The Economist explains: Why don't Americans ride trains?

[Swadian Hardcore]

If you were good with Greyhound flying up and down US-40 in Colorado, then you would enjoy ANY Mexican bus ride!

I've ridden Meixcan buses before, I wasn't really impressed with their Dina buses. I rode Turimex Internacional and they were a lot worse then their rating might suggest. I ended up on a G4500, which is also Greyhound's worst bus. Things were malfunctioning a lot on that one. The hate was sealed when the bus broke down and the AC went dead. Autobuses Expreso Futura is better, but again, Mexico really needs those trains back because most their buses are incompetant at providing good service.

Seats and service isn't everything. When your equipment break down in the hot desert with no relief from the heat, there;s gonna be a lot of angry passengers! And I'm pretty sure Meixcan-operated G4500s burn up too, so We Need The Trains Back!

 

[SarahZ]

Nick, on the money...just imagine how much better on time performance, and routes, there would be if we double tracked important rail routes like we did major highways?

I don't think it would have any impact at all, really. Other than huge maintenance requirements on a lot of slack capacity.

On the contrary, it would help a great deal. Caveat: which routes are important? The New York - Chicago routes could certainly use more tracks, and double-tracking is currently funded near Schenectady. Between Portland and Seattle, and between San Diego and Los Angeles, double tracking, and even sections of triple-tracking, are being funded. It's needed for good passenger service and it will be used.
The transcontinental routes are not the ones which need extra tracks.

The problem is that NYP-CHI is not one of those small corridors. This route is much longer and dosen't have frequent service. With another one or two daily trains on the route, then double-tracking would be feasible.

Swadian, I wouldn't use state highways. I'd drive the interstate the entire way to take advantage of higher speed limits. State highways are only 55 mph.
Also, I did figure in gas stops and such, and I drive 5-10 mph over the speed limit. Always. The speed limit in Michigan is 70, and I usually hover around 77-78 like most of the traffic.

Better example:

Chicago to Orlando for spring break/Disney. I did all of the calculations for gas and such, and we're switching drivers at the gas stops. It's 19 hours.

If we take the train, it's 38 hours. No way would we take the train. The route is indirect, and it takes twice as long.

But US Routes are not state highways! And you can actually go pretty fast on the ones in the desert. It's all straight for miles, so just make sure not to veer off the road. If you insist on speeding, then there's also less police out there. But speeding is cheating, you have to follow the speed limit to be fair with Amtrak who also follows the speed limit.

And of course Chicago-Orlando has been terrible on Amtrak ever since the Floridian got cut. Me personally would take a Greyhound bus. 26-28 hours is not bad considering the bus has to follow speed limits, make stops, refuel and clean, transfer buses, and account for timetable padding. If taking the itinerary with only 1 transfer, the layover at Atlanta alone takes up 4.5 hours, plus two cleaning stops adding up to 2 hours, so it's only 21.5 in the end. Not bad for a bus.

I would like to state no intention to make this thread off-topic into buses again. I am only saying this to show that speeding is cheating, and that Amtrak is not that slow of a transport option, but it does cost a lot for a ticket.

Speeding is not "cheating". When someone asks why driving to ABQ would be faster, it's because I average 75 mph and use the interstate instead of driving the slower speed limit on a slower state highway. That's simply fact. That's how you compare driving to a train. You don't pretend your vehicle is driving the exact same route as the train (that's ridiculous); you take the faster route because why would you take the slower route? That doesn't make sense.

If you asked me how I drive to Ann Arbor, I say, "I take I-94." I don't take side streets and rural highways to match Amtrak's route because that isn't efficient and the speeds are slower.

So, yeah, when I'm comparing driving to Amtrak, I compare my actual driving, which means interstates as often as possible to keep my speed as high as possible.

 

[SarahZ]

I understand people get a little hurt when someone states why they don't use Amtrak all the time, but seriously... you have to admit that, in most cases, driving or flying is faster and (sometimes) cheaper.

