I'm all for exommunicating trucks to Flat cars. But moving truck off the highway, only makes room for more cars. Think about it. They build another lane of interstate because of congestion. So what happens? The new interstate is packed to the gills in lss than a month, and the problem arises again, because all that happened, was more people piled on. Nothing was done to curb the number of cars, just to make room for more of them.
That, is what Amtrak needs to be doing.
DouglasJMeyerAny idea how much track you would need?
None right off the bat. The track, is already there. The trick is getting the passenger train to be able to use it more effectively. Now, you want to build a new corridor? Which is ultimately yhre better option, then do it in stages. Let the Pere Marquette jog one to CHI, and then throw onto the Cardinal. During that, let them build a stretch from CHI to Indy, since the Hoosier State CAN beat a plane with boarding times, given room, and get deeper into CHI. Then take another stretch when the coffers are filling back up, either a Detroit/CHI corridor (is there a market?) or work East frm Indy. Admittedly, if one is flying out of there, the plane may be more effective, but if one is just weekending to CHicago, the Hoosier State puts you way further to where you want to be then does O'Hare.
Sidenote: Theis tracklaying could also serve as a Works Project, that would help get the economy spinnign again. Hey look, a dollar earning double value. If I were president, I'd spend that.
DouglasJMeyerAdd in that countries like England are starting out with less grade crossing and you can see how the expense over here would be nuts.
I agree that crossing are a thorn in the side, but track would have to be rebuilt for High Speed anyway. So it wouldn't be that bad
DouglasJMeyerI read someplace (not sure how true it is) that In all of England thier is only a few hundred grade crossings of road and rail.
DouglasJMeyerI would bet we have more then that in Metro Detroit.
Eh, I doubt it. It's prbably on par woth London, but they I suspect also have few ail-companies. In Detroit, you had PM, GTW, and Ann Arbor, probably more as well, all serving different customers, and spread out and meandering to do it. If England has two railroads in London, they can still consolidate rail lines.
DouglasJMeyerAnd you can not have some farmer taking his tractor accross you tracks when you have a train doing 100 to 150 mph going by.
Or, you can move the crossing sensors back a ways, so that the time difference is the same. (it still takes the train two minutes to go from sensor to crossing, or what have you) That don't cost alot, Even if one goes all out on a stationary warning sounder. .
-Morgan
No it is not backwards Europe or backwards US. It is Europe with 4 to 10 times as many people as a Huge amount of the US has. In the Michigan i can go 400 miles and not leave the state and only change expressways once. Give or take 400 miles from where I sit typeing this outside of Detroit will take me to West Virginia so I can go rafting.
In the US 400 miles is nothing. Look at a map of the US Detroit and Washington DC are 550 miles give or take the way the car (and train) drive. And along the way you MAY pick up a couple of more Cities worth stopping at. Now to extend this network accross the whole US? Any idea how much track you would need? It is financially impossible. Lets see if we can understand this. With a few exceptions we do NOT have the population density that you need to have railroads (passenger) like they have in Europe and Japan. We can do this for some areas like the East Cost or Southern Cal but it just can not be justified for most of the country.The distances are just to far, and we have to few f people. Take Detroit and Chicago. That would be a run of about 275miles or so. At an average speed of even 100 this would take give or take 3 hours. In a plan it is about an hour. Add in security and such and you have about the same time from point to point. Of course a car could do it in about 5 hours and you do not have to pay anything like the cost of a plan or a train.
That is assuming you build a dedicated line that we can run trains at 125 or so. Of course time works out better if you build a faster train but the costs go up a lot more trying to do that. And along the way you will get to pick up people in Ann Arbor (about 35 minutes out of detroit) and mabyt Kalamazoo. If you go out of your way (buy a lot) you can get South Bend or Grand Rapids or Lansing but of course you have a longer run (more cost to operate and to build) and you take longer.
It just does not work out folks. We have to many cities to far apart for most of the country to ever get good train travel as an option if time means anything. For long distance (and in the US that is a LOT farther then 400 miles) you can not compare to a plan for time. For a short distance besides commuting, you can not compare a train to a car, it is just simpler to take a car instead of having to worry about what I do when I get to the train station on the other end. So the only area that trains can compete is mid distance. And at only twice as fast as a car on average it is not that much faster. (note car average about 50mph, train about 100mph and plane about 500 to 550) It just does not work out and all the dreaming about it will not change the numbers. We do NOT have the population density. We do not have towns and cities set up to work with trains (everything within walking distance of a train station). We are just to big and to spread out for most of this country to have good trains.
