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Amtrak Explorer

303 points by admp 3y ago

asda_ 3y ago
Soo good looking! Thanks for making this.
skadamat 3y ago
Super neat! I wished this had time slots too
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Amtrak time slots are often... aspirational. My last one from Rochester to NYC (on the Chicago-NYC Lake Shore Limited) was 19 hours late. They're often delayed by freight trains they share the rails with.
crazygringo 3y ago
That's cool. Definitely never occurred to me that there are whole states in the contiguous-48 without Amtrak at all (South Dakota, Wyoming). And then more that are "just barely" (Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky).
- jcranmer 3y ago
  To be frank, a large portion of the US West is utterly devoid of population. The largest city in SD is ~300k in MSA, and the largest city in WY is ~100k. Trying to make a route to Sioux Falls, SD pretty much means skipping both Minneapolis (3.7M) and Des Moines (700k), while going to Cheyenne, WY means skipping Denver (~3M). The largest cities not served by Amtrak are Phoenix (although it is indirectly served via Maricopa), San Francisco (though indirectly served via Oakland), Las Vegas, Columbus, Tulsa, Honolulu, and oh look we're out of 1M+ MSAs.
  - buildsjets 3y ago
    Looking forward to the opening of Amtrak service to Honolulu.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    It's very charitable to describe Phoenix as served by Maricopa station, even indirectly. It's 45min/30mi away on the other side of a mountain range in the middle of the desert. It's not even in the same county.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      That’s closer than much of LA is to the train stations.
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        Honestly, no. That's the distance from the close parts of the city. The equivalent for LA would be Union station being out in Palmdale. The farther parts of the MSA and traffic can add 1-2hrs to that time. LA is pretty well covered overall though, at least by West Coast standards. The biggest hole in the train network is long beach, but there's a lot of transit development happening in that area nowadays.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      Technically, the MSA is served, but unlike SF/Oakland MSA via Okland, yeah, Maricopa doesn't really service Phoenix at all.
- jccalhoun 3y ago
  Last time I checked the train from Indianapolis to Chicago only runs every other day. I love the idea of train travel but I live an hour outside of Indianapolis so I would have to drive an hour to take a 4 hour train that leaves at 6am (There is Greyhound bus to Indy from here but it doesn't get to Indy until after the train leaves). Or I could take the Greyhound from here to Chicago but that takes at least 6 hours. Or I could just drive to Chicago and be there in under 4 hours.
capableweb 3y ago
Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? For comparison, I found this map of European rails: https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/euro-rail-map/ https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/eur... Seems the least dense (in terms of railway) European countries still have better coverage than the most dense US state.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  These are a minute fraction of the railroad tracks in the US. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr... shows the "Class I" railroads; just the big eight. There's a whole expansive set of Class II/III tracks. 160,000 miles total.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Thanks! I thought something looked amiss and seems a lot was.
- bombcar 3y ago
  That is just Amtrak and apparently just long distance Amtrak. Some commuter rail is operated by Amtrak but won’t appear I think. If you have money you can get a private passenger train almost anywhere there are tracks.
- PopAlongKid 3y ago
  Unfortunately except for the NEC (northeast corridor), Amtrak operates on rail lines owned by freight train operators. Technically the Amtrak passenger train has priority over freight, but one problem is that when one train needs to bypass another, the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding, so the Amtrak train must wait instead.
  - organsnyder 3y ago
    There's a segment in Michigan that was purchased by MDOT for passenger rail (Amtrak) use. There have been some improvements made for "high-speed" service. Not sure how common this is elsewhere.
burcs 3y ago
This is a beautiful visualization, I still wish we invested more into this infrastructure. Taking the train seems to double the duration of my trip over driving. Not having to drive is not a bad trade off though, if I have the time to relax.
- banannaise 3y ago
  It is worth remembering that traveling by train has essentially zero overhead aside from the trip time. You arrive anytime before the train leaves, you get on the train, you get off the train, you don't have to think about considerations such as parking.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    But (outside of the NEC) you do have to worry about 10+ hour delays (the most extreme delay I had an interaction with was being delayed by 2 hours because yesterday's train was in front of us and delayed by about 24 hours.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      If you’ve ridden any long distance trains you’ll die on the rails eventually where they just give up, put everyone in a bus, and you go to the other direction train which they just turn around.
  - fellowniusmonk 3y ago
    The problem in the US though is that once you get to your destination you are probably in a city dependent on cars because of such poor walkability and public transport, so now you have to rent a car as well. Looking at travel from Austin to SF, taking a train is a longer duration trip and costs more. One way on Oct 20th, Kayak has a flight for $119 and Wanderu has a train trip for $662 that is 3 days and 8 hours in duration. If I could take my car on this train it might be worth it, from a cost and logistics standpoint train pretty much always loses. I say this as someone who grew up enjoying the metro in dc and ny and use rail and ferry's when overseas. Until infrastructure, subsidies and other externalities are addressed train travel will not be competitive, I have far more hope for level 3 self driving cars than I do for walkable cities and train travel parity.
divbzero 3y ago
For comparison, here is Europe’s rail network with high speed rail (≥200kph) in color and other rail (<200kph) in gray: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_Europe.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_...
- tda 3y ago
  This is only a map of the primary connecting railways, find all other rail here: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  Comparing this to the Amtrak map side-by-side, Amtrak looks like some kids project started last year.
  - pkaye 3y ago
