10 ms·

Yup. Amtrak continues to spiral to its doom by simply not offering services that people want. Ridership is not an issue. The Northeast corridor is full of peopl

Yup. Amtrak continues to spiral to its doom by simply not offering services that people want. Ridership is not an issue. The Northeast corridor is full of people who want to ride on Amtrak, but it's so wasteful much of the time and so inconvenient that there's hardly a reason to do it. I want to go with my bike to new places, but I can't. Amtrak won't allow bikes on most trains unless they're boxed. I want reasonable food for a day trip. All we get is a horrible boxed lunch. I want a late train so I can have a reasonable day trip. I want to know that the train will get me home on time. The delays on Amtrak are insane. It's more expensive than flying. What's the point? They offer an uncertain service, at a bad price, with poor hours. Compare that to Europe, where trains are on time, the hours are good, there are many destinations, I can take my bike, etc. The Northeast is more than dense enough. Amtrak just doesn't care.

killjoywashere 7y ago
My dad was an industrial engineer for BN and designed natural gas powered locomotive systems (not just just the engine, but the tender, the gas pipelines and filling stations, etc). He was a railroad fanatic. A quarter of the basement was dedicated to model railroading. I have eaten on one of Burlington Northern's executive dining cars. A phenomenal experience, far nicer than anything I've ever seen in any airplane's first class cabin. Wood paneling, brass, sauteed salmon and glass windows so clean you forgot they were there. He went to the Soviet Union during Glasnost and had his own KGB agent. The Russians came to the US to negotiate technology transfer. I grew up in awe of the railroads. Our neighbor worked for Union Pacific. In my world, men worked in rail. I learned research was hard, and development was even harder but the national scale of the endeavor is what made it worthwhile. I never understood why we never went anywhere on the trains. I went to Tokyo and was floored by the immensity of the passenger rail system. Even in San Diego I would ride my bike 17 miles down to the nearest station and take the Coaster into National City to go to work. And then, I was in DC for a month and I took the overnight Acela Amtrak Express from DC to Boston and back. Gritty, dirty. Like a noir film type ... gritty. For another $50 I could have taken a 1 hour flight after dinner and been in bed at a decent hour. As a citizen, I'm a fan of the idea of passenger rail. As a customer, I'm not a huge fan of Amtrak, at least under current management.
- endymi0n 7y ago
  In the end, the mechanisms at fault here are core to American identity: individualism and blind trust in the free market, even where these fail — so I don‘t think this decline can be changed. Free market, because first, rail leads itself to monopolies. Rail infrastructure is expensive, and you need significant area coverage until you can get enough customers. So if you built one, you as a rail provider will go at extracting the most possible value, since you don‘t have competition. Classic free market failure. The solution here would be to have at least four (proven number to avoid oligopolies) private train providers competing on public infrastructure. Since Americans shudder already at the word „public“, that‘s a significant hurdle. Individualism because in the US, people have a propensity to not share rides with others. Same fear of „public“ IMHO, as long as public transportation is thought of existing solely for poor people until they can afford a car, nothing is going to change.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    > "Free market, because first, rail leads itself to monopolies." There's no reason why train operators should also own the fixed infrastructure. Truck companies don't own the interstate highway system, and airlines don't own all the airports. Why not have private train operators (passenger & freight) bid for routes / slots / capacity on a publicly-owned rail network? Lucrative routes between major cities will return significant profits, while regional routes will require support/subsidy. But in either case, competition between operators promotes cost efficiency, innovation, and a focus on service quality.
    - japanoise 7y ago
      We have that in the UK, and unfortunately it doesn't work very well. Obviously the UK is different to the States in a number of ways, but you might want to watch Shaun's video on the subject: https://youtu.be/nP95Frc0v4k https://youtu.be/nP95Frc0v4k
      - Reason077 7y ago
        Yes, the UK model isn't perfect. For the most part, it doesn't result in true competition because train operating companies are awarded monopolies over regions and routes rather than actually competing against other. The few routes that really do have competition between operators (like London-Birmingham) are also the routes that have the most competitive fares! One solution would be to auction off packages of "slots" on the most profitable, and capacity constrained, routes (eg: east & west coast main lines) rather than franchise them as single monolithic entities. As for "not working very well", those who remember the days of government-owned-and-operated British Rail will attest that the current system is a significant improvement!
aww_dang 7y ago
They sell the cardboard bike boxes at most stations. The baggage guys would give me used ones for free. When I was in the US the total was $25 for the bike fee and the box. All you need is a pedal wrench and some hex keys to remove the handle bars. Compare to the airlines fees for bikes. If you have something heavier, you might not even be able to pack it aboard an airplane. Then there is the inconvenience of traveling to and from an airport. Even with an airline, you'll still need to take off the pedals and bars. Amtrak is not the best, but still better than air travel for cyclists. For the cost of a flight + bicycle baggage fees I can get a room on Amtrak. Sure the food isn't the greatest, but you can also pack your own and include a bottle.