I love Amtrak as much as anyone, but the fact remains that if B weren't terrified of flying, I wouldn't ride any of the LD trains until retirement. I'm sick and tired of using 2-3 extra days of vacation time for a trip that would take 2-3 hours by plane.

 

[jis]

That is true. The only time I take a cross country train is when I specifically want to spend 3 to 6 days riding trains continuously. And that typically happens these days in conjunction with an OTOL or an AU event.

For example, weekend after this coming one, I am going to a rail event in Silicon Valley. I am flying out Friday evening and flying back Sunday afternoon. There is no way I was going to spend best part of two working weeks traveling to and fro for a net two day event, because the days needed would have had to come from my other trip to more interesting and far away locales involving visiting family and friends.

That is not to say that LD trains are not important in general. They provide service between numerous city-pairs other than the end to end city pair, often in places where there is no other public transport service.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Nick, on the money...just imagine how much better on time performance, and routes, there would be if we double tracked important rail routes like we did major highways?

I don't think it would have any impact at all, really. Other than huge maintenance requirements on a lot of slack capacity.

On the contrary, it would help a great deal. Caveat: which routes are important? The New York - Chicago routes could certainly use more tracks, and double-tracking is currently funded near Schenectady. Between Portland and Seattle, and between San Diego and Los Angeles, double tracking, and even sections of triple-tracking, are being funded. It's needed for good passenger service and it will be used.
The transcontinental routes are not the ones which need extra tracks.

The problem is that NYP-CHI is not one of those small corridors. This route is much longer and dosen't have frequent service. With another one or two daily trains on the route, then double-tracking would be feasible.

Swadian, I wouldn't use state highways. I'd drive the interstate the entire way to take advantage of higher speed limits. State highways are only 55 mph.
Also, I did figure in gas stops and such, and I drive 5-10 mph over the speed limit. Always. The speed limit in Michigan is 70, and I usually hover around 77-78 like most of the traffic.

Better example:

Chicago to Orlando for spring break/Disney. I did all of the calculations for gas and such, and we're switching drivers at the gas stops. It's 19 hours.

If we take the train, it's 38 hours. No way would we take the train. The route is indirect, and it takes twice as long.

But US Routes are not state highways! And you can actually go pretty fast on the ones in the desert. It's all straight for miles, so just make sure not to veer off the road. If you insist on speeding, then there's also less police out there. But speeding is cheating, you have to follow the speed limit to be fair with Amtrak who also follows the speed limit.

And of course Chicago-Orlando has been terrible on Amtrak ever since the Floridian got cut. Me personally would take a Greyhound bus. 26-28 hours is not bad considering the bus has to follow speed limits, make stops, refuel and clean, transfer buses, and account for timetable padding. If taking the itinerary with only 1 transfer, the layover at Atlanta alone takes up 4.5 hours, plus two cleaning stops adding up to 2 hours, so it's only 21.5 in the end. Not bad for a bus.

I would like to state no intention to make this thread off-topic into buses again. I am only saying this to show that speeding is cheating, and that Amtrak is not that slow of a transport option, but it does cost a lot for a ticket.

Speeding is not "cheating". When someone asks why driving to ABQ would be faster, it's because I average 75 mph and use the interstate instead of driving the slower speed limit on a slower state highway. That's simply fact. That's how you compare driving to a train. You don't pretend your vehicle is driving the exact same route as the train (that's ridiculous); you take the faster route because why would you take the slower route? That doesn't make sense.

If you asked me how I drive to Ann Arbor, I say, "I take I-94." I don't take side streets and rural highways to match Amtrak's route because that isn't efficient and the speeds are slower.

So, yeah, when I'm comparing driving to Amtrak, I compare my actual driving, which means interstates as often as possible to keep my speed as high as possible.