    Most of the railways lines are used for freight. https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Rail-Map.jpg https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Ra...
  - Muromec 3y ago
    European one barely scratches the surface, as it shows three lines in the whole Netherlands, which is not exactly true. And then China probably builds as much in a year and it's all high-speed.
    - hk__2 3y ago
      > European one barely scratches the surface, as it shows three lines in the whole Netherlands, which is not exactly true. Check https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ for a complete overview.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
Unfortunately, Amtrak management has only expressed at best lukewarm support for long distance trains[0]. The California Zephyr in particular (Chicago <-> San Francisco) often runs with delays of 10 or more hours (two years ago, I was on a train scheduled to arrive in downtown Chicago at 2 PM and didn't get me there until after midnight -- Union Station is not exactly a bustling part of town at that hour. [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/amtrak-coronavirus-profit-public-transportation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/amtrak-coronavirus-pro...
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  The delays aren't really Amtrak's fault. Freight companies manage the tracks and pay lip service to Amtrak's regulated priority. Until 2019 that enforcement was up to the DOJ, who didn't really do anything, but Amtrak was granted the ability to sue that year. https://enotrans.org/article/durbin-introduces-bill-to-allow-amtrak-to-sue-freight-railroads-for-delays/ https://enotrans.org/article/durbin-introduces-bill-to-allow... Amtrak is currently trying to sue their host railroads but these suits take time. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4598703-for-all-rail-freight-amtraks-fight-with-the-union-pacific-signals-more-change https://seekingalpha.com/article/4598703-for-all-rail-freigh...
- bombcar 3y ago
  The long distance trains (even things like the Late For Sure Limited) are an anachronism that really doesn’t have support from anyone but railfans and the small numbers who use it. But they’re incredibly fun to ride but you need to not have to be anywhere anytime.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Why is a competitive carbon-neutral system of moving people between cities up to 1000 km apart an anachronism?
    - toast0 3y ago
      Because service hasn't been competitive for decades, for various reasons, mostly because a single set of tracks doesn't work well for freight and passengers. Afaik, there's no place with large rail coverage where there's one rail network for freight and one rail network for passengers; a lot of the world has rail for passengers and lacks significant rail for freight, the US has rail for freight and lacks significant rail for passengers. The two use cases don't mix well. If you want to get somewhere in the US in a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable cost, your options are usually roads (bus or personal vehicle) and commercial air travel. There's a couple corridors where boat or train actually work, but not many.
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eskibars 3y ago
Personal pet project for my son who loves seeing trains: I'm trying to get a system set up to auto-rotate through live webcams when the trains are most likely to show up through their live location status. https://train.api.connelly.casa/ https://train.api.connelly.casa/
- dgacmu 3y ago
  You could fetch them all and use a quick classifier to detect train/ no train to rank them in order of the likelihood of seeing a train?
  - networkchad 3y ago
    [dead]
- fransje26 3y ago
  Is that your work? Very nice! Since I discovered it on HN a few days back, I spent quite a bit of time enjoying the show. :-)
JTbane 3y ago
Amtrak would be great if they could minimize delays and keep an average speed at or above 55MPH throughout the ride.
- francis_t_catte 3y ago
  That would, unfortunately, require actual infrastructure investment into trackage and electrification, and the nationalization of all the Class I freight companies. I'm not going to hold my breath.
benatkin 3y ago
11 hour drive from Chicago to Washington, DC. 17 hour train ride.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  You can sleep and read a book during these 17 hours, though.
  - benatkin 3y ago
    Main problem being it's an overnight trip, and you can't pick and choose your schedule. The comparison I really wanted to make was Chicago to NYC but I wanted to provide the best one for the train. Chicago to NYC is even less palatable. Want to split Chicago to NYC into two segments and stay the night in Buffalo? Too bad, only one train per day, you have to spend the night on the train, plus there's no view around what I think would be a scenic route from Chicago to Buffalo. https://neo-trans.blog/2022/08/05/campaign-arrives-to-expand-cleveland-amtrak-service/ https://neo-trans.blog/2022/08/05/campaign-arrives-to-expand...
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Chicago to NYC is actually a bit out of reach for night trains (which you should absolutely take and absolutely sleep as a baby on your berth) being 1150 km as crow flies. There was a comfortably scheduled night Helsinki to Moscow train which covered 950km, made possible by the fact that Moscow-SPb rail line was built almost a straight line and also quite quick. The terrain between NYC and Chicago is rugged so no such path to be expected. Maybe the Chinese would be able to build a 1000 km elevated track between those two cities and make it all work, though they will prefer to make it an 5h daytime ride and not a nighttrain...
      - benatkin 3y ago
        I don't want a night train, I want a day train. The train isn't too rugged for them to run 3 trains per day instead of 1, running at different times, so you can choose the time you leave a given station.
pimlottc 3y ago
I can't help it but I keep trying to drag the map around. I get that's not how this map is implemented but I've been trained by years of tiled map apps now...
erulabs 3y ago
Awesome visualization! Coincidentally, I just found the Amtrak "Train Watcher" https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html a week ago. My wife an I met in the Pacific Surfliner's dining car, and our 2 year old is obsessed with trains of any type, so you could say we're becoming a train family. I'm currently building a raspberry-pi based "train coming!" / "ding-a-ling!" machine for my son which scrapes the real-time location of trains from the above site. The response to this thread is inspiring me to write about it! Getting the actual data from Amtrak's api isn't super straight forward, but a nice hacker beat me to it and published some hints: https://gist.github.com/chriswhong/aa4a2911883904310b3c342e76dd6342 https://gist.github.com/chriswhong/aa4a2911883904310b3c342e7...