I would love to see it but it will not happen. As of 2006 we had about 50,000 mile of interstates in the US assuming we need only 1/5 of that many miles to make a working high spead rail system that would still equal give or take 10,000 miles of line, now according to an artical I read europe right now as about 3500 miles so we would need at a guess something like at least 3 times what europe has right now to get us to a basic level. And lets be honest 10,000 is not much when you need about 8000 to 9000 mile to just make a single loop around the country. Europe where the distances are a Lot closer says they need to get to 10000 miles. We could easily need 50000 to 100000 miles to get a system any place even clost to what Europe has. The cost are just to much.
Add in that countries like England are starting out with less grade crossing and you can see how the expense over here would be nuts. I read someplace (not sure how true it is) that In all of England thier is only a few hundred grade crossings of road and rail. I would bet we have more then that in Metro Detroit. And you can not have some farmer taking his tractor accross you tracks when you have a train doing 100 to 150 mph going by. So all those places where we have crossings because we have the railroad splitting some farmers fields in half we will have to build a bridge or tunnel for also.
These are the kinds of things that just make the cost beyond what we as a nation can afford. Can we do more then we are now? Sure. But to get anything like over seas is just not something we are set up for over here. This is not Europe, what works over thier (and very well I might add) is just not practical over here.
Doug M
Martinez Southern Pacific depot:
Amtrak's contemporary replacement about 100 years later:
Reason for the difference? Oh, perhaps a 100-fold increase in population and Martinez's upgrade from secondary to primary mainline location due to the completion of the bridge crossing the Carquinez Strait from Martinez to Benicia in 1930, replacing the railroad ferries between Port Costa and Benicia.
Mark
DouglasJMeyer Now you want to help that middle distance traveler and save some money? Get the long haul trucks off the road. This is something else that many countries in Europe do not put up with.
Now you want to help that middle distance traveler and save some money? Get the long haul trucks off the road. This is something else that many countries in Europe do not put up with.
Hah! When driving on the German Autobahn two years ago, it seemed that one in five vehicles was a large truck. Last year in Dover, England, there was a continuous stream of trucks passing by our B&B going to/from the ferry docks. I've traveled on European railroads and saw few freight trains, but lots and lots of passenger trains.
... At my visits to the Martinez Amtrak, passenger trains appear about every 10 minutes for most of the day.
The French TGV and the German ICE 3 both do more than 200 mph and intermediate stops are not longer than 2 minutes! As trains usually go from downtown to downtown, travel time up to a distance of 400 miles is much shorter than by air travel.
But that´s just backwards Europe!
DouglasJMeyer Also even if the train can top out at 125 it will not average anything LIKE that speed. Unless it only makes one stop along the way. Take 125 miles with one stop in the middle for 10 min to let people on and off. You will take 70 minutes (minuse accell and decel time) to go 125 miles this moves it to 107mph. Add in two more stops at 10min each and it drops average spead to 83mph. IF the stops take 15 min you drop to 71 mph. So you can see the idea of adding in stops just slows the train down a lot. Doug M
Also even if the train can top out at 125 it will not average anything LIKE that speed. Unless it only makes one stop along the way. Take 125 miles with one stop in the middle for 10 min to let people on and off. You will take 70 minutes (minuse accell and decel time) to go 125 miles this moves it to 107mph. Add in two more stops at 10min each and it drops average spead to 83mph. IF the stops take 15 min you drop to 71 mph.
So you can see the idea of adding in stops just slows the train down a lot.
You forgot to apply the same speed restrictions to air travel. A jet can only fly at 500 MPH above 10,000 feet MSL. All the time spent below 10,000 feet is much much slower. While that time is minimal after takeoff, you must consider the 10 minutes or so taxiing out and waiting in line for takeoff. It is substantial for landing as the jet flies in big circles getting on the upwind side of the airport and then in line on the approach and taxiing into the gate.
