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The main issue on the Gulf is CSX not wanting to deal with Amtrak and that is par for the course when it comes to them. Most of the other railroads will drag their feet until someone agrees to go halvsies on improvements they'd do anyways and whatever else the passenger trains would need. Even...

I was also thinking that about ROI. Not to mention you need to compare ROI to some other alternative. Which for Amtrak is highways and airports. If we did an honest inventory of highways and their associated costs, they'd probably get a negative ROI. Especially when you factor in the Mortgage...

In defense of the writer, she also wrote a separate article about what she did like. I took an 18-hour train ride from Chicago to DC. Here are the 7 best parts of the long trip. As someone else mentioned, Insider likes using contributors which is what she seems to be. The main difference...

From what I understand digging through Siemens' technical documents, they make things to a 48 inch floor height and that's what we're getting. This is kind of the problem with buying "off the shelf" equipment is you get discrepancies like this. Nevermind that "off the shelf" is a complete...

That article still plays into the dumb "long distance vs short haul" debate we keep pointlessly having. Amtrak is a long way from being a functional transportation system and adding a few long distance trains could go a long way, but the story can't just stop there. The average person isn't...

Even people I know understand that trains consist of cars, me not withstanding and we're in a same age group as the writers of this crap. This is just a them problem. Which can either be put on character limits (no idea why there would be any), bad writing or general willful ignorance on the...

I can feel for her on the bathroom situation, but other than that, she could have done like 5 minutes of googling to figure out the rest. She seems like the type that is unimpressed with anything other than first class on a Gulf airline.

Considering this is based on Amtrak's lackluster 2035 map and all of the outside the NEC work was meant to cost $25 billion, the overall cost of adding service wouldn't be that high in the grand scheme of things. Based on the cost of the Gulf Coast extension, at least the estimates of ~$600,000...

This is just the double standard that gets enforced as you go up the food chain in an organization. If you're at the top, it's harder for your underlings to fire you since on some level they are culpable in whatever they'd want to fire you over. Another reason why companies don't fire their...

The point of spending the money is to get more riders. The issue with the $66 billion is how much of that is getting spent on the NEC? Given that Amtrak's rosiest goals for the money is to not even double ridership in 15 years, $66 billion is way to much and the implication is that most of it is...

The main reason to have train service between two cities like Dallas and Houston isn't only for the end to end travelers, it's also for the people in the middle or live in the metro area but are two far from the airport. Not to mention air travel is more than gate to gate time. You have to get...

I did the math for a Superliner single level replacement and the rough number is 3 single levels for every 2 Superliners just for the sleepers. And that's under the assumption that the Family Bedroom won't be replaced. Adding that in would make it a 2 to 1 ratio. Coaches it's less of an issue...

It could be, but if the funding needs Nevada's cooperation, I'm dubious it will happen. Nevada's rail plan doesn't include publicly funded trains to Vegas. They're eggs are all in the Brightline basket. They do want added trains to Reno though, which isn't on the 2035 map and the CCJPA has...

Doesn't this funding still require state cooperation and operation funds? If that is still the case, I'm dubious that this will live up to the hype. We already tried the state thing 10 years ago.

Found the article. Apparently they can only handle a 30% increase. But if you want more, your have to get a hold of the author. https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/yall-aboard-much-is-riding-on-dispute-over-gulf-coast-passenger-service/

Didn't they brag in a shareholder meeting that they could double the number of trains and it wouldn't effect them? I vaguely remember that coming up last time they threw a fit.

Per mile cost is probably not the best way to look at the value of transportation projects. The dollar value for some measure of capacity is probably better. Even if a high speed rail project and a highway project have similar per mile costs, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that more than...

The risk would be the cost. The cost to convert a Horizon car would start at $1.9 million just for the seats. Converting all of the Horizons would start at $165 million and given how...I would say risk averse, but Amtrak management seems to think that is too risky. That much money would be too...

There is no part of the government that has powers that the ICC had over Amtrak and the freight railroads prior to the passage of the Staggers Act. Fares prior to then were regulated, Congress could now, they could do pretty much anything if they care to, but they don't care about what airlines...

Depends on your definition of "dumb". Amtrak probably should do some sort of interior refreshment on its equipment closer to every 10 years, at least on high traffic lines like the Acela. What is supposed to be Amtrak's top tier product shouldn't feel like its decades old. Even if they just...