This thread has drifted off the topic of discussing the future of passenger service and has landed only short of name calling. Better to move on ...
DwightBranch Phoebe Vet In medicine it is called triage. When you do not have enough resources to go around you assign priorities. Amtrak does not now, nor will it ever, have enough money to serve every community in the USA. They can serve many people with a useless system that doesn't fit anyone's needs, or they can serve some people with an effective transportation system. Logic dictates that the latter be implemented in high density population centers so that it will serve the largest number of people. To continue your metaphor, in medicine we don't force the doctors to operate using stone knives and bearskins, and when patients keep dying throw up our hands and give up. Our country is materially the richest in the world in terms of GDP, it can certainly afford more than the roughly $1b we spend on passenger rail transportation every year, in a country three thousand miles long by one thousand miles wide. We aren't dealing with scarce resources, we are dealing with misplaced priorities. We spend around $70b per year on highways, 15% of that would enable frequent arrivals and departures, economies of scale, etc. on the long distance routes. In the interim, maintaining the system the way it is, both for those who patronize it (who get short shrift on this board because they aren't professionals nor suburbanites) and as a framework for eventual expansion is the best alternative.
Phoebe Vet In medicine it is called triage. When you do not have enough resources to go around you assign priorities. Amtrak does not now, nor will it ever, have enough money to serve every community in the USA. They can serve many people with a useless system that doesn't fit anyone's needs, or they can serve some people with an effective transportation system. Logic dictates that the latter be implemented in high density population centers so that it will serve the largest number of people.
In medicine it is called triage. When you do not have enough resources to go around you assign priorities.
Amtrak does not now, nor will it ever, have enough money to serve every community in the USA. They can serve many people with a useless system that doesn't fit anyone's needs, or they can serve some people with an effective transportation system. Logic dictates that the latter be implemented in high density population centers so that it will serve the largest number of people.
To continue your metaphor, in medicine we don't force the doctors to operate using stone knives and bearskins, and when patients keep dying throw up our hands and give up. Our country is materially the richest in the world in terms of GDP, it can certainly afford more than the roughly $1b we spend on passenger rail transportation every year, in a country three thousand miles long by one thousand miles wide. We aren't dealing with scarce resources, we are dealing with misplaced priorities. We spend around $70b per year on highways, 15% of that would enable frequent arrivals and departures, economies of scale, etc. on the long distance routes. In the interim, maintaining the system the way it is, both for those who patronize it (who get short shrift on this board because they aren't professionals nor suburbanites) and as a framework for eventual expansion is the best alternative.
The metaphor is not about what tools or meds the Dr. has available to him at the time. It is about prioritizing the resources you have available when you don't have enough for everyone.
That said, it is obvious your every reply is going to insist that Amtrak be better funded, so I'm out of here.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
If you wish to continue to believe your delusions about the motivations of those who have the audacity to disagree with your ideas in regard to Amtrak, go ahead, but you are beginning to sound like you actually work for a PR agency that propagandizes for LD Amtrak.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Henry6 is right, these threads started by the anti-Amtrak types here are disingenuous and intended "to slam Amtrak and not giving it a defense", not a legitimate debate.
DwightBranch schlimm Perhaps those of us who prefer to use a pseudonym, whatever our occupational backgrounds, should therefore refrain from referencing anonymous credentials as a way to buttress our positions through an appeal to authority. There are a few people on the main and locomotive boards whose opinions I respect that claim to be locomotive engineers, but I don't demand access to their personnel records as proof.
schlimm Perhaps those of us who prefer to use a pseudonym, whatever our occupational backgrounds, should therefore refrain from referencing anonymous credentials as a way to buttress our positions through an appeal to authority.
There are a few people on the main and locomotive boards whose opinions I respect that claim to be locomotive engineers, but I don't demand access to their personnel records as proof.
You mean locomotive engineers, I presume. They have all posted who they work for and where they work, though.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
DwightBranchwe are dealing with misplaced priorities. We spend around $70b per year on highways, 15% of that would enable frequent arrivals and departures, economies of scale, etc. on the long distance routes. In the interim, maintaining the system the way it is, both for those who patronize it (who get short shrift on this board because they aren't professionals nor suburbanites) and as a framework for eventual e
Okay.
"misplaced priorities" is an opinion or a judgement, but fair enough. You are entitled and most of us here want to see more investment.
