So, Dwight, how many times do you suppose your "unusual" circumstances are replicated among the general population? Everybody has his individual circumstances, which ever since the auto and paved highways have resulted in decimation of passenger rail.
Don't get me wrong. I love my Empire Builder, and do not go along with Sam1 and others who would discard the long-distance trains. I have stood up for those trains many times here. As long as they continue to attract riders -- and they do -- I think their subsidy is easily justified as tiny in the larger budget scheme and in view of our special national rail heritage.
Where I lose patience is with blue-skying by such as the Iowa DOT promoting a project such as Chicago-Omaha on the Iowa Interstate that is never going to turn a wheel.
Seeing Mark Hemphill associated with such a project suggests that he doesn't go where his wife goes so much as where the consulting bucks go. (Veteran TRAINS readers will recognize the reference.)
dakotafred DwightBranch: I mostly needed a car at my destination, and in the Seventies when I went with my parents it was cheaper for four people to drive than to take the train. Extrapolating from your own experience ("at least one hundred times" by car between Illinois and Denver), it should be easy for you to understand how Amtrak has captured about 1 percent of the non-commuter intercity market.
DwightBranch: I mostly needed a car at my destination, and in the Seventies when I went with my parents it was cheaper for four people to drive than to take the train.
I mostly needed a car at my destination, and in the Seventies when I went with my parents it was cheaper for four people to drive than to take the train.
Extrapolating from your own experience ("at least one hundred times" by car between Illinois and Denver), it should be easy for you to understand how Amtrak has captured about 1 percent of the non-commuter intercity market.
Oh, not really, my situation was unusual, I had an ill military-veteran brother and grandparents in rural Illinois when I was a student in Denver (where my parents now live), and a father who was always on the road for work and couldn't leave, and I was willing to leave at midnight or later and drive straight through until 3PM or so when called. When I could take the CZ I did but that wasn't often, it left around 10PM, and our stop in Princeton was around 45 miles from my town. If we had frequent (at least hourly) departures like, say, Germany, and even local trains as they have there, I would have changed my behavior though, and so would most people. That is the problem with extrapolating human tendencies from their behavior at a certain point in time, and the reason why anti-train types almost always severely underestimate how popular a train or light rail will be. Change the circumstances, and people will change their wants, and their behavior.
DwightBranch I mostly needed a car at my destination, and in the Seventies when I went with my parents it was cheaper for four people to drive than to take the train.
I am kind of curious about Amtrak offering that great deal of Chicago-Denver for $75.
Amtrak has, what, been averaging 2500 BTU/passenger mile, roughly the equivalent of 50 passenger miles per (gasoline) gallon, so the 1000 mile Chicago-Denver trip (by train) takes 20 gallons, or about 75 dollars?
So Amtrak is charging, essentially, the retail price of the fuel for the train trip (their bulk price may be less, but not by much).?
The airlines are feeling the pinch of high fuel costs -- the cheapest Chicago-Denver (each way on a round trip) I have seen is $100 on United, best Delta has is over $175, and these guys must be giving these seats away given high fuel prices.
So I guess my question is, given that Amtrak is a little bit more fuel efficient than driving by one person, but not a lot more fuel efficient, is this good public policy to sell Amtrak tickets for the cost of the fuel and let subsidy make up the rest of the cost of running the trains? Shouldn't Amtrak prices be increased to reflect their increased fuel expense so that consumers make informed decisions with respect to consuming things that consume expensive fuel?
Now intercity motorcoach buses have been running below 1000 BTU/passenger mile (about 125 passenger miles per gasoline-equivalent fuel gallon). The motorcoach fuel expense should run in the $30 dollar range. Shouldn't this be the preferred mode if cost, concerns about fuel, and Climate Change are the dominant consideration?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I mostly needed a car at my destination, and in the Seventies when I went with my parents it was cheaper for four people to drive than to take the train. Now it is $75 one way for the CZ and around $120 for gas, and if you can't drive straight through a motel for $70 or so, and even with the higher speed limit it still takes around 15 hours from Denver to Illinois. My dad, a former truck driver who can handle long drives takes the train because it is cheaper.
