I remember when a friend and I were planning a trip from SF to Chicago and looked in to taking a train. Turns out, the train takes longer than driving and costs more the flying. Which really made me wonder... who is taking these trains?
There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
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Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Ignorant American question. Why is this the case? What are the costs that railroads are having to pay that makes them more expensive?
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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#224For anyone interested in more train-travel stories I've written (partially) about my trip across Russia, starting with: 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.
Really enjoyed reading this! Seems like a fascinating journey, I'd love to make the trip some day.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 po…
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 w…
> 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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. 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 le…
Being in a confined space forced to listen to some amateurs play their guitars sounds like one of my rings of hell. Anyway, here's Wonderwall
Then leave the observation car and go back to your assigned seats in the passenger cars where excess noise is discouraged.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#227My 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, U…
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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sweden is a small country 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/…
This story is about the US though. The distance across the Us is over 2000 miles. Very few cities in the US are as close as 500 miles.
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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#229My 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, U…
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.
Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway
#230Public ground/rail transport in the US is not for the faint hearted. Spoken as a travel veteran in three decades of cross country trips via Greyhound and Amtrak. TIPS: * Don't cross Texas in a Greyhound. * Don't go to New Orleans Amtrak coach from DC.
Can you share the why of those two tips? I'm not from the US so I have no experience with those but it sounds like you have some interesting stories about it :)
Texas is a long, uncomfortable haul in general. The year I did this crossing was 1994. Witnessed racism, religion gone wrong and malicious violence in more than one local personality jumping on for a town to town hop.
New Orleans coach was 2004. The rowdiness, smells and movement in the train gave me the only migraine I've ever had. I could barely give directions to the cab driver for my hotel and slept 16 hours.