How about tunnels under these? No snow in tunnels...

No snow in those mountains either (at least not since I've lived here). The coastal route (i.e. the route Amtrak currently uses for the Coast Starlight) also avoids these areas.

No snow in the Grapevine since you've lived here? It gets heavy snow nearly every year. One of the scariest winter drives of my life was a blizzard through the Grapevine.

As for the tunnel idea, we're talking a minimum of 20 miles through very hard rock, depending on where it starts and ends. That would probably move things from tens of billions to 12 figures.

I guess you moved here after this past January 5th, mahasamatman.

11:57 AM PST, January 4, 2005
I-5 Near Gorman Reopens; New Storm Expected
By Amanda Covarrubias and Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writers

The Grapevine, a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5 that winds through the mountains and links Southern California to the rest of the state, reopened this morning, freeing hundreds of truckers stranded when the key north-south road was shut by fierce snows.

"It's great," said Allen Smith, who was taking his rig back to Hayward, Calif., after dropping off a crane in Los Angeles. "I've been sitting in a hotel and I just want to get home."...

See http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...home-headlines

No, just didn't read the news.

The item is currently on the Nov. 2006 CA ballot. $9 billion in general obligation bonds would be available to get the project started. The cost right now to get the first line is around $30 billion. Unfortunately, the federal government cannot afford to provide the matching funds, due to spending several times that amount on the Iraq debacle.

I'm not sure why it would be any different from Acela, though, which is much easier and less stressful to board than planes. Eurostar is a particularly attractive target because of the tunnel, not because it's a mode of transport.

Local stops are one of the biggest draws for Acela Express, and they don't add much travel time at all. The first southbound Acela leaves downtown Boston at 5:20am, completes its stop at Back Bay (another stop in the city) at 5:25, completes another stop at Rt. 128 (the first ring highway around Boston) at 5:34, and is ready to leave Providence, RI (40-some miles away from Boston) by 5:54am. Thirty-four minutes for nearly fifty miles of travel and three intermediate stops really isn't bad. A five minute turnaround -- or less -- at intermediate stations is entirely realistic.

I fear that north-south air shuttles will be a lot less cheap and convenient in twenty years when fuel prices continue to skyrocket and airports like SFO and OAK are stretched beyond their breaking points. Aside from just not having all your eggs in one basket, the fuel flexibility of electric trains makes an excellent hedge to a mode of transport as petroleum-bound as planes.

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps we can agree, though, that paying $30 billion or more is not a cheap way to keep N-S California transportation cheap.

Edited to add this Q to my fellow FTer in BOS -- if we're going to put serious money into high speed rail, shouldn't the priority be in the Boston to Wash DC route? From what I've read, there's room for much improvement there, with more favorable market and terrain conditions.

It's great dreaming about a reliable, affordable, national rail service but it is only a dream. Amtrak has had $29 billion of subsidies since 1971 and the goal used to justify this usually involved reaching or getting closer to break-even. They aren't even close. After more than 30 years, I think we must accept the obvious fact that continuing these subsidies has no purpose other than because a few people want to.

Some of those people include employees-last week someone told me that Amtrak still provides pension benefits under the National Railroad Retirement Act, and that he had heard of an engineer who retired from the LIRR with over $7,000 a month of pension. I hope this information was incorrect.

At Disneyland they can build a railroad few people ride to create ambiance. In the real world, we are cutting education and health benefits for kids, and we just don't have government money for hobbies, which is what this is.

Apparently, even the Amtrak board is getting the message:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/po.../20amtrak.html

Amtrak has indeed received a modest yearly subsidy since its creation. But I do not agree with the expectation that long-distance train service will be profitable ever in the US.

I feel that the primary value of passenger rail is that the US has a redundant form of transportation available to all. Airports and highways close occasionally, and Amtrak provides a backup method for people to travel.

If Amtrak is disbanded, there will never again be a national passenger rail network in the US. Like the interstate highway system, I believe that the federal government (not the states) should provide for Amtrak as a national service.

