“In France and the Netherlands, high-quality, reliable train networks have emboldened government officials to ban short-haul flights that can be completed by rail in under two hours.”
Eliminating competition by diktat is not an indication of confidence that their trains are high-quality and reliable.
Don’t knock rail freight. It keeps lots of trucks off the roads with all the environmental benefits it brings. It might well be the case that the most efficient use of US railways is just for freight instead of passenger rail. Perhaps only a dedicated high speed rail network is the answer, and that will never happen.
I confess I'm one of those railfans, and I'm also literally the only person I know who uses Amtrak or ever has (which is not unusual in the West); but I am also realistic. Given the eye-watering costs of transportation infrastructure development in the US compared to, say, Europe (for reasons that remain mysterious and which are never adequately investigated in the media, probably because too many entities benefit from the current state of affairs), I simply cannot see how we could make the investments necessary to put Amtrak on a footing that would make it attractive to people besides those who used to ride Greyhound, and enthusiasts like me who dislike long automobile rides.
The first requirement would be to install dedicated passenger lines along existing freight right-of-ways, and that alone would be prohibitively expensive (assuming the goal is to improve service, as opposed to enriching political donors and creating consulting and other jobs as the California high speed rail project, which will have no significant practical value if and when it's completed, seems to be).
I like getting away to Elko, NV, for the weekend, a four-hour drive from here. I dislike the drive and enjoy riding trains so I will take Amtrak . . . IF I HAVE THE TIME. There is a daily service, catching the train in Reno around 4:00 or 5:00pm, and getting into Elko around 9:00 or 10:00pm, with only one intermediate stop, in Winnemucca (it's kind of sad when the train creeps though little towns like Lovelock and Battle Mountain and Carlin without stopping). The Elko train "station" is not much more than a bus stop, open to the sky, at the southeast edge of town (indeed, there are fancier bus stops in Sparks). By the time you get into Elko there is no place to eat except one of the two big casinos. You didn't eat on the train unless you brought a sack lunch, since there is no dining car, and the junk they purvey at the little snack window is worse than what you find at the ballpark.
You catch the train home at 3:00am or thereabouts. No problem, just schlepp out to the station after a late-night nap and wait at the bus stop, hoping it doesn't start raining or anything like that. Last time I did this I waited for an hour or so before calling Amtrak and learning my train would be seven (7) hours late. Other travelers insisted this wasn't unusual, especially in winter. Okay, so I walked back to my motel and napped for a few hours and went back later and caught my train. I had originally hoped to get into Reno in the morning so I could get in a full day's work (it was a Monday), but of course that wasn't an option anymore. But it was okay because I'm the boss and can make my own work hours. I suppose depending on Amtrak would be more of a problem for people who aren't retired, unemployed or their own bosses.
One of these days I want to take the train to Sacramento to visit the railroad museum there, but planning is a bitch. The morning train from Reno will get me to Sacramento about midday, which doesn't give me much time to see the museum, so I'll have to go the day before, then take the noon train home the third day. I'll need a three-day weekend to visit the museum, which is why I haven't done it yet.
Because I can afford delays like that, I'll use Amtrak again to visit Elko and someday Sacramento as well. For longer trips I would prefer to use a Pullman-style stateroom, but the fares for those are absurd; definitely only relatively wealthy retired railfans are using the Amtrak staterooms.
But how do you make these services attractive and practical for more ordinary people? It just doesn't seem possible, with the current cost of infrastructure improvements. That problem needs to be solved before we can fix Amtrak, if it can and should be fixed.
This is an excellent write up, so thank you guest authors. I personally live in North Texas and would love to visit my brother in Houston via train instead of driving like a bat out of Austin up and down I-45. It seems like a passenger rail between Dallas and Houston is such a no brainer, I can't believe we haven't done it yet.
I'm going to take my first train trip in 16 years this month, Austin->Dallas.
It's less convenient than a car, but thankfully only a little so (the hotel is within a short walk from the Dallas end), but it's definitely slower.
Mainly I'm doing it because I want to try it and my friends and I are on the same train so I'd rather hang out on a train than in a car. (Note that being on the same train reduces the cost-to-me benefits of train vs. car since we buy individual tickets vs. sharing a car) (it's still more climate friendly since the train is running anyway and our passenger weight is probably negligible in additional train fuel costs)
If the hotel didn't happen to be near the train on the far end, I probably wouldn't bother(previously the hotel was at DFW and my friends who tried the train found it not worth it to shuttle between train station DFW)
Can someone explain the whole phenomenon of actively enjoying being on trains to me? Because man, I do not get it.
I've taken a fair number of long distance trains. I traveled in Germany in high school, in Switzerland in my twenties, plus several trips to Japan. I took rail from Tokyo to Sapporo, back when the shinkansen only went as far north as Aomori.
