I have traveled New York to Seattle by Amtrak in 2016 and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Sleeper class is not cheap in peak season, but its well worth the cost at least once.
Food poisoning for airline meals is quite rare. They go to great lengths to ensure that it’s the least offensive to the widest range of stomachs (at the expense of flavor and variety). The last thing an airline wants is 400 people fighting over 12 bathrooms 8 hours into a 15 hour flight from LAX to SYD.
Meals on flagship airlines in business/first can be very good. 'Fourth best' in my mind is better than domestic (US) coach (on the rare occasions it exists) and not quite as good as Emirates coach. Acela 1st meals fall in that bucket easily.
I did Seattle->Chicago on Amtrak a couple of years back in a sleeper car, and the food was just fine. Certainly much better than the foil-wrapped disappointment you get in economy class on transatlantic flights.
I flew Jet just once (from Toronto to Hong Kong I think), and I remember it as the only airplane meal that didn't seem like it came from a microwave. It was actual Indian food – maybe not top-tier-restaurant quality, but good! They also handed out _actual_ hot towels – not those single-use ones. This was all in economy.
There are many great reasons to take a train across the U.S.
When I was on sabbatical I took life at a slower pace. And riding the train was just an amazing beautiful slow experience. Sometimes we just go through life to fast, and a nice slow train does the body well
Interesting. In William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" the main character feels that it takes a while for her soul to catch back up to her after she takes long plane rides. Wonder if this where he got that idea from.
The problem is the tracks are owned by the freight (at least for these long segments in the western US). For it to get better Amtrak would need an entire new set of tracks.
Yeah, a good rule of thumb is "don't expect Amtrak to be on time on tracks they don't control", which is "a lot of them".
One thing I do blame Amtrak for is that they don't always announce their delays as soon as they were known; I took a train that was delayed for two or three hours immediately after picking me up because CSX spit decided to rearrange a bunch of freight trains directly in front of us, and my cousins waiting to pick me up at the station at the other end said that the arrivals board claimed the train was on time up until a few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive, and then ticked up the arrival time by 15 or 30 minutes at a time until we actually arrived.
It wasn't Amtrak's fault I was 3 hours late, but it was their fault my cousins just had to hang out at a train station for 3 hours instead of leaving and coming back later.
Adding WiFi wouldn’t help. It would probably be a cellular based WiFi service massively shared and no better coverage than you would get with your own data plan.
Note that the author took a sleeper car. In terms of price, this is a bit of a luxury.
As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.
Agreed. Did Portland, OR to St. Paul, MN. Beautiful views. Fun to walk around. Wished there a was a smoking lounge.
But by 24 hours in it started to stink and I hadn't slept well. By the end of the trip I was cranky and exhausted. And it really smelled in the train (and this was with it just 25% full)!
Yeah that's a big difference. The regular seats are a much different story.
I've never done it but I read about how it's basically 3 days of sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone and there's no showers. Can't imagine what that would be like in a car filled with 50+ people.
I did take the Amtrak from CT To Boston once and it wasn't too bad, but that was a few hour trip. Much different than a few days.
My understanding is that most people are not actually traveling coast to coast, but on shorter segments of the overall route. I don't think you're likely to be next to the someone for 3 days.
I took an Amtrak train from LA to Chicago in coach many years ago. I spent practically all of my time in the observation car, so it didn't really matter to me what my nominal seat looked like. I probably did stink by the end of the trip, but I was 17 at the time so it didn't bother me (at least I don't remember one way or the other).
I think there are two kinds of people in the world. One kind needs a sleeper for the trip to be enjoyable, the other couldn't care less. I used to be the second kind, but I don't think I am anymore.
I think I fall into the category of needing a sleeper to sleep. I wouldn't plan to stay in there during the day but there's no way I'd be able to fall asleep next to someone in the open like that.
I can't even sleep in a hotel unless there's a dead lock.
As someone has taken coach class from LA to NY, I'll add that one night aboard the Lakeshore Limited was worse than two nights aboard the Southwest Chief. Smellier, smaller bathrooms, no lounge car, and uninteresting views.
I'm sure the experience of coach varies by train and how busy it is. I took the California Zephyr from Utah to Chicago once for Christmas break. I never had someone sitting next to me, the seats are wide, the leg room was plentiful, and I felt like I could recline plenty without the guilt that you feel on an airplane. The hard parts of the journey would have been the loneliness of a college student who is too shy to make the most out of interactions like being sat with strangers for dinner and who can't really communicate with his friends(much of the trip I couldn't even get cell service, and no Wifi on that train).
I have done the sleeper car from Chicago to Los Angeles with my parents. Lucky we had one with a private bathroom, as my dad has stomach flu most of the ride. I think the possibility of a shower, and maybe even a private bathroom are the only reasons I'd shell out more money for a sleeper over coach.
I often take Amtrak from NYC to Chicago (and back) and just love it. The trip is about 24 hours each way. Train riders are generally friendly. Someone always has a couple of guitars, so it's fun to play and sing along. The bar car is typically friendly and the food car is generally pretty good eats.
Also, some of the stopovers in small midwest towns are a few hours long so you can get out, stretch your legs, and find a nice quaint diner or something to change things up. I've had nothing by great times on the train. Of course YMMV.
Amtrak trains are very long. I've never seen anyone play a guitar or make any noise outside of the bar car. The passenger cars are quite comfortable. More room than a domestic first class flight. Also, usually the last car is the 'family' car, so babies and running kids are usually just hanging back there.
I've taken the empire builder from Seattle to Chicago a couple times in coach, which I was pretty happy with. I can sleep okay in coach on airplanes though, so sleeping in coach on a train is positively luxurious by comparison.
When I was a smaller human being I could find an empty row on a train and stretch out fully diagonally under the seats. no way could I do that now but it was nice while it lasted. took the south west chief a few times, the empire builder, the capitol limited and lakeshore limited. trains are great
In a lot of cases it is not as much of a luxury as you would expect considering the meals and how long it is. You can get a pair of tickets from SF(Emeryville) to Chicago with a sleeper room for about $675 total. A pair of coach train tickets is about $275 . A pair of one way plane tickets is $300 on the low end, and about $800 for a pair of first class plane tickets.
By sleeper car, train is luxurious and much more relaxed. By vehicle you can sleep each night in a hotel and take a shower each day. Both have + and -'s. But my ranking would be Sleeper Car train > Driving > non-sleeper car train.
You can get lower with a greyhound bus. Sure they stop at every prison along the way, but the views are actually quite nice. The social is also there, but can be a bit scary depending on your appetite for adventure.
Does Greyhound still operate services across the US? I know in Canada they've shuttered most of their operations except for the more heavily used eastern-central routes in Ontario and Quebec because everything else is not profitable.
Greyhound still has all of its cross country routes. Like I said, many people depend on them, especially prisons, but they are also cheap and service many many places that trains and planes don’t go near.
I took a Greyhound from Pittsburgh to Seattle once. It was a 4 day experience and I think it took a week for my brain to reboot afterwards. Plus, we had a 24-hour layover due to weather - I think I slept on the floor of the bus station.
I've done both. I'd prefer train over car if it's possible. Being able to stretch your legs, change positions, and not focus on the road constantly is nice. Its much more relaxing than flying, however I'd rather fly and be uncomfortable for only a few hours.
IME, the train is like an abbreviated version of a car trip. It's great for when you don't have the weeks to spare doing a driving trip right, but still want some sightseeing and the feeling of traveling.
I've done short-on-time utilitarian driving trips too (all interstates, etc), and I'd definitely choose the train over that.
It also doesn't constrain your other leg, which can be flown if it fits your needs better. If you're only going one way, I'd recommend going east to west on the train. The train novelty will get you out of the dense Northeast, and then you can settle in after Chicago.
I just tried some borscht a couple weeks ago. It was made by an older Russian gentleman at my church (in the U.S.). It was definitely a different flavor but it was pretty good.
My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience.
But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really.
And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by.
One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.
It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.
> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.
That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.
Amtrak has quiet cars, at least in the Northeast. I often take Boston-NYC and there seem to be a lot of business travelers. People who are riding in a train across Utah are probably in it for the experience.
Capitol Corridor also has a quiet car but all it means is you are assured of having to inform some bozo of that fact because the fraction of riders on their first train ride ever is very high.
Thats because there is a cultural difference between how americans and europeans see trains. For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation.
I once saw a large party of school children going on a trip on the Caltrain. Turned out they weren't going anywhere... it was just going on the train that was the activity. A commuter train running alongside a highway through urban sprawl. They were whooping when it pulled into the station.
I've taken the train in Minneapolis from the mall to downtown several times, purely for the novelty of it. We have a lot of freight trains in Iowa. Passenger, not so much.
I live a few blocks from that train, so I wind up taking it all the time to get to the mall or downtown. The novelty wears off, and you wind up mostly worried about having to share your ride with packs of unruly teenagers, or sports fans heading downtown who can't resist saying racist things about our various African immigrant neighbors. It's a pleasure or a drag, depending on the manners of those who share the ride.
One Iowan to another: you didn't ride a train in Minneapolis. You rode a streetcar (tram in British).
And yes, only the southeast corner of Iowa is served at all by passenger rail. Would be nice if they extended the Hawkeye Express to CR, or better yet, Amtrak service from Davenport to IC to DSM. Alas, not enough $$$ to make it worth doing.
The lines that goes between the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, and St Paul are light rail, and are faster than what would normally be considered a "tram" or "streetcar".
I'd think it still counts as being a train. Obviously it's short-distance light rail, but it's still got all the main feature's of a train.
I mainly mentioned it since the parent comment was about a group of girls getting on the train purely for the experience of being on the train, and my experience seemed pretty similar.
Don't know that it terribly matters one way or the other though I guess.
If you really want to get technical, the key defining characteristic of a train is that it consists of multiple connected railway vehicles that move together. A railway vehicle is of course a vehicle that runs on tracks.
So there are some tram/streetcar/light rail systems out there (like the one in New Orleans) that consist of individual railway vehicles, and are thus not trains.
