AMTRAK: Do you support it?

[rrnut282]

rich747us
I did, 6 years ago, but then I was an airline employee.
Unfortunatly, the nearest AMTRAK stop is over an hour drive away, the next closest is 2 1/2 hours. If I've got to drive that far, I might as well drive the rest of the way. I would love to see AMTRAK survive and thrive, just like the rest of you, but I don't see it happening with the status quo. At least Bush is talking about something different, for a change. I just hope what comes out of this discussion is not like what the U.K. did.

[tree68]

What's probably needed in discussions on the whole rail/air/highway issue is some measure of the cost per passenger mile.

For the Interstates, that's federal, state (The plow that clears the snow says NYS DOT here - that's out of my state taxes) and local (some of the law enforcement, all of the fire and EMS), not to mention the cost of operating the car or truck.

In the air, you have to consider the cost of the air traffic control system, the airports (usually run by some local authority - ie local taxes), plus the cost of operating the airline itself.

We're all pretty familiar the railroad aspects here in the forum.

On top of that is the time factor for the travel, and intrinsic value (convenience, mostly).

I can't even begin to guess the relative costs, so I won't try. Compiling them would be quite the task.

[rich747us]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrnut282

rich747us
I did, 6 years ago, but then I was an airline employee.
Unfortunatly, the nearest AMTRAK stop is over an hour drive away, the next closest is 2 1/2 hours. If I've got to drive that far, I might as well drive the rest of the way. I would love to see AMTRAK survive and thrive, just like the rest of you, but I don't see it happening with the status quo. At least Bush is talking about something different, for a change. I just hope what comes out of this discussion is not like what the U.K. did.

Hey rrnunt28,

I see you're from Indiana. Have you ever had the chance to go railfan Wellsboro? If you've never heard of it, its about 15 minutes south of LaPorte. Its at a diamond where the CSX and CN cross. I've been there once myself and have also railfaned Ft. Wayne (well, actually it was at the east end of the NS yard in New Haven) a couple of times.

[Anonymous]

I would NEVER fly. I only ride cars because they're everywhere. I do most of my vacations behind Amtrak.

[Supermicha]

QUOTE: I support all passenger rail, including Amtrak. However I have a question.

I used to live in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn (their national railway) had a perfect network. Extremely high frequencies of regional and HSR long distance trains. Great service, too. On top of that, the ticket prices were dirt cheap! The most memorable example of the inexpensive price was the weekend pacakge. 1 family (2 adults and 3 children), any regional train (does not exeed the speed of 160km/h) in Germany, Saturday and Sunday...only 15 Deutsche Marks (less than 10 dollars!!!!!). My point is, how can they charge so little and work out fine, and passenger rail in North America cost so much and still have financial problems?

The only difference I can think of...Deutsche Bahn is private. But doesn't that mean Amtrak gets more government funding?

I know, I sound naive, but could someone please explain this to me?

I can i think. The family package was a very good idea when it was started. but german railway had massive porblems a few months after beginning. why? the regional trains were overflooded with passengers on weekends and the long distance trains where nearly empty, because everybody rides with the cheap family package. What was the consequence? The tiket costs today 28 euros, aprox 25 dollars, and you can use it only saturday or sunday, not on both days.

The german railway is nearly bankrupcy, only millions of money from the state let here alive. Since its privatisation in 1994, it must open it rails for other private railways, today in germany we have more than 100 private passenger and freight railways. The german railway has 95% of the traffic for it self, but espacially in regional service the new private rails are often cheaper. And so, the districts which pay for the trains chooses the most cheapest company to operate the commuters in there area. German railway has only a good chance in HSR service, but it serves only bigger citys, and closes many stations in smaller town. the people there now use the car to go to the city and so on and so on. A private operated passenger railway, such big as the german rail, can never exist without money from the state i think. When Deutsche Bahn will go to the stock exchange in a few years, it will be insolvent.

Amtrak has done a good job modernizing its fleet and owned tracks in the last years, but as long as it must use tracks from other railways and a passenger train must wait for a freight (impossible in germany) it can´t be succesful. The north east corridor is good way i think, they should make also other services more attrctive like this, then it will make money.

The otther problem are the brains of the most american people, which are only fixed on cars and planes.

micha

[Anonymous]

My wife and I just returned from roundtrip between La Crosse Wisc and Emeryville, Ca via Cal. Zephyr Coast Starlight Empire Builder...includes necessary layover in Chicago because only one train per day on Builder and Zephyr and schedules don't match...also stuck in snow on Starlight in Cascades...12 hours late and enforce day layover in Portland, at Amtrak's expense of course...trains were full all directions...no complaints...roads were snowed over also...and as you say...not a lot of commercial air travel to Wolf Point MT anyway...People who fly CHI-LAX or wherever and are too arrogant to care about the rrest of us in the "Great Flyover" are the ones who glibbly come up with the response "It would be cheaper to pay everyones air fare between Chicago and Los Angles...since they assume that's the only place people want to go.