It's not that being on a train is excruciating or anything, it's, you know, fine as transit goes. But it's sooooo sloooooow. Yes, even the shinkansen. It was certainly eye-opening to take rail from Tokyo to Sapporo, and then air back from Sapporo to Tokyo. The trip that took hours a day for three days going up was under two hours going back (to be exact, it's a 1 hour 45 min flight, and the shinkansen now that it goes the whole way is 7.5 hours with a transfer in the middle).
Commuter rail makes a lot of sense to me: even if it's a bit slower than driving (and it usually is -- outside of NYC -- despite traffic), you get to read or doze or do work and the difference is like 10 minutes. Long distance rail travel is just a waste of time that you could spend at your actual destination, you know, doing stuff.
I liked using Amtrak for 4 hour trips to see my parents, especially in the winter. It wasn’t faster than driving, though it left my home city earlier and Portland later than I felt comfortable driving, so I got more time at my destination, and I didn’t need to worry about getting to my destination (Mom picked me up at the other end). But it’s is not competitive with airplanes where I live now, and wouldn’t be even if there was a direct route. It’s a two day drive I will NOT do in the winter and even holiday air tickets are so cheap now.
Great post! Love your work!! Sounds like “Amtrak, America's Railroad” may not be the best book for learning about Amtrak and it’s terrible cost issues. Does anyone have any book suggestions?
If you live in a city and wish to travel to another city (one that's roughly 500 miles, neither nearer or farther) maybe take a train. For all other travel, forget rail; serves no purpose.
Agree strongly with the points in the article that amount to "Amtrak needs to focus on the customer and have routes and schedules that people actually want."
As part of this, my pet peeve is the lack of coordination between rail & air. Maybe Amtrak ignores this because they are supposed to be explicitly long-haul? But often what I need is a train to the airport - replacing a long drive or a short regional flight with a rail leg.
It's not a good sign that to make rail viable you have to alter the customers' needs to fit the product. Concentrating populations in dense central cities may be good or bad on its own merits, but it's not justifiable just for the sake of Amtrak.
Air travel is fast but also complicated and stressful. You have to select your flight, buy the tickets, get to the airport on time, check your luggage - and don't forget the TSA colonoscopy. Driving is slow but simple. Throw your crap in the car, fill the tank and go, anytime, anywhere you want.
Trains are the worst of both worlds. In spite of the challenges, there have been numerous start-up airlines in recent years. Who is starting new passenger railroads? Pouring more tax dollars into Amtrak is a solution in search of a problem.
Thank you, guest authors!
“In France and the Netherlands, high-quality, reliable train networks have emboldened government officials to ban short-haul flights that can be completed by rail in under two hours.”
Eliminating competition by diktat is not an indication of confidence that their trains are high-quality and reliable.
Don’t knock rail freight. It keeps lots of trucks off the roads with all the environmental benefits it brings. It might well be the case that the most efficient use of US railways is just for freight instead of passenger rail. Perhaps only a dedicated high speed rail network is the answer, and that will never happen.
I confess I'm one of those railfans, and I'm also literally the only person I know who uses Amtrak or ever has (which is not unusual in the West); but I am also realistic. Given the eye-watering costs of transportation infrastructure development in the US compared to, say, Europe (for reasons that remain mysterious and which are never adequately investigated in the media, probably because too many entities benefit from the current state of affairs), I simply cannot see how we could make the investments necessary to put Amtrak on a footing that would make it attractive to people besides those who used to ride Greyhound, and enthusiasts like me who dislike long automobile rides.
The first requirement would be to install dedicated passenger lines along existing freight right-of-ways, and that alone would be prohibitively expensive (assuming the goal is to improve service, as opposed to enriching political donors and creating consulting and other jobs as the California high speed rail project, which will have no significant practical value if and when it's completed, seems to be).
I like getting away to Elko, NV, for the weekend, a four-hour drive from here. I dislike the drive and enjoy riding trains so I will take Amtrak . . . IF I HAVE THE TIME. There is a daily service, catching the train in Reno around 4:00 or 5:00pm, and getting into Elko around 9:00 or 10:00pm, with only one intermediate stop, in Winnemucca (it's kind of sad when the train creeps though little towns like Lovelock and Battle Mountain and Carlin without stopping). The Elko train "station" is not much more than a bus stop, open to the sky, at the southeast edge of town (indeed, there are fancier bus stops in Sparks). By the time you get into Elko there is no place to eat except one of the two big casinos. You didn't eat on the train unless you brought a sack lunch, since there is no dining car, and the junk they purvey at the little snack window is worse than what you find at the ballpark.
You catch the train home at 3:00am or thereabouts. No problem, just schlepp out to the station after a late-night nap and wait at the bus stop, hoping it doesn't start raining or anything like that. Last time I did this I waited for an hour or so before calling Amtrak and learning my train would be seven (7) hours late. Other travelers insisted this wasn't unusual, especially in winter. Okay, so I walked back to my motel and napped for a few hours and went back later and caught my train. I had originally hoped to get into Reno in the morning so I could get in a full day's work (it was a Monday), but of course that wasn't an option anymore. But it was okay because I'm the boss and can make my own work hours. I suppose depending on Amtrak would be more of a problem for people who aren't retired, unemployed or their own bosses.