Knowing I was going to miss the last "Baby Bullet" out of SF to San Jose because a meeting ran late was one of the biggest kick in the guts. I do not miss that commute at all.
I take the Caltrain almost daily to mountain view, and I feel the exact opposite. Usually I look around and everyone has their bose headphones on while working on their macbook pro. It feels like were all drones, working 24/7 waiting to die. Where as game days/school trips are the highlight of my commute, it feels more human IMO.
I grew up in the eastbay, and at least while I was growing up, the bart train was a friendly environment of people interacting with one another. Obviously it came with some not so pleasant things (i.e. homelessness and unwanted touching) but more human none-the-less.
While it's fun for the kids it's also important for them to get used to and respect trains. I've found that kids who grow up in places where trains aren't as popular don't develop a healthy fear of them. When my son saw train tracks for the first time at 2 yrs old his first reaction was to run towards them. So trips like these can teach kids how to properly act at a train station.
I used to like to ride the Staten Island Ferry in both directions in the middle of the night just for the peacefulness of it. That and long 3am walks through midtown east/UES were fantastic ways to clear my head.
Trains can also be pretty quaint in Europe today now that low cost airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer cheap flights to most major cities. I live in Berlin and even domestic trains are far more expensive than domestic flights to medium and large cities.
So long as fuel is reasonably priced, planes can take more people farther, faster it is simple economics. Trains are still preferable for local trips and even some medium range trips, but to go all the way across Europe by train would be terribly expensive compared to taking a cheap flight.
That doesn't really answer the question. What about planes is cheaper? For simple economics to apply, they have to do something cheaper than trains, and it's not obvious what that is. As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile.
Planes most likely benefit from the economies of scale, simply for the huge number of riders they service in comparison with trains for longer stretches.
The complicated area of railroad tracks probably doesn't help either. Someone is paying for them and the maintenance is frequent judging by the business my friends working on the railroads get.
There are several reasons why flying can be so cheap in Europe:
1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.
2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance.
3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is that they've become giant malls that want to get people through them, so landing fees have steadily gone down (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).
4. Some airlines (more specifically Ryanair) fly to cheaper/more outlier airports. If you take a Ryanair flight to Paris, you're landing in Beauvais Airport, which is almost halfway to the english channel. You'll then have to take a bus. When in europe, I usually prefer Easyjet for the reason that though they're more expensive, you're landing at an airport with decent transit to the city you're visiting.
5. There's no frills at all. If you're just flying with no luggage, you won't believe how cheap it can be (I flew from madrid to london for 25 euros). But the fills aren't cheap. Checked baggage is more than the cost of the flight, food is a rip off, etc.
Also, trains in europe are still often state-owned (not the case everywhere, I know), so they're forced to run uneconomical lines for political purposes, etc.
> (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).
Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.
My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.
I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.
> 1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.
As a european who moved to the US recently, this was mind boggeling the first time I boarded a plane in the US. I arrived at the airport expecting a typical 10 minute boarding time, but kept getting more surprised at how inefficient they managed to make boarding a plane as time passed. Just the time spend waiting in the plane at the gate before they let you get out seems to be longer in some cases than the typical turnaround time for euro flights.
Not having to maintain thousands of miles of rail seems like a big cost savings right up front. Trains should have lower fuel costs, but fuel really isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. People are also willing to give up some creature comforts if the trip is short which helps airlines. Trains also have a lower throughput of passengers compared to employee hours, so salary costs per passenger are higher.
The simple economics is in passenger volume. A plane can carry more people, to more destinations within Europe, several times a day.
Your statement that "As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile" definitely has some merit, but... trains are only more fuel efficient per passenger if they are as full as planes. An Airbus with 180 passengers might beat a train in per passenger miles if the train is not loaded.
Considering that, trains definitely are cheaper for highly utilized routes (commuting routes, for example), but for a leisurely trip across Europe, an Airbus packed to the gils could be cheaper.
I'm also an ignorant american, but I've traveled Europe for months by rail and air.
By american standards, both methods are dirt cheap.
Ryanair cuts every cost you can imagine. No free water or pretzels, tiny seating area, no first class, outskirts airports, no checked or carry on, tarmac boarding.
On trains you get sufficient space to stretch your legs, a power outlet, wifi, unlimited baggage etc. and you get to arrive and depart in the city center.
I think the pricing is based upon consumer value more than service costs.
This is worth your 8 minutes of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ
I love trains, but the economics of rail travel in the USA can't be overcome. Until robot trains.
I have seen that and agree that country-wide train service is indeed expensive, but there really should be better offerings on the east coast that could compete against bus service. Being on a train with plenty of room has a huge quality advantage over buses and the scaling of their carrying capacity means that companies can be more free in allowing luggage and seating space than the economics of planning the layout of a bus.
Train service in the US Northeast is pretty good at least for the cities it services. It's not price-competitive with Megabus but is train anywhere competitive pricewise with discount buses?
And that's the catch. I've been told that years ago it was better, but try to catch a train to a secondary city in New England and you'll often find that the only offering is an occasional Amtrak branded bus.
Fair enough. It's mostly the coastal corridor that's good with a couple on inland spurs from NY/New Haven up to St. Albans and Montreal that aren't terrible. But otherwise, there's something of a gap between commuter rail systems (which are pretty hub and spoke in any case) and what Amtrak covers.
As a former vermonter... The St. Albans service is terrible, trains go into Essex Junction (basically, Burlington) once a day and the train leaves NYC at 11:33 am and gets in at 8:18 pm, eight hours for what is a five hour drive with a single train a day.
I don't disagree that some other services might be alright, but that's clearly not one of them.
I haven't kept up on those services. I know they've come and gone over the years but I was being charitable. I used to semi-regularly take the train from White River Junction to Philadelphia but I pretty much only use the Acela/Northeast Regional these days and that's really the "good-ish" part of the service I'm aware of. (Where good-ish is defined as preferable to driving, the bus, and plane--so long as not doing the whole length.)
Part of it is fuel tax (which planes don't pay in Europe). I'm speculating, but I'd guess that the maintenance on the tracks is pretty significant. Planes don't have that issue.
Trains need a lot of infrastructure, meaning maintenance and construction costs (i.e. tracks and stations). Also, as they are slower, wage costs can be higher than planes.
1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity
2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.
3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).
4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.
This came up in something related: the Dutch Greens have been campaigning recently to reduce or eliminate flights to and from Schiphol within a 750 km radius, in favour of trains.
Answering your question, on the issue of price they note that no fuel tax is is paid on airplanes fuel and no VAT (21%) on flight tickets.
I think it’s a clever win/win play: reducing short haul flights in favour of railways not only reduces emissions and noise pollution, but it also frees up some capacity at Schiphol.
And there’s been some success already: the house has accepted a motion to eliminate the Schiphol-Brussels route.
Düsseldorf-Munich for 26,70€ including reserving a seat.
Kiel-Düsseldorf 29,90€. To get back, 26,90€.
Kiel-Munich and back for 53,80€.
Not even Ryanair is that cheap, especially when you consider that with trains you don’t have to go through security, have none of the check-in times and other bullshit, and can take luggage without paying a 60€ surcharge.
None of those are to or from Berlin. Munich might have cheaper rail options than Berlin, especially since Munich is a more traditional hub of industry. Flights Berlin to Köln are definitely cheaper than trains. Generally in my experience flights in Europe are less expensive than trains YMMV.
I wouldn't say that difference holds for all americans. The trains in northeast corridor, which serve ~50 million people (~15% of us population) also have no-talking cars. But to your point, train service is treated as a basic form of transportation there.
That's a wild generalization, based on a lack of experience or knowledge. A number of passenger railroads in the United States also have quiet cars. Metra comes to mind, but I know I've seen others.
For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation
You're either repeating outdated cliches from the internet, or you must not live in a large metropolitan area with passenger train service.
Looking at the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas in the US, you're already at nearly half the population of the US. And I know from the experience of having ridden commuter rail in most of those that most of them have commuter rail, i.e. passenger train service.
You've got to go pretty far down the list to find one without commuter rail or even a subway/light rail system (which I'm not counting as passenger train service).
If it isn't the majority, it's at least a normal experience for a huge swath of the population.
But some people might want the observe the sights and not have a lot of noise around them, right? Not really sure it's fair to pollute a public space with your music when not everyone might like it, or have the confidence to say when they don't like it. Not very nice to say to people you're going to subject them to music and if they don't like it their only option is to leave. Doesn't really sound right does it?
Most of the ride the observation car was quiet. The sing-along was a welcome diversion from the anxiety and ennui of sitting for hours waiting to see if the train would be allowed to proceed.
A bit more of the story. Where we were stopped was the the side of a mountain. On the uphill side was a similarly-stopped freight train, with an oil tanker car right next to us. Below us was a raging, flooded, river (on account of the same storms that washed out the track). And up above was a cliff, with a boulder on top that seemed maybe a little precarious.
So we were sitting there wondering if the same storm that eroded the tracks had maybe eroded the cliff around that boulder, allowing it to tumble down through the oil tanker to send us plunging into the flood waters below.
Brooding over that was less fun than the distraction of the sing-along.
I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience.
I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer...
Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs...
I think Brits find public singing embarrassing, and even more so if the person doing it is right next to you, and a complete stranger. It gets worse if it involves a guitar.
Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved.
I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance awkward; we try to sit quietly and pretend it isn't even happening, eg. not even looking at the person making the disturbance. eg. some people arguing at the back of the bus probably won't make people at the front of the bus turn around or tell them to shut up.
In the US observing someone showcasing a skill in public is usually not enjoyable but there is less of an emphasis on decorum and politeness and more of that good ol'libretarian individualism so going out into public and demonstrating how heart stoppingly amazing you are is a pretty common occurrence.
I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.
I am viscerally repulsed by public music playing in places where I can't reasonably escape. The absolute worst that I'm frequently stuck with is busking in NYC subway cars/stations. The music is usually terrible, although sometimes good, and on rare occasions great, but I don't think it should be allowed at all.