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > I'm currently building a raspberry-pi based "train coming!" / "ding-a-ling!" machine for my son which scrapes the real-time location of trains from the above site. "Galisteo" by Burl Ives ... Looking out my door, about a quarter to four / I wave when the Chief goes by / and though it’s just a train, I never could explain / why a tear comes to my eye. ... No need for an RPi scraper for me. I live in that village, and hear the (Southwest) Chief's whistle/horn in both directions. Long live the analog! Glad to hear about your train-loving family. We need more!
  - jamiek88 3y ago
    That gave me full on goosebumps. There’s something magical about certain machines that make some people emotional. Concorde was another one for me. Killed by bean counters, as so much is.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      https://youtu.be/cYXEBcZpNQQ?si=n4G1gh-YJ_GMiQlB https://youtu.be/cYXEBcZpNQQ?si=n4G1gh-YJ_GMiQlB And I can’t go without two of my favorites: https://youtu.be/5eggYBVAYiI?si=xBY0ZGQbN-86caur https://youtu.be/5eggYBVAYiI?si=xBY0ZGQbN-86caur https://youtu.be/xp-b4Ce4Mf4?si=zRfjSlbXNrIVKPvL https://youtu.be/xp-b4Ce4Mf4?si=zRfjSlbXNrIVKPvL
broabprobe 3y ago
dang, too bad it's out of date. The Ethan Allen Express has extended up to Burlington for over a year now...
GenerWork 3y ago
Looking at that ridership chart, I'm amazed that they even run lines like the Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, and Texas Eagle. They must be losing tens of millions of dollars a year on those lines, money which could be spent on upgrading lines like the Northeast Regional and the Pacific Surfliner. Edit: the Vermonter and Ethan Allen express have even less ridership but are shorter, I wonder how much money those lose.
- ARandumGuy 3y ago
  Ridership numbers isn't the whole story. For example, the Empire Builder only runs one train per day each direction, which puts a serious limit on the total ridership that's even possible. Anecdotally, I've used the Empire Builder for two trips this year, and both times every train was completely booked (on a weekday, no less). There is demand for these trains, which I suspect would be even higher if Amtrak ran faster, more frequent, and more consistently.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    The Empire Builder is actually kind of a weird one. It is both an important interurban between Chicago and Minneapolis (and possible as far as Fargo) as well as between Seattle and Spokane (and Portland and Spokane), but also a very popular tourist route. The fact that it is serving both these purposes is kind of a determent to both. It runs to infrequently (and at weird hours) to serve as a nice interurban, and it gets too overbooked to serve a tourist route. To fix this the state of Washington (and Minnesota) need to operate more frequent interurbans that only services the end portions of the route (like 4 trains a day at least), and then Amtrak could operate the whole Empire builder in a more sane manner.
- mikeocool 3y ago
  It's a kind of interesting chicken and egg situation. The Northeast Corridor has at least hourly service through out the day, 'high-speed' (for america) trains, and lots of newish comfortable equipment, it's arguably the most civil way to get between NYC/DC/Boston. A lot of the rest of the lines have once-per-day service, that runs on old equipment along freight lines. If you want to ride the Empire Builder from Fargo to Minneapolis, your only option is to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning to catch the one train of the day, and if that train had to wait for a freight train (which has priority) along it's previous 2 day journey from Seattle, it wouldn't be unusual for it be delayed until 3 or 5am. Since the US doesn't invest in passenger rail outside the NEC, it becomes less and less viable for anyone to actually use it.
theyknowitsxmas 3y ago
Nice work on this one, and I enjoyed Beluga back in the day.
sergiotapia 3y ago
Would you recommend a family trip on a train from Miami to California to see the country? Or is this something only fun for adults? Curious to hear about thoughts from other young families. I feel like it would be such a nice adventure to have together.
- linuxlizard 3y ago
  My wife & I (no kids) rode the Empire Builder over Thanksgiving last year. We rode Chicago to Seattle over the course of 3-4 days. We had a roomette (private room with two beds and a shower). There is so much space on board in the viewing car and the dining car, I would think kids would have enough space to burn off their energy. We had an amazing time and want to do another multi-day trip like that.
mayormcmatt 3y ago
This is really beautiful and I love it on multiple levels. It's been a garbage day and this lifted my spirits. Thank you so much.
uneekname 3y ago
I love Amtrak, and it seems to be getting more popular lately. I hope to see more funding and support for passenger rail in the U.S.'s future. I've started commuting by Amtrak, as I'm lucky enough to have the flexibility to work around its limited schedule. My quality of life is so much higher now that I don't drive. Also every single Amtrak employee I've met so far has been super nice. The website and app are trash. I was not able to buy a ticket on my desktop, I had to use the app. The app decides to reload all the time, sometimes losing my ticket if I don't have cell service. I have no idea what kind of APIs are available, but if anyone has an idea for fixing this please let me know.
- privacythrow23 3y ago
  Do you love trains or Amtrak? Because Amtrak isn't all that great from what I remember, there are far better carriers but maybe not in the US.
  - explaininjs 3y ago
    Amtrak absolutely blows. Always prefer the regional provider ticket if you can. But then so does eurail (as perceived by the end user, I’m sure some independent providers are similarly fine). Small regional trains in general are decent, but they’re no match for planes across any long distance. I just earlier today was trying to get a Eurail pass for some traveling around europe over the next couple weeks. The minimum you pay is $211 for 4 days of use across a month, but every train worth using has a “seat reservation fee” on top of that. I literally couldn’t find a more expensive way to do that route I had planned.
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      I've had the exact opposite experience with long distance Amtrak travel. Nice sized seats which are much more comfortable, better views, no getting groped by a TSA agent. Other than the time it takes to travel being much shorter, planes aren't even in the same league as Amtrak.
      - 3y ago
pluto_modadic 3y ago
The one the conductor I met used is https://asm.transitdocs.com/ https://asm.transitdocs.com/, it shows where the train should be (if it updated its position), and delays and such. Where the Amtrak data is always a point in time.
deleted 3y ago
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ChrisArchitect 3y ago
(2022)
