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I see a Youtube video Amtrak Zephyr train California travel to Chicago and I notice is not many passengers on board for such a beautiful landscape to travel through many USA states with spectacular amazing views.
It takes a little over 2 days (51 hours) and 2/3 of the terrain along the route is flat and boring.
An airplane flight has about 30 minutes of cool views but it only takes 4 hours.
leave it to government to lose money on the most efficient form of land transportation. Of course, when you penalize rail and subsidize everything else, it's bound to go that way.
Air travel is much more efficient for humans to go long distances. Also, no urban public transit system is profitable, and is a drain on taxpayers, and I LIKE taking the local trains.
Amtrak was really set up to fail, I am glad to see them breakeven. The northeast corridor has always done well but Amtrak serves Mississippi and Montana as well.
I'm thinking about taking the Amtrak Silver car from Columbia to New York. I would love to take that train and luckily for me it's an easy trip up the east coast. I'd also like to go to Chicago but apparently there is no way to get there from Columbia (sarcasm. I think it would take three trains)
It's funny you say that because a disproportionate number of the Amtrak lines terminate in Chicago. For a national rail network maybe a third of it functions more as a hub and spoke model centered on Chicago.
I don't blame Amtrak for this. It's leftover from the 19th and early 20th centuries. But making a true national rail network with connections between cities not requiring you to ride multiple lines would require a massive investment.
Love Amtrak. Can’t wait for my next trip to NOLA on the Sunset Limited.
Man, we love it too. It’s a fantastic way to get to where you’re going when you aren’t in a hurry. We can pick up the Texas Chief right here in Austin and go straight to Chicago. Family sleeper (if you can get it) is so awesome. Spans the width of the car with huge windows on both sides. We dig the Vets they have working onboard. Always cool dudes.
It takes a little over 2 days (51 hours) and 2/3 of the terrain along the route is flat and boring.
An airplane flight has about 30 minutes of cool views but it only takes 4 hours.
I looked into Amtrak a few years back since I had gotten to hate the TSA rigamarole. The trip I wanted to take was something like 40 hours by train, and two or three by plane. It's not practical, except maybe for a retiree.
Amtrak when created (by Richard Nixon) was supposed to be self-funding within a short time. It was supposed to move out of mom's basement, but it never did.
Flight costs so high that they now make Train travel a better deal, if you have the time.
All us retirees find it a better way to go.
I prefer trains to planes, but when I need to travel between cities time is of the essence as it's usually for work, conferences, or visiting family within some vacation window dictated by work schedules. Also the US is so huge you can get 10x travel time improvements in the air.
One of the things we like the most is the ease of just parking your car and walking to the train and just stepping onboard. So nice.
We took the Coast Starlight from Oakland to Seattle some years ago and it was amazing. The service, the views, the wine!
I read that they’ve cut meal service on some of the routes, which is a shame. There’s nothing like enjoying a good meal while clickety clacking your way through the country.
We’ve played around with the idea of taking the Texas Chief to Chicago, picking up the Empire Builder from there to Seattle, then the Coast Starlight from there to LA, then LA back to San Antonio on the Sunset Limited. One of these days!
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