I don't have as much of a problem with street-corner busking, in large part because it can be avoided, but even that drives me nuts when I can't get away from it (outside a place I work, for example).
I love music, and when I'm in the mood, I'll seek out a street performance. City parks are great for this, and I think they're an appropriate venue. A rail car is not even remotely appropriate, and a subway station during your unavoidable morning commute, with loud brass instruments and a shitty PA system, echoing off the walls, ought to be a crime.
Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire
An absolute fortune. I've looked into this, and it isn't economical in any way, shape, or form. Flying across the continent is MUCH cheaper, and with your number of vacation days usually being limited, gives you a lot more time at your destination. The only reason to do this is because you really want to spend your vacation time sitting in a train watching rural American scenery go by in states like Montana. It's sort of like taking a cruise ship, except a lot more expensive and the food isn't as good (or even included in the price I think) and there's not much to do on the train except watch the scenery and talk to people.
If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights, it'd be more comfortable than an airplane's economy seats, and the ridership would probably be higher (which would lead to lower costs). As it is, long-distance rail travel in the US is an expensive disaster.
$2k is hardly an "absolute fortune". For the typical hackernews software developer this is something like a week's worth of work for one of the most unforgettable experiences of their lives.
But compared to a one way flight, which can be had for as little as 100 bucks it's still pretty steep.
Alas, the experience certainly cannot be compared. It's not about getting to the destination, when you take the train. You pay for the entire experience.
I can go to Europe for 2 weeks for $2k or so, all-inclusive. Spending that much money just to sit on a train and look out a window sounds like a fortune to me. Maybe for very sedentary people it's an attractive option. Even a cruise ship is a more active experience, since there's a LOT more to do on a cruise ship, and you can probably do that for less than $2k as well if you avoid all the extras.
A sleeper for one is ~1'800$. About 300 more if you're two.
That's about half of a yearly train pass for Switzerland (2nd class). The pass allowes you to travel in virtually any mode of transportation without restrictions. Except for taxis, some boats and some mountain railways.
A similar cross country sleeper trip could be around 50$ in India, though by Indian speeds it may take the train several days, it is common for train rides India to last more than 2 full days. The longest distance passenger train on the Indian network takes close to 80 hours one way.
Amtrak was selling Phoenix-New Orleans tickets for $79 around the new year (not sleeper though). These days you can get bargains on certain east coast routes on roomette tickets if you go on trains that they’ve pulled the dining car off of.
But that price includes the sleeper and meals. If you view this as the vacation itself, it's not far off the price you'd be paying for hotels and meals.
Yeah, that's why I compared it to a cruise ship. But on the cruise ship, the food is probably a lot better, you have lots of activities on board (games, casinos, gym, massage parlor, fancy restaurants, shows, concerts, swimming pool, tennis court, etc.) and lots of space to walk around, and it stops at several ports of call during the trip. With the train, you get none of that, maybe a few short stops in rural towns on the way but not long enough to get off. I guess if you want to spend your whole vacation just sitting down and looking out a window, it's ok...
I'd indeed say it costs more than most people are willing to pay.
That said, a sleeper car on Amtrak gets you: a flat surface to lie down on, your own toilet (note the toilet is just there in the roomette, next to the bunk, prison style), access to a shower (your own shower in the rooms, one per car for the roomettes), access to the first class lounges, and includes meals in the dining car.
Rooms have a slightly wider lower bunk versus roomettes to sleep 2 (skinny) people and an enclosed toilet so you don't lose mystery from your romantic or work relationships. Roomettes are too small for a first world prison cell but have the beds oriented parallel to the direction of travel, which many people find more comfortable -- the rocking of the train is more soothing and less jarring.
If you have the time, don't mind paying four-star hotel prices for a two-star experience, and hate flying or have a medical condition that makes it infeasible you should definitely consider it.
Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.
> Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.
This sounds like fun. I wonder if there are any European routes that are as long/uninterrupted that I could try that on.
Not really - the only trains taking longer than 24 hours in Europe are the sleepers to Moscow, and the longest of those (Nice-Moscow) only takes 48 hours. There are then much longer trains from Moscow into Asia though, up to the famous Trans-Siberian (6 days).
I went London-Japan overland but my longest single segment was two and a half days (Moscow-Shymkent), and that was about right - time to relax and do nothing for a bit, but by the third morning I had definitely spent enough time in the same compartment, as nice as it was.
Not really within the EU - we have reasonably fast rail that prioritises passenger travel over freight - but e.g. Moscow to Beijing takes 6 or 7 nights, and you could get to Moscow itself by sleeper train if you're up for it.
> Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.
With spotty cellphone reception, so if you want to disconnect from constant connectivity that's also an interesting way.
It's a great experience, but if you're thinking of just sitting in there and programming in a room with a view, keep in mind that the scenery changes and is pretty amazing, which might distract you from programming.
Yes, you would in America. It's a question of simple geometry and perspective. I haven't ridden TGV, but I'm guessing you're talking about smaller things, probably man-made ones (e.g. buildings), maybe trees, relatively close to the train. You're not going to see anything like that when riding a train across Montana. Instead, you're going to see enormous wide-open natural spaces, with absolutely nothing really close to the train. So even at a speed 2-4x that of Amtrak's, you'll see it just fine.
In the case of Amtrak, I believe they're all private. (By contrast when I took an overnight train in China a few years back it was a shared bunkroom though there were probably different options available.)
The sleepers are all individual rooms of some description with 1-2 beds. There are some larger up to 4 adults. There are no hostel style bunk cars on trains. You're either sleeping in seats or in a room.
Common showers, but this wasn't a problem at all for us.
The NY<->Chicago line had toilets in the compartment - but I mean in the compartment, not a separate bathroom. So not so great.
The California Zephyr (Chicago<->SF) has common toilets. The one in our sleeper car was broken for the whole trip, for which Amtrak only gave us the slightest nod of recognition.
Canada's Via Rail trains have hostel-style bunk beds, called berths, double-stacked on both sides of the corridor, with a heavy curtain covering them. During the day they are converted into open compartments with couch-style seating.
Yes. It means you get a bed. Even most people who ride Amtrak regularly aren't familiar with them. (I've never actually seen one on Amtrak in person.) They're only on long distance trains.
It's very cheap to do in coach. I think I paid $300 or so. The key thing is to get off and spend some time at the major stops (Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City).
When evaluating the price, consider that it is also a hotel room and comes with free meals. Compare it to air fare + hotel room for X days + decent meals for X days and the price becomes less painful.
I'm not sure that is the right comparison. Let's take a New York to Los Angeles trip.
That would be 3 days on Amtrak, or about 6 hours by plane.
I'd guess that for most cases flying instead of taking the train doesn't mean we spend the 6 days that we would have spent on the train (round trip) in a Los Angeles hotel eating expensive restaurant meals. I think most people would simply leave home later and leave Los Angeles earlier if flying, so that the time difference is spent at home eating whatever they normally eat.
The scenery, the experience, and (while I don't really like the term) the "bucket list" nature of it.
Personally, I sort of want to do at least a section of the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr at some point. And I'd also like to take a transatlantic liner (well, the Queen Mary 2) from NY to Southampton. But probably only once and I'm fully prepared for the idea to be more enticing than the reality.
Amtrak's been stripping meals out of the service to save money. The Silver Star [correction: not Silver Meteor also], which runs the length of the east coast from Maine to Florida and back, for example, has no meal car. You can buy the roomettes and the rooms, still for significantly more than a plane ticket, but they do not come with meals. There's a "snack" car for all passengers with a microwave where you can buy chips or a hot dog, and it's only open some of the time. The sleeper cars are also dirty and falling apart, and there is no observation car.
Quick correction to this comment as I just took the silver meteor recently from FL-NY. Meals are definitely included when booking a room. The dining car has been renovated so perhaps meals were unavailable at some point. The price is significantly more than a plane ticket and while the rooms are older I would not consider them dirty. Sleep is difficult IMO as you do stop, bump around and you’ll occasionally get some random rattling. There is no observation car but they do have a lounge car with tables and snacks. You could get microwave meals like pizza, burgers, etc. Definitely not gourmet fair. The dining car meal is a significant step up and while not winning any Michelin stars is surprisingly decent.
I’ve done Shanghai to Urumqi before in a hard sleeper. I don’t think I really saw much outside (no observation car, monotonous farming fields), but the people on the train were really interesting (eg Pakistani traders using the train to get back home).
I did the Shanghai/Beijing bullet with some friends who had never been to China, it was great perspective for them and me to see all the massive cities in between that are not known outside of China but the size of New York City
I went Shanghai to the Yellow Mountains on a very old, slow sleeper train. It was basically a dormitory, with bunks three high. And you don't want to know about the bathrooms - it's really just a hole in the floor, falling onto the tracks.
But even so, it was a wonderful experience. The Chinese landscape is nothing short of awesome. And the culture that unfolded was completely unknown to me, so constantly interesting.
One thing that really made me take notice was the wide range of people. On the way to the Shanghai train station, we had walked by a Lamborghini dealership (I don't recall ever having seen even one of these in the USA) - there's a not-insignificant population of filthy rich people in and around Shanghai. But on the train we saw people peasants using an ox to plow a rice paddy of only a fraction of an acre. The degree of inequality was hugely wider than America or any other nation I've seen.
EDIT: the Shanghai airport maglev train was an interesting experience just to say I've gone 300+mph on a train, but otherwise totally boring.
One of the most memorable ride was a trip from Vietnam to Kunming in the 90s. I hope this old line is still running. The train travels along a canyon. The view is incomparably stunning.
China rail have pretty bad hygiene at that time. The passengers freely throw their trash on the floor and out of the window. The attendants swiped the floor every few hours. Every time they pushed a mountain of peanut husk away. There was a peasant family on board with a baby. The baby needed to relief. So the parents held him up to have him shit on the floor. The attendant saw it and really lost it. She scolded the hell out of the family.