With the increased number of doors, it also takes longer to get people onto and off of the airplane even if you ignore the hour or so dealing with the paranoid security procedures.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Crandell, I agree, but the topic, and peoples views on it are inextrably linked to these other issues.
Life is not black and white and no issue exsists in a vacuum.
Once again our friends in Europe are telling us how much better off we would be to live like them - no thank you.
I've said my peace, I'll let it alone now.
Sheldon
Ok first off i never said that DC was the only place that a spoke and hub system works I used it as an example. I am NOT going to list them all. You can figure them out for yourself. But keep in mind that if most people live in the suburbs and work in the suburbs then your mass transit system will not work. You have to have high density on one end or the other. And it really needs to be on the destination end. You will not get someone to drive to a train staition, take a train into the city, change to a train out of the city and then have to walk a mile or two at the other end to get to work. You have to have the train drop the person off close to where they want to go. This is of course for daily commuting.
As for train travel (distances more then commuting distance) You still need to have enough people trying to get to the same place from the same place. Same as with a plane. Only thing is if the distance is short enough it is simpler to drive (and you get to do it at your schedule and you have a car when you get thier. If you get longer distances such as cross country or even most of the way. Then you have the plan being a LOT faster. Yes you may someday get a train doing 125mph but I would not count on a lot of that. The cost is just way way to much. Keep in mind that the US is about the size of Europe. In Michigan (a reasonably built up state but not like the east coast) we have a LOT of room between cities and that is just in our state.
So in truth if you average 100 mph from point A to point B you are doing good. But if you can average almost 6 times that with a plane then if time is an issue (and it alwas is) you will not be taking the train if you are going more then say 500 to 600 miles. And this assumes that you have a seperate high speed train network. Something that we can not afford in this country except in a very view heavy use location. I could see one on the east cost (extending the one we have now) and I can see one out in Cal. But I do not ever see one in many other locations as we do not have big cities with a lot of folks going between them to help pay the cost of this.
It is a matter of scale. Look up the numbers in a good atlas and see what kind of population density the US has vs Europe and you start to get an idea of the issue at hand.
In my old atlas the US had an average of 65 people per sq mile of land. The United Kingdom had 605, France had 261, Germany had 566, Greece 197, Europe as a whole had 187 Japan had 827, The Netherlands 902 Tiawan 1373 This was a long time ago (say 15 to 20 years) but I do not think we have changed the relationships all that much.
So to find countries that have a population density like we have in the US you need to look at places like Nicaragua, Panama, Prince Edward Island, South Affrica, and such. The whole world average was 84 per mile! Heck if we add in our protectorates and territories we on average increase the population per mile. So you can see for MOST of the country we do not have anything like the amount of population we need to support a rail system like they have in Europe. It is not the number of poeple in the country it is the number of people in a given area and we just on average dont have enough to support a good train network. In some areas yes, The two costs being the obviouse example, but for most of the country? No way can we afford this.
Now you want to help that middle distance traveler and save some money? Get the long haul trucks off the road. This is something else that many countries in Europe do not put up with. Put the truck on a train. It will save gas and it will save on road maintainance, and it will cut down on the congestion on the roads. This is something that the Feds could do very simply but alas the truckers have a lobby and the car drivers don't
Don't get me wrong I would love to have a nice Train system but it is just not enough. Look at the numbers AT&T gave the government for high speed internet. I dont remember the exact numbers but they said something like 90% of the US residents have access to high speed networks, but to get the other 10% access will cost almost as much as to do the first 90% because the people are to far apart out in the country.
ATLANTIC CENTRALAs it is now, as the suburbs grow, taxes are lower there than in the cites, so people of means flee the crime, high taxes and bad schools. If the taxes for a 3,000 sq ft home where the same in the city as they are in suburbs, many would not want to flee. If the good people could stand up to the criminals, many would also not flee. They would take back their neighborhoods and rebuild them. The taxes they pay would support whatever the government needed to do to assist, rather than paying for new roads and schools in the suburbs.
That is another sticking point even up here. In a sense, what the planners did was make the business community in the downtown core also pay a business tax as well as the property tax--if you own the building and the business. It gets to the point that those who can say--"to H with this, I'll move out"--and those that are not so easily able are stuck to the point of closing shop--then the "Donut Syndrome" occurs. No Fun Here.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Gentlemen, we are entering a side of the discussion that we don't wish to encourage. Please try much harder to focus on the topic, and not get sidelined by notions of criminality, liberalism, socialism, and what I fear will soon be naming names and using pejorative terms about those people.
