“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.
Well I’m all for replacing the current tangled web of energy regulations and subsidies with a revenue neutral carbon tax. It would drive greater efficiency and may make air travel more expensive and rail more viable by comparison.
Or, it represents the aristocratic mindset that big shots can fly their Gulfstreams to climate conferences while the masses must obediently shuffle onto the cattle cars.
If congress tried to ban air service from Boston to Chicago, and said "just take the train" there'd be a massive public outcry because the train travel time is 22 (!) hours. So you need good back-stopping with other forms of transportation to be emboldened.
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.
Elko is a small town whose main local industries are mining and ranching, so it's just a nice place to get away from the big city hustle (for me, Reno/Sparks, at just under half a million people, is getting to be too much of a big city). To the south of town are the Ruby Mountains, which is simply one of the most beautiful mountain ranges I have ever seen, and I've seen many.
As for what you do, I generally hang out in the divey and historic bars surrounding the old downtown area, chatting with cowboys and miners, and catch at least one huge Basque meal at the famous Star Hotel. Elko is also the home of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which is not really my thing.
Also, once you get east of Winnemucca, there are no face masks.
When riding the train one doesn't have access to the Ruby Mountains or the excellent California Trail Interpretive Center about ten minutes west of town along I-80, but if you have a car those should not be missed.
I'm very seriously thinking of moving to Lamoille, just south of Elko at the base of the Rubies, in a few years. If I do I'll take Amtrak as often as possible when I have to visit Reno.
The Ruby's are indeed glorious and wonderfully empty. TIL Elko has Basque folks (like Boise). Thanks!
I love how you write like a correspondent from The Economist. I'd love more NV dispatches, like from Ely and its train museum sometime, though I doubt it's accessible by train.
Sacramentan who has taken the Zephyr to Utah here. The trip over the Sierra's is an absolute crawl. Really wish we had more intercity transit options between our two locales, FlixBus actually made day trips to Reno quite feasible pre-pandemic but that is long gone.
The Capitol Corridor is quite practical though and in recent months it's become cheaper than driving, I take it monthly now. Sacramento is supposed to get ValleyRail in the next few years as a link into the ACE train line, really hope that stays on schedule.
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.
Another advantage of rail, at least in Europe, is when you want to get from city center to city center. Getting to and from the airport, dealing with security, mingling with mobs of people in the departure lounge, all takes time and causes stress. This is mitigated of course if your destinations are near the airport.
For whatever reason there is no airport-like security at train stations. Just buy your ticket a few minutes before the scheduled departure time and loiter around the spacious station a bit before wandering down to the platform and boarding the train. So much more pleasant than air travel.
Of course, with the Eurostar, they couldn't help setting up all the airport-like security and other crap that makes many people want to ride the trains in the first place, which is a shame.
The main reason for the absence of airport-like security on trains is that it's basically impossible to use the train as a weapon, and that if you set off a bomb on a train, the people in all the other cars have a pretty good chance of surviving unless it's in a tunnel.
And the tunnel? That's why Eurostar has the security. Set off a bomb on a Eurostar while it's in the tunnel, and the chances of evacuating any significant number of passengers are slim.
I think that trying to rationalize the security in airports as being for sensational reasons is doomed to failure. Setting off a bomb on a high speed train seems likely to be sufficiently destructive that it would lead to similar security measures -- or maybe it wouldn't, because security in airports is pretty inefficient and silly!
I like to read, and since I stopped traveling years ago (and spent lots of time stuck in airports or on planes of trains) I don't get enough time for it.
Amtrak seats are far more comfortable than airline seats (I am 6'5" and these days obliged to buy a First Class ticket if I want to fly anywhere, though that wasn't always the case), and I have plenty of time to read. During long drives, I am usually doing the driving, and in any case even automobile seats aren't as roomy and comfortable as Amtrak seats.
I won't get back on a train until this brainless hygiene theater is over, though. I have no interest in spending hours wearing a mask, as unfortunate retail workers have to.
I don't think, unfortunately for you, that designing around the comfort of people in the top 1% or so of height will ever make a ton of sense. I'm 6' tall, and economy class airplanes are, you know, fine. Certainly not amazing, but I'd rather sit in a mildly less comfortable seat for x time than a more comfortable seat for 3x time.