- aww_dang 7y ago
  Amtrak is now claiming that most routes have bike racks. https://www.amtrak.com/bike-faqs https://www.amtrak.com/bike-faqs Personally, I'd still prefer to have mine boxed to prevent scratches.
  - chairmanwow 7y ago
    Scratches? My daily commute on the Caltrain quickly cured me of this concern. The bike racks on the Caltrain are simple and effective IMO, but essentially just cram bikes together with elastic straps. It’s a great way to unblock lots of people to utilize trains that wouldn’t otherwise. 2 or 3 cars of the train are devoted to bikes. That certainly is indicative of the environment and the temperate California weather, but still. Makes for a marvelous multimodal commute for me.
- light_hue_1 7y ago
  Carry on bicycle service is available on only a few trains and even then there are very few spots. You can easily run out and there's nothing you can do with your bike at that point. If you really look into it you'll discover that the notion that checked bikes are available on most trains is a lie. There are so many exceptions. Just because it's available on a train, doesn't mean it's available at your station. Only the bigger stations allow them and you have no way of getting your bike off the train otherwise. So if you want to go somewhere nice to bike around, you're mostly out of luck. I'm not going to deal with taking the handlebars and pedals off all the time in a train station. What am I going to do with that box? I ride my bike to the station. The checked bike thing is horrible even if you're willing to deal with all of this insanity. > Amtrak is not the best, but still better than air travel for cyclists. For the cost of a flight + bicycle baggage fees I can get a room on Amtrak. Air travel is far cheaper than Amtrak in the Northeast. Checked bicycles are about $40 to fly with if you pick the right airline and $20 on Amtrak. But what's even cheaper is travel by car. Just rent a car for the day and you don't need to deal with any of this.
ars 7y ago
> The delays on Amtrak are insane. The is because Amtrak must share lines with much slower cargo trains. Amtrak will file for "track windows" where they have exclusive access to the track for higher speed travel - but if they miss the window (for example a passenger had luggage trouble and delayed the train by a few minutes) then they are stuck behind cargo trains. And once that happens they have no way to recover their original time table. The train will be late all the way to the final destination! And not just a little late, travel time will double. I'm not aware of any good solution for this.
- linker3000 7y ago
  Sections of passing track?
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    Also, with such high costs it'd be better to just kick the "offending" passenger out. Or lock the doors 10 minutes prior to departure (i.e. plan to depart 10 minutes after the official departure time, but not let new people in during that window).
    - ars 7y ago
      That's just one example. Lots of things can cause delays. And your 10 minute plan gets complicated when you consider they pick up passengers at multiple stops along the way. If they waited an extra 10 minutes at every stop they might ending up causing themselves an even bigger delay. But I don't have specific info on what things are causing the most delays.
    - andylynch 7y ago
      Ten minutes?? U.K. trains will be open at the station for less less than a minute and a half at the most and that’s plenty. Tube trains will dwell for only 20 seconds and often less - but then that’s because you have 30+ per hour
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Most of the American rail network is now owned by freight railroads who have actively dismantled electrification, double or quadruple track, etc. This is because unlike other forms of transportation, railways are required to pay property taxes, so they're incentivized to have as little improved property as possible.
H8crilA 7y ago
Keep in mind that European trains are typically more expensive than flights even on richly priced air routes. Far, far more expensive if you include low cost air connections. And then the profitability of short distance routes is a direct product of the density of population. This would look differently if airlines were charged for the CO2 externalities (i.e. not receive a de facto subsidy). But we all know how's the carbon pricing going in America ...
- boudin 7y ago
  That's not totally true, train can be cheaper depending on when you buy your tickets and compete with low cost airlines. If you also add the fact that you always arrive in the city whereas some airports requires a train or a taxis to get to it (which increase the overall price of your journey). At least that's the case in England and France where I often take the train.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Train stations aren’t always centrally located, especially in China where HSR stations can be as far away from city cores as airports. Japan also has some of that for smaller cities (eg Gifu vs Gifu-Hashima).
    - guan 7y ago
      The French state railway company SNCF has a low-cost service high speed TGV service called Ouigo that also uses stations on the periphery of some cities (while regular TGV goes into central stations), just like low-cost airlines.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        Sounds weird. The reason China and japan do is way is to keep the HSR track as straight and short as possible. Bringing a train into a city that isn’t an end point would probably slow it down a lot.
rayiner 7y ago
And before someone says “funding”—on a per passenger mile basis, Amtrak receives similar funding to the French rail system, and over three times as much as the private UK rail operators.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