Let's get back on the high rails, please.
-Crandell
So how much blood per sq. foot of property do you calculate with?
No Sir, not my way - I opt for a more civilized, planned way. Sorry Sheldon, I will never be in a position to follow you on this one!
Ulrich,
There is a simple way to rebuild the cites here, without government money. It would envolve two things, allowing the good people to shoot back and defend themselves against the criminals and restructuring the property tax to make it fair.
After that, the cities would fix themselves, all through natural market forces, not by government edict.
As it is now, as the suburbs grow, taxes are lower there than in the cites, so people of means flee the crime, high taxes and bad schools. If the taxes for a 3,000 sq ft home where the same in the city as they are in suburbs, many would not want to flee. If the good people could stand up to the criminals, many would also not flee. They would take back their neighborhoods and rebuild them. The taxes they pay would support whatever the government needed to do to assist, rather than paying for new roads and schools in the suburbs.
Property taxes in Baltimore City, are, per sq ft, nearly twice that of any of the area suburbs - why stay there? this is typical all over the US.
Criminals rights are more guarded by the liberals than the rights of the hard working honest people - that's wrong. ALL of this is interconnected with these issues of mass transit and rail travel - mass transit and rail travel does not exist in a vacuum.
I didn't vote for Joe and his boss.
ATLANTIC CENTRALAnd, we do need to rebuild our cities so that the people who do like/want an urban life style can live and work in a close, fuel saving way and eliminate the unnecessary growth of suburbia.
That is one of my favourite issues. My thing? The wonderful single use system we have for zoning. Rows upon rows of single family housing, townhouses and apartments miles from retail which then have nothing to do with industrial or commercial areas. Neighbourhood schools getting closed down so that the children get to be bussed miles from home areas to giant hypertrophied schools and then we hear people kvetching about how kids today do not walk to school--fat chance since said school is now 20 miles away. People going to huge power centers to do all their shopping---10 miles from home( We have one power center in TO that is called Colossus Center--just think of the irony here). Some of those "planned" communities don't even have a community center.
Once you bring the activities, and shops into the center and break up that single system as well--definitely will help bring people back into the downtown cores of many cities---
ATLANTIC CENTRALAnd, we do need to rebuild our cities so that the people who do like/want an urban life style can live and work in a close, fuel saving way and eliminate the unnecessary growth of suburbia. Sheldon
That, Sheldon, is an excellent idea. It would eliminate the need to "move the masses" - but don´t you agree, that reversing a trend that´s been around for over a hundred years costs more than to build a railroad line? Who´s going to pick up the bill for that? And which politician is prepared to initiate a renewal project that will take 20 - 50 years to complete?
At least in my country, all we received is lip service. Could it be that Joe Biden is just paying this?
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses !
Sir Madog The big issue is for the US is, whether society is accepting rail travel as a viable and ecologically better form of transport than air travel and thus is willing to accept longer travel times and even subsidies for trains. For that you need politicians with a long term vision - far beyond that 4 year term...
The big issue is for the US is, whether society is accepting rail travel as a viable and ecologically better form of transport than air travel and thus is willing to accept longer travel times and even subsidies for trains.
For that you need politicians with a long term vision - far beyond that 4 year term...
No thank you, I have a better idea. Here in the US we need to get all the long distance trucks off our highways and on to the backs of flat cars. Then our roads would be less congested, safer, fuel consumption for that purpose would drop to 25% of current useage and passenger car travel times would be reduced. This would lower that fuel consumption by eliminating sitting in traffic jam.
And, we do need to rebuild our cities so that the people who do like/want an urban life style can live and work in a close, fuel saving way and eliminate the unnecessary growth of suburbia.
The view about politicians terms is just the opposite. They are in office too long. I'm all for term limits at the national level. I want them out off my business, not deeper into it.
andrechapelon...You need to come out to the Western U.S. where you can actually SEE things 60 miles away. ...
Heck, most of our bridges are longer than 60 miles.