I heard about that rail line, it was supposed to be very slow given the gauge of the line put in by the French who built it. Passenger service stopped in 2005 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming–Haiphong_railway.
"Economy class, also called scum class, steerage, standard class or cattle class, is the lowest travel class of seating in air travel, rail travel, and sometimes ferry or maritime travel."
Faux-pejorative indeed. Cattle are required to be given more space when being transported, than humans are, in Europe. Human class is below cattle class.
I don't think that's true. Have you seen how they move cattle in trucks? Maybe more space than a human because they take up more space, but they stacked right next to each other.
India produces some real champions in this sport, the euros don't stand a chance. They have leagues up to "super-dense crush load", 14-16 people per square meter. It's still hard to believe this is possible...
"Cattle class" is an established joke, best employed by those actually riding in it.
"Don't sit with the cattle" is (IMHO) pretty harsh, and unnecessary.
And, for the record, cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats, in the days before the bed capsules. It's not a cabin but it might be the least-cramped train seating you will ever encounter.
cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats
This is true, they're FAR better than standard airline seats. On the other hand, if you're going NY to SF you're going to be sitting in them for 3 days, so they better be comfortable.
I once was headed to MacWorld at the Moscone Centre on business with my partner. We flew from Toronto to Chicago, where we took the California Zephyr to Oakland.
After MacWorld we did a little sightseeing, then took the Coast Starlight to Portland, where we changed to the Empire Builder back to Chicago.
Except what actually happened was that an avalanche in the Cascades held us up until a work train called "Snowball" showed up to clear the tracks. It had a massive snowblower, a plow, a flat car, a crane car, and a couple of coaches full of workers and equipment.
We then missed our connection, so they loaded us on double-decker buses that raced to catch up with the Empire Builder. It was very memorable.
> whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by
My family went by train from Flagstaff, AZ to Trinidad, CO for a wedding and the observation car was amazing, it was part of the Southwest Chief route [1].
Even through what you'd think would be boring stretches of New Mexico not one scene wasn't awe inspiring. We got to see landscapes out of westerns and mostly away from roads/main bustle, but you'd be surprised how there is always something to see and almost always people living out there. We had to go through the Rockies in historic coal mining country Colorado and had to stop once for freight trains to go by, but the views were amazing. It is fun to lookup what you are going through on Google maps and finding lots of interesting stuff. Trinidad, CO was a nice little interesting historical town, once a border town, where Fishers Peak was a guiding landmark for settlers on the Santa Fe Trail, with Native American, pioneer and Spanish history, that has a Masonic cemetery, old limestone masonry buildings and underground tunnels for coal, once the sex change capital of the world, and today it is now a cannabis hot spot [2].
Best part of the train is the view and you can get up and walk around unlike on a plane, the rides are longer of course but more flexible to move while traveling which is nice. I brought my laptop to work but the views were too good to pass up.
If I had more time I'd love to take the train all across the US. I wish there were more trains simply to see the less busy areas and interesting viewpoints you can't see from the road.
Amtrak does leave lots to be desired in terms of technology, price, the food (dining car wasn't good) and general areas like maintenance, but the observation car was difficult not to be up there the entire time.
> But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle
But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over.
If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.
I'll take economic umbrage at "don't sit with the cattle". When I traveled from Chicago to SF on the California Zephyr (40-ish hours), a seat was $100 and a sleeper car was over $1,000; for reference, a flight between the two is about $200. Being able to afford such a sleeper car is the sort of luxurious expense that most vacationers will likely prefer to spend on going to a more exotic destination by plane.
(I do recommend the California Zephyr, and second the parent's suggestion of spending the whole of it in the observation car, but skip the part of the route between Chicago and Denver; Denver and onward is where the real action's at.)
If you're buying a sleeper car ticket, you should be comparing it to an international business class flight with a lie-flat seat. Not a domestic flight in economy.
I'd agree only if our benchmark of comparison is "I want to travel while sleeping", but the value of flying is that you get there so fast that you usually don't even need to sleep. The journey from Chicago to SF is eight times longer by train than by plane, and, price aside, the only value proposition is a (very) scenic view; considering price, you can either spend half the price of flying in exchange for two rough nights stretched diagonally across two train seats, or five times the price of flying for two nights of decent sleep.
I did Denver -> SF this past summer and it was absolutely unreal. I was extremely happy I did it, the sights were gorgeous, and it was an awesome time to just sit and think while some of the West's most gorgeous scenery passes by.
Agree. I did a round trip about 12 years ago: Boston-DC-Chicago-Sacramento-LA-San Antonio-Chicago-Boston. Ten days on the train over 14 days. It was awesome. I brought lots of electronic entertainment and never used it. I spent endless hours just looking at parts of the country I've only ever flown over and met many interesting folks.
In Europe there has historically been an "Interrail" ticket, aimed to allow backpackers to travel in EU countries outside of their own with a single, dirt cheap pass, valid for a month or so on each country's rail network (of course, cheapest seating and class).
I did two of them and they are some of the best travel experiences I had in my life.
I never did it (though I have taken quite a few trains in Europe) but in the 70s or thereabouts spending a summer after graduation or whenever traveling with a "Eurail Pass" (whatever the proper name was) was almost a chiche.
The huge thing about this was that for most young people at the time the 18 years birthday meant a lot, in most EU countries that was (is) a "threshold" you become to all effects an adult and getting an Eurail ticket was the first "totally independent" travel experience without the family, and you got for an all in all affordable to everyone amount of money "freedom", you met a lot of other young people doing the same, you could try to start a conversations with someone (a "peer") in (actually usually much improvised) other language, you could visit places you had only read about in books, etc.
One thing I've noticed that makes it such a wonderful experience is that the trains still use the old tracks (not literally the same metal, but the same paths) that were laid down decades or even centuries prior. So as you roll through these small towns, you are often seeing the old parts that are full of character and charm, not the strip-malls or Wal-Marts. I love that.
This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you.
Many people are fine with taking the train in the US when it's remotely competitive in terms of time and price. However, in practice, that mostly means a subset of the Northeast Corridor (the whole thing is about an 8-hour trip vs. a short flight) or a handful of various city pairs that are only a few hundred miles apart. But it's simply not practical for me to take the train from Boston to Chicago, much less San Francisco. People can get out pitchforks if they like but I'm essentially always going to fly.
Boston to Washington is something over 7 hours. I've done it but it really doesn't make sense most of the time--especially given that Reagan airport is on the metro which neutralizes one of the advantages that taking the train has in a place like Manhattan.
It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
Yeah, but Sweden is small. In the US, people routinely drive distances where you would be flying or using the train. The mountains make things a bit different, but I think in general it's true.
Congratulations, you have good job mobility. And it biases you towards the privilege that you have, but most other people do not. The vast majority of people do not have that ability to be selective. In a few months, I must travel for work. Should I quit? You would say yes, I suppose. I don't have the luxury, either financially or as a matter of practicality: any other I might take would similarly require such travel on occasion. Maybe I could find another field to work in? Ah, but I live extremely close to my work place, less then 3km. Most other jobs, even within my field, would require I commute daily between 40-50km each way. So, maybe I avoid occasional air travel, but I still produce a larger carbon foot print. Train travel to other locations around me? Doesn't exist, there aren't the rails. Take a bus? Similarly, the routes don't work out: I might have to take 6 buses for 3 hours to get some place 40-50km away.
This is just the work side of things. What about family? A loved one is sick, or dies. Should I not travel to be with them, to help, to grieve with my family? Should I ask for a teleconference into the funeral?
That works better in a place where people can reliably and cheaply take trains from A to B.
The people arguing with you that they need to fly are almost certainly in places like the US, where even local trains are a pretty terrible, expensive experience relative to flying (or driving, on the shorter end).
I'm 90% of an anti-car zealot that lives in the densest city in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US. I would love to be able to reasonably take a train when I travel, but the ticket prices are astronomical and the reliability is horrendous relative to buses, airplanes or driving costs.
Yes, there's a big movement promoting night trains in Europe right now. I see "night train maps" in my feed all the time. Additionally one of the fastest growing Instagram accounts is one shaming influencers who are flying instead of taking the train.
And I work with lots of people in Europe who routinely fly all the time. I'm not sure how big a "movement" it is to take trains when it doesn't make sense in terms of time and money to do so. Not to put too fine a point on it, who cares what someone with an Instagram account says?
You might, but you talk of a movement. If it's in the "movement" stage, then it is very much not an ingrained part of the culture yet, which was your original claim. Ditto for the instagram account. That speaks to something that may be grass roots, but not cultural. Further, this mindset speaks towards an ingrained bias of privilege that many/most people probably can't actually afford. Even assuming the rail cost for a 4,000 to 6,000 km trip is comparable to flight, the ability to take upwards of 3-4 days of your time to leisurely make a trip requires you to have that much leisure time at your disposal.
>What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?
More onerous security procedures at airports, including pat-downs, extremely long lines, needing to show up 3-4 hours early, etc.?
Also, smaller and smaller seats on planes might encourage more use of trains. How do people from the Netherlands (tallest in the world on average) handle flying these days?
I'm from the UK and I've taken the train for holidays in Southern Italy (Salerno) and Bosnia. (But to be fair I'd usually fly to Istanbul, and that's only 3MM).
Trick question. Sweden isn't large enough to require trips longer than a day. I'm going to bet they fly when, for example, they need to go from Stockholm to Madrid, roughly the distance from New York to California.
Undoubtedly there are cultural differences. However, you are attributing to cultural difference things that are more directly linked to geographical differences that have contributed to limited rail infrastructure and route availability.
First & foremost, US rail is minimal in terms of routes offered and significantly more expensive. Compared to planes, it's at least double the cost, and 4x to 5x the cost if you want a bed and shower throughout the multi-day trip.
Second, the US is also significantly larger, making train travel much less practical. The longest trip through Sweden is roughly 1,000 miles top to bottom. That's most of a full 24 hours day in a train. In the US, it's about 3x that from New York City to California.