schnable 7y ago
True for some recreational travel, but Northeast Corridor is still pretty good for business travel where it would mostly be competing with driving for the DC-Philly-NYC portion. It's comfortable, plenty of room to work even in coach, and you can easily rebook tickets if you need to reschedule. Outside of the Northeast corridor, yeah it's pretty impractical compared to almost every other alternative.
ghaff 7y ago
Tons of people take Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor. In fact they have capacity expansion plans. And they turn a good profit. It’s just that they lose the money in the rest of the country. Especially the Acela mostly competes with short haul air flights. People who are really price sensitive take the bus (or dive).
alexhutcheson 7y ago
The boarding process at major stations (New York Penn, Washington Union Station, sometimes Philly) is so frustrating and unnecessary. It forces passengers to get there early to line up, and makes dwell times super long. There are lots of little operational things like this that Amtrak could improve.
- ghaff 7y ago
  It’s not clear to me why the seats on the “all reserved” Acela at least are not actually reserved as on most trains of this type. Penn is also just kind of a mess generally although it is slowly improving.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The trick with NY Penn is to just go down to the NJ transit level. Same platforms. No lines.
  - alexhutcheson 7y ago
    They turned off the displays on that level that used to show the Amtrak track numbers, so now you have to wait upstairs and then go down.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      On the NJT screens too? Amtrack track assignments still show on the DepartureVision web site.
  - _rs 7y ago
    Could you expand on this a bit? Might be traveling via Amtrak soon to/from Penn and would like to make the experience a bit smoother. I've been on NJT once before but didn't notice anything about Amtrak on those platforms.
    - alexhutcheson 7y ago
      https://slate.com/business/2013/07/train-travel-the-penn-station-boarding-secret.html https://slate.com/business/2013/07/train-travel-the-penn-sta...
AndyMcConachie 7y ago
I've ridden trains throughout Europe and in the USA. I live in Europe but when I come to the USA I try and take trains when I can. Yesterday I took the Amtrak from LA to San Diego. I just love taking trains over other modes of transit. I agree with all the criticisms of Amtrak that I'm hearing in this thread and that are common for Americans. But I want to tone down the love of European trains a bit. Amtrak is much much cheaper than trains in Europe and in general you get more legroom. European trains have shitty food, as does Amtrak. Actually the best food I had on a train was in the early 1990's on a trip from Warsaw to Prague on a soviet era train. It was actually cooked in a fancy dining car. The UK has wrecked their train network. Delays are terrible and the network doesn't receive any real new investment. I blame Thatcher. A few weeks ago there were no trains between London and Leeds over a bank holiday weekend. For 3 days there were no trains between London and Leeds. This affected me and I had to change my plans. I suspect that this affect all travel north out of London for 3 days. How can you rely on a network like this? Sure they give you advance notices, but where is the redundancy in the network? Dutch trains are better, but they're mostly just for commuting. Distances are short so the Dutch rail network is basically what Americans would consider a suburban light rail network. Like privatization everywhere else, the private elements of the Dutch rail network play games with timings and commitments to 'juke the stats'. For example, a late train may be cancelled because the penalties for cancelling trains are less than for a train being late. Yes, this actually happens. I have less experience with German, French, and Italian trains. But at different times in my life I have been screwed over by them as well. Delays, cancellations, confusing rules that only the locals understand. Trains in these countries are still considered a second rate service compared to airline travel. And how exactly am I supposed to take a train through Paris exactly? Let's say I am in Belgium and I want to go to Lyon. How can I do that without taking the Paris metro or taking some stupid long route? Answer, you can't. Because trains don't go through Paris. So in short I don't want Americans to think that European trains are all that great. They're much more expensive and come with their own problems. They lack redundancy and delays in one part of the network can cause problems in other parts of the network.
- iak8god 7y ago
  > when I come to the USA I try and take trains when I can. Yesterday I took the Amtrak from LA to San Diego... If you've mostly taken trains in the US on the coasts, or for long cross-country trips, you may have an overly rosy view of the situation here. I live in a mid-sized US city, the capitol of its state, with a metropolitan area population of around one million (city A). To reach the nearest city of at least this size (city B) by car is only a two hour (<150 miles) straight drive along the interstate. Both these cities have train stations serviced by Amtrak. The only itinerary Amtrak offers to get from A to B using their service passes through city C, which is more than 500 miles from city A or city B. It's a 30 hour trip.
tssva 7y ago
Amtrak earned $524 million from the Northeast corridor in 2018. The rest of the system lost $540 million dollars in 2018. The Northeast corridor is not the issue for Amtrak.
- mymythisisthis 7y ago
  2018, Amtrak had $3.4 billion in revenue 2018, Uber had $11.7 in revenue
mymythisisthis 7y ago
Now allowing a bike, unless it is in a box, is what gets me. I don't understanding the reasoning behind this.