DwightBranch dakotafred: The Iowa DOT has too much time on its hands. If Moline-Iowa City would cost $3 million a year for (as I recall) 2 or 3 trains in each direction, what would be the tab for 5 trains, Moline-Omaha? I rode the Rock Island 50 years ago, and it couldn't support that level of service for straight passenger trains BEFORE I-80 opened across the state. It had 3 entries left in either direction, but only 3 of those (Nos. 7&8 and No. 10) were true passenger trains. The others were supported by mail and express. Also, I'd like to see a cost estimate for bringing the Iowa Interstate up to a speed at which people would ride ... even 79 mph. LOL, it isn't 50 years ago, and gas will never be $.25 (adjusted for inflation) a gallon again, it will be going up dramatically, along with highway congestion. I have made the trip from Illinois through Omaha to Denver AT LEAST one hundred times, truck congestion on that route continues to rise.
dakotafred: The Iowa DOT has too much time on its hands. If Moline-Iowa City would cost $3 million a year for (as I recall) 2 or 3 trains in each direction, what would be the tab for 5 trains, Moline-Omaha? I rode the Rock Island 50 years ago, and it couldn't support that level of service for straight passenger trains BEFORE I-80 opened across the state. It had 3 entries left in either direction, but only 3 of those (Nos. 7&8 and No. 10) were true passenger trains. The others were supported by mail and express. Also, I'd like to see a cost estimate for bringing the Iowa Interstate up to a speed at which people would ride ... even 79 mph.
The Iowa DOT has too much time on its hands. If Moline-Iowa City would cost $3 million a year for (as I recall) 2 or 3 trains in each direction, what would be the tab for 5 trains, Moline-Omaha?
I rode the Rock Island 50 years ago, and it couldn't support that level of service for straight passenger trains BEFORE I-80 opened across the state. It had 3 entries left in either direction, but only 3 of those (Nos. 7&8 and No. 10) were true passenger trains. The others were supported by mail and express.
Also, I'd like to see a cost estimate for bringing the Iowa Interstate up to a speed at which people would ride ... even 79 mph.
LOL, it isn't 50 years ago, and gas will never be $.25 (adjusted for inflation) a gallon again, it will be going up dramatically, along with highway congestion. I have made the trip from Illinois through Omaha to Denver AT LEAST one hundred times, truck congestion on that route continues to rise.
I'm surprised you weren't riding Amtrak.
dakotafred The Iowa DOT has too much time on its hands. If Moline-Iowa City would cost $3 million a year for (as I recall) 2 or 3 trains in each direction, what would be the tab for 5 trains, Moline-Omaha? I rode the Rock Island 50 years ago, and it couldn't support that level of service for straight passenger trains BEFORE I-80 opened across the state. It had 3 entries left in either direction, but only 3 of those (Nos. 7&8 and No. 10) were true passenger trains. The others were supported by mail and express. Also, I'd like to see a cost estimate for bringing the Iowa Interstate up to a speed at which people would ride ... even 79 mph.
Yes, and there are advantages for Illinois also. Illinois has been trying to reestablish passenger service to Peoria since the end of the Peoria Rocket in 1978, but the problem is that only the former RI main and Peoria branch runs north and west of the river and directly into downtown Peoria. The Prarie Marksman train of 1980 ran on the former GM&O from Chicago to Chenoa, and then TP&W Chenoa to East Peoria, but couldn't cross the Illinois River into downtown Peoria because the TP&W swing bridge was wrecked by a barge in 1970 (TP&W still uses a detour on the old P&PU), and so the train died a short death. Now Illinois has proposed running all the way to Bloomington and then northwest on the old NKP but that line is longer than the RI and still does not make it into Peoria without a long detour on the P&PU. Rebuilding the Rock Island for service to Omaha would not only serve cities along the Rock Island main in Illinois such as La Salle and Ottawa but also would make it much more easy to serve Peoria.
The Iowa Interstate Railroad’s route across the state is the one best suited for future passenger rail service between Chicago and Omaha, a preliminary study has determined.
http://thegazette.com/2012/04/30/iowa-city-route-best-for-chicago-omaha-passenger-rail-iowa-department-of-transportation-study-finds/
No real surprise on this recommendation.
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