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
There's a new kid on the block (as of last week), not Amtrak, not on the map, in Florida (oh dear), not really high speed, but fingers crossed! Brightline Orlando<->Miami (occasionally at 125mph) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu18ZqWgQM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu18ZqWgQM4
- reilly3000 3y ago
  That is so heartening to hear there is new rail service opening in our time. It’s seemed impossibly difficult to even get another train on the schedule with Amtrak. The only train that I can take departs at 2:45am and I’m been told by anyone who will hear me that it hasn’t changed in 80+ years and never will. I kinda love that it’s in Florida; if it went forward there then anything is possible.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I don't understand the need to make embarrassed noises around "Florida". I am a New Yorker who gets to visit Miami with regularity including during COVID and from my obviously limited perspective, it's a well run place, much more so than NY to use an obvious example. To make this more objective - you meet tons of folks in Florida who moved from another state recently and never the other way.
  - halfmatthalfcat 3y ago
    I’m not sure how you can say FL is more “well ran” than NY when, specifically NYC vs Miami, is an order of magnitude (or more) difficult to run. Also it’s patently obvious why people choose to move to FL - has something to do with the sun. They don’t call it the “Sunshine State” for nothing.
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      You are logical but maybe don't have the context. Historically, old people moved to Florida while young people moved north for careers etc. Currently, you can meet a lot of young professionals / families who have moved to FL. This is new. I am with you on the weather, but on the flip side it's VERY hot in the summer. As for NYC vs Miami... there's a palpatable shift. It used to be "what does Miami have for me besides sunshine" and now it's more like "why would anyone stay in NYC?" The former question has more and more good answers now while the later fewer and fewer. And again I say this as a new Yorker who hasn't moved yet so it's not like I am just talking my own book here.
pjfin123 3y ago
I'm on an Amtrak now and just saw this on the front page of Hacker News lol
Alupis 3y ago
I love the idea of Amtrak - or more correctly, passenger trains. The idea of traveling across the country and actually getting to see it is amazing. Spending a couple days on the train is maximum leisure to me. But... every time I consider doing it again, it's just too crazy expensive. Sometimes double or triple that of similar air travel.
- _ink_ 3y ago
  There is a rail pass, which goes on sale in January. During sale it's $300 for 10 rides of any length. If you use all of them its basically $30 per ride.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Thanks - unfortunately that doesn't include sleeper access for multi-day trips (where the Amtrak experience gets really, really good).
mark_l_watson 3y ago
Glad to see this. I have only taken about 15 trips in Amtrak - always enjoyed it.
dwg 3y ago
I hope trains become more popular, and train travel is reinvigorated in the U.S! Not making any judgements, but just for comparison, here is a Japan train explorer: https://roote.ekispert.net/rmap/fullscreen https://roote.ekispert.net/rmap/fullscreen. For context, Japan is roughly the size of California.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The USA is too big. Trains will never compete with air travel except maybe in regional service.
  - lmm 3y ago
    China is a similar size but trains are very competitive there. I think the part that's missing is good urban transit systems. A long distance train loses most of its advantages if you have to hire a car at the end of it.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      China has about three times the US population and it’s almost entirely concentrated along their coast. Passenger rail makes sense for that kind of population density. Where the US has similar density, it has Acela, which is the profitable part of Amtrak. China also has a massive construction bubble that the government keeps propping up in order to delay the inevitable correction. As a result they overbuild a lot of infrastructure, including passenger rail, well beyond the point of diminishing returns.
      - lmm 3y ago
        > China has about three times the US population and it’s almost entirely concentrated along their coast. Passenger rail makes sense for that kind of population density. But they have high speed rail across the sparsely populated interior as well - not as dense as the network on the coast, but it's there and it successfully competes with flying. So the sort of network that the west half of China has should be possible in the US. > they overbuild a lot of infrastructure, including passenger rail, well beyond the point of diminishing returns. Maybe. Or maybe they sensibly plan ahead and build infrastructure that will be needed in the near future. Time will tell.
dwighttk 3y ago
they got rid of the Chatanooga choo choo?
CalRobert 3y ago
What a delightful website to see as I sit here on the capitol corridor to Sacramento. I love Amtrak. I love trains. People say the US has bad public transit, and they're not wrong, but I love that I can get from my front door in the Netherlands to downtown Sac via SFO without setting foot in a car. Ironically I think it's more convenient to get to Oakland Airport from Sacramento than SMF. The Netherlands has great trains but the beer is better on this one.
rob74 3y ago
TIL that there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico, and that it even has passenger train service, unlike the better-known Las Vegas in Nevada...
- deleted 3y ago
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User23 3y ago
Fun fact: It used to be that every freight line with a post office contract (so all of them), had to hang a few passenger cars on the train. So back in the day the US passenger rail network covered pretty much every medium size and larger town in the country. Naturally of course the railroad execs complained that this was going to bankrupt them and the nation's economy would collapse unless the rule was removed, so it was. A remnant remains though. If you're rich enough to own your own passenger car they still have to take you at some kind of standard rate. Although I don't know the details, because I don't have a Pullman.
tarballer 3y ago
Recently did Amtrak cross country for a month ($500). I wouldn’t do it again for one reason. Most employees behave as if they never sleep: extremely confused and depressed, unable to form complete sentences. That’s not an exaggeration. I sympathize deeply but it also ruined my trip. P.s. for the Bay Area crowd, I do recommend the Tahoe route (zephyr) bc it’s more scenic than the purported most scenic parts of Amtrak. And close enough for a day trip.