This is a terrible comparison. A better one is continental Europe as a whole, which has many rail lines spanning it. This is probably what the Swedish person was referring to, not simply staying in Sweden (the major cities in Sweden probably aren't far enough apart to fly between). Continental Europe is very roughly the size of the US, yet trains are used there extensively.
The problem with the US isn't size, it's political will. America simply does not want to have high-quality, high-speed train service.
Political will exists when the projects are on a smaller scale, a scale that would span countries in continental Europe. See the high speed plans in California as an example, even with the recent reduction in scope.
Trains are extensive in Europe in part because each country was able to make (relatively) smaller investments in their own networks. As time went by over the decades, these grew and were able to connect with each other. That type of gradual growth wasn't possible in the use where small incremental changes weren't useful. Decades ago, and still today, many routes that would be useful would need to span hundred of miles where there are no intervening points of interest. Meaning a massive investment would be required for a single point to point route.
It's too simplistic to point toward a single variable for something of this sort. Many variables come together to reach this point. Political will is only part of it, but even then, you have to ask why isn't there political will? It often has as much to do with economic and geographic realities, not a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. See our build out of the US interstate system beginning in the 50's as a counterexample to our lack of build out for trains.
> See the high speed plans in California as an example, even with the recent reduction in scope.
What recent reduction in scope? Letting aside all the confusion caused by either communications incompetence in the Newsome Administration or deliberate intent to provoke controversy, all Newsome announced was:
(1) that construction work and related land acquisition would be focussed on the already-designated initial construction segment, which was already the case (hence, the name “initial construction” segment.)
(2) That environmental work would continue on the rest of the Phase 1 SF-LA alignment, but the state would not fund more than environmental work until outside (federal, private, or other) financing was identified. (That only the ICS was funded for construction, and that outside funds would be a precondition for other construction was already the case, too; focus on finding such additional arrangements had focussed particularly on the planned initial operations segment, which overlaps with, but does not include all of, the ICS.)
(3) That the Phase 2 extensions to Sacramento and San Diego weren't getting any work (which they haven't been forever; they've been drawn in as future expansions but not covered in any of th recent business plans.)
Or, in sum total, basically a reiteration of the status quo as if it were new policy.
This isn't true at all. The size of the US isn't the problem, at all, no matter how much you want to believe it is. The best places for high-speed train routes aren't across the continent (even with HSR, it wouldn't be terribly competitive with airlines unless you're going partway, e.g. DC to Houston), it's along the coasts. The northeast corridor is the most obvious place to put HSR (no, Acela doesn't count). The other obvious place is along the west coast: SD-LA-SF-Portland-Seattle). Just a rail line between SanFran and LA would make a lot of sense, but the US simply cannot make it happen, even when it's all within a single state.
And yes, it really is a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. You can see it in everything else going on in the US these days. No, the 50s interstate system is not a counterpoint, because that was 60-70 years ago now, and things in this country have changed a lot since then. The US was good at lots of infrastructure in those days, not just highways.
It's not a matter of how much I believe. I went back to the 50's & interstate highway precisely because there could be no debating that it was a time where infrastructure was prioritized. And yet, even then, there was no major build out of rail. Because the geographic realities and subsequent economics don't work for it. The interstates made more sense and in terms of freight capacity still allowed for coast-to-coast service by trucks, which have dominated the continental freight since (a slight resurgence in freight rail boosted things in the 80's which was a good thing)
I have further evidence on my interpretation of geographical circumstances greatly influencing this issue: Canada.
Canada has roughly similar ridership as the US. US has about 1.7 rides per person, Canada has about 2.1. Might seem a fair bit higher, but compare it to a country like the UK, which has 26 rides per person, and that's not even counting the London Tube. Why?
Because the US and Canada face very similar geographical circumstances.
Maybe my interpretation weighs geography slightly too much, but if so, yours seems to weigh it not at all. That simply isn't supported by either the data available or the historic evolution of rail travel in the US.
I really don't see what's so difficult to understand. For the most part it's a point to point network, and every link, due to the points being further apart, costs significantly more to build. The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great, but more comprehensive than the middle 90% of the country where geography is as I have described.
Again, you're making up a strawman. The economics DO work for rail, no matter how much you disagree, when you constrain things to the coasts. Yet we don't have decent rail connecting the coastal cities.
Canadian cities are generally farther apart than US cities, except for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. All the Canadian cities are just on the other side of the border, which is the longest undefended international border in the world.
>The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great
Not great is a severe understatement.
>I really don't see what's so difficult to understand.
I don't either. San Diego, LA, and SanFran are not that far apart, and would be well served by a high speed rail like they have in Japan and China and Europe. Yet we don't have it. Same goes for the northeast corridor. These cities are no farther apart than the cities served by HSR in these other countries.
Sweden is a small country. Would you take the train from Sweden to Italy? Even that trip is much less distance than the trip in question here, but it is the closest example I can think of that ought to be possible. A more comparable trip would be Sweden to Kazakhstan.
It's about 1500 miles from one end to the other, and not exactly "dense".
Sure it's small compared with Russia or Canada, but it's larger than most.
Realistically anything upto about 500 miles shouldn't need flights -- that's 2-3 hours on a train.
Once you go over 1000 miles then train stops making sense, it's 5 or 6 hours compared with 2 on a plane. 5 hours might work for an evening meal/relax, departing say 4pm and hotel by 10pm. With decent wifi and power you could probably push it to 7 or 8 hours, so maybe 1500 miles if it was high speed all the way.
A sleeper train (which probably wouldn't be high speed) would work at about 1000 miles in 12 hours, leave at 9PM after dinner, getting you there for shower, breakfast, and a 9AM meeting. Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)
Agreed. When the option exists, it's so much nicer than flying.
At one point in my career I traveled from Amsterdam to various other European cities for 3-5 day work trips fairly frequently. Where direct overnight train connections existed, I would try and use those rather than get up for a 6am flight. For example Amsterdam - Copenhagen used to exist as an direct overnight connection. The cost for a private sleeper cabin with shower and breakfast was, I think, about €500 -- less than a flight + an extra hotel night. The trouble was getting my company to reimburse it, because it didn't fit neatly in their travel reimbursement policy's categories and rules.
Sweden is really long for a "small" country, but if you look at a map, all the major cities are in the south and not very far from each other. There's some small cities like Umea (population a little over 100k) farther north, but no major metro areas.
High speed rail is 200mph, New York to Chicago is 4 hours at that speed, 2h30 by plane. Toronto should be under 3 hours.
These city groups would also work with French style TGVs
Miami to Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta
Seatle/Portland/Vancouver
SF/LA/San Diego/Vegas/Pheonix
With sleeper trains you can connect New York to Miami in 12 hours, LA to Seattle, Chicago to New Orleans. You need the trains to run at about 110mph, which is normal local line speed.
Who will pay that ticket price to go to and from New Orleans? What’s the economic base? The line is shut down right now because the flood relief spillway is open near New Orleans and water might possibly swamp the trestle. While they are building a replacement, I don’t think it’s any less vulnerable. Imagine advertising a 110 mph service and then having to shut it down for that. CNR gives zero fucks.
> In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train
No it hasn't. This might be true in your direct social circle, but I know enough people who shuffle between Sthlm and GBG a few times a week on the plane to prove otherwise.
In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train
Not in the Sweden I live in. Sure there is some weak social pressure to fly less and some companies have a policy that you take the train if it's less than 3-4 hours or so (of course with SJ being SJ a 3 hour train ride has an annoying tendency to take 4-8 hours), but no one expect you take the train Stockholm-Umeå.
I went from San Fran to Chicago by train as a backpacker 13 years ago. Was a nice experience. Also got my first Macbook just before the trip and had some time to play with it. :-)
I'm planning to take my family on an RV across the US (The Lincoln Highway in other words) partly cos it's always been a dream of mine, and partly to get the kids introduced to real travelling rather than holidays.
I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people, something I consider the point of travelling (yes landscapes are lovely but I am a Homo Sapiens Bigot)
> I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people
Could you take the train, but instead of a non-stop journey just jump off when you pass through an interesting town, and then resume your journey the next day?
It seems to lack the flexibility I was hoping for - lunch in this town, dinner in that. plus i suspect it entails excitingly expensive tickets and fun timetable management :-)
Maybe, maybe not. Some routes are one trail per week, some 3x a week. There are many interesting places not reachable by train at all. If your trip works with those limits then there is a pass you can buy.
American trains are so sloooooow. I routinely take long range bullet trains in China, and am greatly grateful for the generosity of Chinese taxpayers making it real =D
Shanghai - Beijing sleeper trains are great value, and during 8 hour Guangzhou/Shenzhen - Shanghai day trips, you can work comfortably.
I tried the Amtrack against advice not to. I went from DC to NYC and then to Boston. The train was not luxurious but it was "fine". I took the cheapest option (which was not cheap given the train was slow and the distance is short). [I'm comparing prices to EU].
- The seats were large and comfortable enough. But I'm a small sized person.
- The trains were on time.
- The stations were not renovated or nice but functional. Boston station was good enough. NYC, a bit confusing.
- There was food on board. It was okay for 3-4 hours ride.
- Wifi didn't work. Data will disconnect near big buildings or under tunnels.
- It's not clear which station we are in. Maybe they could have a digital screen that shows some info?
The Northeast Corridor Amtrak route is fine. The Acela trains are nicer and a bit faster but IMO not so much so that I typically will pay out of my own pocket at 2x the price. (The pricing is really for business travelers for which they only really need to be competitive with air.)
I much prefer those routes to flying. But Penn Station in NYC really is a disaster. (It's a long and sad story dating back to the Penn Central bankruptcy.) Although things are slowly being fixed up as part of a massive building project.
My husband and I are taking the train from Washington, DC to Glacier National Park in September. Super excited! Get to cross it off of the bucket list.
Scheduled aviation means altitude which means pressure change which fucks with my ears. So, I'm useless for a day or two either side.
Unless traveling across an ocean there will be a way to get there without a plane that only takes the 2-3 data I'd be out of action anyway.
