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Amtrak’s a perfect representation of everything wrong with the US. A slow, unreliable train. Seems always delayed hours without being informed of why or how lon

Amtrak’s a perfect representation of everything wrong with the US. A slow, unreliable train. Seems always delayed hours without being informed of why or how long. Receives almost $2 billion in federal subsidies. Bathrooms are dirty. And then you’re pressured searched by a DEA agent whose already scanned the passenger logs looking for targets....

mattkrause 7y ago
I took Amtrak regularly along the East Coast. Door-to-door was both faster and cheaper than flying, plus the experience was a lot more pleasant. Less travelled routes have a chicken-and-egg problem: nobody uses them, so they’re not a priority, so they get even worse. NYC to Montreal, for example, should be 2x as fast as it currently is....
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  The Acela line with business & first class is literally the only quality Amtrak line in the country. For that line, and that line only, it can be worthwhile as an alternative to flying or driving among a select few destination spanning from DC to Boston. I’m sure that line accounts for some wildly disproportionate revenue for Amtrak, but in most other places people prefer to pay cheaper fares and don’t care about the surrounding quality properties enough to pay more for them.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    And that’s the only major part of the network where Amtrak controls the tracks. Elsewhere, it’s hamstrung by limited capacity and bad/illegal behavior by private operators. The Office of the Inspector General put together a fairly comprehensive report about this: https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Amtrak_Root_Causes_Final_Report_9_8_08_with_508_charts.pdf https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Amtrak_Root_Caus... In principle, this could easily be fixed—-and cracking down operators ignoring the preference rules did help a lot—-but people have to want it.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I would disagree (or maybe you have much higher expectations than I do). I find the NE regional to be quite nice as long as you aren't trying to go all the way from boston to DC. and going up the hudson river on the empire line is simply a lovely experience.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      Yeah, our preferences for what an Amtrak priced fare should provide are likely just different. I won’t ride Amtrak at all unless it’s business or first class, and typically I just buy far in advance or simply don’t travel if these fares are too high. The price for coach tickets is ludicrous to me when accounting for the crowdedness / mad dash to get seats. The last time I rode coach on NE regional lines, my girlfriend & I arrived over an hour early for the train & we had to stand up and hold our suitcases for the first 90 minutes of the ride because there were simply no seats. We walked back to front every coach car and every seat was taken and all of the luggage racks were filled. I get frazzled by hectic transportation experiences so it was especially nasty for me. For a $70-80 fare, I expect easy access to a comfortable seat, ample space for 1-2 bags / suitcases directly at my seat area, and easy ability for multiple people in the same party to get seats directly next to each other. I hate that Amtrak locks these (basic) amenities behind business & first class fares, and essentially acts like a slumlord towards their coach class service.
- empath75 7y ago
  The Acela is fantastic and I pretty much only use it for traveling to New York if I can expense it.
  - dhimes 7y ago
    From Baltimore or Boston? I/we use it from Boston and recommend it.
- 13of40 7y ago
  They have Amtrak service along the west coast, and I've taken the Seattle to Eugene and Seattle to Vancouver trains. I was unimpressed, because the maximum speed is about 80 miles per hour, like most of I-5 (edit: I mean that's effectively how fast people drive, not the speed limit), and the fare is so high you could actually rent a car for a few days instead, especially if there's more than one of you traveling. (Seattle -> Eugene, a 4 hour trip, one way starts at $78 according to their website.) I've always suspected it was a critical mass thing, and if more people used the service the price might go down, but for a self-interested individual, it just doesn't make sense right now.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    > I've always suspected it was a critical mass thing, and if more people used the service the price might go down, but for a self-interested individual, it just doesn't make sense right now. personally I find traveling on amtrak to be a lovely experience. even on the NE regional I usually get a whole row to myself if it isn't a holiday weekend. of course, this is probably why it's so expensive. on the other hand if the ridership went up, it wouldn't be such a nice experience anymore.
    - 13of40 7y ago
      Oh, don't get me wrong: I like trains in general, and I've got many fond memories of train adventures in Europe and Asia. Amtrak can be pleasant if you're just touring around. If you're looking for a serious mode of travel, though, the train system on the west coast is a joke. It's in a weird spot where if you care about money you can take a bus and if you care about convenience you can take a plane, but if you don't care about either...take Amtrak?