Investing 10B or so in passenger rail each year may not be a bad thing. What's the criteria for the investment or goal of the operation? Is this to be capital and operating subsidy? Or, all operating subsidy? All capital? Do we do this within the framework of Amtrak? Get state support? Subsidize private investors?
If we want this to happen, we have to get enough people to agree and push in that direction. You are using the "Amtrak as a placeholder" argument. What are the next steps? Lay it out there, man!
DwightBranch Paul Milenkovic DwightBranch I am a professor of political economy, do not try to (...) me with statistics. I have a modest proposal. A person claiming authority based on academic credentials should disclose their name (and affiliation if needed to distinguish between multiple scholars with a more common name) in a form that is searchable on the bibliographic databases for their scholarly writings. To see what a person has written gives a better sense of where "they are coming from" with regards to how arguments in a controversial discussion should be presented. No way, I don't want stalkers, and I think you are crazy for putting your name out there, no one else here does. If I were you I wouldn't want people poking around on your ratemyprofessors.com profile.
Paul Milenkovic DwightBranch I am a professor of political economy, do not try to (...) me with statistics. I have a modest proposal. A person claiming authority based on academic credentials should disclose their name (and affiliation if needed to distinguish between multiple scholars with a more common name) in a form that is searchable on the bibliographic databases for their scholarly writings. To see what a person has written gives a better sense of where "they are coming from" with regards to how arguments in a controversial discussion should be presented.
DwightBranch I am a professor of political economy, do not try to (...) me with statistics.
I am a professor of political economy, do not try to (...) me with statistics.
I have a modest proposal. A person claiming authority based on academic credentials should disclose their name (and affiliation if needed to distinguish between multiple scholars with a more common name) in a form that is searchable on the bibliographic databases for their scholarly writings.
To see what a person has written gives a better sense of where "they are coming from" with regards to how arguments in a controversial discussion should be presented.
No way, I don't want stalkers, and I think you are crazy for putting your name out there, no one else here does. If I were you I wouldn't want people poking around on your ratemyprofessors.com profile.
DwightBranchNo way, I don't want stalkers, and I think you are crazy for putting your name out there, no one else here does. If I were you I wouldn't want people poking around on your ratemyprofessors.com profile.
You are not making any sense to me. You don't publish papers and put your name "out there"?
It your rating on ratemyprofessors that bad?
So, we just have to take your word on your credentials? Okay, then I better get back to my work confirming Higgs Boson. I've got the accelerator from 11 to midnight.
Sam1 schlimm Since the purpose of any means of passenger transportation is to provide an efficient method that people use to get from one place to another, a useful metric would be the revenue, expenses and net loss or surplus per passenger (not per passenger mile, since the mileage is largely irrelevant in examining the way people are being served) on long distance, the NEC, and other corridor services of Amtrak and compare. One advantage is it examines the issue within Amtrak alone and thus avoids the endless and fruitless arguments about subsidies for road, air and rail. Unfortunately, that is still (over one year and counting!!) not available b/c Amtrak is changing accounting methods. However, someone might have that data from the past. In FY10 the average losses per Amtrak passenger were $48.67 for the NEC, $21.68 for the short corridor trains, and $144.15 for the long distance trains. Amtrak does not publish this figure. To get there I assigned 80 per cent of the depreciation, interest, and management overheads to the NEC, with the remaining 20 per cent accuring equally to the short corridor and long distance trains. Using revenue, cost, and gains or losses per passenger mile, seat mile, vehicle mile traveled, etc. has been the basis for normalizing cross mode cost comparisons since I minored in transportation economics as an undergraduate student. No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, Amtrak's long distance trains are the biggest drag on its financial results.
schlimm Since the purpose of any means of passenger transportation is to provide an efficient method that people use to get from one place to another, a useful metric would be the revenue, expenses and net loss or surplus per passenger (not per passenger mile, since the mileage is largely irrelevant in examining the way people are being served) on long distance, the NEC, and other corridor services of Amtrak and compare. One advantage is it examines the issue within Amtrak alone and thus avoids the endless and fruitless arguments about subsidies for road, air and rail. Unfortunately, that is still (over one year and counting!!) not available b/c Amtrak is changing accounting methods. However, someone might have that data from the past.
Since the purpose of any means of passenger transportation is to provide an efficient method that people use to get from one place to another, a useful metric would be the revenue, expenses and net loss or surplus per passenger (not per passenger mile, since the mileage is largely irrelevant in examining the way people are being served) on long distance, the NEC, and other corridor services of Amtrak and compare. One advantage is it examines the issue within Amtrak alone and thus avoids the endless and fruitless arguments about subsidies for road, air and rail. Unfortunately, that is still (over one year and counting!!) not available b/c Amtrak is changing accounting methods. However, someone might have that data from the past.