killjoywashere 7y ago

My dad was an industrial engineer for BN and designed natural gas powered locomotive systems (not just just the engine, but the tender, the gas pipelines and filling stations, etc). He was a railroad fanatic. A quarter of the basement was dedicated to model railroading. I have eaten on one of Burlington Northern's executive dining cars. A phenomenal experience, far nicer than anything I've ever seen in any airplane's first class cabin. Wood paneling, brass, sauteed salmon and glass windows so clean you forgot they were there. He went to the Soviet Union during Glasnost and had his own KGB agent. The Russians came to the US to negotiate technology transfer. I grew up in awe of the railroads. Our neighbor worked for Union Pacific. In my world, men worked in rail. I learned research was hard, and development was even harder but the national scale of the endeavor is what made it worthwhile. I never understood why we never went anywhere on the trains. I went to Tokyo and was floored by the immensity of the passenger rail system. Even in San Diego I would ride my bike 17 miles down to the nearest station and take the Coaster into National City to go to work. And then, I was in DC for a month and I took the overnight Acela Amtrak Express from DC to Boston and back. Gritty, dirty. Like a noir film type ... gritty. For another $50 I could have taken a 1 hour flight after dinner and been in bed at a decent hour. As a citizen, I'm a fan of the idea of passenger rail. As a customer, I'm not a huge fan of Amtrak, at least under current management.