Amtrak Explorer

303 points by admp 3y ago

asda_ 3y ago

Soo good looking! Thanks for making this.

skadamat 3y ago

Super neat! I wished this had time slots too

ceejayoz 3y ago
Amtrak time slots are often... aspirational. My last one from Rochester to NYC (on the Chicago-NYC Lake Shore Limited) was 19 hours late. They're often delayed by freight trains they share the rails with.

crazygringo 3y ago

That's cool. Definitely never occurred to me that there are whole states in the contiguous-48 without Amtrak at all (South Dakota, Wyoming). And then more that are "just barely" (Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky).

jcranmer 3y ago
To be frank, a large portion of the US West is utterly devoid of population. The largest city in SD is ~300k in MSA, and the largest city in WY is ~100k. Trying to make a route to Sioux Falls, SD pretty much means skipping both Minneapolis (3.7M) and Des Moines (700k), while going to Cheyenne, WY means skipping Denver (~3M). The largest cities not served by Amtrak are Phoenix (although it is indirectly served via Maricopa), San Francisco (though indirectly served via Oakland), Las Vegas, Columbus, Tulsa, Honolulu, and oh look we're out of 1M+ MSAs.
- buildsjets 3y ago
  Looking forward to the opening of Amtrak service to Honolulu.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  It's very charitable to describe Phoenix as served by Maricopa station, even indirectly. It's 45min/30mi away on the other side of a mountain range in the middle of the desert. It's not even in the same county.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    That’s closer than much of LA is to the train stations.
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      Honestly, no. That's the distance from the close parts of the city. The equivalent for LA would be Union station being out in Palmdale. The farther parts of the MSA and traffic can add 1-2hrs to that time. LA is pretty well covered overall though, at least by West Coast standards. The biggest hole in the train network is long beach, but there's a lot of transit development happening in that area nowadays.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    Technically, the MSA is served, but unlike SF/Oakland MSA via Okland, yeah, Maricopa doesn't really service Phoenix at all.
jccalhoun 3y ago
Last time I checked the train from Indianapolis to Chicago only runs every other day. I love the idea of train travel but I live an hour outside of Indianapolis so I would have to drive an hour to take a 4 hour train that leaves at 6am (There is Greyhound bus to Indy from here but it doesn't get to Indy until after the train leaves). Or I could take the Greyhound from here to Chicago but that takes at least 6 hours. Or I could just drive to Chicago and be there in under 4 hours.

capableweb 3y ago

Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? For comparison, I found this map of European rails: https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/euro-rail-map/ https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/eur... Seems the least dense (in terms of railway) European countries still have better coverage than the most dense US state.

ceejayoz 3y ago
These are a minute fraction of the railroad tracks in the US. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr... shows the "Class I" railroads; just the big eight. There's a whole expansive set of Class II/III tracks. 160,000 miles total.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Thanks! I thought something looked amiss and seems a lot was.
bombcar 3y ago
That is just Amtrak and apparently just long distance Amtrak. Some commuter rail is operated by Amtrak but won’t appear I think. If you have money you can get a private passenger train almost anywhere there are tracks.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
Unfortunately except for the NEC (northeast corridor), Amtrak operates on rail lines owned by freight train operators. Technically the Amtrak passenger train has priority over freight, but one problem is that when one train needs to bypass another, the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding, so the Amtrak train must wait instead.
- organsnyder 3y ago
  There's a segment in Michigan that was purchased by MDOT for passenger rail (Amtrak) use. There have been some improvements made for "high-speed" service. Not sure how common this is elsewhere.

burcs 3y ago

This is a beautiful visualization, I still wish we invested more into this infrastructure. Taking the train seems to double the duration of my trip over driving. Not having to drive is not a bad trade off though, if I have the time to relax.

banannaise 3y ago
It is worth remembering that traveling by train has essentially zero overhead aside from the trip time. You arrive anytime before the train leaves, you get on the train, you get off the train, you don't have to think about considerations such as parking.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  But (outside of the NEC) you do have to worry about 10+ hour delays (the most extreme delay I had an interaction with was being delayed by 2 hours because yesterday's train was in front of us and delayed by about 24 hours.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    If you’ve ridden any long distance trains you’ll die on the rails eventually where they just give up, put everyone in a bus, and you go to the other direction train which they just turn around.
- fellowniusmonk 3y ago
  The problem in the US though is that once you get to your destination you are probably in a city dependent on cars because of such poor walkability and public transport, so now you have to rent a car as well. Looking at travel from Austin to SF, taking a train is a longer duration trip and costs more. One way on Oct 20th, Kayak has a flight for $119 and Wanderu has a train trip for $662 that is 3 days and 8 hours in duration. If I could take my car on this train it might be worth it, from a cost and logistics standpoint train pretty much always loses. I say this as someone who grew up enjoying the metro in dc and ny and use rail and ferry's when overseas. Until infrastructure, subsidies and other externalities are addressed train travel will not be competitive, I have far more hope for level 3 self driving cars than I do for walkable cities and train travel parity.

divbzero 3y ago

For comparison, here is Europe’s rail network with high speed rail (≥200kph) in color and other rail (<200kph) in gray: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_Europe.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_...

tda 3y ago
This is only a map of the primary connecting railways, find all other rail here: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
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TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
Comparing this to the Amtrak map side-by-side, Amtrak looks like some kids project started last year.
- pkaye 3y ago
  Most of the railways lines are used for freight. https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Rail-Map.jpg https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Ra...
- Muromec 3y ago
  European one barely scratches the surface, as it shows three lines in the whole Netherlands, which is not exactly true. And then China probably builds as much in a year and it's all high-speed.
  - hk__2 3y ago
    > European one barely scratches the surface, as it shows three lines in the whole Netherlands, which is not exactly true. Check https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ for a complete overview.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