In FY10 the average losses per Amtrak passenger were $48.67 for the NEC, $21.68 for the short corridor trains, and $144.15 for the long distance trains. Amtrak does not publish this figure. To get there I assigned 80 per cent of the depreciation, interest, and management overheads to the NEC, with the remaining 20 per cent accuring equally to the short corridor and long distance trains.
Using revenue, cost, and gains or losses per passenger mile, seat mile, vehicle mile traveled, etc. has been the basis for normalizing cross mode cost comparisons since I minored in transportation economics as an undergraduate student.
No matter how one slices and dices the numbers, Amtrak's long distance trains are the biggest drag on its financial results.
I like your 80/20 guestimate much better than Amtrak's "n/a".
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
sam1 and Don: I realize the various per mile statistics have been used a long time, but it doesn't show as clearly how much it costs to transport one person in the different modes. Since we all should realize Amtrak is not able to cover capital costs, including depreciation on the NEC (which is mostly Amtrak-owned) distorts the expense. Better to use operating expense per passenger, gain or loss. So sam, since you have those numbers, what would the answers to the calculation be?
Nope. Per mile. Because not all OD pairs are created equally. The harder it is to get there, the more it costs to do it - and the costs are generally proportional to mileage.
Amtrak is changing their accounting computer system...it is taking them awfully long to get the work done. Not surprised.... Not that they are trying to hide anything. There's just no heat being applied, most likely. It's their corporate culture.
John WR You assume that the total costs of automobiles and highways are only the costs the Federal Government budgets. But what about other costs? Just a few examples are: State costs for policing. Costs of accidents including medical costs for people injured. Costs of environmental degradation due paving over enormous amounts of land. To what extent are depleted water tables resulting from the paving the cause of the current drought? To what extent does the pollution contribute to global warming? When interstates run through cities the costs to people who are displaced and whose lives are uprooted. Also the costs to cities and states when the land taken by the Federal Government is removed from the tax rolls. I could go on and on. There is a fallacy in seeing the only costs of driving as those costs that one part of government budgets in the short term. The costs of our automobile dependence are far far more than any given Federal Budget would indicate.
You assume that the total costs of automobiles and highways are only the costs the Federal Government budgets. But what about other costs? Just a few examples are:
State costs for policing.
Costs of accidents including medical costs for people injured.
Costs of environmental degradation due paving over enormous amounts of land. To what extent are depleted water tables resulting from the paving the cause of the current drought? To what extent does the pollution contribute to global warming?
When interstates run through cities the costs to people who are displaced and whose lives are uprooted.
Also the costs to cities and states when the land taken by the Federal Government is removed from the tax rolls.
I could go on and on. There is a fallacy in seeing the only costs of driving as those costs that one part of government budgets in the short term. The costs of our automobile dependence are far far more than any given Federal Budget would indicate.
Yup. Those are factors. But you'll never close the gap with them.
We are talking about an order of magnitude difference! And that's even before some say that most of the $70 billion comes from fuel tax from gasoline sold to operate the cars running on those roads. If 90% of the $70B comes from fuel tax, then we are talking about TWO orders of magnitude.
You are nibbling around the edges. The point is even if you grab everything and make the most optimistic assumptions, you still can't close a ten-fold (or 100 fold!) gap!
Amtrak needs to get busy trying to figure out how to get that 22 cent a mile down. Set a goal. Drop it 1cent per mile per year for a decade. You can work the revenue and cost side of the equation. Then, get busy!
It's the only thing that will keep the budget wolves from eating the rat.