endymi0n 7y ago
In the end, the mechanisms at fault here are core to American identity: individualism and blind trust in the free market, even where these fail — so I don‘t think this decline can be changed. Free market, because first, rail leads itself to monopolies. Rail infrastructure is expensive, and you need significant area coverage until you can get enough customers. So if you built one, you as a rail provider will go at extracting the most possible value, since you don‘t have competition. Classic free market failure. The solution here would be to have at least four (proven number to avoid oligopolies) private train providers competing on public infrastructure. Since Americans shudder already at the word „public“, that‘s a significant hurdle. Individualism because in the US, people have a propensity to not share rides with others. Same fear of „public“ IMHO, as long as public transportation is thought of existing solely for poor people until they can afford a car, nothing is going to change.
- Reason077 7y ago
  > "Free market, because first, rail leads itself to monopolies." There's no reason why train operators should also own the fixed infrastructure. Truck companies don't own the interstate highway system, and airlines don't own all the airports. Why not have private train operators (passenger & freight) bid for routes / slots / capacity on a publicly-owned rail network? Lucrative routes between major cities will return significant profits, while regional routes will require support/subsidy. But in either case, competition between operators promotes cost efficiency, innovation, and a focus on service quality.
  - japanoise 7y ago
    We have that in the UK, and unfortunately it doesn't work very well. Obviously the UK is different to the States in a number of ways, but you might want to watch Shaun's video on the subject: https://youtu.be/nP95Frc0v4k https://youtu.be/nP95Frc0v4k
    - Reason077 7y ago
      Yes, the UK model isn't perfect. For the most part, it doesn't result in true competition because train operating companies are awarded monopolies over regions and routes rather than actually competing against other. The few routes that really do have competition between operators (like London-Birmingham) are also the routes that have the most competitive fares! One solution would be to auction off packages of "slots" on the most profitable, and capacity constrained, routes (eg: east & west coast main lines) rather than franchise them as single monolithic entities. As for "not working very well", those who remember the days of government-owned-and-operated British Rail will attest that the current system is a significant improvement!

aww_dang 7y ago

They sell the cardboard bike boxes at most stations. The baggage guys would give me used ones for free. When I was in the US the total was $25 for the bike fee and the box. All you need is a pedal wrench and some hex keys to remove the handle bars. Compare to the airlines fees for bikes. If you have something heavier, you might not even be able to pack it aboard an airplane. Then there is the inconvenience of traveling to and from an airport. Even with an airline, you'll still need to take off the pedals and bars. Amtrak is not the best, but still better than air travel for cyclists. For the cost of a flight + bicycle baggage fees I can get a room on Amtrak. Sure the food isn't the greatest, but you can also pack your own and include a bottle.

aww_dang 7y ago
Amtrak is now claiming that most routes have bike racks. https://www.amtrak.com/bike-faqs https://www.amtrak.com/bike-faqs Personally, I'd still prefer to have mine boxed to prevent scratches.
- chairmanwow 7y ago
  Scratches? My daily commute on the Caltrain quickly cured me of this concern. The bike racks on the Caltrain are simple and effective IMO, but essentially just cram bikes together with elastic straps. It’s a great way to unblock lots of people to utilize trains that wouldn’t otherwise. 2 or 3 cars of the train are devoted to bikes. That certainly is indicative of the environment and the temperate California weather, but still. Makes for a marvelous multimodal commute for me.
light_hue_1 7y ago
Carry on bicycle service is available on only a few trains and even then there are very few spots. You can easily run out and there's nothing you can do with your bike at that point. If you really look into it you'll discover that the notion that checked bikes are available on most trains is a lie. There are so many exceptions. Just because it's available on a train, doesn't mean it's available at your station. Only the bigger stations allow them and you have no way of getting your bike off the train otherwise. So if you want to go somewhere nice to bike around, you're mostly out of luck. I'm not going to deal with taking the handlebars and pedals off all the time in a train station. What am I going to do with that box? I ride my bike to the station. The checked bike thing is horrible even if you're willing to deal with all of this insanity. > Amtrak is not the best, but still better than air travel for cyclists. For the cost of a flight + bicycle baggage fees I can get a room on Amtrak. Air travel is far cheaper than Amtrak in the Northeast. Checked bicycles are about $40 to fly with if you pick the right airline and $20 on Amtrak. But what's even cheaper is travel by car. Just rent a car for the day and you don't need to deal with any of this.