Unfortunately, Amtrak management has only expressed at best lukewarm support for long distance trains[0]. The California Zephyr in particular (Chicago <-> San Francisco) often runs with delays of 10 or more hours (two years ago, I was on a train scheduled to arrive in downtown Chicago at 2 PM and didn't get me there until after midnight -- Union Station is not exactly a bustling part of town at that hour. [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/amtrak-coronavirus-profit-public-transportation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/amtrak-coronavirus-pro...

bobthepanda 3y ago
The delays aren't really Amtrak's fault. Freight companies manage the tracks and pay lip service to Amtrak's regulated priority. Until 2019 that enforcement was up to the DOJ, who didn't really do anything, but Amtrak was granted the ability to sue that year. https://enotrans.org/article/durbin-introduces-bill-to-allow-amtrak-to-sue-freight-railroads-for-delays/ https://enotrans.org/article/durbin-introduces-bill-to-allow... Amtrak is currently trying to sue their host railroads but these suits take time. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4598703-for-all-rail-freight-amtraks-fight-with-the-union-pacific-signals-more-change https://seekingalpha.com/article/4598703-for-all-rail-freigh...
bombcar 3y ago
The long distance trains (even things like the Late For Sure Limited) are an anachronism that really doesn’t have support from anyone but railfans and the small numbers who use it. But they’re incredibly fun to ride but you need to not have to be anywhere anytime.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  Why is a competitive carbon-neutral system of moving people between cities up to 1000 km apart an anachronism?
  - toast0 3y ago
    Because service hasn't been competitive for decades, for various reasons, mostly because a single set of tracks doesn't work well for freight and passengers. Afaik, there's no place with large rail coverage where there's one rail network for freight and one rail network for passengers; a lot of the world has rail for passengers and lacks significant rail for freight, the US has rail for freight and lacks significant rail for passengers. The two use cases don't mix well. If you want to get somewhere in the US in a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable cost, your options are usually roads (bus or personal vehicle) and commercial air travel. There's a couple corridors where boat or train actually work, but not many.

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eskibars 3y ago

Personal pet project for my son who loves seeing trains: I'm trying to get a system set up to auto-rotate through live webcams when the trains are most likely to show up through their live location status. https://train.api.connelly.casa/ https://train.api.connelly.casa/

dgacmu 3y ago
You could fetch them all and use a quick classifier to detect train/ no train to rank them in order of the likelihood of seeing a train?
- networkchad 3y ago
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fransje26 3y ago
Is that your work? Very nice! Since I discovered it on HN a few days back, I spent quite a bit of time enjoying the show. :-)

JTbane 3y ago

Amtrak would be great if they could minimize delays and keep an average speed at or above 55MPH throughout the ride.

francis_t_catte 3y ago
That would, unfortunately, require actual infrastructure investment into trackage and electrification, and the nationalization of all the Class I freight companies. I'm not going to hold my breath.

benatkin 3y ago

11 hour drive from Chicago to Washington, DC. 17 hour train ride.

thriftwy 3y ago
You can sleep and read a book during these 17 hours, though.
- benatkin 3y ago
  Main problem being it's an overnight trip, and you can't pick and choose your schedule. The comparison I really wanted to make was Chicago to NYC but I wanted to provide the best one for the train. Chicago to NYC is even less palatable. Want to split Chicago to NYC into two segments and stay the night in Buffalo? Too bad, only one train per day, you have to spend the night on the train, plus there's no view around what I think would be a scenic route from Chicago to Buffalo. https://neo-trans.blog/2022/08/05/campaign-arrives-to-expand-cleveland-amtrak-service/ https://neo-trans.blog/2022/08/05/campaign-arrives-to-expand...
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Chicago to NYC is actually a bit out of reach for night trains (which you should absolutely take and absolutely sleep as a baby on your berth) being 1150 km as crow flies. There was a comfortably scheduled night Helsinki to Moscow train which covered 950km, made possible by the fact that Moscow-SPb rail line was built almost a straight line and also quite quick. The terrain between NYC and Chicago is rugged so no such path to be expected. Maybe the Chinese would be able to build a 1000 km elevated track between those two cities and make it all work, though they will prefer to make it an 5h daytime ride and not a nighttrain...
    - benatkin 3y ago
      I don't want a night train, I want a day train. The train isn't too rugged for them to run 3 trains per day instead of 1, running at different times, so you can choose the time you leave a given station.

pimlottc 3y ago

I can't help it but I keep trying to drag the map around. I get that's not how this map is implemented but I've been trained by years of tiled map apps now...

erulabs 3y ago

Awesome visualization! Coincidentally, I just found the Amtrak "Train Watcher" https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html a week ago. My wife an I met in the Pacific Surfliner's dining car, and our 2 year old is obsessed with trains of any type, so you could say we're becoming a train family. I'm currently building a raspberry-pi based "train coming!" / "ding-a-ling!" machine for my son which scrapes the real-time location of trains from the above site. The response to this thread is inspiring me to write about it! Getting the actual data from Amtrak's api isn't super straight forward, but a nice hacker beat me to it and published some hints: https://gist.github.com/chriswhong/aa4a2911883904310b3c342e76dd6342 https://gist.github.com/chriswhong/aa4a2911883904310b3c342e7...

