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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

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.
- deleted 7y ago
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- xyzzyz 7y ago
  How many people do you think would want to take that train from city A to city B every week? Since most American households own cars, and most probably value the higher flexibility and lower cost that the car affords them, I'd be surprised if there was more demand than a few hundred train riders per week. Running frequent and convenient trains for such a low number of passengers would be prohibitely expensive.
therealdrag0 7y ago
I just got back from a 15 day trip in Switzerland. Their train system was amazing. We trained everywhere; there where intercity trains every hour at least.
futurix 7y ago
Your description of European trains is rather pessimistic and negative. UK train network is not perfect, but generally is in a decent state of repair. It does receive large amount of investment regularly (less so under Conservatives but still a significant amount) - and main disruptions of the recent years were caused by either railway worker strikes fighting for their rights or changes to timetables that were too ambitious (because of the amount of new services added to the network). Yes, the maintenance closures are annoying - but no piece of infrastructure can avoid periodical maintenance. You usually get 6 months' notice and in most cases a diversionary route. In fact even then you could get to Leeds from London via the West Coast mainline and then Transpennine routes. And it certainly didn't affect all travel to the north - depending on how you count them, London has 3 to 5 separate rail routes to there. The assumption that delays, cancellations, and odd rules are particular to only railways is frankly bizarre. And so is your statement that train travel is considered a second-rate service here - it is all of course highly anecdotal, but on routes that are competitive with local flights (and longer distance routes with high speed trains) - trains are usually considered to be the better option (although that might have something to do with the never-ending cost saving drive by the airlines). Your particular example of travel from Brussels to Lyon is also incorrect now, as French railways recently introduced direct high-speed services avoiding Paris (and building even more tracks for that). Crossing Paris old-style involves a Metropolitain trip, but that is not an unusual problem for most places (Boston's infamous North-South railway gap comes to mind). I have experience with Amtrak, UK, French, and German railways - and I don't think I ever saw Amtrak tickets cheaper - unless you are comparing them to some last-minute train tickets on over-subscribed services in Europe. In fact I was under a distinct impression of Amtrak being noticeably pricier. And finally, railway redundancy in US is typically way worse - Amtrak doesn't own most of the tracks it runs on and is treated as a second class citizen there. And any contingency route is likely to be untested and not ready for use due to cost-cutting. And apart from North East Corridor most of Amtrak routes are double track only, shared with freight.

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.

deleted 7y ago
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xyzzyz 7y ago
How many people do you think would want to take that train from city A to city B every week? Since most American households own cars, and most probably value the higher flexibility and lower cost that the car affords them, I'd be surprised if there was more demand than a few hundred train riders per week. Running frequent and convenient trains for such a low number of passengers would be prohibitely expensive.

therealdrag0 7y ago

I just got back from a 15 day trip in Switzerland. Their train system was amazing. We trained everywhere; there where intercity trains every hour at least.

futurix 7y ago

Your description of European trains is rather pessimistic and negative. UK train network is not perfect, but generally is in a decent state of repair. It does receive large amount of investment regularly (less so under Conservatives but still a significant amount) - and main disruptions of the recent years were caused by either railway worker strikes fighting for their rights or changes to timetables that were too ambitious (because of the amount of new services added to the network). Yes, the maintenance closures are annoying - but no piece of infrastructure can avoid periodical maintenance. You usually get 6 months' notice and in most cases a diversionary route. In fact even then you could get to Leeds from London via the West Coast mainline and then Transpennine routes. And it certainly didn't affect all travel to the north - depending on how you count them, London has 3 to 5 separate rail routes to there. The assumption that delays, cancellations, and odd rules are particular to only railways is frankly bizarre. And so is your statement that train travel is considered a second-rate service here - it is all of course highly anecdotal, but on routes that are competitive with local flights (and longer distance routes with high speed trains) - trains are usually considered to be the better option (although that might have something to do with the never-ending cost saving drive by the airlines). Your particular example of travel from Brussels to Lyon is also incorrect now, as French railways recently introduced direct high-speed services avoiding Paris (and building even more tracks for that). Crossing Paris old-style involves a Metropolitain trip, but that is not an unusual problem for most places (Boston's infamous North-South railway gap comes to mind). I have experience with Amtrak, UK, French, and German railways - and I don't think I ever saw Amtrak tickets cheaper - unless you are comparing them to some last-minute train tickets on over-subscribed services in Europe. In fact I was under a distinct impression of Amtrak being noticeably pricier. And finally, railway redundancy in US is typically way worse - Amtrak doesn't own most of the tracks it runs on and is treated as a second class citizen there. And any contingency route is likely to be untested and not ready for use due to cost-cutting. And apart from North East Corridor most of Amtrak routes are double track only, shared with freight.