Perhaps, but remember there are more people my size than there are people of indeterminate pronouns, yet the ACLU and others are actually attempting to change the English language on the latter's behalf.
All I'm asking for is a little legroom. You can call me whatever you want.
Yes, I feel like I've been reading articles about Amtrak saying pretty much the same thing as this article said, for as long as I can remember. At this point it seems like the national Amtrak organization is probably standing in the way of competitive train service between suitable city pairs, more than helping.
The fact that Amtrak keeps installing executives from airlines rather than trying to hire from successful passenger rail operators overseas is, as they say, a tell.
Similar to how NYC's Transit Authority brought in a guy who'd had success in London+Canada and then basically forced him out when he tried to actually improve the system.
I am going to literally die angry about that. If he'd just managed to hold out for another year, he'd've outlasted Cuomo! And now we can't get him back.
Is it really? I lived in the UK in the 1990s and traveled extensively on the Continent. The Dutch service was excellent then, but I don't know whether it had been privatized by then (the Dutch telecoms had only recently been privatized, if I recall correctly). British Rail service was always inferior to its European counterparts, but was still an excellent service to this native Californian, and I used it frequently. I was told the difference in service quality between nations was down to the relative levels of subsidy. There was, for example, no high speed rail in the UK at that time. It took a crazy long time to ride the train from London out to Cornwall or up to Yorkshire.
I was preparing to move back to the US when the Major government hastily privatized British Rail. Since then, my reading tells me service has degraded insofar as the network is no longer as cleanly integrated as it was before (which would be expected), and of course many services have been cut. But how does using the privatized BR compare to using the BR of the early 1990s? I can't say, but again, this (libertarian!) California boy thought the state-owned BR wasn't so bad.
Anyway, even a privatized Amtrak would receive regular subsidies. You can't operate a passenger rail service anywhere, especially in the US, without subsidy (after all, an unsubsidized passenger real service would be the only major transportation system that WASN'T subsidized, right?).
I think that privatization in the UK has been considered something of a mixed bag. Certainly passenger numbers have increased greatly, though some say that would have happened anyway.
I would disagree that "...many services have been cut." - in general service has been expanded.
It's important to understand what privatization actually *means* in the UK, it's kind of complicated but basically:
* One organization still controls and maintains the entire network. Initially this was a private company, now it's basically a quasi-govt. authority.
* There are regional franchises, which operators can bid to run for a fixed period. The terms of their contract outline things like levels of service they need to provide.
* Obviously some franchises will be much more profitable based on ticket sales than others.
* This is reflected in the bidding, some franchisees will pay a premium for the rights to run their franchise, others will receive a subsidy.
* There are also "Open access operators", which are more truly free market. They are more like startup airlines, that just pay for the rights to use the tracks and run a service they think will be profitable.
* There's still an overall net positive level of govt. subsidy
Honestly I don’t think it matters so much who officially holds Amtrak’s shares. Either they are free to operate as a productive business (which would involve shutting down money-losing routes that carry no passengers) or they are not. We could easily operate them in such a way right now, we just don’t.
Agree that in theory we could operate Amtrak that way, but I think the experience of the last 40 years or so shows that in reality, we can't, not in our country as it actually exists. As long as Amtrak exists as a single national organization sucking up the majority of the limited funding Congress is willing to spend on passenger rail, its and Congress's institutional incentive seems to be to spread the money thinly across the whole country rather than concentrating it where it would do the most good.
To some extent Amtrak does do this, with their "State-supported routes". These are generally shorter (by American standards) day train routes. They just don't do this for their routes which are considered to be "Long-distance routes".
It's important to understand that "privatization" can mean *very different* things.
For instance most American freight railroads are private.
Also Japan has (non-JR) truly private railways - the company is a private company that owns track and trains, and operates services, just like in the Victorian era in the UK. If it goes bust and no-one bails it out, the service ceases to run.
Then there is the way Japan "privatized" JR, basically splitting into regional entities, each of which owns its own tracks, and runs its own services, mostly on its own tracks, which are publicly listed companies that people can buy shares in.