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> I'm currently building a raspberry-pi based "train coming!" / "ding-a-ling!" machine for my son which scrapes the real-time location of trains from the above site. "Galisteo" by Burl Ives ... Looking out my door, about a quarter to four / I wave when the Chief goes by / and though it’s just a train, I never could explain / why a tear comes to my eye. ... No need for an RPi scraper for me. I live in that village, and hear the (Southwest) Chief's whistle/horn in both directions. Long live the analog! Glad to hear about your train-loving family. We need more!
- jamiek88 3y ago
  That gave me full on goosebumps. There’s something magical about certain machines that make some people emotional. Concorde was another one for me. Killed by bean counters, as so much is.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    https://youtu.be/cYXEBcZpNQQ?si=n4G1gh-YJ_GMiQlB https://youtu.be/cYXEBcZpNQQ?si=n4G1gh-YJ_GMiQlB And I can’t go without two of my favorites: https://youtu.be/5eggYBVAYiI?si=xBY0ZGQbN-86caur https://youtu.be/5eggYBVAYiI?si=xBY0ZGQbN-86caur https://youtu.be/xp-b4Ce4Mf4?si=zRfjSlbXNrIVKPvL https://youtu.be/xp-b4Ce4Mf4?si=zRfjSlbXNrIVKPvL

broabprobe 3y ago

dang, too bad it's out of date. The Ethan Allen Express has extended up to Burlington for over a year now...

GenerWork 3y ago

Looking at that ridership chart, I'm amazed that they even run lines like the Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, and Texas Eagle. They must be losing tens of millions of dollars a year on those lines, money which could be spent on upgrading lines like the Northeast Regional and the Pacific Surfliner. Edit: the Vermonter and Ethan Allen express have even less ridership but are shorter, I wonder how much money those lose.

ARandumGuy 3y ago
Ridership numbers isn't the whole story. For example, the Empire Builder only runs one train per day each direction, which puts a serious limit on the total ridership that's even possible. Anecdotally, I've used the Empire Builder for two trips this year, and both times every train was completely booked (on a weekday, no less). There is demand for these trains, which I suspect would be even higher if Amtrak ran faster, more frequent, and more consistently.
- runarberg 3y ago
  The Empire Builder is actually kind of a weird one. It is both an important interurban between Chicago and Minneapolis (and possible as far as Fargo) as well as between Seattle and Spokane (and Portland and Spokane), but also a very popular tourist route. The fact that it is serving both these purposes is kind of a determent to both. It runs to infrequently (and at weird hours) to serve as a nice interurban, and it gets too overbooked to serve a tourist route. To fix this the state of Washington (and Minnesota) need to operate more frequent interurbans that only services the end portions of the route (like 4 trains a day at least), and then Amtrak could operate the whole Empire builder in a more sane manner.
mikeocool 3y ago
It's a kind of interesting chicken and egg situation. The Northeast Corridor has at least hourly service through out the day, 'high-speed' (for america) trains, and lots of newish comfortable equipment, it's arguably the most civil way to get between NYC/DC/Boston. A lot of the rest of the lines have once-per-day service, that runs on old equipment along freight lines. If you want to ride the Empire Builder from Fargo to Minneapolis, your only option is to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning to catch the one train of the day, and if that train had to wait for a freight train (which has priority) along it's previous 2 day journey from Seattle, it wouldn't be unusual for it be delayed until 3 or 5am. Since the US doesn't invest in passenger rail outside the NEC, it becomes less and less viable for anyone to actually use it.

theyknowitsxmas 3y ago

Nice work on this one, and I enjoyed Beluga back in the day.

sergiotapia 3y ago

Would you recommend a family trip on a train from Miami to California to see the country? Or is this something only fun for adults? Curious to hear about thoughts from other young families. I feel like it would be such a nice adventure to have together.

linuxlizard 3y ago
My wife & I (no kids) rode the Empire Builder over Thanksgiving last year. We rode Chicago to Seattle over the course of 3-4 days. We had a roomette (private room with two beds and a shower). There is so much space on board in the viewing car and the dining car, I would think kids would have enough space to burn off their energy. We had an amazing time and want to do another multi-day trip like that.

mayormcmatt 3y ago

This is really beautiful and I love it on multiple levels. It's been a garbage day and this lifted my spirits. Thank you so much.

uneekname 3y ago

I love Amtrak, and it seems to be getting more popular lately. I hope to see more funding and support for passenger rail in the U.S.'s future. I've started commuting by Amtrak, as I'm lucky enough to have the flexibility to work around its limited schedule. My quality of life is so much higher now that I don't drive. Also every single Amtrak employee I've met so far has been super nice. The website and app are trash. I was not able to buy a ticket on my desktop, I had to use the app. The app decides to reload all the time, sometimes losing my ticket if I don't have cell service. I have no idea what kind of APIs are available, but if anyone has an idea for fixing this please let me know.

privacythrow23 3y ago
Do you love trains or Amtrak? Because Amtrak isn't all that great from what I remember, there are far better carriers but maybe not in the US.
- explaininjs 3y ago
  Amtrak absolutely blows. Always prefer the regional provider ticket if you can. But then so does eurail (as perceived by the end user, I’m sure some independent providers are similarly fine). Small regional trains in general are decent, but they’re no match for planes across any long distance. I just earlier today was trying to get a Eurail pass for some traveling around europe over the next couple weeks. The minimum you pay is $211 for 4 days of use across a month, but every train worth using has a “seat reservation fee” on top of that. I literally couldn’t find a more expensive way to do that route I had planned.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    I've had the exact opposite experience with long distance Amtrak travel. Nice sized seats which are much more comfortable, better views, no getting groped by a TSA agent. Other than the time it takes to travel being much shorter, planes aren't even in the same league as Amtrak.
    - 3y ago

pluto_modadic 3y ago

The one the conductor I met used is https://asm.transitdocs.com/ https://asm.transitdocs.com/, it shows where the train should be (if it updated its position), and delays and such. Where the Amtrak data is always a point in time.