You don't get my point! I'm saying that those "state highways" are actually US Highways and they do have pretty good speeds on the plains. Again, if you really want to speed, it's harder to get caught on an US Highway than an Interstate. I'm NOT asking you to follow amtrak's route exactly since that is impossible. You know that when I ride Greyhound all those time, I'm NOT following Amtrak's route either.

Interstate 94 to CHI, US Route 24 to KCY, US Route 54 to Tucumcari, and Interstate 40 to ABQ is the most direct way KAL-ABQ. When you consider the fact that on much of the route, you can go overspeed without getting caught, that's when it becomes faster than the other route through OKC. Not that I hate the OKC route, I actually enjoy a bus ride on that route. But if you're going to drive, the above route should be the fastest. And the US Highways are very straight and empty on the desert, so speed is not much of a constraint.

And US Route 54 does not follow the SWC, the SWC roughly follows US Route 50, US 350, and Interstate 25 on the KCY-ABQ section. No road follows it on the CHI-KCY section.

In summary, the speed of Amtrak trains is not prohibitively slow, it's about the same as a car or bus in the same conditions, but the extra expense of the train is the major problem. Train speeds are only really bad in the mountainous areas, which I do know well.

 

[jebr]

Nick, on the money...just imagine how much better on time performance, and routes, there would be if we double tracked important rail routes like we did major highways?

I don't think it would have any impact at all, really. Other than huge maintenance requirements on a lot of slack capacity.

On the contrary, it would help a great deal. Caveat: which routes are important? The New York - Chicago routes could certainly use more tracks, and double-tracking is currently funded near Schenectady. Between Portland and Seattle, and between San Diego and Los Angeles, double tracking, and even sections of triple-tracking, are being funded. It's needed for good passenger service and it will be used.
The transcontinental routes are not the ones which need extra tracks.

The problem is that NYP-CHI is not one of those small corridors. This route is much longer and dosen't have frequent service. With another one or two daily trains on the route, then double-tracking would be feasible.

Swadian, I wouldn't use state highways. I'd drive the interstate the entire way to take advantage of higher speed limits. State highways are only 55 mph.
Also, I did figure in gas stops and such, and I drive 5-10 mph over the speed limit. Always. The speed limit in Michigan is 70, and I usually hover around 77-78 like most of the traffic.

Better example:

Chicago to Orlando for spring break/Disney. I did all of the calculations for gas and such, and we're switching drivers at the gas stops. It's 19 hours.

If we take the train, it's 38 hours. No way would we take the train. The route is indirect, and it takes twice as long.

But US Routes are not state highways! And you can actually go pretty fast on the ones in the desert. It's all straight for miles, so just make sure not to veer off the road. If you insist on speeding, then there's also less police out there. But speeding is cheating, you have to follow the speed limit to be fair with Amtrak who also follows the speed limit.

And of course Chicago-Orlando has been terrible on Amtrak ever since the Floridian got cut. Me personally would take a Greyhound bus. 26-28 hours is not bad considering the bus has to follow speed limits, make stops, refuel and clean, transfer buses, and account for timetable padding. If taking the itinerary with only 1 transfer, the layover at Atlanta alone takes up 4.5 hours, plus two cleaning stops adding up to 2 hours, so it's only 21.5 in the end. Not bad for a bus.

I would like to state no intention to make this thread off-topic into buses again. I am only saying this to show that speeding is cheating, and that Amtrak is not that slow of a transport option, but it does cost a lot for a ticket.

Speeding is not "cheating". When someone asks why driving to ABQ would be faster, it's because I average 75 mph and use the interstate instead of driving the slower speed limit on a slower state highway. That's simply fact. That's how you compare driving to a train. You don't pretend your vehicle is driving the exact same route as the train (that's ridiculous); you take the faster route because why would you take the slower route? That doesn't make sense.

If you asked me how I drive to Ann Arbor, I say, "I take I-94." I don't take side streets and rural highways to match Amtrak's route because that isn't efficient and the speeds are slower.

So, yeah, when I'm comparing driving to Amtrak, I compare my actual driving, which means interstates as often as possible to keep my speed as high as possible.