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    > Seattle -> Eugene, a 4 hour trip The days/times when you can get through the Puget Sound, JBLM corridor in less than 2 or more hours for that segment alone are rapidly declining. It can easily take 2h+ to get from Federal Way to Olympia, even in non peak hours.
- joshuaheard 7y ago
  If you took out the government-imposed security check at airports, would it still be faster?
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    It would certainly help. Dulles and Newark are still pretty far from the downtowns they serve, so there’s 30-60 minutes, plus the time to actually exit the airport, that you’re stuck with. Admittedly, Logan and LGA are a bit closer to their cities, but LGA is also terrible, so....
nerdponx 7y ago
There are frequent delays on the Empire service in New York. When I once asked the conductor what was going on, they said we were waiting for a freight train to pass, because the track is leased from CSX. From what I was told, Amtrak is legally/contractually entitled to right of way on such track, but the freight companies basically don't care.
- gniv 7y ago
  That's funny. I take NJTransit to work, and a lot of delays are blamed on giving way to Amtrak trains, because they have priority.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  From what I was told, Amtrak is legally/contractually entitled to right of way on such track, but the freight companies basically don't care. This is wrong. Amtrack has a subordinate lease to almost all of the freight lines it leases access to, meaning that they have lower priority to the lines than the cargo trains. Acela is the only Amtrack route in the nation that might have priority over cargo trains sharing the rails.
atlasunshrugged 7y ago
I recently took this route, I enjoyed it because I have a weird bucket list and this was on it (and I like trains) but I have to agree. I know it's not a profitable route and the NE corridor makes most of their money but I consider infrastructure to be a symbol of national pride. What does it say about the US as a country when our trains are unreliable and dirty, our roads are full of potholes, and quality public transport outside a few cities is basically nonexistent? I compare it to my experience living in Germany/Shanghai and it's just totally opposite, the experience on the train on this route (Dec 2018) was closer to train rides I've taken in Ukraine/Romania/Hungary (nothing against these places, I'm writing this from Odessa and love it here) than the train rides in much of W. EU
- BlackRing 7y ago
  You can't be serious to compare US infrastructure to Germany. In my experience living there, the Deutsche Bahn is not to be trusted to be on time, or run at all. And while Amtrak isn't the shining beacon I'd like it to be at least it gets me from point A to B reliably.
  - atlasunshrugged 7y ago
    Really? I've had exactly the opposite experience when I lived in Berlin. The Berlin to Munich train was great and the tube in Berlin was pretty solid compared to most other places I've been
tantalor 7y ago
The train being Amtrak has nothing to do with it. The agents can do this same behavior on any passenger train or bus.
User23 7y ago
E.B. White has a wonderful essay called The Railroad that describes how the railroads and the government worked together to cripple US passenger rail. It isn't online, but I found a blog post[1] discussing it. It's also in the collection Essays of E.B. White which I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys perspicuous prose. The gist of the essay is that the railroads incrementally made the passenger experience worse and then as demand declined they used the declining demand to justify further worsening the passenger experience[2]. From the railroads' perspective this was a virtuous positive feedback loop, insofar as it got them out of the relatively low margin passenger business. That then got dumped on Amtrak, which is awful for many reasons, not least of which is their trains are the lowest priority on the tracks they lease, so they are virtually never on time. I imagine Amtrak executives would also love to get out of the passenger transport business too, if they could somehow swing it to keep getting federal money. Anyhow it really is a great essay and I highly recommend reading it since my summary can't do it justice. [1] https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 [2] A lesson corporations now apply with disappointing prevalence.
BrianHenryIE 7y ago
Amtrak Capitol Corridor from Sacramento to San Jose frequently posts on Twitter to explain its delays. And I know from sitting in the Emeryville station that they frequently announce the delays and the reasons. https://twitter.com/CapitolCorridor https://twitter.com/CapitolCorridor
atemerev 7y ago
Does an unpopular (and therefore declining) transport option represent “everything wrong” that is with the country?
bobthepanda 7y ago
As a side note, $2B is pocket change for a federal government that spends $41B a year on the equivalent highway system. https://www.bidnet.com/resources/business-insights/us-government-spending-highway-infrastructure-en.jsp https://www.bidnet.com/resources/business-insights/us-govern...

mattkrause 7y ago

I took Amtrak regularly along the East Coast. Door-to-door was both faster and cheaper than flying, plus the experience was a lot more pleasant. Less travelled routes have a chicken-and-egg problem: nobody uses them, so they’re not a priority, so they get even worse. NYC to Montreal, for example, should be 2x as fast as it currently is....