Granted, you cannot just compare the US with Europe. In Europe, a distance of 500 miles is already a super long distance travel - in regular terms, long distances start with 60 miles...
You need to come out to the Western U.S. where you can actually SEE things 60 miles away.
It's happening out here in California. There are 3 main corridors. LA-San Diego, Sacramento-San Jose (with bus connections to other destinations) and Bay Area-Bakersfield. The trains are subsidized. However, when you get right down to it, so are the airlines.
Andre
In Europe, we have a tradition of traveling by train, well to be honest, we weren´t even asked, but we now enjoy a tight network of trains that takes us virtually anywhere in Europe, all the way from Narvik in Norway down to doorsteps of Istanbul, where Asia starts. We could even go all the way to Beijing by train - takes only 11 days ... Air travel in a number of relations has become redundant, as travel time is even longer - in any case, it is more inconvenient, despite lower fares.
The big issue for the US is, whether society is accepting rail travel as a viable and ecologically better form of transport than air travel and thus is willing to accept longer travel times and even subsidies for trains.
Another question for yas. How many more planes could AMtrak beat for time, if they didn't spend as much time in the hole as they did?. If the article Trains did proves true, then it could end up that Amtrak is allowed to run for the most part on seperate track in a number of years. Not only would that enable the 125mph that would make long distance more viable, but it would get them out of the shadow of the freight trains, at least until it's time to re-enter the cities, where the depots and terminals still lie on the merged mainlines.
You're correct that no one would take a train from Los Angeles to NYC. Now go to LAX and check the departure board. What percentage of the departing planes are going to the other coast? How many of the flights are going to a city within 500 miles? A 250 MPH train could beat that 500 mile flight door to door. Now how many of those people on that flight are then going to drive 40 or 50 miles in their car to get to the city they actually want to go to because it isn't served by air.
That's not quite correct. I know at least one person who would go by train from LAX to NYC and who has actually gone coast to coast by train.
As for distances of 500 miles or less, you don't need 250 MPH speeds to beat the plane. 125 MPH will do it on a city center to city center basis given how early you're supposed to check in at the airport and how long it takes to get get your bags, pick up a rental car and get out of the airport to your actual destination.
I live in Monterey, CA. My mother lives in Claremont, CA. If I could pick up a high speed train in Salinas to LAUPT, and a commute train to Claremont, I could probably beat door to door airline time. Even if not, there is a point at which "saving" time becomes unimportant. Suppose the overall train time takes an hour longer. How important is that? If you have hourly intercity service and you have to be at a certain place at a certain time, you schedule your trip accordingly. I can get to my mom's place by car in about 6 hours or so (scheduling the trip around what I know about LA traffic). The interesting thing is that I can't fly out of Monterey to the airport nearest my mom's place (Ontario). I would have to fly to LAX and rent a car, or figure out a routing using LA's transit system and Metrolink.
For a while in the 80's there was an overnight train between Sacramento and LA via the Bay Area. An overnight train would be even more compelling now. Yeah, it might increase the door to door time to 10-12 hours, but so what? Leave home at 9 PM, catch the train at 10 in Salinas, arrive LAUPT at around 7 AM or so, get on a Metrolink train at 7:45 and get to Claremont at 8:43. It's a 10 minute walk after that. Why drive or go through the airport hassle? Coach is perfectly fine, no need for a sleeper.
If someone really wants to see what was discussed about HSR they might want to check some of the threads that discussed that on the Trains magazine forums------
I hear that argument a lot, and the person presenting it always cites how long it would take to go coast to coast. The problem with that argument is that an awfully lot of people don't just travel from coast to coast. The Crescent may go from New Orleans to NY City, but very few of it's passengers do. A lot of people take it between Atlanta and Charlotte. A lot of college students take it to college towns along the way, like Charlottesville, VA. A lot of people take it from Charlotte to DC or to Baltimore. To replace it with air travel you would require either a large airplane that makes 33 stops (imagine how long that flight would take) or enough smaller airplanes to serve all of those stops in various combinations. Try booking a flight from Spartanburg, SC to Manassas, VA. If you can do it at all, it won't be direct, and it won't be on just one airplane. You can make that trip on the Crescent.
