oldsmoboi

Right, because the cutting back of services, smaller seats, watered down air miles and status perks, nickle and diming what should be basic services, are all the doing of the government.

oldsmoboi

No, you can't be boarding your flight to another country in 30 minutes. You have to check in, get felt up by the TSA, maybe check bags, and then wait for your zone to be called. Can't do that in less than 30 minutes and that doesn't even count the time it takes to get to the airport.

Boltbus is heavily subsidized too, gasoline taxes only cover 45% of the highway budget, the rest comes from the general tax fund.

1 year of Amtrak subsidy costs less than the project to rebuild 10 miles of the Van Wick Expressway.

I'll see your 12 hour delay from Virgina to Rhode Island and raise you a 30 hour delay from Pittsburgh to Louisville on United.

oldsmoboi

The kicker for Amtrak is that on the NEC, they are rapidly approaching capacity. They have more equipment on order (they plan to add length to the Acelas) but it won't get here fast enough.

But the more airlines raise prices, the more breathing room Amtrak gets on pricing.

kebosabi

Here's the way I see it:

"There are the right tools to do the right job"

For short city-to-city travel, an airplane is overkill. It's like trying to hit a nail with a sledgehammer; it can be done but it's not worth spending all that extra energy just to hit a nail when a simple hammer does the job with less effort.

And obviously, going from LA to Tokyo ain't possible on a train, so it's practical that such long distances need to be done on a plane.

Use the right tools for the right job. Trains are better for inter-city travel, planes are better for long distance travel.

There's no point in rail competing with air or air competing with rail. Each has their own specific needs that are fit for their jobs. Obviously you're not going to be driving an 18-wheeler to commute to an office job, nor are you going to haul pallets of goods cross country on a Honda Civic right?

Instead of rail and air competing with each other as competitors, they're better off partnering with each other and work together as a transportation industry as a whole. There's no point in competing a sledgehammer to a hammer because the jobs that those tool are made best for are meant for specific tasks. Instead, a sledgehammer and a hammer should just be classified as a "carpenter's tool" in which one uses a sledgehammer if you need to known down a wall, and use a simple hammer if you need to wedge a nail into wood.

Ysitincoach

Government does play a small part. Delta for instance has been big on the hill whining about the export tax, and European airline subsidies with jet purchases...so some may argue that government's lack of significant subsidies for US aircraft purchases does contribute to the many problems you describe.

Is government solely to blame? No. But the US government for a decade hasn't made it particularly easy for us to fly, or for air carriers to operate. Perhaps if they approached air travel with the same enthusiasm that they approach pet projects with rail we wouldn't have a need for this thread.

kebosabi

You also have to consider that inter-city travel up and down the NEC has huge passenger volume. But is it worth it for airlines, in this age of gas prices, to be going back and forth between these cities on big planes that can seat large enough passengers?

Say for instance, is it worth it for United or Delta to be using Boeing 747s just to go between New York and Boston? Or would they opt to use dinky little regional jets with cramped seating and make up for the need with lots of frequency?

See the airlines are faced with this dilemma:

Use one big plane to get between NY and Boston
Pro: Able to fit lots of passengers in one flight
Con: Waste of gas, lots of wear and tear from so many take-offs and landings in short amount of time, when they can be used for long haul international service as they were meant to be.

or

Use many small regional jets with lots of frequency between NY and Boston
Pro: Saves gas, lots of frequencies
Con: Need more pilots, flight attendants, more frequency = more air traffic and delays, eats up precious gate space when they could be better used for flights elsewhere


The Acela however doesn't to worry about that. It can send over 500 people in a single shot city-to-city and the juice that they run is fairly consistent electricity prices instead of up-and-down fluctuating gas prices.

OldGoat

Acela ^^^^

Several trips from DC to Boston and NY this year. Every one one time and enjoyable. I can't say the same for the airport/TSA/airline combo.

cestmoi123

Acela DC to NYC is tolerable, but NYC to BOS is just too slow. If I take the 7am shuttle, I leave my apt at 6, and I'm at my meeting in Boston by 9am. If I leave my apt at 6, I can also make the 620 acela, but I'm not into Boston until 1030. less than 3 hours door to door by plane, nearly 5 by train.

saulblum

You must live pretty close to LaGuardia, to leave home at 6 and make a 7:00 flight.

For some reason that early Acela takes 30 minutes longer than most.

Of course there will always be scenarios where one mode works better than the other. But look at it this way: Those four hours on the train are one continuous block, with electrical power and (admittedly sometimes spotty) cell coverage. Your flying experience is broken up into several smaller chunks -- wait on checkpoint line, wait at gate, taxiing, takeoff, flying, landing -- during which time you cannot always use your phone and other electronic devices.

Consider too that when taking the train you have none of the shenanigans of shoe removal, liquid restrictions, laptop removal, potential friskings, etc.

And frankly, no matter which mode you take, leaving NY early morning to arrive in time for a 9 a.m. Boston meeting is asking for trouble. There's no way I would trust any mode to reliably get me to an important 9 a.m. meeting 200 miles away leaving that same morning.

GUWonder

Well DL and US Shuttle are a shadow of their former self: smaller planes and less frequent service than pre-TSA

saulblum

Yes, the days of the shuttles rolling out another plane for you if your intended one was full are long gone.

While of course there are numerous factors that go into determining ridership figures, I have little doubt that the TSA has made short-haul flights much less appealing than the train, driving or the bus.

Often1

DCA-LGA makes sense on USS. Corporate discount lets me book straight into F almost all the time and, on rare occasions, not until closer to flight time. The 7:00 AM rarely lands later than 7:45 and I am in mid-town Manhattan by 8:30.

On the return, Acela makes sense. End of a day, don't need to fight LGA traffic, ATC and other stuff. A couple of drinks, an OK meal at my seat and all is well.

But, the same isn't true for NYC-BOS and definitely not for WAS-BOS.

mikeef

Penn Station? Expecto Patronum, Expecto Patronum!

The difference is, with Penn Station, I'm in and out in seconds. JFK? Not so much.

Mike

mahohmei

WRT rail travel in the USA, the biggest hindrances I see are:

- Favorable treatment to airlines (I recall $30B in cash right after 9/11).

- Arcane FRA regulations that require trainsets to be built like bank vaults on wheels, making them far heavier, more expensive, and more prone to breakdown than the TGV trainsets used in Europe.

- "I want a car when I get there". On my most recent flight into CLT, a Budget shuttle took me to their on-site rental car lot--and back to the terminal when I returned the car. A quick Google check shows that, if I took Amtrak to Charlotte, the nearest car rental was Enterprise--1.3 miles away.

- Image, including media depiction. In _30 Rock_, a character said, "I had to take a shower; the train was filthy. I didn't ride it; I saw it out the airplane window." _Sex and the City_ once depicted a NYC-SF Amtrak ride going very roughly, so they flew back first-class. In _How I Met Your Mother_, they once flew from NYC to PHL.

On a side note, are there any regular Amtrak riders here whose friends and family are simply amazed that a person of middle-class-or-higher status would actually use Amtrak?

oldsmoboi

I don't understand why Enterprise being 1.3 miles away would be a deal breaker... They'll pick you up. You probably were close to that distance on the Budget shuttle from the airport.

I used to be able to take Amtrak from PIT to CHI in a roomette for the price of a coach ticket on AA.... and I could take a shower on the train right before I had a great breakfast and then roll into my Chicago office at 9:30am rested, showered, and fed.

I can't do it any more due to company travel policy.

Almost every major station that I've been to had a rental car in or near the station. With them mostly being Enterprise, they will come get you at the station.