As a long distance commuter, that was my experience as well. For my commute, there is a bus, an regional rail and Amtrak. (And driving.) The bus is potential

As a long distance commuter, that was my experience as well. For my commute, there is a bus, an regional rail and Amtrak. (And driving.) The bus is potentially the fastest, about 2 hours door to door, but for about half the trip I'm unable to do anything but stare straight ahead and focus on keeping my stomach settled, and about 1 in 10 trips there is a traffic delay that makes it take 3+ hours. The regional train varies between 2.5 and 3 hours, depending on how many stops that particular train makes, but it leaves me on the wrong side of town and the last fast train is at 7am. Amtrak is best for me, more coincidentally, because it happens to stop near my workplace, and because it makes few stops it's as fast as the fastest regional trains, for an average door to door of 2.2 hours. Both the regional and Amtrak trains tend to have delays about 1 in 50 rides or so, usually about 30-60 minutes. (Driving is about 2.5 hours door to door, parking under my workplace, and costs as much as a bus or train just in tolls and parking.)