It is not feasible to serve small towns by air, but a lot of Americans live in those small towns. A high speed train that goes a great distance stopping only at the large and medium size cities augmented by 79 mph local trains that serve all those communities in between, connecting them to those high speed cities would make perfect sense even in America.
The only way a train works is to have a lot of folks going to the same place. Something we have in the US in very view locations. The hub and spokes of areas like DC being the few exceptions.
There are quite a few more than that. You're forgetting corridors like Sacramento-SF Bay Area-LA-San Diego. LA-Las Vegas would be another viable corridor. Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis/St Paul. Houston-DFW, Actually New Orleans-Houston-DFW. Chicago-St. Louis, Cleveland-Akron-Columbus-Cincinnati, SEATAC-Portland (OR), Atlanta-Chattanooga-Nashville to name a few.
Folks don't have to be going to the same place, just in the same general direction on the same route. I took Amtrak from the SF Bay Area to Boston in the fall of 2006. People actually got on and off the train(s) between endpoints (Emeryville-Chicago, Chicago-Albany-Boston). Even after about 4 days in coach, I was still better rested than if I'd flown non-stop from SJC to BOS.
I''ve taken the train in, driven in and flown into multiple countries. The best ones are the ones with rail service to the airport and a good public transit system to get around the city coupled with fast, frequent intercity trains (e.g. Rome, Frankfurt, London (Heathrow and Gatwick), Zurich, Amsterdam, Barcelona, etc.).
One piece of advice. Never, ever, not even if your very life depends on it, should you ever fly into London on Good Friday and pick up a rental car upon arrival. The M25 will be a parking lot. Trust me on this as I know wherof I speak. You want to take the Tube or the Heathrow Express (takes you to Paddington Station) into London and rest a couple of days. See a play or two. Visit Madame Tussaud's, the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, Picadilly Circus, Harrod's. Do something, anything. Just don't try to drive anywhere on a Bank Holiday.
Folks forget the comparison to Europe and Japan we do not in the US have the population density that they do.
As for the idea of long distance travel forget it. We are just way to big. That is something no one ever seams to realize. I took a trip from Mid Michigan to Colorado a few years ago. And if I did that trip in Europe I would have gone pretty much accross the whole thing. Distance is why we use planes. At 180mph vs 600 you have a time issue. Even with check in and delays the time to get accros the US on a plane is a few hours on a train it is days and even with high speed trains it would not be practical, and the cost would be beyond anything you can think of. I do not know the numbers any longer but a decade or so ago if you added all the high speed dedicated lines in the wourld it would work out to be about what we would need to replace I75 from one end in Mich to the other in south Florida. I assume this is not the case any longer but still it gives you and idea of what we are talking about.
3 things kill trains in the use. The long distances are to far. (Try NYNY to LA CA) the shorter distances just do not have enough poeple going to the same place. I work in one suburb of Detriot and live in another. Even if I could drive to the staition I would not be any place neer a train on the other end. DC works this way because everyone (or enough anyway) work in a very built up area in DC. As for midle distance it is just as fast to take a car (and just a cheep unless the government subsidizes the price a LOT) and with your car you can go at your schedule and you will have your car when you get to where you are going. You want to fix trains in the US then start by demoloishing a whole state and start building a LOT of towns and cities really really close. Then put all the jobs in the middle of the towns within a block of the train station and in the big cities within a block of the light rail system lines. This is how it is in most of europe but is is not and has never been the way it is in the US except in the very oldest cities (those on the coasts). I would love trains but they are just not practical. We are way to spread out in the US and it is to late to change this now. Doug M
3 things kill trains in the use. The long distances are to far. (Try NYNY to LA CA) the shorter distances just do not have enough poeple going to the same place. I work in one suburb of Detriot and live in another. Even if I could drive to the staition I would not be any place neer a train on the other end. DC works this way because everyone (or enough anyway) work in a very built up area in DC.
As for midle distance it is just as fast to take a car (and just a cheep unless the government subsidizes the price a LOT) and with your car you can go at your schedule and you will have your car when you get to where you are going.
You want to fix trains in the US then start by demoloishing a whole state and start building a LOT of towns and cities really really close. Then put all the jobs in the middle of the towns within a block of the train station and in the big cities within a block of the light rail system lines. This is how it is in most of europe but is is not and has never been the way it is in the US except in the very oldest cities (those on the coasts).