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
The Acela line with business & first class is literally the only quality Amtrak line in the country. For that line, and that line only, it can be worthwhile as an alternative to flying or driving among a select few destination spanning from DC to Boston. I’m sure that line accounts for some wildly disproportionate revenue for Amtrak, but in most other places people prefer to pay cheaper fares and don’t care about the surrounding quality properties enough to pay more for them.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  And that’s the only major part of the network where Amtrak controls the tracks. Elsewhere, it’s hamstrung by limited capacity and bad/illegal behavior by private operators. The Office of the Inspector General put together a fairly comprehensive report about this: https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Amtrak_Root_Causes_Final_Report_9_8_08_with_508_charts.pdf https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Amtrak_Root_Caus... In principle, this could easily be fixed—-and cracking down operators ignoring the preference rules did help a lot—-but people have to want it.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I would disagree (or maybe you have much higher expectations than I do). I find the NE regional to be quite nice as long as you aren't trying to go all the way from boston to DC. and going up the hudson river on the empire line is simply a lovely experience.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    Yeah, our preferences for what an Amtrak priced fare should provide are likely just different. I won’t ride Amtrak at all unless it’s business or first class, and typically I just buy far in advance or simply don’t travel if these fares are too high. The price for coach tickets is ludicrous to me when accounting for the crowdedness / mad dash to get seats. The last time I rode coach on NE regional lines, my girlfriend & I arrived over an hour early for the train & we had to stand up and hold our suitcases for the first 90 minutes of the ride because there were simply no seats. We walked back to front every coach car and every seat was taken and all of the luggage racks were filled. I get frazzled by hectic transportation experiences so it was especially nasty for me. For a $70-80 fare, I expect easy access to a comfortable seat, ample space for 1-2 bags / suitcases directly at my seat area, and easy ability for multiple people in the same party to get seats directly next to each other. I hate that Amtrak locks these (basic) amenities behind business & first class fares, and essentially acts like a slumlord towards their coach class service.
empath75 7y ago
The Acela is fantastic and I pretty much only use it for traveling to New York if I can expense it.
- dhimes 7y ago
  From Baltimore or Boston? I/we use it from Boston and recommend it.
13of40 7y ago
They have Amtrak service along the west coast, and I've taken the Seattle to Eugene and Seattle to Vancouver trains. I was unimpressed, because the maximum speed is about 80 miles per hour, like most of I-5 (edit: I mean that's effectively how fast people drive, not the speed limit), and the fare is so high you could actually rent a car for a few days instead, especially if there's more than one of you traveling. (Seattle -> Eugene, a 4 hour trip, one way starts at $78 according to their website.) I've always suspected it was a critical mass thing, and if more people used the service the price might go down, but for a self-interested individual, it just doesn't make sense right now.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  > I've always suspected it was a critical mass thing, and if more people used the service the price might go down, but for a self-interested individual, it just doesn't make sense right now. personally I find traveling on amtrak to be a lovely experience. even on the NE regional I usually get a whole row to myself if it isn't a holiday weekend. of course, this is probably why it's so expensive. on the other hand if the ridership went up, it wouldn't be such a nice experience anymore.
  - 13of40 7y ago
    Oh, don't get me wrong: I like trains in general, and I've got many fond memories of train adventures in Europe and Asia. Amtrak can be pleasant if you're just touring around. If you're looking for a serious mode of travel, though, the train system on the west coast is a joke. It's in a weird spot where if you care about money you can take a bus and if you care about convenience you can take a plane, but if you don't care about either...take Amtrak?
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > Seattle -> Eugene, a 4 hour trip The days/times when you can get through the Puget Sound, JBLM corridor in less than 2 or more hours for that segment alone are rapidly declining. It can easily take 2h+ to get from Federal Way to Olympia, even in non peak hours.
joshuaheard 7y ago
If you took out the government-imposed security check at airports, would it still be faster?
- mattkrause 7y ago
  It would certainly help. Dulles and Newark are still pretty far from the downtowns they serve, so there’s 30-60 minutes, plus the time to actually exit the airport, that you’re stuck with. Admittedly, Logan and LGA are a bit closer to their cities, but LGA is also terrible, so....

