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Want airline food? Take Amtrak

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Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#41

Post by niftich »

enos wrote: post #30
ng12 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?

American rail is built for cargo, so there are no sections as fast as a freeway. Also there are several sections that are particularly slow. The track through the Rockies is the original 1869 route, with original curvy single track and original tunnels. Speed there is around 20mph. Sometimes you come close to I-70, where cars are going 60-80mph. The Sierras also have slow sections. That said, those were my favorite p…

This is mostly true, but in fact the route currently used by the California Zephyr through the Rockies (Salt Lake City - Soldier Summit - Moffat Tunnel - Denver) was built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad or its predecessors [1]; the section in question was completed no earlier than 1883.

The more famous railroad finished in 1869 takes a more northerly route, through Ogden instead of Provo, and through Rawlins, Laramie, and Cheyenne in Wyoming instead of adjacent to I-70 through Grand Junction and Denver.

The mountainous sections of the Zephyr, specifically the crossings of the Rockies and the Sierras, are indeed the least competitive vs. driving. Based off of the official timetable [2], the Zephyr takes:

~9 hours between Chicago and Omaha vs. 7.5 hours driving

~8.5 hours between Omaha and Denver vs. 7.5 hours driving

~15 hours between Denver and Salt Lake City vs. 8 hours driving

9 hours between Salt Lake City and Reno vs. 7.5 hours driving

7.5 hours between Reno and Emeryville vs. hours 3.5 driving

Lengthening the driving time to include breaks, the train is viable between Chicago and Denver, and between Salt Lake and Reno, but is nearly twice as slow as driving on other parts of the route.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_and_Rio_Grande_Western_... [2] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#42

Post by johan_larson »

Good, good. The sooner Amtrak alienates its remaining customer base, the sooner it can be scrapped. There are only a few parts of the country that are settled densely enough -- and broadly enough -- for passenger trains to make sense. Any moves toward consolidation of service to only those areas should be welcomed.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#43

Post by 24gttghh »

enos wrote: post #30
ng12 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?

American rail is built for cargo, so there are no sections as fast as a freeway. Also there are several sections that are particularly slow. The track through the Rockies is the original 1869 route, with original curvy single track and original tunnels. Speed there is around 20mph. Sometimes you come close to I-70, where cars are going 60-80mph. The Sierras also have slow sections. That said, those were my favorite p…

There aren't no sections, but there are certainly very few that beat 70mph...for example, IIRC the Amtrak Downeaster hits 70-80 at at least one point (the speed limit of the train is 79mph throughout the route)...for like a mile or two as it crosses the Scarborough marsh ;)

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#44

Post by borkt »

dima55 wrote: post #27
redorb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city. Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even. I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should defin…

Building roads is also a money losing operation. Complain about something else. There's plenty here.

Reconstructing an existing road is even worse. Want to repair a failing street? OK, but only if you make every aspect of the supporting infrastructure ADA compliant with the most current laws. We are legislating ourselves out of modern infrastructure.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#45

Post by nerfhammer »

dvtrn wrote: post #23
closeparen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 days is a relatively aggressive schedule for the road trip. The train makes up for its low average speed by not needing to sleep overnight. The real problem is that the cost is greater than or equal to a 4-hour flight.

Why is train travel so much more expensive? Fewer tickets being sold comparatively?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/amtrak-tracks-late-tra...

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#46

Post by protomyth »

akshat_h wrote: post #26
dvtrn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is train travel so much more expensive? Fewer tickets being sold comparatively?

Also, maintaining tracks is expensive, especially in a large country like USA, as compared to just maintaining two airports. Kinda makes me wonder how much money is spent on road maintenance that we are not thinking as a cost while driving.

Amtrak doesn't own most of the track they use. They pay track usage payments to the freight railroads that actually own the track. In FY 2009 that was $115.4 million (3.3% of total operation cost). Cannot find the current numbers. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#47

Post by HuggableSquare »

darkstar999 wrote: post #38

Took the Amtrak from San Diego to Anaheim last year business class. It smelled like a sewer. Wifi was unusable. Is that normal?

Amtrak wifi is typically pretty bad because it's cellular, so it ends up roaming between towers constantly and you have a ton of people all on the same network. As for it smelling like a sewer, that is not normal, no.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#48

Post by gascan »

johan_larson wrote: post #42

Good, good. The sooner Amtrak alienates its remaining customer base, the sooner it can be scrapped. There are only a few parts of the country that are settled densely enough -- and broadly enough -- for passenger trains to make sense. Any moves toward consolidation of service to only those areas should be welcomed.

Why do you want rail to be scrapped?

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#49

Post by mistercleo »

pkaye wrote: post #31

I didn't have a good experience the last time I took Amtrak and had dining on board. It was the only time in my life I felt I was discriminated against in a dining setting. It was near the end of dinner time and food was likely running low so i didn't expect much. However after seating us, she took on two other groups and continued to fully serve them drinks and meal before coming back to our table for drinks. And by…

Were you dining à la carte or without a reservation? Maybe the later arriving parties had already had their food set aside in the kitchen because they were traveling on a ticket with meals included and/or had a reservation. I travelled only once with bedroom accommodations and recall we were assigned reservation times when to show for our pre-paid meals.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#50

Post by niftich »

redorb wrote: post #12
praneshp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

33 stops.

I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city. Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even. I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should defin…

Discontinuing Amtrak's long-distance services -- which are clearly not competitive in terms of ticket price or travel time with alternatives -- comes up time and time again, by members of Congress and commentators alike.

However, successive directors of Amtrak have always opposed the discontinuation of long-distance routes. Congress could likely force the issue, but it's interesting that Amtrak leadership always leans in favor of them.

There are some routes in the northeast that Amtrak turns a profit on [1][2][3], and some others are subsidized by states enough to still make them worthwhile to operate (CA, IL, NC). But if the long-distance routes were defunded, they'd likely never come back under the Amtrak banner, and significant layoffs would ensue.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968720#15976146 [2] http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/12/amtrak-routes-by-2012... [3] http://www.riarp.org/blog/2014/11/25/september-amtrak-report

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