Then there is the complicated way rail was "privatized" in the UK - see my comment below in response to Mitch Barrie for a brief explanation of what was meant by this.
There are probably lots of other ways of doing it too.
I mean, you just need to know *why* you're privatizing it. Do you *want* a hard-headed executive to come in and just say "we're cutting all the unprofitable routes". Or is this politically unacceptable, and does Amtrak need to continue providing coast-to-coast service?
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?
Stop penalty (vs. not stopping at all) for a well run high speed trains is 2-3 minutes. Additionally there's no need to run all trains as all-stop services.
Finally buses don't run at 100 MPH either right now. Buses currently dominate Amtrak due to Amtrak's very high pricing compared to European (though not Japanese) train companies.
If you're traveling to New Carrollton, since you don't have to arrange transport from the DC bus station to New Carrollton. If you aren't, then Amtrak and Boltbus take roughly the same amount of time end-to-end, since Amtrak trades the time spent at stops for a higher top speed.
(FWIW, Amtrak trains do not travel at the 220mph Nilo cited; you need to go overseas for that.)
A train requires 1 engineer + 1 conductor + 1 cafe attendant = 3 employees, and amortizes those labor costs over (80 passengers/car)*(5 cars)=400 passengers.
A bus requires 1 driver = 1 employee and amortizes that cost over ~50 passengers, for a labor/revenue ratio about 2.5 times worse.
Bus systems make money because we've already paid for the roads; once you need road expansion to handle the bus service, rail-based transport is cheaper.
"A train requires 1 engineer + 1 conductor + 1 cafe attendant = 3 employees, and amortizes those labor costs over (80 passengers/car)*(5 cars)=400 passengers.
A bus requires 1 driver = 1 employee and amortizes that cost over ~50 passengers, for a labor/revenue ratio about 2.5 times worse."
This labor theory of cost savings doesn't explain why the train is so much more expensive than the bus, though. Looking at the estimated $90 of profit per passenger on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, that may be less than the difference in price between the train and the bus, given the business class mix thrown in there on the train. That doesn't seem more efficient.
An important thing to realize is Amtrak is not currently a super competent organization at the moment. TGV fares for example are much lower on a per mile/per km basis.
A lot of bad HSR analysis comes from the fact that 1. the Acela is by an order of magnitude the least reliable HSR train set in the world 2. Amtrak fares are basically the highest in the world for the service provided.
Well to start with they're currently now allowed to buy normal European trains, and have started to do so on the Acela.
There current purchase order for Northeast Corridor Fleet replacement is a disaster though, because they refuse to acknowledge that they can electrify more stuff.
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.
Start up airlines always fail because the airline industry basically exists as a commodity. Until recently airline companies were negative all time in terms of capital spent v. profits.
And trains that work well are actually relatively stress free, even with Amtrak's cattle call I show up to 30th Street station 30 minutes before my train and am on Manhattan in less than an hour and a half. Reliability is high, and much more weather resistant than planes.
Of course everything I said only really applies to electric train sets run semi-competently over their own tracks. This is not the case as soon as you get west of Harrisburg, or south of DC.
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.
The argument would be that negative externalities have not been priced into short haul flights.
Lavishly subsidizing Amtrak is perhaps the worst way imaginable to price in externalities of air travel.
This isn't crazy, but why not just tax jet fuel (or whatever)?
Well I’m all for replacing the current tangled web of energy regulations and subsidies with a revenue neutral carbon tax. It would drive greater efficiency and may make air travel more expensive and rail more viable by comparison.
Or, it represents the aristocratic mindset that big shots can fly their Gulfstreams to climate conferences while the masses must obediently shuffle onto the cattle cars.
Lot of things I'd call a TGV, a cattle car is definitely not one of them.
Though TGV seating is dismayingly cramped compared to normal SNCF trains.
It is more a political reality. In a democracy you can’t ban stuff unless there is an alternative. I think that is what the author meant
I did not miss their motives.
If congress tried to ban air service from Boston to Chicago, and said "just take the train" there'd be a massive public outcry because the train travel time is 22 (!) hours. So you need good back-stopping with other forms of transportation to be emboldened.
Agreed but realistically I can't imagine who the hell is taking a flight where the equivalent train journey is only two hours.