John WR Oltmannd, Let me try to address a some of your concerns. The Federal HIghway Act of 1956 provided the plans for the Dwight David Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways. No doubt the act has been amended over the years but it is clearly a design out of the 1950's. There are a lot more interstate highways than there are Amtrak routes but I-94 parallels the Empire Builder, I-80 parallels the Lake Shore Limited and the California Zephyr, I-40, 44 and 44 parallel the Southwest Chief and I-10 parallels the Sunset Limited. It is true that Amtrak has not moved any tracks closer to any interstate highways but it is also true that in the west the places interstate highways connect were built where they are because of the railroads. I cannot speak of the whole country because I'm not familiar with it. However, in my state, New Jersey, Amtrak has added a stop at Newark Airport which is served by I-95 and I-78 and has added another stop at Metropark which is a group of parking garages just off I-95. As far as serving rural areas Amtrak stops at Staples, MN, population 2891 and Wolfpoint, MT population 2621. Here in the northeast Amtrak was motivated from within to start Acela service which is both popular and profitable. Amtrak cannot run more trains until another tunnel between New York and New Jersey is built but Amtrak will build that tunnel and Joe Boardman has ordered 40 new cars for the Acelas that now run. The problems with long distance trains are because of freight railroads which withhold cooperation. Frankly, I which Amtrak were more aggressive about taking them on. Amtrak does many things very well however there are things that could be done better. But if you have been riding trains since the 1950's as I have when you look back you see great improvements.
Oltmannd,
Let me try to address a some of your concerns.
The Federal HIghway Act of 1956 provided the plans for the Dwight David Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways. No doubt the act has been amended over the years but it is clearly a design out of the 1950's. There are a lot more interstate highways than there are Amtrak routes but I-94 parallels the Empire Builder, I-80 parallels the Lake Shore Limited and the California Zephyr, I-40, 44 and 44 parallel the Southwest Chief and I-10 parallels the Sunset Limited. It is true that Amtrak has not moved any tracks closer to any interstate highways but it is also true that in the west the places interstate highways connect were built where they are because of the railroads.
I cannot speak of the whole country because I'm not familiar with it. However, in my state, New Jersey, Amtrak has added a stop at Newark Airport which is served by I-95 and I-78 and has added another stop at Metropark which is a group of parking garages just off I-95.
As far as serving rural areas Amtrak stops at Staples, MN, population 2891 and Wolfpoint, MT population 2621.
Here in the northeast Amtrak was motivated from within to start Acela service which is both popular and profitable. Amtrak cannot run more trains until another tunnel between New York and New Jersey is built but Amtrak will build that tunnel and Joe Boardman has ordered 40 new cars for the Acelas that now run.
The problems with long distance trains are because of freight railroads which withhold cooperation. Frankly, I which Amtrak were more aggressive about taking them on.
Amtrak does many things very well however there are things that could be done better. But if you have been riding trains since the 1950's as I have when you look back you see great improvements.
Amtrak loses 22 cents per passenger mile on the LD trains - not including capital allocation (e.g. cost to rebuild equipment periodically, improvements to stations, etc.)
The Fed highway budget is $70B for 3 trillion vehicle miles travelled. Assuming one passenger per vehicle, that's 2.3 cents per passenger mile.
This is the problem!
I have lived in NY, NJ, Ohio, PA, and GA. I've traveled in 49 states over the past 40 years. I have worked 34 years for a couple of railroads. I am a big fan of passenger railroading. I think we could use more passenger trains in this country - in the right spots. Those spots would be corridors. Could LD trains be part of the network? I hope so, but things will have to change.
Metropark was an addition made under Penn Central as part of the original NEC high speed program. Newark/Liberty is a NY/NJ Port Authority, NJT project - not Amtrak's idea. Amtrak is not very good at innovation. They have generally be a "follower".
That said, Amtrak seems to have a handle on the NEC. Could they do better? Sure. But, that's not where the problem lies. It's those pesky long distance trains. They don't produce seat miles very efficiently and Amtrak hasn't done a thing about it nor seems to care a whit about it. They are basically 1950s streamliners. Same staffing, same food service, same stops, same schedules.
The problem isn't the freight railroads' lack of cooperation that causes these trains to bleed red ink. They are generally cooperative these days. There are capacity issues on the freight network that didn't exist 20 years ago that cause problems, but timekeeping doesn't cause the trains to bleed red ink either. It's the business model.
The world moved since 1955 and the LD train service hasn't. Why do LD trains still exist?
Rural access to transport? A little bit, but, as you noted, most routes are paralleled by interstates and there are more cars than drivers in the US these days. Those cars? Their gas mileage is nearly double that of those from the 60s and 70s. Even at $4/gal, it is still cheaper and easier to drive now then it was then. So, we don't get much "rural access" for our LD train subsidy. We'd do better subsidizing rural bus service to those places that are truly underserved by the highway network. We could reach more people for the same bucks.
What about people who don't like to fly? We don't subsidize scheduled trans Atlantic liner service for those who might like to visit Europe but are afraid to fly, so why do we do it for LD trains?
Tourism? Leave that to private enterprise. Whistler in BC and the Denali service in Alaska are good examples. And, how comfortable are you with really high subsidies per person for tourism?
