I had some vacation time and I’ve never ridden a train before, so I thought I’d look it up. I’d seen a few YouTube videos and it looked like something I’d like. I’m not a fan of air travel at all.
I went to look up tickets and was shocked at the price. I could drive for cheaper and faster including my own stops. I could fly for cheaper and faster and wouldn’t have to pay for a sleeper car or hotel. It seems like there’s no benefit to taking a train at all. Even the hassle of flying is worth the time and money saved.
Ps and why does a sleeper car (the thing that had me curious from YouTube) $1000/night?!
The American rail network was built mainly as private enterprise regulated by public agencies. This worked when rail had an effective monopoly on long distance travel, but fell apart when other modes could compete. When a major railroad (Penn Central) went bankrupt, the federal government relieved all private companies from having to maintain passenger service and the long distance trips went into Amtrak in the 1970’s.
Until Biden, there was little public demand for building out rail transit. The Interstate system built out a decent highway network and air deregulation meant that flights got very cheap.
Was in a train the other day. Across the European country side. Doing 160 mph. Reading a book, taking a nap. Whatever. No traffic. No dealing with road rage and aggressive drivers. Show up like 10 minutes before the train. No TSA. No hassles. Just get on the train and relax. Fuck cars and airplanes.
im claustrophobic so this is the only way i can travel without screaming FUCK really loud and freaking people out
I truly don’t understand the railway network in the US. Living in China now and the high-speed railway is amazing here. It takes 4 hours from the center of Shanghai to the center of Beijing and next year will be cut to under 3 hours. And nothing to do with but the US is a big country. China actually has a larger landmass than the US and I can go from one side of the country to the other by high-speed train. It’s cheaper, more comfortable than by plane. They even have high-speed sleeper trains now for these long journeys. Japan, South Korea, Europe, UK, and even African countries like Morocco have proper high-speed rail. The lack of investment in infrastructure in the US puts it decades behind the rest of the world. I guess to money for infrastructure goes to worthy causes like invading Venezuela and Iran.
Because in the US, freight and passengers share rail. Most of the civilized world segregated both to ensure massive transit priority. The USA did the opposite because freight brings in more profit. And all the railways are private owned, so profit overules public interest.
I used to be a freight conductor for BNSF. Amtrak always gets priority.
Also, unless you’re talking high-speed rail, freight and pax share track in most civilized world.
Most of the civilized world segregated both to ensure massive transit priority.
I don’t think that’s accurate. Lots of europe at least share tracks. But passenger trains get priority. In the US, freight gets priority.
Also, the freight companies own the track and the land its on.
I believe in Germany at least, freight gets priority at night, and passenger gets priority in daytime
Unfortunately it’s operated by Deutsche Bahn, so you won’t notice anything about daytime priority.
Well, that tracks…
Car travel is massively subsidised. The road maintenance, emergency services, new road construction, traffic light electricity, smart highway monitoring, snow ploughing and more are subsidised for roads.
Many railways are privately owned, so all costs are paid by the owner or anyone who uses it. If railways had similar subsidies to roads they would be far cheaper.
Rail was owned by the wealthiest and they made their money shipping freight.
Lobbyists got the US government to “sell” them the actual railways, but they had to maintain it.
So if/when there’s a conflict on the rail, freight gets to go first. They’re giant heavy trains moving insanely slowly, so even tho passenger could get by faster, they sit for hours waiting.
Back to private companies maintaining the rails, they did cost/benefit analysis and decided since they pay insurance anyways, it’s not smart to fix anything till insurance rates go up.
The problem is when a wreck happens there’s public outcry, so the government uses taxpayer funds to fix it quickly.
They wait till an accident happens, insurances pays for just the cargo, and that’s insured by the supper so the train insurance never goes up. Taxpayers pay to clean up the wreck and put in new tracks.
With the current system, the wrecks will keep happening more and more frequently because stuff only gets fixed after it fails, and only that one spot.
Because the car and air industries are so powerful they can effectively pay to suppress all other forms of transportation
And the rails are all privately owned.
It sucks because trains are great, but money and regulations are the general answer. Air travel gets tons of kickbacks from the government, and most airlines don’t even pay taxes on fuel. Also planes fly on the air but trains need rails, land to put it on and maintenance to keep it running.
Whats really sad is… genuinely every town I’ve -ever been to- had a train station. Most of them have been converted into other things, the rest torn down. But they were there.
We had the whole system of rail already spanning most of the country. And stopped maintaining it. 😭😭
I rode a train for the first time last year because it cut the worst part of the drive into/out of a big city off, and wasn’t -too- expensive. So instead of dealing with a car in a place I’m not comfortable driving, we parked where I was comfortable and took the train the rest of the way (appx 2 hrs), then walked. Could have also used the local light rail once we got there but didn’t need to. I fucking loved everything about riding a train! From not driving, to not driving, to holy shit it’s a train, and even not driving! Best trip, and I wish it were practical to make all of them that way. I hate driving.
Also planes fly on the air but trains need rails, land to put it on and maintenance to keep it running.
Thousands of airports, plane maintenance crews, airplane security crews and all the money put in general airplane infrastructure ceased to exist after reading that sentence
This is a good point but those are all analogous to train stations and what not. Planes are trains with out rails to maintain
Except for the whole shitload of jet fuel part.
The soul of the USA is rotten. We don’t believe in collective things like mass transit.
Because D.C. wants it that way.
Except for Amtrak that serves Union Station and Congress.
Except for Amtrak that serves… Everything. There is no passenger tail service in the U.S. other than Amtrak.
I assume they meant that the service for DC specifically is better than elsewhere on account of it being local to congress.
Unless you are being oddly specific with your definition of passenger rail, there absolutely is.
Brightline for instance.
You’re in the USA, if it’s $1000 a night.
Roads are subsidized. But the railways must pay for themselves!
It’s says US in the title.
I swear it didn’t say that but it’s equally likely I’m not paying attention.
Other than city-owned trains like NYC subways or BART in the Bay Area, the only passenger rail I know of in this country is Amtrak. And Amtrak sucks. If there’s no other choice, of course they’re gonna be expensive AF.
-
Amtrak isn’t funded by the US government. They have to extract all their funding from operations.
-
Amtrak’s service is bad mainly because the line operators have found ways to make it impossible to effectively operate. That means late and long delayed trains with unpredictable arrival/departure times.
-
Amtrak is slow, mainly because it has almost no dedicated lines. It has to share them with line operators.
-
Very few people use amtrak.
The end result is a high price. Few people using amtrak means it has to hike ticket prices up.
The only way for Amtrak to get better is extensive investment by the feds and regulation of rail lines in general. Without that, as you’ve correctly observed it will always be disadvantaged compared to other modes of transport.
But hey, the war in Iran might make it cheaper than driving so that’s something.
-
Monopoly plus oil&gas buying out successful rail and shutting it down.
I sense you haven’t seen Canadian rail travel. Go look.
There is another way… To ride the rails.
Got my harmonica and my bindle. Time to live the dream.
Who knew King Nohadon was a hobo. Explains how he made it to Urithiru
That is illegal, and the rail roads have had enough problems that they monitor for it. When they detect you the train will stop with the car you are in at the crossing the sherif is waiting at.
good luck.
Oh boy. U think Norfolk southern could line up a car with a sheriff crossing? Or were u talking about the cocaine?