The issue of pensions for government workers is not limited to railroad retirees. Many government workers receive defined benefit payments which are becoming rare in the private sector. The argument here is that government workers are paid less than private sector equivalents during working years, and the pension is a form of deferred compensation.

So is all hope lost for getting our Guest Rewards points converted to UA MP miles? I've sent 3 snail mail letters, the last via certified mail, with no response at all. Any suggestions on getting AGR to step up and do the right thing?

OMNI Alert:

The Amtrak subsidy redistributes wealth upwards - the bulk of Amtrak passengers are upper income. The most traveled routes are in the Northeast corridor frequented by business travelers. Should the median taxpayer fork over money to them?

Amtrak wastes billions of dollars running nearly empty trains to the districts of influential congressmen. That's our 'national transportation system'.

Rail makes sense only in dense population corridors. Unsurprisingly, only DC-NY-Boston can come close to being economically viable.

That said, I love my Guest Rewards points. I hate that I can't transfer them to United anymore. Continental miles are worthless. I guess I'll just move them to Hilton.

Although I have never particiapted in this deal, I saw it to be something that the airline and the railroad should not have so tastelessly bailed out on the way they did. I made some inquiries and found out some things that were also touched on a bit in the Wall Street Journal around the time of the big pull out many of you suffered (now having points stuck in limbo on railroads that are bankrupt)

Turns out that no, it is less likely that they will do any right things here... Mr Bush (and though I dont like the guy or his politics, this post is not meant to be a bash against the pres.) had been talking about it a lot in the news and the simple version of what was said is that the railroad is in bad shape so no one is going to get anything deal-wise. Contracts are being canceled left and right with them, and there's even talk of such a re-org, that starting all over may even be what happens. I cannot give more details but I did not pursue any further. I can fight an airline because fortunately for us, when there are problems, a corporate structure tries to make it seem like something that can eventually be dealt with. But when it comes to the Government, good luck. They are often NO NO NO people when something goes wrong and you try to fix it. that is, unless you start a lobbying campaign and become elected to something. I am not planning on doing that, and so we are actually better off with fighting airlines and calling this one a sad wash. Sorry. MM

Let's face it, anyone who moved miles to Amtrak took a calculated risk that the deal would stay open long enough to make the transfer. It's not as if Amtrak did much to market this option; nor did Amtrak imply that there would be a grace period before pulling the plug.

It's totally understandable for them not to have a grace period. Doing so would have been very costly as they would have had to buy a lot of United miles.

I think Amtrak is largely a waste of taxpayer money, but I side with them on this move.

We take risk to some degree with every program we participate in.
I guess there are many perspectives on this issue but IMO less then 30 days notice is what I believe would have been fair or acceptable to the membership base.
But then again my opinion doesn't matter very much
And 10 K worth of miles to transfer won't really make any real difference to me.I'm not losing any sleep over the issue.However trust with Amtrak/GoldPoints that's another story.Sorry no more.
It is one thing to have an exit strategy in a rewards program it is another to essentially do whatever you want without notice whenever it may be in your best interest or favor.

CRM is a very important thing in the business world. To ignor customer satisfaction can be a very dangerous thing.
I plan personally never to use Amtrak again the program or the credit card.
My credit card account will close within 60 days
I will transfer/ remove anything that is left and close a chapter on one of the more poorly managed programs in the US.
The reformed Click Rewards gets the ultimate top billing there as worst.
This is the last time I will ever do business with this group who also happens to manage the Goldpoints program. I was burned once by them in that program with no notification and now again.
There were some other dramas too with going into my AA FF account and removing miles that they should not have removed.That were later returned.
They are a very agressive self serving operation.
They won't see me in a Radisson Hotel again either or shopping online at Amtrak or Goldpoints.
Every online shopping site in North America has a better value proposition when earning.
If I can find anything nice to say about their programs is that they had some of the nicest Customer Service pofessionals on the phone who unfortunately were empowered to do nothing most of the times when things went wrong.

It's all in managements hands and I wish them well in the future.
I won't be concerned the next time around because I won't be at the mercy of their program and their heavy handed tactics.
My apologies to all who were effected.Most programs do operate more fairly