I would love trains but they are just not practical. We are way to spread out in the US and it is to late to change this now.
TrainManTy I see a resurgence of passenger preference for comfort over speed coming up...a reversal of what killed most passenger rail travel in the US in the first place. With more people riding the train, more lines will be added making it even easier for people to get where they want to go faster, all by train.
I see a resurgence of passenger preference for comfort over speed coming up...a reversal of what killed most passenger rail travel in the US in the first place. With more people riding the train, more lines will be added making it even easier for people to get where they want to go faster, all by train.
what's really funny is that when I go to Toronto ON for any meetings---which I usually do by VIA--I'm all rested up, had my laptop out and finished up all the documentation, had a morning coffee and all that, BEFORE I'm off the train at Union Station. Some of my colleagues who took a plane are all strung out, tense---had to rush through a late breakfast--no snacks even on the plane--now have "nervous stomach" all thinking they "saved" a few minutes---and hardly any of them are prepared. Because they have more "security related" stuff to do
wholemanWhile I agree with most of the commnets everyone has posted here. I have to say something about Amtrak and the increase in ridership. Amtrak despites all of its faults must be doing something right for more people to take the train. I have yet to ride an Amtrak train, but it is on my to do list after I graduate from college. Although I am in the younger generation (24), I have met with people my age that have taken Amtrak and wouldn't do it any other way and they really aren't railfans.
While I agree with most of the commnets everyone has posted here. I have to say something about Amtrak and the increase in ridership.
Amtrak despites all of its faults must be doing something right for more people to take the train. I have yet to ride an Amtrak train, but it is on my to do list after I graduate from college. Although I am in the younger generation (24), I have met with people my age that have taken Amtrak and wouldn't do it any other way and they really aren't railfans.
Sure, the plane is faster than the train, but how much better is it?
The train has more legroom, no tubulence, security isn't a headache and best of all - the food tastes better.
So many people complain about air travel these days...
MisterBeasley The business traveller needs to accept train travel for it to succeed. That's why the Northeast Corridor can turn a profit. Even that, though, will be challenged as airlines start making Internet service and eventually cell phones available on planes. These are two big draws for railroad business travel now, but they're not going to last. And, I'm afraid the Homeland Paranoia Department will start making us take off our shoes before boarding the Acela. The hassle of airport security may be the best thing about Amtrak right now.
The business traveller needs to accept train travel for it to succeed. That's why the Northeast Corridor can turn a profit. Even that, though, will be challenged as airlines start making Internet service and eventually cell phones available on planes. These are two big draws for railroad business travel now, but they're not going to last. And, I'm afraid the Homeland Paranoia Department will start making us take off our shoes before boarding the Acela. The hassle of airport security may be the best thing about Amtrak right now.
I don't see it happening, beacuse the Acela can be a lot closer to Downtown, or uptown for the houses, than the airlines. If you have to drive to the airport, to then hop a shuttle and leave the car, it's almost more worthwhile to just drive, and yes I know what NYC is like. Here in the Midwest, Idy International, is on the outskirts of town. I don't know for sure where O'Hare is in CHI, but Cinncy's airport is clear out in Kentucky. The trains can all get right in town, cause they arent in fear of taking roofs off, and for the most part, aren't as noisy.
By Cousin and his wife both work in Manhatten and take the train in. He takes his bike on the train because he can ride from house to train, then from train to office. Where's that bike go on the plane? not as easy as a hanging rack at the door, that's for sure
MisterBeasleyIt's a small market. Other than pure train fans, most people wouldn't want to do this for more than a few hours.
MisterBeasleyFamilies would have a hard time entertaining young children, too.
Didn't the Chicago-LA Amtrak have a video game section in the lower half of a Superliner? there can be plenty to do on a train. if nothing else then to bring a Gameboy. Movies can be an option, or a general play area. Kids have no trouble maign friends to play with. Travelling with youngsters is hard anyway. A train is more time to get bored, a plane is a risk of pressure changes causing a problem. And, one could argue the vastly more crowded airports as being multiple problems with kids lost/seperated, stepped on, etc. Some train stations can have that too though.
Actually, the trains I ride have a lot of college students. It may be because there are several colleges along the lines.
Will