One of the very few down sides of this era is that the fast passenger liner isn't a thing any more. Titanic sank trying to get to New York quickly. I can get a passenger ticket to New York today, from Southampton where I live, but now it's a leisure market, they don't schedule them for rapid travel just as a cruise, so it's not practical to go back and forth that way.
Last year my sister had a week off and took the Empire Builder across the country out west. Lots of talk about how the sleeper car is worth it and I remembered she didn't, so I asked her her take and this is the response:
"I traveled alone on the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon (two nights/almost 48 hours) in June 2018. I wanted to get a sleeper car but waited too long to book so my only option was a regular seat. I knew I’d be unhappy if I went straight through two nights with no bed and no shower, so I made a stop in Whitefish, Montana for 24 hours. In the end it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved Whitefish and was happy to spend some time exploring the beautiful scenery I’d seen whizzing by. The sights around Glacier National Park were literally breathtaking.
As far as the train itself, I spent most of time in the observation car, and as a solo traveler I was happy to find everyone was very friendly. I’m only 5’2” and luckily didn’t have a seatmate so I could pretty much lay all the way down at night. A lot of people brought pillows and blankets, but I was ok without. Ear plugs and an eye mask were the key to getting any sleep. There were delays here and there which didn’t bother me because I had a very loose schedule anyway.
I don’t have enough good things to say about my trip! I’m looking for an excuse to take another long-haul train."
People have their own stories, so hopefully this gives another perspective.
This is like my own experience. I've done Vancouver->Seattle->Oakland, which is beautiful. Train friends were all fun and some memorable. Also Oakland->Chicago, with my wife and 4-yr old son in a family sleeper. We had a great time. The California, Utah and Colorado segments were stunningly beautiful. And we all enjoyed the shower when we checked in to our hotel in Chicago, which was basically a block or two from the train station. Outstanding.
Its not an airliner, or a bus, or a car, and that's a good thing.
> earplugs an eye mask where key
Oh shoot, I hadn't thought of this. I like the idea of trying a long/sleeper train trip, but I'm a terribly light sleeper and I bet I would get almost no sleep :(
Took Amtrak from Chicago to Las Vegas once. Worst travel experience of my life. Hit a car, had a breakdown in the mountains, and they lost my checked luggage. Over 24 hours late. Never again.
If you are ever tempted, just fly. It's cheaper, much faster, and you can spend the time and money you saved on something interesting.
This is what I heard from every single person who took a train long distance somewhere (>300mi)... some said it was an "experience" but they would never do it again, and flying is just as cheap, faster, better, less hassle.
The most difficult part about rail travel seems to be booking it. I've looked multiple times at using Amtrak for both travel and for rail tourism, and I've never been able to fully understand what to book and how to book it. Maybe I'm being dense about it but it always feels unnecessarily complicated and confusing.
Maybe I'm not understanding what you're not understanding. Just put in your origin and destination cities and book a ticket. It's only slightly different from air travel in that there are fewer hubs and routes. Open up the map [1], pick two cities along the red lines.
Years ago, I took an Amtrak NY > Chicago > Seattle > SF > LA > Texas > New Orleans, stopping in each for a few days. I brought programming textbooks and some novels, and just read/thought all day long. At night I'd either eat in the dining car (expensive) or from a supply I'd picked up in the previous city. I'd get a sleeper car when it was cheap (eg Chicago > Seattle) and sleep in my seat during more expensive legs of the trip.
You meet people from every part of US culture (North Dakota oil field workers, Portland hippies, LA actors...) all unified by not being in a rush and a dislike of flying. On trips outside the NE corridor, the train attaches an observation car which becomes an incredible place to talk the night away with fellow passengers.
You have to be flexible, in sound physical shape, and have a month and $2k to part with (or you can just take on a few Wordpress theme contracts and call it even) but it's a truly wonderful experience for a certain person at a certain stage in their life.
I did it with a 15-day railpass as a graduation trip with 4 friends. Wouldnt say that it was the best experience with very tight budget as broke college students but a very special experience for sure.
Especially when passing through Washington state national park. At that moment all of us agreed that the trip was worth it.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 318 ms ] threadWell that's charitable...
What does this even mean? Do you only get a minor case of food poisoning if you eat it?
When I was on sabbatical I took life at a slower pace. And riding the train was just an amazing beautiful slow experience. Sometimes we just go through life to fast, and a nice slow train does the body well
This is not a comforting observation...
The next step would be to repair the tracks, which are shared by freight and passenger, which makes the ride worse.
One thing I do blame Amtrak for is that they don't always announce their delays as soon as they were known; I took a train that was delayed for two or three hours immediately after picking me up because CSX spit decided to rearrange a bunch of freight trains directly in front of us, and my cousins waiting to pick me up at the station at the other end said that the arrivals board claimed the train was on time up until a few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive, and then ticked up the arrival time by 15 or 30 minutes at a time until we actually arrived.
It wasn't Amtrak's fault I was 3 hours late, but it was their fault my cousins just had to hang out at a train station for 3 hours instead of leaving and coming back later.
As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.
But by 24 hours in it started to stink and I hadn't slept well. By the end of the trip I was cranky and exhausted. And it really smelled in the train (and this was with it just 25% full)!
I've never done it but I read about how it's basically 3 days of sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone and there's no showers. Can't imagine what that would be like in a car filled with 50+ people.
I did take the Amtrak from CT To Boston once and it wasn't too bad, but that was a few hour trip. Much different than a few days.
I think there are two kinds of people in the world. One kind needs a sleeper for the trip to be enjoyable, the other couldn't care less. I used to be the second kind, but I don't think I am anymore.
I can't even sleep in a hotel unless there's a dead lock.
I have done the sleeper car from Chicago to Los Angeles with my parents. Lucky we had one with a private bathroom, as my dad has stomach flu most of the ride. I think the possibility of a shower, and maybe even a private bathroom are the only reasons I'd shell out more money for a sleeper over coach.
I often take Amtrak from NYC to Chicago (and back) and just love it. The trip is about 24 hours each way. Train riders are generally friendly. Someone always has a couple of guitars, so it's fun to play and sing along. The bar car is typically friendly and the food car is generally pretty good eats.
Also, some of the stopovers in small midwest towns are a few hours long so you can get out, stretch your legs, and find a nice quaint diner or something to change things up. I've had nothing by great times on the train. Of course YMMV.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall
> find a nice quiet diner
Oh, are you getting out snd having dinner and sleeping and then catching the train again the next day? That sounds fine.
What line did you ride? From my brief search, it doesn't seem like this is usually the case.
Edit: Note that he did this during some leave time he had accumulated.
Trains can be much more social.
I've done short-on-time utilitarian driving trips too (all interstates, etc), and I'd definitely choose the train over that.
It also doesn't constrain your other leg, which can be flown if it fits your needs better. If you're only going one way, I'd recommend going east to west on the train. The train novelty will get you out of the dense Northeast, and then you can settle in after Chicago.
https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-rail...
Still have half the trip left to write about, which I'll do bit by bit.
Thank you for writing it.
But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really.
And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by.
One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.
It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.
That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.
That's _so_ ... British.
https://www.metrotransit.org/northstar-line
The lines that goes between the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, and St Paul are light rail, and are faster than what would normally be considered a "tram" or "streetcar".
I mainly mentioned it since the parent comment was about a group of girls getting on the train purely for the experience of being on the train, and my experience seemed pretty similar.
Don't know that it terribly matters one way or the other though I guess.
So there are some tram/streetcar/light rail systems out there (like the one in New Orleans) that consist of individual railway vehicles, and are thus not trains.
I don't think it would have been many children's first trip either, just a cheap morning's entertainment for the nursery...
Haha when I took Caltrain daily to mountain view this was my nightmare. Bluetooth headphones and a white noise app were a requirement.
Those field trip days, and the rides home on baseball game days... I do not miss that commute.
I grew up in the eastbay, and at least while I was growing up, the bart train was a friendly environment of people interacting with one another. Obviously it came with some not so pleasant things (i.e. homelessness and unwanted touching) but more human none-the-less.
The complicated area of railroad tracks probably doesn't help either. Someone is paying for them and the maintenance is frequent judging by the business my friends working on the railroads get.
1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.
2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance.
3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is that they've become giant malls that want to get people through them, so landing fees have steadily gone down (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).
4. Some airlines (more specifically Ryanair) fly to cheaper/more outlier airports. If you take a Ryanair flight to Paris, you're landing in Beauvais Airport, which is almost halfway to the english channel. You'll then have to take a bus. When in europe, I usually prefer Easyjet for the reason that though they're more expensive, you're landing at an airport with decent transit to the city you're visiting.
5. There's no frills at all. If you're just flying with no luggage, you won't believe how cheap it can be (I flew from madrid to london for 25 euros). But the fills aren't cheap. Checked baggage is more than the cost of the flight, food is a rip off, etc.
Also, trains in europe are still often state-owned (not the case everywhere, I know), so they're forced to run uneconomical lines for political purposes, etc.
Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.
My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.
I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.
[1] https://www.corriere.it/economia/17_marzo_18/cento-milioni-a...
As a european who moved to the US recently, this was mind boggeling the first time I boarded a plane in the US. I arrived at the airport expecting a typical 10 minute boarding time, but kept getting more surprised at how inefficient they managed to make boarding a plane as time passed. Just the time spend waiting in the plane at the gate before they let you get out seems to be longer in some cases than the typical turnaround time for euro flights.
Your statement that "As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile" definitely has some merit, but... trains are only more fuel efficient per passenger if they are as full as planes. An Airbus with 180 passengers might beat a train in per passenger miles if the train is not loaded.
Considering that, trains definitely are cheaper for highly utilized routes (commuting routes, for example), but for a leisurely trip across Europe, an Airbus packed to the gils could be cheaper.
By american standards, both methods are dirt cheap.
Ryanair cuts every cost you can imagine. No free water or pretzels, tiny seating area, no first class, outskirts airports, no checked or carry on, tarmac boarding.
On trains you get sufficient space to stretch your legs, a power outlet, wifi, unlimited baggage etc. and you get to arrive and depart in the city center.