Normally 4hrs (HSR) is considered to be about the point where trains and planes are roughly competitive.
Seems like they just wanted to send a signal, without really doing anything that would affect anyone.
"...I can't imagine who the hell is taking a flight where the equivalent train journey is only two hours."
Those who strive for Platinum / Premier / Diamond status.
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.
Fantastic comment. You are an asset to NV.
What does one do in Elko?
Elko is a small town whose main local industries are mining and ranching, so it's just a nice place to get away from the big city hustle (for me, Reno/Sparks, at just under half a million people, is getting to be too much of a big city). To the south of town are the Ruby Mountains, which is simply one of the most beautiful mountain ranges I have ever seen, and I've seen many.
As for what you do, I generally hang out in the divey and historic bars surrounding the old downtown area, chatting with cowboys and miners, and catch at least one huge Basque meal at the famous Star Hotel. Elko is also the home of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which is not really my thing.
Also, once you get east of Winnemucca, there are no face masks.
When riding the train one doesn't have access to the Ruby Mountains or the excellent California Trail Interpretive Center about ten minutes west of town along I-80, but if you have a car those should not be missed.
I'm very seriously thinking of moving to Lamoille, just south of Elko at the base of the Rubies, in a few years. If I do I'll take Amtrak as often as possible when I have to visit Reno.
The Ruby's are indeed glorious and wonderfully empty. TIL Elko has Basque folks (like Boise). Thanks!
I love how you write like a correspondent from The Economist. I'd love more NV dispatches, like from Ely and its train museum sometime, though I doubt it's accessible by train.
Sacramentan who has taken the Zephyr to Utah here. The trip over the Sierra's is an absolute crawl. Really wish we had more intercity transit options between our two locales, FlixBus actually made day trips to Reno quite feasible pre-pandemic but that is long gone.
The Capitol Corridor is quite practical though and in recent months it's become cheaper than driving, I take it monthly now. Sacramento is supposed to get ValleyRail in the next few years as a link into the ACE train line, really hope that stays on schedule.
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
True! How embarrassing. Thanks.
You were just previewing your host's upcoming book, "One Billion American Road-Miles."
Sounds like a page-turner!
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.
Another advantage of rail, at least in Europe, is when you want to get from city center to city center. Getting to and from the airport, dealing with security, mingling with mobs of people in the departure lounge, all takes time and causes stress. This is mitigated of course if your destinations are near the airport.
For whatever reason there is no airport-like security at train stations. Just buy your ticket a few minutes before the scheduled departure time and loiter around the spacious station a bit before wandering down to the platform and boarding the train. So much more pleasant than air travel.
Of course, with the Eurostar, they couldn't help setting up all the airport-like security and other crap that makes many people want to ride the trains in the first place, which is a shame.
The main reason for the absence of airport-like security on trains is that it's basically impossible to use the train as a weapon, and that if you set off a bomb on a train, the people in all the other cars have a pretty good chance of surviving unless it's in a tunnel.
And the tunnel? That's why Eurostar has the security. Set off a bomb on a Eurostar while it's in the tunnel, and the chances of evacuating any significant number of passengers are slim.
I think that trying to rationalize the security in airports as being for sensational reasons is doomed to failure. Setting off a bomb on a high speed train seems likely to be sufficiently destructive that it would lead to similar security measures -- or maybe it wouldn't, because security in airports is pretty inefficient and silly!
I like to read, and since I stopped traveling years ago (and spent lots of time stuck in airports or on planes of trains) I don't get enough time for it.
Amtrak seats are far more comfortable than airline seats (I am 6'5" and these days obliged to buy a First Class ticket if I want to fly anywhere, though that wasn't always the case), and I have plenty of time to read. During long drives, I am usually doing the driving, and in any case even automobile seats aren't as roomy and comfortable as Amtrak seats.
I won't get back on a train until this brainless hygiene theater is over, though. I have no interest in spending hours wearing a mask, as unfortunate retail workers have to.
I don't think, unfortunately for you, that designing around the comfort of people in the top 1% or so of height will ever make a ton of sense. I'm 6' tall, and economy class airplanes are, you know, fine. Certainly not amazing, but I'd rather sit in a mildly less comfortable seat for x time than a more comfortable seat for 3x time.