nerdponx 7y ago

There are frequent delays on the Empire service in New York. When I once asked the conductor what was going on, they said we were waiting for a freight train to pass, because the track is leased from CSX. From what I was told, Amtrak is legally/contractually entitled to right of way on such track, but the freight companies basically don't care.

gniv 7y ago
That's funny. I take NJTransit to work, and a lot of delays are blamed on giving way to Amtrak trains, because they have priority.
gamblor956 7y ago
From what I was told, Amtrak is legally/contractually entitled to right of way on such track, but the freight companies basically don't care. This is wrong. Amtrack has a subordinate lease to almost all of the freight lines it leases access to, meaning that they have lower priority to the lines than the cargo trains. Acela is the only Amtrack route in the nation that might have priority over cargo trains sharing the rails.

atlasunshrugged 7y ago

I recently took this route, I enjoyed it because I have a weird bucket list and this was on it (and I like trains) but I have to agree. I know it's not a profitable route and the NE corridor makes most of their money but I consider infrastructure to be a symbol of national pride. What does it say about the US as a country when our trains are unreliable and dirty, our roads are full of potholes, and quality public transport outside a few cities is basically nonexistent? I compare it to my experience living in Germany/Shanghai and it's just totally opposite, the experience on the train on this route (Dec 2018) was closer to train rides I've taken in Ukraine/Romania/Hungary (nothing against these places, I'm writing this from Odessa and love it here) than the train rides in much of W. EU

BlackRing 7y ago
You can't be serious to compare US infrastructure to Germany. In my experience living there, the Deutsche Bahn is not to be trusted to be on time, or run at all. And while Amtrak isn't the shining beacon I'd like it to be at least it gets me from point A to B reliably.
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  Really? I've had exactly the opposite experience when I lived in Berlin. The Berlin to Munich train was great and the tube in Berlin was pretty solid compared to most other places I've been

tantalor 7y ago

The train being Amtrak has nothing to do with it. The agents can do this same behavior on any passenger train or bus.

User23 7y ago

E.B. White has a wonderful essay called The Railroad that describes how the railroads and the government worked together to cripple US passenger rail. It isn't online, but I found a blog post[1] discussing it. It's also in the collection Essays of E.B. White which I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys perspicuous prose. The gist of the essay is that the railroads incrementally made the passenger experience worse and then as demand declined they used the declining demand to justify further worsening the passenger experience[2]. From the railroads' perspective this was a virtuous positive feedback loop, insofar as it got them out of the relatively low margin passenger business. That then got dumped on Amtrak, which is awful for many reasons, not least of which is their trains are the lowest priority on the tracks they lease, so they are virtually never on time. I imagine Amtrak executives would also love to get out of the passenger transport business too, if they could somehow swing it to keep getting federal money. Anyhow it really is a great essay and I highly recommend reading it since my summary can't do it justice. [1] https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 [2] A lesson corporations now apply with disappointing prevalence.

BrianHenryIE 7y ago

Amtrak Capitol Corridor from Sacramento to San Jose frequently posts on Twitter to explain its delays. And I know from sitting in the Emeryville station that they frequently announce the delays and the reasons. https://twitter.com/CapitolCorridor https://twitter.com/CapitolCorridor

atemerev 7y ago

Does an unpopular (and therefore declining) transport option represent “everything wrong” that is with the country?

bobthepanda 7y ago

As a side note, $2B is pocket change for a federal government that spends $41B a year on the equivalent highway system. https://www.bidnet.com/resources/business-insights/us-government-spending-highway-infrastructure-en.jsp https://www.bidnet.com/resources/business-insights/us-govern...