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My wife and I have ridden Amtrak quite a bit and really like it. For short to medium-length trips it is faster and a lot more convenient than flying (for us) given the current necessity to be at the airport two-hours before a flight. For the stations we use (we are less than 5 miles away an Amtrak station), you can park at the station for free, even for a two week trip (try that at the airport!!), you park perhaps fifty feet from the tracks, so you're not trudging the better part of a mile through parking garages and huge airport facilities, dragging your baggage the whole way, and you don't have to go through security facilities so stringent that they want to take the fillings out of your teeth. Then once you're on the train, you get into a seat that's big and comfortable, lots of legroom, you can get up and walk around, go get something to eat, operate your laptop, take a nap, or whatever, and just in general have a very pleasant trip. From what I read, I believe it's true that basically all passenger service worldwide is subsidized, and for anyone in authority in Washington to try to sell a self-sufficient Amtrak, well I guess that requires smoking some wacky-weed. Also, from what I read, it is not necessarily long distance trains that are a drain on the system. Even if they're not profitable, though, they do provide a very significant level of service to an awful lot of cities and even small towns that have basically nothing else. Most of our Amtrak travel has been in Florida, but we've gone as far as New Orleans and Charleston, S.C. We've made a lot of friends on our little trips, and I truly do hope that Amtrak survives. I think it's a very useful and necessary national resource and public transportation service that needs to continue. In fact, I would hope to see the physical infrastructure be significantly improved. But like everything else we discuss, be it road improvements and repairs, or the rail system, (or Social Security, or pension funds, or Medicare, or -fill in your own blank-), it's going to be expensive, and where is that money going to come from? I have no answer there. <br /> The last few times we've gone from the Orlando area to Miami we've taken Amtrak, and it beats the stuffing out of driving to Miami. We get down to Miami, rent a car, and continue on our way fresh and rested. It's great. <br /> <br />
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