I think the pricing is based upon consumer value more than service costs.
And that's the catch. I've been told that years ago it was better, but try to catch a train to a secondary city in New England and you'll often find that the only offering is an occasional Amtrak branded bus.
I don't disagree that some other services might be alright, but that's clearly not one of them.
1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity
2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.
3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).
4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.
More of an issue for lumbering freight trains than passenger trains though.
Answering your question, on the issue of price they note that no fuel tax is is paid on airplanes fuel and no VAT (21%) on flight tickets.
I think it’s a clever win/win play: reducing short haul flights in favour of railways not only reduces emissions and noise pollution, but it also frees up some capacity at Schiphol.
And there’s been some success already: the house has accepted a motion to eliminate the Schiphol-Brussels route.
Düsseldorf-Munich for 26,70€ including reserving a seat.
Kiel-Düsseldorf 29,90€. To get back, 26,90€.
Kiel-Munich and back for 53,80€.
Not even Ryanair is that cheap, especially when you consider that with trains you don’t have to go through security, have none of the check-in times and other bullshit, and can take luggage without paying a 60€ surcharge.
You just have to check sites like https://bahn.guru/ to find the cheapest connections.
For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation
You're either repeating outdated cliches from the internet, or you must not live in a large metropolitan area with passenger train service.
Looking at the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas in the US, you're already at nearly half the population of the US. And I know from the experience of having ridden commuter rail in most of those that most of them have commuter rail, i.e. passenger train service.
You've got to go pretty far down the list to find one without commuter rail or even a subway/light rail system (which I'm not counting as passenger train service).
If it isn't the majority, it's at least a normal experience for a huge swath of the population.
"Yeah, we have passenger train service"
"good passenger train service?"
"Hey, lets not get ahead of ourselves"
So we were sitting there wondering if the same storm that eroded the tracks had maybe eroded the cliff around that boulder, allowing it to tumble down through the oil tanker to send us plunging into the flood waters below.
Brooding over that was less fun than the distraction of the sing-along.
I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience.
I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer...
Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs...
Great memories.
Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved.
I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance awkward; we try to sit quietly and pretend it isn't even happening, eg. not even looking at the person making the disturbance. eg. some people arguing at the back of the bus probably won't make people at the front of the bus turn around or tell them to shut up.
I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.
Yes, even if the guy is really good. You can stand not being the center of attention for a few hours.
I don't have as much of a problem with street-corner busking, in large part because it can be avoided, but even that drives me nuts when I can't get away from it (outside a place I work, for example).
I love music, and when I'm in the mood, I'll seek out a street performance. City parks are great for this, and I think they're an appropriate venue. A rail car is not even remotely appropriate, and a subway station during your unavoidable morning commute, with loud brass instruments and a shitty PA system, echoing off the walls, ought to be a crime.
Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire
Jerry and I share sentiments on this.
John Belushi concurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpNQ9AJYgU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM
How much does it cost?
If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights, it'd be more comfortable than an airplane's economy seats, and the ridership would probably be higher (which would lead to lower costs). As it is, long-distance rail travel in the US is an expensive disaster.
But compared to a one way flight, which can be had for as little as 100 bucks it's still pretty steep.
Alas, the experience certainly cannot be compared. It's not about getting to the destination, when you take the train. You pay for the entire experience.
A sleeper for one is ~1'800$. About 300 more if you're two.
That's about half of a yearly train pass for Switzerland (2nd class). The pass allowes you to travel in virtually any mode of transportation without restrictions. Except for taxis, some boats and some mountain railways.
So yeah, that's pretty steep.
But that price includes the sleeper and meals. If you view this as the vacation itself, it's not far off the price you'd be paying for hotels and meals.
That said, a sleeper car on Amtrak gets you: a flat surface to lie down on, your own toilet (note the toilet is just there in the roomette, next to the bunk, prison style), access to a shower (your own shower in the rooms, one per car for the roomettes), access to the first class lounges, and includes meals in the dining car.
Rooms have a slightly wider lower bunk versus roomettes to sleep 2 (skinny) people and an enclosed toilet so you don't lose mystery from your romantic or work relationships. Roomettes are too small for a first world prison cell but have the beds oriented parallel to the direction of travel, which many people find more comfortable -- the rocking of the train is more soothing and less jarring.
If you have the time, don't mind paying four-star hotel prices for a two-star experience, and hate flying or have a medical condition that makes it infeasible you should definitely consider it.
Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.
This sounds like fun. I wonder if there are any European routes that are as long/uninterrupted that I could try that on.
I went London-Japan overland but my longest single segment was two and a half days (Moscow-Shymkent), and that was about right - time to relax and do nothing for a bit, but by the third morning I had definitely spent enough time in the same compartment, as nice as it was.
The London to Ft. William sleeper, when there's leaves on the line?
With spotty cellphone reception, so if you want to disconnect from constant connectivity that's also an interesting way.
It's a great experience, but if you're thinking of just sitting in there and programming in a room with a view, keep in mind that the scenery changes and is pretty amazing, which might distract you from programming.
You should take a TGV, you'll realize that at 300kph you don't see the sights.
https://www.amtrakvacations.com/blog/3-important-things-to-k... (just googling 'amtrak sleeper' gets you this info!)
The NY<->Chicago line had toilets in the compartment - but I mean in the compartment, not a separate bathroom. So not so great.
The California Zephyr (Chicago<->SF) has common toilets. The one in our sleeper car was broken for the whole trip, for which Amtrak only gave us the slightest nod of recognition.
https://www.amtrak.com/onboard-the-train-sleeping-accommodat...
Here's a recent article that I found that describes the sleeping cars in detail: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/trai...
That would be 3 days on Amtrak, or about 6 hours by plane.
I'd guess that for most cases flying instead of taking the train doesn't mean we spend the 6 days that we would have spent on the train (round trip) in a Los Angeles hotel eating expensive restaurant meals. I think most people would simply leave home later and leave Los Angeles earlier if flying, so that the time difference is spent at home eating whatever they normally eat.
Note that some people use Amtrak because they are afraid of flying. This way of looking at the prices does not apply to them.
Personally, I sort of want to do at least a section of the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr at some point. And I'd also like to take a transatlantic liner (well, the Queen Mary 2) from NY to Southampton. But probably only once and I'm fully prepared for the idea to be more enticing than the reality.
But even so, it was a wonderful experience. The Chinese landscape is nothing short of awesome. And the culture that unfolded was completely unknown to me, so constantly interesting.
One thing that really made me take notice was the wide range of people. On the way to the Shanghai train station, we had walked by a Lamborghini dealership (I don't recall ever having seen even one of these in the USA) - there's a not-insignificant population of filthy rich people in and around Shanghai. But on the train we saw people peasants using an ox to plow a rice paddy of only a fraction of an acre. The degree of inequality was hugely wider than America or any other nation I've seen.
EDIT: the Shanghai airport maglev train was an interesting experience just to say I've gone 300+mph on a train, but otherwise totally boring.
I’ve also done Shanghai to Changsha and Changsha to kunming like that. It gets interesting west of hunan.
China rail have pretty bad hygiene at that time. The passengers freely throw their trash on the floor and out of the window. The attendants swiped the floor every few hours. Every time they pushed a mountain of peanut husk away. There was a peasant family on board with a baby. The baby needed to relief. So the parents held him up to have him shit on the floor. The attendant saw it and really lost it. She scolded the hell out of the family.
Cattle?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_class
People sometimes aren't just stacked, they're squashed.
"Don't sit with the cattle" is (IMHO) pretty harsh, and unnecessary.
And, for the record, cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats, in the days before the bed capsules. It's not a cabin but it might be the least-cramped train seating you will ever encounter.
This is true, they're FAR better than standard airline seats. On the other hand, if you're going NY to SF you're going to be sitting in them for 3 days, so they better be comfortable.
After MacWorld we did a little sightseeing, then took the Coast Starlight to Portland, where we changed to the Empire Builder back to Chicago.
Except what actually happened was that an avalanche in the Cascades held us up until a work train called "Snowball" showed up to clear the tracks. It had a massive snowblower, a plow, a flat car, a crane car, and a couple of coaches full of workers and equipment.
We then missed our connection, so they loaded us on double-decker buses that raced to catch up with the Empire Builder. It was very memorable.
My family went by train from Flagstaff, AZ to Trinidad, CO for a wedding and the observation car was amazing, it was part of the Southwest Chief route [1].
Even through what you'd think would be boring stretches of New Mexico not one scene wasn't awe inspiring. We got to see landscapes out of westerns and mostly away from roads/main bustle, but you'd be surprised how there is always something to see and almost always people living out there. We had to go through the Rockies in historic coal mining country Colorado and had to stop once for freight trains to go by, but the views were amazing. It is fun to lookup what you are going through on Google maps and finding lots of interesting stuff. Trinidad, CO was a nice little interesting historical town, once a border town, where Fishers Peak was a guiding landmark for settlers on the Santa Fe Trail, with Native American, pioneer and Spanish history, that has a Masonic cemetery, old limestone masonry buildings and underground tunnels for coal, once the sex change capital of the world, and today it is now a cannabis hot spot [2].
Best part of the train is the view and you can get up and walk around unlike on a plane, the rides are longer of course but more flexible to move while traveling which is nice. I brought my laptop to work but the views were too good to pass up.
If I had more time I'd love to take the train all across the US. I wish there were more trains simply to see the less busy areas and interesting viewpoints you can't see from the road.
Amtrak does leave lots to be desired in terms of technology, price, the food (dining car wasn't good) and general areas like maintenance, but the observation car was difficult not to be up there the entire time.
[1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes/southwest-chief-train.html
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/health/trinidad-colorado-smal...
But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over.
If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.
(I do recommend the California Zephyr, and second the parent's suggestion of spending the whole of it in the observation car, but skip the part of the route between Chicago and Denver; Denver and onward is where the real action's at.)
I did two of them and they are some of the best travel experiences I had in my life.
And it still exists (just for the record):
https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass
But of course the times have changed.
