291–300 of 468 posts
My (now) wife and I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago about 10 years ago. We purchased a private cabin. We were 8 hours late leaving Seattle and couldn't get into our cabin until we got to Spokane because of some sort of merge of trains coming from Portland and Seattle. Got to Spokane, got our cabin, another 6 hour delay. By the time we reached the upper Midwest, they were rationing food, literally cutt…
Yay government-run train service.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's worth it, really How much does it cost?
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other governments do it just fine.
Who? In most of Asia trains are privatized. In Europe, the passenger rail companies are in various stages of privatization. Rail in the UK is more or less privatised. Deutche Bahn, SNCF, Trenitalia, DSB, etc., are private companies. The government is involved in the sense they are the largest or sole shareholder, but they are run as for-profit corporations. For example, they compete in other countries. Many, such as…
For 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.
I take the train cross-country whenever I can. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the views. All the positive aspects mentioned in the article are 100% true. But I can't help but feel that this author wants to dislike trains. He wants everyone to understand how awful and slow it is. And they went into this story with a chip on their shoulder, and were disappointed to find that the trip had value. But the trains…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other governments do it just fine.
Who? In most of Asia trains are privatized. In Europe, the passenger rail companies are in various stages of privatization. Rail in the UK is more or less privatised. Deutche Bahn, SNCF, Trenitalia, DSB, etc., are private companies. The government is involved in the sense they are the largest or sole shareholder, but they are run as for-profit corporations. For example, they compete in other countries. Many, such as…
That said, Amtrak came into existence because most of the private rail companies had failed or were failing. Had the federal government not stepped in, we'd arguably have no long distance passenger rail service outside the Northeast Corridor (where Amtrak basically makes the money that it then loses on pretty much every other route in the country).
Public 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 :)
My (now) wife and I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago about 10 years ago. We purchased a private cabin. We were 8 hours late leaving Seattle and couldn't get into our cabin until we got to Spokane because of some sort of merge of trains coming from Portland and Seattle. Got to Spokane, got our cabin, another 6 hour delay. By the time we reached the upper Midwest, they were rationing food, literally cutt…
Yay government-run train service.
If the wrong people get in charge (and very likely if the ideology is widespread) they make little effort to improve things other than to cut costs.
Competition usually improves things, it's true, but natural monopolies are still problematic.
I take the train cross-country whenever I can. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the views. All the positive aspects mentioned in the article are 100% true. But I can't help but feel that this author wants to dislike trains. He wants everyone to understand how awful and slow it is. And they went into this story with a chip on their shoulder, and were disappointed to find that the trip had value. But the trains…
I thought I was the type of person who would ride a train. I wanted to get from Denton, Texas to Temple, Texas. This was simple. The booking website is exactly as bad as mentioned. I finally got one that promised me a four hour trip with a short bus ride on each end. Alright, cool, that's fine. So I schedule to arrive about thirty minutes prior, except the train is delayed two hours. That's half the ride again, on a delay! This causes me to miss my connection, and the next train wasn't scheduled until tomorrow. I cannot imagine anyone trying to use Amtrak for actual travel, when reliability and timeliness matters.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other governments do it just fine.
Who? In most of Asia trains are privatized. In Europe, the passenger rail companies are in various stages of privatization. Rail in the UK is more or less privatised. Deutche Bahn, SNCF, Trenitalia, DSB, etc., are private companies. The government is involved in the sense they are the largest or sole shareholder, but they are run as for-profit corporations. For example, they compete in other countries. Many, such as…