ars 7y ago

> The delays on Amtrak are insane. The is because Amtrak must share lines with much slower cargo trains. Amtrak will file for "track windows" where they have exclusive access to the track for higher speed travel - but if they miss the window (for example a passenger had luggage trouble and delayed the train by a few minutes) then they are stuck behind cargo trains. And once that happens they have no way to recover their original time table. The train will be late all the way to the final destination! And not just a little late, travel time will double. I'm not aware of any good solution for this.

linker3000 7y ago
Sections of passing track?
- H8crilA 7y ago
  Also, with such high costs it'd be better to just kick the "offending" passenger out. Or lock the doors 10 minutes prior to departure (i.e. plan to depart 10 minutes after the official departure time, but not let new people in during that window).
  - ars 7y ago
    That's just one example. Lots of things can cause delays. And your 10 minute plan gets complicated when you consider they pick up passengers at multiple stops along the way. If they waited an extra 10 minutes at every stop they might ending up causing themselves an even bigger delay. But I don't have specific info on what things are causing the most delays.
  - andylynch 7y ago
    Ten minutes?? U.K. trains will be open at the station for less less than a minute and a half at the most and that’s plenty. Tube trains will dwell for only 20 seconds and often less - but then that’s because you have 30+ per hour
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Most of the American rail network is now owned by freight railroads who have actively dismantled electrification, double or quadruple track, etc. This is because unlike other forms of transportation, railways are required to pay property taxes, so they're incentivized to have as little improved property as possible.

H8crilA 7y ago

Keep in mind that European trains are typically more expensive than flights even on richly priced air routes. Far, far more expensive if you include low cost air connections. And then the profitability of short distance routes is a direct product of the density of population. This would look differently if airlines were charged for the CO2 externalities (i.e. not receive a de facto subsidy). But we all know how's the carbon pricing going in America ...

boudin 7y ago
That's not totally true, train can be cheaper depending on when you buy your tickets and compete with low cost airlines. If you also add the fact that you always arrive in the city whereas some airports requires a train or a taxis to get to it (which increase the overall price of your journey). At least that's the case in England and France where I often take the train.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Train stations aren’t always centrally located, especially in China where HSR stations can be as far away from city cores as airports. Japan also has some of that for smaller cities (eg Gifu vs Gifu-Hashima).
  - guan 7y ago
    The French state railway company SNCF has a low-cost service high speed TGV service called Ouigo that also uses stations on the periphery of some cities (while regular TGV goes into central stations), just like low-cost airlines.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Sounds weird. The reason China and japan do is way is to keep the HSR track as straight and short as possible. Bringing a train into a city that isn’t an end point would probably slow it down a lot.

rayiner 7y ago

And before someone says “funding”—on a per passenger mile basis, Amtrak receives similar funding to the French rail system, and over three times as much as the private UK rail operators.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

schnable 7y ago

True for some recreational travel, but Northeast Corridor is still pretty good for business travel where it would mostly be competing with driving for the DC-Philly-NYC portion. It's comfortable, plenty of room to work even in coach, and you can easily rebook tickets if you need to reschedule. Outside of the Northeast corridor, yeah it's pretty impractical compared to almost every other alternative.

ghaff 7y ago

Tons of people take Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor. In fact they have capacity expansion plans. And they turn a good profit. It’s just that they lose the money in the rest of the country. Especially the Acela mostly competes with short haul air flights. People who are really price sensitive take the bus (or dive).

alexhutcheson 7y ago

The boarding process at major stations (New York Penn, Washington Union Station, sometimes Philly) is so frustrating and unnecessary. It forces passengers to get there early to line up, and makes dwell times super long. There are lots of little operational things like this that Amtrak could improve.