The problem is the budget deficit and looming retirement of baby boomers. As much as it pains them, Congress is going to have to pinch pennies pretty hard to even begin to get a handle on things. Any thing that smells like a rat is going to be hunted down. Amtrak, in general, smells like a rat. It's their per passenger mile subsidy. It's largely driven by the LD trains. They ARE rats! If they can't be improved, they are toast. And, they might bring all of Amtrak down with them.
Maintaining the status quo is extremely unlikely. If the advocacy community doesn't push for change, who will and what will it look like? You want Wendell Cox calling the shots?
DwightBranch oltmannd DwightBranch Absolutely on the mark, and despite the rhetorical slight of hand used by anti-Amtrak types here that we have invested "gas tax revenues" in road building (implying that highways are paid for only by their users) currently only around 50% of highway spending is provided by fuel taxes. You are not paying attention. Per passenger mile subsidy, if you please! YOU HAVE TO NORMALIZE THE STATISTIC OR IT IS MEANINGLESS! (does shouting help?) I do this sort of thing for a living....shouting, that is. Not if the question is the cost of operating in different states, and the question of whether trains (and cars) operating in each part of the US must pay for themselves, which was John's point. Just as operating the Empire Builder through a large, underpopulated state costs more per person than a train between St. Louis and Chicago, so too is the cost of maintaining interstate highways across that state. The other stats were addressing a different question, is highway funding completely paid for by gas taxes (i.e. user fees paid for ONLY by those who use the highways, not general revenues placed on everyone). I am a professor of political economy, do not try to BS me with statistics.
oltmannd DwightBranch Absolutely on the mark, and despite the rhetorical slight of hand used by anti-Amtrak types here that we have invested "gas tax revenues" in road building (implying that highways are paid for only by their users) currently only around 50% of highway spending is provided by fuel taxes. You are not paying attention. Per passenger mile subsidy, if you please! YOU HAVE TO NORMALIZE THE STATISTIC OR IT IS MEANINGLESS! (does shouting help?) I do this sort of thing for a living....shouting, that is.
DwightBranch Absolutely on the mark, and despite the rhetorical slight of hand used by anti-Amtrak types here that we have invested "gas tax revenues" in road building (implying that highways are paid for only by their users) currently only around 50% of highway spending is provided by fuel taxes.
Absolutely on the mark, and despite the rhetorical slight of hand used by anti-Amtrak types here that we have invested "gas tax revenues" in road building (implying that highways are paid for only by their users) currently only around 50% of highway spending is provided by fuel taxes.
You are not paying attention. Per passenger mile subsidy, if you please! YOU HAVE TO NORMALIZE THE STATISTIC OR IT IS MEANINGLESS! (does shouting help?)
I do this sort of thing for a living....shouting, that is.
Not if the question is the cost of operating in different states, and the question of whether trains (and cars) operating in each part of the US must pay for themselves, which was John's point. Just as operating the Empire Builder through a large, underpopulated state costs more per person than a train between St. Louis and Chicago, so too is the cost of maintaining interstate highways across that state. The other stats were addressing a different question, is highway funding completely paid for by gas taxes (i.e. user fees paid for ONLY by those who use the highways, not general revenues placed on everyone).
I am a professor of political economy, do not try to BS me with statistics.
Then don't quote stats that aren't normalized!
Phoebe Vet You missed my point. With 13 flights a day there are obviously a lot of people who want to travel between Charlotte and Atlanta but the only train service available departs and arrives at 2:30 AM (both directions). If you don't offer useful transportation, people think you are just a waste of money. There are many states with no Amtrak service. Do you hear any of them begging for it to be implemented. The simple fact is that Amtrak does not and probably never will have enough money to serve everyone. They need to use their limited resources to provide useful transportation in the markets where it will be most effective. If people see it as a valuable service, expansion will naturally follow.
You missed my point. With 13 flights a day there are obviously a lot of people who want to travel between Charlotte and Atlanta but the only train service available departs and arrives at 2:30 AM (both directions).
If you don't offer useful transportation, people think you are just a waste of money. There are many states with no Amtrak service. Do you hear any of them begging for it to be implemented. The simple fact is that Amtrak does not and probably never will have enough money to serve everyone. They need to use their limited resources to provide useful transportation in the markets where it will be most effective. If people see it as a valuable service, expansion will naturally follow.