The huge thing about this was that for most young people at the time the 18 years birthday meant a lot, in most EU countries that was (is) a "threshold" you become to all effects an adult and getting an Eurail ticket was the first "totally independent" travel experience without the family, and you got for an all in all affordable to everyone amount of money "freedom", you met a lot of other young people doing the same, you could try to start a conversations with someone (a "peer") in (actually usually much improvised) other language, you could visit places you had only read about in books, etc.
It was a great experience.
I've personally completely stopped flying.
I suspect few people in Sweden would recommend traveling Stockholm to Madrid by train
It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
This is just the work side of things. What about family? A loved one is sick, or dies. Should I not travel to be with them, to help, to grieve with my family? Should I ask for a teleconference into the funeral?
The people arguing with you that they need to fly are almost certainly in places like the US, where even local trains are a pretty terrible, expensive experience relative to flying (or driving, on the shorter end).
I'm 90% of an anti-car zealot that lives in the densest city in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US. I would love to be able to reasonably take a train when I travel, but the ticket prices are astronomical and the reliability is horrendous relative to buses, airplanes or driving costs.
Europe had a pretty decent overnight train network in the 90s and even into the 2000s.
Then flying got cheap and people basically didn't want to take those trains any longer. Most disappeared.
What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?
More onerous security procedures at airports, including pat-downs, extremely long lines, needing to show up 3-4 hours early, etc.?
Also, smaller and smaller seats on planes might encourage more use of trains. How do people from the Netherlands (tallest in the world on average) handle flying these days?
First & foremost, US rail is minimal in terms of routes offered and significantly more expensive. Compared to planes, it's at least double the cost, and 4x to 5x the cost if you want a bed and shower throughout the multi-day trip.
Second, the US is also significantly larger, making train travel much less practical. The longest trip through Sweden is roughly 1,000 miles top to bottom. That's most of a full 24 hours day in a train. In the US, it's about 3x that from New York City to California.
The problem with the US isn't size, it's political will. America simply does not want to have high-quality, high-speed train service.
Trains are extensive in Europe in part because each country was able to make (relatively) smaller investments in their own networks. As time went by over the decades, these grew and were able to connect with each other. That type of gradual growth wasn't possible in the use where small incremental changes weren't useful. Decades ago, and still today, many routes that would be useful would need to span hundred of miles where there are no intervening points of interest. Meaning a massive investment would be required for a single point to point route.
It's too simplistic to point toward a single variable for something of this sort. Many variables come together to reach this point. Political will is only part of it, but even then, you have to ask why isn't there political will? It often has as much to do with economic and geographic realities, not a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. See our build out of the US interstate system beginning in the 50's as a counterexample to our lack of build out for trains.
What recent reduction in scope? Letting aside all the confusion caused by either communications incompetence in the Newsome Administration or deliberate intent to provoke controversy, all Newsome announced was:
(1) that construction work and related land acquisition would be focussed on the already-designated initial construction segment, which was already the case (hence, the name “initial construction” segment.)
(2) That environmental work would continue on the rest of the Phase 1 SF-LA alignment, but the state would not fund more than environmental work until outside (federal, private, or other) financing was identified. (That only the ICS was funded for construction, and that outside funds would be a precondition for other construction was already the case, too; focus on finding such additional arrangements had focussed particularly on the planned initial operations segment, which overlaps with, but does not include all of, the ICS.)
(3) That the Phase 2 extensions to Sacramento and San Diego weren't getting any work (which they haven't been forever; they've been drawn in as future expansions but not covered in any of th recent business plans.)
Or, in sum total, basically a reiteration of the status quo as if it were new policy.
And yes, it really is a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. You can see it in everything else going on in the US these days. No, the 50s interstate system is not a counterpoint, because that was 60-70 years ago now, and things in this country have changed a lot since then. The US was good at lots of infrastructure in those days, not just highways.
I have further evidence on my interpretation of geographical circumstances greatly influencing this issue: Canada.
Canada has roughly similar ridership as the US. US has about 1.7 rides per person, Canada has about 2.1. Might seem a fair bit higher, but compare it to a country like the UK, which has 26 rides per person, and that's not even counting the London Tube. Why?
Because the US and Canada face very similar geographical circumstances.
Maybe my interpretation weighs geography slightly too much, but if so, yours seems to weigh it not at all. That simply isn't supported by either the data available or the historic evolution of rail travel in the US.
I really don't see what's so difficult to understand. For the most part it's a point to point network, and every link, due to the points being further apart, costs significantly more to build. The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great, but more comprehensive than the middle 90% of the country where geography is as I have described.
Canadian cities are generally farther apart than US cities, except for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. All the Canadian cities are just on the other side of the border, which is the longest undefended international border in the world.
>The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great
Not great is a severe understatement.
>I really don't see what's so difficult to understand.
I don't either. San Diego, LA, and SanFran are not that far apart, and would be well served by a high speed rail like they have in Japan and China and Europe. Yet we don't have it. Same goes for the northeast corridor. These cities are no farther apart than the cities served by HSR in these other countries.
It's about 1500 miles from one end to the other, and not exactly "dense".
Sure it's small compared with Russia or Canada, but it's larger than most.
Realistically anything upto about 500 miles shouldn't need flights -- that's 2-3 hours on a train.
Once you go over 1000 miles then train stops making sense, it's 5 or 6 hours compared with 2 on a plane. 5 hours might work for an evening meal/relax, departing say 4pm and hotel by 10pm. With decent wifi and power you could probably push it to 7 or 8 hours, so maybe 1500 miles if it was high speed all the way.
A sleeper train (which probably wouldn't be high speed) would work at about 1000 miles in 12 hours, leave at 9PM after dinner, getting you there for shower, breakfast, and a 9AM meeting. Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)
Agreed. When the option exists, it's so much nicer than flying.
At one point in my career I traveled from Amsterdam to various other European cities for 3-5 day work trips fairly frequently. Where direct overnight train connections existed, I would try and use those rather than get up for a 6am flight. For example Amsterdam - Copenhagen used to exist as an direct overnight connection. The cost for a private sleeper cabin with shower and breakfast was, I think, about €500 -- less than a flight + an extra hotel night. The trouble was getting my company to reimburse it, because it didn't fit neatly in their travel reimbursement policy's categories and rules.
These city groups would also work with French style TGVs
Miami to Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta
Seatle/Portland/Vancouver
SF/LA/San Diego/Vegas/Pheonix
With sleeper trains you can connect New York to Miami in 12 hours, LA to Seattle, Chicago to New Orleans. You need the trains to run at about 110mph, which is normal local line speed.
No it hasn't. This might be true in your direct social circle, but I know enough people who shuffle between Sthlm and GBG a few times a week on the plane to prove otherwise.
Not in the Sweden I live in. Sure there is some weak social pressure to fly less and some companies have a policy that you take the train if it's less than 3-4 hours or so (of course with SJ being SJ a 3 hour train ride has an annoying tendency to take 4-8 hours), but no one expect you take the train Stockholm-Umeå.
I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people, something I consider the point of travelling (yes landscapes are lovely but I am a Homo Sapiens Bigot)
Could you take the train, but instead of a non-stop journey just jump off when you pass through an interesting town, and then resume your journey the next day?
Shanghai - Beijing sleeper trains are great value, and during 8 hour Guangzhou/Shenzhen - Shanghai day trips, you can work comfortably.
- The seats were large and comfortable enough. But I'm a small sized person.
- The trains were on time.
- The stations were not renovated or nice but functional. Boston station was good enough. NYC, a bit confusing.
- There was food on board. It was okay for 3-4 hours ride.
- Wifi didn't work. Data will disconnect near big buildings or under tunnels.
- It's not clear which station we are in. Maybe they could have a digital screen that shows some info?
I much prefer those routes to flying. But Penn Station in NYC really is a disaster. (It's a long and sad story dating back to the Penn Central bankruptcy.) Although things are slowly being fixed up as part of a massive building project.
Unless traveling across an ocean there will be a way to get there without a plane that only takes the 2-3 data I'd be out of action anyway.
One of the very few down sides of this era is that the fast passenger liner isn't a thing any more. Titanic sank trying to get to New York quickly. I can get a passenger ticket to New York today, from Southampton where I live, but now it's a leisure market, they don't schedule them for rapid travel just as a cruise, so it's not practical to go back and forth that way.
"I traveled alone on the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon (two nights/almost 48 hours) in June 2018. I wanted to get a sleeper car but waited too long to book so my only option was a regular seat. I knew I’d be unhappy if I went straight through two nights with no bed and no shower, so I made a stop in Whitefish, Montana for 24 hours. In the end it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved Whitefish and was happy to spend some time exploring the beautiful scenery I’d seen whizzing by. The sights around Glacier National Park were literally breathtaking.
As far as the train itself, I spent most of time in the observation car, and as a solo traveler I was happy to find everyone was very friendly. I’m only 5’2” and luckily didn’t have a seatmate so I could pretty much lay all the way down at night. A lot of people brought pillows and blankets, but I was ok without. Ear plugs and an eye mask were the key to getting any sleep. There were delays here and there which didn’t bother me because I had a very loose schedule anyway.
I don’t have enough good things to say about my trip! I’m looking for an excuse to take another long-haul train."
People have their own stories, so hopefully this gives another perspective.
Its not an airliner, or a bus, or a car, and that's a good thing.
If you are ever tempted, just fly. It's cheaper, much faster, and you can spend the time and money you saved on something interesting.
[1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes.html
You meet people from every part of US culture (North Dakota oil field workers, Portland hippies, LA actors...) all unified by not being in a rush and a dislike of flying. On trips outside the NE corridor, the train attaches an observation car which becomes an incredible place to talk the night away with fellow passengers.
You have to be flexible, in sound physical shape, and have a month and $2k to part with (or you can just take on a few Wordpress theme contracts and call it even) but it's a truly wonderful experience for a certain person at a certain stage in their life.
Especially when passing through Washington state national park. At that moment all of us agreed that the trip was worth it.