Perhaps, but remember there are more people my size than there are people of indeterminate pronouns, yet the ACLU and others are actually attempting to change the English language on the latter's behalf.
All I'm asking for is a little legroom. You can call me whatever you want.
Maybe there are more people 6'5" than trans folks, but not a ton! Both seem to be around 0.4%.
Would privatizing Amtrak be really such a bad thing? It seems to work out “fine” is the UK and Netherlands?
Yes, I feel like I've been reading articles about Amtrak saying pretty much the same thing as this article said, for as long as I can remember. At this point it seems like the national Amtrak organization is probably standing in the way of competitive train service between suitable city pairs, more than helping.
The fact that Amtrak keeps installing executives from airlines rather than trying to hire from successful passenger rail operators overseas is, as they say, a tell.
Amtrak isn't allowed to hire a foreign CEO. Same way that it's literally illegal for the FRA to hire a foreigner.
🙃 we really live in hell
Similar to how NYC's Transit Authority brought in a guy who'd had success in London+Canada and then basically forced him out when he tried to actually improve the system.
I am going to literally die angry about that. If he'd just managed to hold out for another year, he'd've outlasted Cuomo! And now we can't get him back.
Is it really? I lived in the UK in the 1990s and traveled extensively on the Continent. The Dutch service was excellent then, but I don't know whether it had been privatized by then (the Dutch telecoms had only recently been privatized, if I recall correctly). British Rail service was always inferior to its European counterparts, but was still an excellent service to this native Californian, and I used it frequently. I was told the difference in service quality between nations was down to the relative levels of subsidy. There was, for example, no high speed rail in the UK at that time. It took a crazy long time to ride the train from London out to Cornwall or up to Yorkshire.
I was preparing to move back to the US when the Major government hastily privatized British Rail. Since then, my reading tells me service has degraded insofar as the network is no longer as cleanly integrated as it was before (which would be expected), and of course many services have been cut. But how does using the privatized BR compare to using the BR of the early 1990s? I can't say, but again, this (libertarian!) California boy thought the state-owned BR wasn't so bad.
Anyway, even a privatized Amtrak would receive regular subsidies. You can't operate a passenger rail service anywhere, especially in the US, without subsidy (after all, an unsubsidized passenger real service would be the only major transportation system that WASN'T subsidized, right?).
I think that privatization in the UK has been considered something of a mixed bag. Certainly passenger numbers have increased greatly, though some say that would have happened anyway.
I would disagree that "...many services have been cut." - in general service has been expanded.
It's important to understand what privatization actually *means* in the UK, it's kind of complicated but basically:
* One organization still controls and maintains the entire network. Initially this was a private company, now it's basically a quasi-govt. authority.
* There are regional franchises, which operators can bid to run for a fixed period. The terms of their contract outline things like levels of service they need to provide.
* Obviously some franchises will be much more profitable based on ticket sales than others.
* This is reflected in the bidding, some franchisees will pay a premium for the rights to run their franchise, others will receive a subsidy.
* There are also "Open access operators", which are more truly free market. They are more like startup airlines, that just pay for the rights to use the tracks and run a service they think will be profitable.
* There's still an overall net positive level of govt. subsidy
* It's more complicated than this
Honestly I don’t think it matters so much who officially holds Amtrak’s shares. Either they are free to operate as a productive business (which would involve shutting down money-losing routes that carry no passengers) or they are not. We could easily operate them in such a way right now, we just don’t.
Agree that in theory we could operate Amtrak that way, but I think the experience of the last 40 years or so shows that in reality, we can't, not in our country as it actually exists. As long as Amtrak exists as a single national organization sucking up the majority of the limited funding Congress is willing to spend on passenger rail, its and Congress's institutional incentive seems to be to spread the money thinly across the whole country rather than concentrating it where it would do the most good.
Or we acknowledge that the money-losing routes that carry no passengers are to be treated separately and subsidise them directly.
ie Amtrak could say "You want service to Waterloo? Fine, subsidy is $2m a year" And then it runs the rest of its operations as a business.
Plenty of other businesses operate like this - profitable services get run, loss-making ones get subsidised.