US transportation policy, in particular, the varying amounts spent on different modes, has never been consumer driven. If Dwight Eisenhower had not been so enamored with how easily his tanks and troops could move down the German autobahn we wouldn't have the interstates here (and, in fact, the autobahn was built for reasons other than transportation in the first place). Transportation is more on the order of "if you build it they will come." And, to this point, we haven't built long distance passenger trains sufficiently. From the 1950s onward in the US we have focused on highways, and the reason people in the US travel by car more than anywhere else is... because we built highways! I recall in Denver when they first experimented with light rail (the line from I-25 and Broadway downtown, about 10 miles) the local libertarian, Jon Caldera, was all over the airwaves trying to claim that very few people would ride it, that Americans won't ride public transportation because they are "individualists," etc. The light rail exceeded initial ridership projections exponentially, and that has been the experience everywhere it has been built. I know that (individualism) isn't the claim you are making, but in my opinion it has its source in the same error: that if people want public transportation rather than to drive their cars on roads that there will be some market mechanism to make that happen in the absence of government building that transportation infrastructure in the first place. And I don't see how that is possible, things aren't the way they are here (underspending on passenger trains) because Americans decided it should be that way, it is a result of US government infrastructure policy dating from the end of WWII.
DwightBranch . It is easy to get someone to give you a ride to a station like Princeton IL, but to take you all the way to Chicago O'Hare? Forget it.
. It is easy to get someone to give you a ride to a station like Princeton IL, but to take you all the way to Chicago O'Hare? Forget it.
If you are coming from the Princeton Il area, why would you drive to O'Hare? Both Peoria and Moline, which are much closer to Princeton, and have multiple flights a day to major airline hubs. I guess when you have an agenda.....
An "expensive model collector"
Phoebe Vet I bet that most people in Minot, SD don't even know that Amtrak serves their town. Like I said; when you spread your assets so thin that the service isn't useful, people stop taking you seriously. That is why so many people think that Amtrak is a waste of tax money. Here in Charlotte, I can travel along one route easily. There are three round trip trains a day that I can take to the State capital at Raleigh. There are two round trip trains a day that I can take to DC or NYC. But if I want to go in the other direction to Atlanta, there is one train and it comes through Charlotte at 2:30 AM. How many people do you suppose THAT attracts? USAirways has 13 flights a day from Charlotte to Atlanta. Which one would YOU choose>
I bet that most people in Minot, SD don't even know that Amtrak serves their town. Like I said; when you spread your assets so thin that the service isn't useful, people stop taking you seriously. That is why so many people think that Amtrak is a waste of tax money.
Here in Charlotte, I can travel along one route easily. There are three round trip trains a day that I can take to the State capital at Raleigh. There are two round trip trains a day that I can take to DC or NYC. But if I want to go in the other direction to Atlanta, there is one train and it comes through Charlotte at 2:30 AM. How many people do you suppose THAT attracts? USAirways has 13 flights a day from Charlotte to Atlanta. Which one would YOU choose>
Not everyone is in the situation you are, the majority of the US is lower income people who often cannot afford to favor immediate speed over convenience, and for them the cost of taking twice as long to get to one's destination is less than the cost of arranging transportation to an airport 100 miles away. For someone living in say, a smaller city in the western part of the country (Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Washington), it is often difficult to make it to the airport, especially in the winter. Even in state like Illinois for some people it can take just as much time to drive to the airport as the plane trip takes, and that is assuming that you have a car that can make it that far without breaking down. It is easy to get someone to give you a ride to a station like Princeton IL, but to take you all the way to Chicago O'Hare? Forget it. I think there is a strong current of social class in a lot of the anti-Amtrak posts, upper middle class professionals living in suburban areas, who assume that everyone is in their situation, who then extrapolate from what they want in describing what passenger transportation should do. But the majority of the population is not upper middle class professionals living in suburban areas, and the majority of Amtrak passengers are lower income, that is whom the system serves.
As for the people in Minot not knowing about Amtrak, I doubt it, but if so it is a result of the poor funding and infrequent service rather than a flaw in the mode of transportation itself.
Here in Charlotte, I can travel along one route easily. There are three round trip trains a day that I can take to the State capital at Raleigh. There are two round trip trains a day that I can take to DC or NYC. But if I want to go in the other direction to Atlanta, there is one train and it comes through Charlotte at 2:30 AM. How many people do you suppose THAT attracts? USAirways has 13 flights a day from Charlotte to Atlanta. Which one would YOU choose? Notice that I didn't even mention speed or cost.
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