its 870 miles from Atlanta to New York City, slighly less than Dallas to Chicago. Air fares and train fares are given. Is six hours too long for travelers to get to New York City? One thing is for sure, they could not drive it in 6 hours. People in the large cities with the major hub airports might be use to flying nonstop, but people living in the smaller cities as small as 100,000 in population are use to one stop and two stop flights, and the downtime of an hour or more making connecting flights. <br /> <br />Why is it too long to take a six hour train trip, and it is not too long to fly six hours to get to one's destination? <br /> <br /> It is the dollar, not the time of the journey that reflect ones choice of travel..... <br /> <br />As I noted before, Amtrak runs 6 trainsets on the Eagle today. With 8 Thalys trainsets averaging 150 mph, Amtrak could run a frequency of every two hours between Dallas and Chicago....both regional centers of over 23 million plus..... <br /> <br />Let Amtrak run this long distance parrelegram, let the states run the locals from these centers..... We'll have a rail network worthy of being called American..... <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy