kebosabi

Or in the case of China where they can build HSR from blueprint to startup in less than five years because they don't have to deal with oil industry lobbies, spending months, years, and billions in meetings, reaching a deal with NIMBYs, human rights, save-the-desert lizard's habitat hippy environmentalists, workers' safety, only to come up to budget overruns due to rising material costs, etc.

China has the "Commie advantage" to these things. Some planner rolls open a map, draws a red line through it, and that's where the rail goes. It passes by homes and businesses? Sucks to be you. It goes through a mountain? Dynamite it. Where to put the hazardous waste? Bury it. Safety? Who cares, billions more Chinese to pick out workers from.

But that's pretty much how we were able to build the transcontinental railroad in less than four years too. Things can go fast if you don't have to worry about the environment (blow up mountains), stealing the land from people living there (Native Americans), or caring for the safety of the construction workers (meh, let's just use the Chinese and the Irish immigrants).

But then again, they did have that Chinese HSR disaster a few months ago which puts questions to their full-steam ahead approach to building a nationwide HSR network.

piper28

I've done Seattle to Vancouver on Amtrack for a cruise, and it's ok, but not necessarily hugely convenient. If you're flying into Seattle like I was, you're pretty much stuck with having to stay overnight in Seattle to take an early morning train, and it's been known to be late enough that I don't think I'd trust it to make a cruise ship the same day, so it's stay another night in Vancouver. That said wouldn't bother me too much to do it again.

I know there was talk of adding a second train a day for that route, but it was primarily for teh olympics, and I don't know a) if they ever did and b) if they continued it after teh olympics.

KPWM_Spotter

As much as I love trains, I have to agree that Amtrak's long distance network is entirely impractical, and probably should be eliminated. Routes of 500+ miles have absolutely no advantage over air and auto transit, they cost just as much (if not more), take more time, and are terribly unreliable. LD trains in the US are (for the most part) a sentimental holdout from a bygone era, and starve funding from routes which have a potential of being successful.

Amtrak as a whole has its merits. Given the right amount of capital investment certain routes can easily perform on par with the European HSR network. The Northeast corridor is an obvious example, but the Coast Starlight route along the Pacific coast, and a few shorter routes ex-Chicago certainly have potential as well.

When it comes to regional travel, I frequently make use of US commuter rail (both Amtrak and non) and rapid transit systems. A decade ago you could count on one hand the number of commuter rail networks in the US, now they're popping up everywhere, and are starting to be almost practical. The most developed networks (New York, Boston, Chicago) are obviously the most usable, but even relatively spread-out cities like Dallas offer relatively practical transit from the airport to downtown. It depends on where you are, but the US is at least starting to catch up to the rest of the world in recognizing the usefulness of rail travel.

kipper

I've tried to take Amtrak across a portion of PA to visit my parents or my in-laws, but there's 1 train/day in each direction, and neither is at a very convenient time. In addition, the fare is such that it's about the same cost to drive.

darthbimmer

+1. I agree it's largely a relic from a bygone era. The only people I know who use rail for longer trips, aside from the northeast corridor, are: 1) Tourists going for "the experience" of riding long distance rail, and 2) People who are unable to fly or drive, such as one relative of mine who's a basket case about flying and not healthy enough to drive more than 2-3 hours per day.

BearX220

There are two trains a day in each direction between Seattle and Vancouver one in the morning, one at dinnertime.

They're scheduled to take four hours. You can drive up in two and a half.

The round-trip train fare is $80, or $320 for a family of four. That family can drive the same roundtrip on one $40 tank of gas.

Amtrak offers four additional daily roundtrips that are actually buses. The buses take 3.5 hours in each direction -- they're faster than the trains.

The trackage hugs the Puget Sound shoreline and is prone to closure by mudslides, especially in winter, in which case the buses serve as backup.

There's no economic case for this train. It takes very few cars off the road, and it's much more expensive than driving. It's akin to an amusement park ride: fun, but expensive and pointless. And this is one of the more sensible Amtrak routes in the US.

KoKoBuddy

This summer I looked at taking Amtrak to Glacier. There are stops on both sides of the park. And it would be a pretty cool trip to ride through the rugged Montana/Idaho country to get there.

However, Amtrak in its infinite wisdom has the once a day train going through the rugged Montana/Idaho country at night. Not only that, I'd have to board at 1:30 AM.

And all this for the low, low price of $90 per person. So for a family of 4, $360. Compare that with driving for a cost of about $75 in gas for the same family.

cbn42

There is more to the cost of driving than just gas.

AAA estimates the total cost of driving at 50 cents a mile.

nerd

The train has to be scheduled so that it arrives in Chicago to connect with the east/southbound overnight departing trains.

And on the way out, the 2pm departure from Chicago is scheduled to connect from overnight arrivals into Chicago.

KoKoBuddy

That's not marginal miles driven, it's total miles driven. If you own a car already, it's not 50 cents per mile on every mile driven. Basically the money you've spent for the car is already spent. The only thing that you pay for when driving a marginal mile is depreciation and wear/tear. And that is not 50 cents for 99% of cars.

KoKoBuddy

That's all fine and good. But as a consumer, I'm not getting up in the middle of the night to go catch a train.

ksandness

The rail system in the U.S. has been treated like a prisoner in a labor camp: fed just enough to keep it alive but not enough to make it healthy.

Amtrak was formed in 1970 and has been subsidized at the rate of about $1 billion per year since then.

That sounds like a lot, but in 2001, after 9/11, U.S. airlines received a $35 billion government subsidy all at once, which meant that the airline industry received more in one year than Amtrak had in the entire 31 years of its existence.

Yes, at present, Amtrak runs one train per day in each direction on most lines. How many people would fly if the airlines ran one flight per day in each direction between Chicago and Seattle?

Of course, flying is a necessity when one is crossing oceans or continents, but I wish there were alternatives to the misery of domestic coach travel, with its security checks, delays, and sardine-like conditions, and to driving, which brings with it aching muscles, weariness, and the boredom of having to keep an eye on mostly uninteresting stretches of road while being unable to do anything else.

CMK10

It depends where I am. I think people who are convinced that only the Northeast Corridor provides adequate rail service are writing off Northern California. I go visit the SF area and frequently find myself on Caltrain (Commuter Rail), BART and even the Amtrak California services to get around. In fact, I can't imagine getting from my friend's house in Redwood City to SF without taking Caltrain.

Also, when visiting Chicago I will take Amtrak to MKE for better fares same with flying into BUR and taking Amtrak/Metrolink to Downtown LA. Or when visiting my brother in Maryland I'd rather take the train from Durham to Baltimore or DC than drive. There are many places where rail travel works well in the US.

kebosabi

+1. There's no need for a Seattle to LA or Emeryville to Chicago service when air travel does the job fine.

These long rail routes should be scrapped and instead, use the rail cars for more frequent services in shorter corridors like Seattle-Portland or Chicago-St. Louis.

That being said, our nation's air traffic is also bogged up with the same short haul routes that would be better served with more frequent short haul rail service. Do we really need that many dinky regional jets between SEA-PDX or LAX-SAN?

Our transportation infrastructure is sadly, a mess. Air travel is best for longer distances, rail travel for shorter distances. Yet with the infinite wisdom of the US, we have it the other way around.

BearX220

There are a few places in the US where population density supports a rail line or system. There are a very few places where rail frequency, price point and reliability make it a rational, straight-up competitor to other modes of transport. There is noplace in the US where a rail system survives unsubsidized, from LIRR and Amtrak NEK services in the east, to Caltran in the west, to the friggin' Las Vegas monorail.

The fantasies about high-speed rail currently making the rounds are just that and will never come to fruition. The infrastruture cost could never be recovered through operations.

My current home city, Seattle, has inaugurated heavy and light rail services over the last five or ten years out of the misapprehension that "world-class" cities must have rail and it's taking commuters off the highways. Critics have pointed out, though, that you could take all the public subsidy money used to get heavy rail running and buy every single documented rider a house in another state, plus pay for his moving expenses.