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ChrisArchitect 3y ago

(2022)

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

There's a new kid on the block (as of last week), not Amtrak, not on the map, in Florida (oh dear), not really high speed, but fingers crossed! Brightline Orlando<->Miami (occasionally at 125mph) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu18ZqWgQM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu18ZqWgQM4

reilly3000 3y ago
That is so heartening to hear there is new rail service opening in our time. It’s seemed impossibly difficult to even get another train on the schedule with Amtrak. The only train that I can take departs at 2:45am and I’m been told by anyone who will hear me that it hasn’t changed in 80+ years and never will. I kinda love that it’s in Florida; if it went forward there then anything is possible.
xyzelement 3y ago
I don't understand the need to make embarrassed noises around "Florida". I am a New Yorker who gets to visit Miami with regularity including during COVID and from my obviously limited perspective, it's a well run place, much more so than NY to use an obvious example. To make this more objective - you meet tons of folks in Florida who moved from another state recently and never the other way.
- halfmatthalfcat 3y ago
  I’m not sure how you can say FL is more “well ran” than NY when, specifically NYC vs Miami, is an order of magnitude (or more) difficult to run. Also it’s patently obvious why people choose to move to FL - has something to do with the sun. They don’t call it the “Sunshine State” for nothing.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    You are logical but maybe don't have the context. Historically, old people moved to Florida while young people moved north for careers etc. Currently, you can meet a lot of young professionals / families who have moved to FL. This is new. I am with you on the weather, but on the flip side it's VERY hot in the summer. As for NYC vs Miami... there's a palpatable shift. It used to be "what does Miami have for me besides sunshine" and now it's more like "why would anyone stay in NYC?" The former question has more and more good answers now while the later fewer and fewer. And again I say this as a new Yorker who hasn't moved yet so it's not like I am just talking my own book here.

pjfin123 3y ago

I'm on an Amtrak now and just saw this on the front page of Hacker News lol

Alupis 3y ago

I love the idea of Amtrak - or more correctly, passenger trains. The idea of traveling across the country and actually getting to see it is amazing. Spending a couple days on the train is maximum leisure to me. But... every time I consider doing it again, it's just too crazy expensive. Sometimes double or triple that of similar air travel.

_ink_ 3y ago
There is a rail pass, which goes on sale in January. During sale it's $300 for 10 rides of any length. If you use all of them its basically $30 per ride.
- Alupis 3y ago
  Thanks - unfortunately that doesn't include sleeper access for multi-day trips (where the Amtrak experience gets really, really good).

mark_l_watson 3y ago

Glad to see this. I have only taken about 15 trips in Amtrak - always enjoyed it.

dwg 3y ago

I hope trains become more popular, and train travel is reinvigorated in the U.S! Not making any judgements, but just for comparison, here is a Japan train explorer: https://roote.ekispert.net/rmap/fullscreen https://roote.ekispert.net/rmap/fullscreen. For context, Japan is roughly the size of California.

SoftTalker 3y ago
The USA is too big. Trains will never compete with air travel except maybe in regional service.
- lmm 3y ago
  China is a similar size but trains are very competitive there. I think the part that's missing is good urban transit systems. A long distance train loses most of its advantages if you have to hire a car at the end of it.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    China has about three times the US population and it’s almost entirely concentrated along their coast. Passenger rail makes sense for that kind of population density. Where the US has similar density, it has Acela, which is the profitable part of Amtrak. China also has a massive construction bubble that the government keeps propping up in order to delay the inevitable correction. As a result they overbuild a lot of infrastructure, including passenger rail, well beyond the point of diminishing returns.
    - lmm 3y ago
      > China has about three times the US population and it’s almost entirely concentrated along their coast. Passenger rail makes sense for that kind of population density. But they have high speed rail across the sparsely populated interior as well - not as dense as the network on the coast, but it's there and it successfully competes with flying. So the sort of network that the west half of China has should be possible in the US. > they overbuild a lot of infrastructure, including passenger rail, well beyond the point of diminishing returns. Maybe. Or maybe they sensibly plan ahead and build infrastructure that will be needed in the near future. Time will tell.

dwighttk 3y ago

they got rid of the Chatanooga choo choo?

CalRobert 3y ago

What a delightful website to see as I sit here on the capitol corridor to Sacramento. I love Amtrak. I love trains. People say the US has bad public transit, and they're not wrong, but I love that I can get from my front door in the Netherlands to downtown Sac via SFO without setting foot in a car. Ironically I think it's more convenient to get to Oakland Airport from Sacramento than SMF. The Netherlands has great trains but the beer is better on this one.

rob74 3y ago

TIL that there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico, and that it even has passenger train service, unlike the better-known Las Vegas in Nevada...

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User23 3y ago

Fun fact: It used to be that every freight line with a post office contract (so all of them), had to hang a few passenger cars on the train. So back in the day the US passenger rail network covered pretty much every medium size and larger town in the country. Naturally of course the railroad execs complained that this was going to bankrupt them and the nation's economy would collapse unless the rule was removed, so it was. A remnant remains though. If you're rich enough to own your own passenger car they still have to take you at some kind of standard rate. Although I don't know the details, because I don't have a Pullman.

tarballer 3y ago

Recently did Amtrak cross country for a month ($500). I wouldn’t do it again for one reason. Most employees behave as if they never sleep: extremely confused and depressed, unable to form complete sentences. That’s not an exaggeration. I sympathize deeply but it also ruined my trip. P.s. for the Bay Area crowd, I do recommend the Tahoe route (zephyr) bc it’s more scenic than the purported most scenic parts of Amtrak. And close enough for a day trip.