To some extent Amtrak does do this, with their "State-supported routes". These are generally shorter (by American standards) day train routes. They just don't do this for their routes which are considered to be "Long-distance routes".
It's important to understand that "privatization" can mean *very different* things.
For instance most American freight railroads are private.
Also Japan has (non-JR) truly private railways - the company is a private company that owns track and trains, and operates services, just like in the Victorian era in the UK. If it goes bust and no-one bails it out, the service ceases to run.
Then there is the way Japan "privatized" JR, basically splitting into regional entities, each of which owns its own tracks, and runs its own services, mostly on its own tracks, which are publicly listed companies that people can buy shares in.
Then there is the complicated way rail was "privatized" in the UK - see my comment below in response to Mitch Barrie for a brief explanation of what was meant by this.
There are probably lots of other ways of doing it too.
I mean, you just need to know *why* you're privatizing it. Do you *want* a hard-headed executive to come in and just say "we're cutting all the unprofitable routes". Or is this politically unacceptable, and does Amtrak need to continue providing coast-to-coast service?
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?
Yes trains go much faster. A Bus travels at best at 80 miles an hour. Trains can go 220 mph.
The trains can be electrified without batteries.
But how much faster is the train to Philadelphia from DC if it stops in New Carrollton, Baltimore and Wilmington and the bus doesn’t?
Stop penalty (vs. not stopping at all) for a well run high speed trains is 2-3 minutes. Additionally there's no need to run all trains as all-stop services.
Finally buses don't run at 100 MPH either right now. Buses currently dominate Amtrak due to Amtrak's very high pricing compared to European (though not Japanese) train companies.
If you're traveling to New Carrollton, since you don't have to arrange transport from the DC bus station to New Carrollton. If you aren't, then Amtrak and Boltbus take roughly the same amount of time end-to-end, since Amtrak trades the time spent at stops for a higher top speed.
(FWIW, Amtrak trains do not travel at the 220mph Nilo cited; you need to go overseas for that.)
I did not say Amtrak trains did! I said trains could!
Never confuse what ought to be with what is.
A train requires 1 engineer + 1 conductor + 1 cafe attendant = 3 employees, and amortizes those labor costs over (80 passengers/car)*(5 cars)=400 passengers.
A bus requires 1 driver = 1 employee and amortizes that cost over ~50 passengers, for a labor/revenue ratio about 2.5 times worse.
Bus systems make money because we've already paid for the roads; once you need road expansion to handle the bus service, rail-based transport is cheaper.
"A train requires 1 engineer + 1 conductor + 1 cafe attendant = 3 employees, and amortizes those labor costs over (80 passengers/car)*(5 cars)=400 passengers.
A bus requires 1 driver = 1 employee and amortizes that cost over ~50 passengers, for a labor/revenue ratio about 2.5 times worse."
This labor theory of cost savings doesn't explain why the train is so much more expensive than the bus, though. Looking at the estimated $90 of profit per passenger on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, that may be less than the difference in price between the train and the bus, given the business class mix thrown in there on the train. That doesn't seem more efficient.
An important thing to realize is Amtrak is not currently a super competent organization at the moment. TGV fares for example are much lower on a per mile/per km basis.
A lot of bad HSR analysis comes from the fact that 1. the Acela is by an order of magnitude the least reliable HSR train set in the world 2. Amtrak fares are basically the highest in the world for the service provided.
But how would you ever get Amtrak’s cost structure down if they’re already profligate in their most profitable service area?
Well to start with they're currently now allowed to buy normal European trains, and have started to do so on the Acela.
There current purchase order for Northeast Corridor Fleet replacement is a disaster though, because they refuse to acknowledge that they can electrify more stuff.
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.
Start up airlines always fail because the airline industry basically exists as a commodity. Until recently airline companies were negative all time in terms of capital spent v. profits.
And trains that work well are actually relatively stress free, even with Amtrak's cattle call I show up to 30th Street station 30 minutes before my train and am on Manhattan in less than an hour and a half. Reliability is high, and much more weather resistant than planes.
Of course everything I said only really applies to electric train sets run semi-competently over their own tracks. This is not the case as soon as you get west of Harrisburg, or south of DC.