One of these days I want to take the train to Sacramento to visit the railroad museum there, but planning is a bitch. The morning train from Reno will get me to Sacramento about midday, which doesn't give me much time to see the museum, so I'll have to go the day before, then take the noon train home the third day. I'll need a three-day weekend to visit the museum, which is why I haven't done it yet.
Because I can afford delays like that, I'll use Amtrak again to visit Elko and someday Sacramento as well. For longer trips I would prefer to use a Pullman-style stateroom, but the fares for those are absurd; definitely only relatively wealthy retired railfans are using the Amtrak staterooms.
But how do you make these services attractive and practical for more ordinary people? It just doesn't seem possible, with the current cost of infrastructure improvements. That problem needs to be solved before we can fix Amtrak, if it can and should be fixed.
This is an excellent write up, so thank you guest authors. I personally live in North Texas and would love to visit my brother in Houston via train instead of driving like a bat out of Austin up and down I-45. It seems like a passenger rail between Dallas and Houston is such a no brainer, I can't believe we haven't done it yet.
I'm going to take my first train trip in 16 years this month, Austin->Dallas.
It's less convenient than a car, but thankfully only a little so (the hotel is within a short walk from the Dallas end), but it's definitely slower.
Mainly I'm doing it because I want to try it and my friends and I are on the same train so I'd rather hang out on a train than in a car. (Note that being on the same train reduces the cost-to-me benefits of train vs. car since we buy individual tickets vs. sharing a car) (it's still more climate friendly since the train is running anyway and our passenger weight is probably negligible in additional train fuel costs)
If the hotel didn't happen to be near the train on the far end, I probably wouldn't bother(previously the hotel was at DFW and my friends who tried the train found it not worth it to shuttle between train station DFW)
America does not have four billion miles of paved roads. The real figure is 4 million
Can someone explain the whole phenomenon of actively enjoying being on trains to me? Because man, I do not get it.
I've taken a fair number of long distance trains. I traveled in Germany in high school, in Switzerland in my twenties, plus several trips to Japan. I took rail from Tokyo to Sapporo, back when the shinkansen only went as far north as Aomori.
It's not that being on a train is excruciating or anything, it's, you know, fine as transit goes. But it's sooooo sloooooow. Yes, even the shinkansen. It was certainly eye-opening to take rail from Tokyo to Sapporo, and then air back from Sapporo to Tokyo. The trip that took hours a day for three days going up was under two hours going back (to be exact, it's a 1 hour 45 min flight, and the shinkansen now that it goes the whole way is 7.5 hours with a transfer in the middle).
Commuter rail makes a lot of sense to me: even if it's a bit slower than driving (and it usually is -- outside of NYC -- despite traffic), you get to read or doze or do work and the difference is like 10 minutes. Long distance rail travel is just a waste of time that you could spend at your actual destination, you know, doing stuff.
Would privatizing Amtrak be really such a bad thing? It seems to work out “fine” is the UK and Netherlands?
I liked using Amtrak for 4 hour trips to see my parents, especially in the winter. It wasn’t faster than driving, though it left my home city earlier and Portland later than I felt comfortable driving, so I got more time at my destination, and I didn’t need to worry about getting to my destination (Mom picked me up at the other end). But it’s is not competitive with airplanes where I live now, and wouldn’t be even if there was a direct route. It’s a two day drive I will NOT do in the winter and even holiday air tickets are so cheap now.
Great post! Love your work!! Sounds like “Amtrak, America's Railroad” may not be the best book for learning about Amtrak and it’s terrible cost issues. Does anyone have any book suggestions?
Is there a big advantage of trains over someone setting up a modern bus service?
If you live in a city and wish to travel to another city (one that's roughly 500 miles, neither nearer or farther) maybe take a train. For all other travel, forget rail; serves no purpose.
Thank you for your excellent post.
Agree strongly with the points in the article that amount to "Amtrak needs to focus on the customer and have routes and schedules that people actually want."
As part of this, my pet peeve is the lack of coordination between rail & air. Maybe Amtrak ignores this because they are supposed to be explicitly long-haul? But often what I need is a train to the airport - replacing a long drive or a short regional flight with a rail leg.
It's not a good sign that to make rail viable you have to alter the customers' needs to fit the product. Concentrating populations in dense central cities may be good or bad on its own merits, but it's not justifiable just for the sake of Amtrak.
Air travel is fast but also complicated and stressful. You have to select your flight, buy the tickets, get to the airport on time, check your luggage - and don't forget the TSA colonoscopy. Driving is slow but simple. Throw your crap in the car, fill the tank and go, anytime, anywhere you want.
Trains are the worst of both worlds. In spite of the challenges, there have been numerous start-up airlines in recent years. Who is starting new passenger railroads? Pouring more tax dollars into Amtrak is a solution in search of a problem.