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Taking Planes, Trains or Automobiles?
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by erikthered</i> <br /><br /> <br />No one in their right mind leaves their car parked unattended where the AMTRAK station is for any long period of time. It's not really sane to leave a car parked at the airport, either, which is why she took the shuttle van. <br /> <br />I'd consider doing a train if I could count on: <br />-Service that didn't cause me to drive through rush hour traffic just to get to the station, and a safe place to leave my car when I got there. <br /> <br />I haven't seen an AMTRAK terminal with a HERTZ or BUDGET station on premises. That's not to say they don't exist- I'm sure they do. Forget taxis- they cost too much. Forget taking a city bus- ever tried carrying your bags aboard a standard city bus? <br /> <br />-Frequency of service. I would dearly love to ride AMTRAK to Washington or New Orleans from Atlanta. The train to Washington leaves at 8:06 PM and gets in at 9:50AM. One train a day, take it or leave it. To go to New Orleans, I can board at 9:18AM in Atlanta and be in New Orleans at 7:50PM. One train a day in the other direction- take it or leave it. <br /> <br />At least with the airlines, I have a huge choice of flight times. Best of all, I can take a shuttle to the airport and let someone else drive- and be on time for the plane. <br />I can book a car on line in Washington- I can't do that with AMTRAK. I can even book hotel accomodations if I want to on ORBITZ, Travelocity, or a number of other sites... I can't do that on AMTRAK. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />Amtrka has a deal with Hertz. It's easy to book rental cars through them. Enterprise offers a 10% discount for Amtrak travelers. Also,anyone can go online and book rental cars and hotel rooms. <br />That is totally irrelavent to Amtrak. <br /> <br /> <br />Some friendly points here... <br /> <br />Station location isn't Amtrak's respondibility. The problem is the city of Atlanta, which, using tax dollars, helped destroy its downtown station and move Amtrak to a less desirable location. Stations, like ariports, are the responsibility of cities. <br /> <br />Quite a few stations, not enough though, do offer rental car service. CHICAGO, SACRAMENTO, FLAGSTAFF, to name a few. <br /> <br />Regarding your lament that airlines offer so many more flights, we get the service we pay ffor. When this country decides to fund rail with more than crumbs, we will have more travel options and more train departures. Congress, not Amtrak, deserves the blame for this imbalance. <br /> <br />If aviation was funded at the level rail travel has been funded these last 30 years, Atlanta, too, would have only limited flights to few destinations. Some cities likely would have TRI-WEAKLY service, as do HOUSTON, CINCINNATI and, PHOENIX with train service, thanks to a stingy Congress and White House. <br /> <br /> <br />
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