ghaff 7y ago
It’s not clear to me why the seats on the “all reserved” Acela at least are not actually reserved as on most trains of this type. Penn is also just kind of a mess generally although it is slowly improving.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
The trick with NY Penn is to just go down to the NJ transit level. Same platforms. No lines.
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  They turned off the displays on that level that used to show the Amtrak track numbers, so now you have to wait upstairs and then go down.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    On the NJT screens too? Amtrack track assignments still show on the DepartureVision web site.
- _rs 7y ago
  Could you expand on this a bit? Might be traveling via Amtrak soon to/from Penn and would like to make the experience a bit smoother. I've been on NJT once before but didn't notice anything about Amtrak on those platforms.
  - alexhutcheson 7y ago
    https://slate.com/business/2013/07/train-travel-the-penn-station-boarding-secret.html https://slate.com/business/2013/07/train-travel-the-penn-sta...

AndyMcConachie 7y ago

I've ridden trains throughout Europe and in the USA. I live in Europe but when I come to the USA I try and take trains when I can. Yesterday I took the Amtrak from LA to San Diego. I just love taking trains over other modes of transit. I agree with all the criticisms of Amtrak that I'm hearing in this thread and that are common for Americans. But I want to tone down the love of European trains a bit. Amtrak is much much cheaper than trains in Europe and in general you get more legroom. European trains have shitty food, as does Amtrak. Actually the best food I had on a train was in the early 1990's on a trip from Warsaw to Prague on a soviet era train. It was actually cooked in a fancy dining car. The UK has wrecked their train network. Delays are terrible and the network doesn't receive any real new investment. I blame Thatcher. A few weeks ago there were no trains between London and Leeds over a bank holiday weekend. For 3 days there were no trains between London and Leeds. This affected me and I had to change my plans. I suspect that this affect all travel north out of London for 3 days. How can you rely on a network like this? Sure they give you advance notices, but where is the redundancy in the network? Dutch trains are better, but they're mostly just for commuting. Distances are short so the Dutch rail network is basically what Americans would consider a suburban light rail network. Like privatization everywhere else, the private elements of the Dutch rail network play games with timings and commitments to 'juke the stats'. For example, a late train may be cancelled because the penalties for cancelling trains are less than for a train being late. Yes, this actually happens. I have less experience with German, French, and Italian trains. But at different times in my life I have been screwed over by them as well. Delays, cancellations, confusing rules that only the locals understand. Trains in these countries are still considered a second rate service compared to airline travel. And how exactly am I supposed to take a train through Paris exactly? Let's say I am in Belgium and I want to go to Lyon. How can I do that without taking the Paris metro or taking some stupid long route? Answer, you can't. Because trains don't go through Paris. So in short I don't want Americans to think that European trains are all that great. They're much more expensive and come with their own problems. They lack redundancy and delays in one part of the network can cause problems in other parts of the network.

iak8god 7y ago
> when I come to the USA I try and take trains when I can. Yesterday I took the Amtrak from LA to San Diego... If you've mostly taken trains in the US on the coasts, or for long cross-country trips, you may have an overly rosy view of the situation here. I live in a mid-sized US city, the capitol of its state, with a metropolitan area population of around one million (city A). To reach the nearest city of at least this size (city B) by car is only a two hour (<150 miles) straight drive along the interstate. Both these cities have train stations serviced by Amtrak. The only itinerary Amtrak offers to get from A to B using their service passes through city C, which is more than 500 miles from city A or city B. It's a 30 hour trip.

tssva 7y ago

Amtrak earned $524 million from the Northeast corridor in 2018. The rest of the system lost $540 million dollars in 2018. The Northeast corridor is not the issue for Amtrak.

mymythisisthis 7y ago
2018, Amtrak had $3.4 billion in revenue 2018, Uber had $11.7 in revenue

mymythisisthis 7y ago

Now allowing a bike, unless it is in a box, is what gets me. I don't understanding the reasoning behind this.