Except speeding is cheating in terms of a comparison. Taking a faster route is not, but if you're breaking the law to achieve a faster speed than other transportation, that's an uneven playing field.

Yes, driving is often faster than the train if you're able to drive straight through, only stopping for gas and a quick bite to eat, even if you go the speed limit. I don't discount that. But it is unfair to measure driving at a speed higher than is legal.

 

[gmushial]

Is speeding really cheating - in that one is comparing the actual travel time of either? If the ambient flow happens to go faster than the posted limit, is that significant? When I'm talking about the commute time to work - does it matter if the flow goes faster than the posted limit (I wish), or slower - what I'm interested in is the time required, no?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Is speeding really cheating - in that one is comparing the actual travel time of either? If the ambient flow happens to go faster than the posted limit, is that significant? When I'm talking about the commute time to work - does it matter if the flow goes faster than the posted limit (I wish), or slower - what I'm interested in is the time required, no?

Of course you can go faster if safety dictates, as in if you don't go overspeed then you get rear-ended. That's the same reason why many bus drivers are forced to overspeed to avoid getting hit. But it really is cheating if you're doing it all the time. Amtrak dosen't go over the speed limit, so comparing this is unfair.

Another form of more minor "cheating" would be to travel in the outside lane constantly, even though that lane was originally designed for overtaking vehicles only. Most states have laws restricting constant travel in the passing lane, but many drivers misuse it anyway. This causes dangerous, frustrating situations on the road.

 

[gmushial]

I'm sorry - but you're taking a moral or ethical view of this [from which I choose to abstain and not debate]. I believe the question at hand has to do with a train being faster or slower than an auto in traversing from point A to point B. If that is in fact the case, then the operative point is: how long does it take for a car to make that journey [and one as a measure might take either the mean or median value of all the cars which make that journey, and use that value as the point of comparison]. [whether they are law abiding drivers, good drivers or any other adjective you might wish, the question is: how long did It take for them to get there - no more, no less?] [When my GPS says that it'll take 11 hours to go from A to B, and I arrive in 10 hours, while going no faster than nor slower than the flow of the ambient traffic - did I "cheat," or does it mean that in fact I made the journey in 10 hours? Does that mean that most anyone else would likewise make it nominally in 10 hours? I would suspect so, and hence that is the value I'd use in the comparison - gathering statistics is about observation, not prediction... once one has them, then they may/might be used to predict.]

 

[jis]

I am with Greg on this one. What matters is what happens reality. Theoretically concocted runtimes are not terribly interesting.

(null)

 

[Alexandria Nick]

I call it cheating because the train and the plane can't violate speed restrictions, so why should the car be able to?

Not even from a moral or legal standpoint, but a practical standpoint. How can you make a travel time comparison if you outright allow one of the modes to violate the terms of the "race?" An airliner can't exceed 250 below 10,000. They'd be able to shave a lot of time off if they were able to do 275...

 

[gmushial]

I call it cheating because the train and the plane can't violate speed restrictions, so why should the car be able to?
Not even from a moral or legal standpoint, but a practical standpoint. How can you make a travel time comparison if you outright allow one of the modes to violate the terms of the "race?" An airliner can't exceed 250 below 10,000. They'd be able to shave a lot of time off if they were able to do 275...

The question at hand is: how long does it take in reality to get from point A to point B - not theoretically, but what does the nominal traveler see? Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, planes and trains have strict constraints, but in reality cars sometimes do, and sometimes don't - but that isn't an operative point here. The only question is: if one were to take A from pt A to pt B how long will it take, and then compare the times. [i have to grin a bit: some of the speed limits one see posted are forced on the states by the feds - if you want our money, then you will not post a limit faster than 75mph, period... yet if one does the commute from Tucson up to Phoenix each morning, even though posted at 75, the fast lane runs btwn 85 and 95, the "slow" lane btwn 75 and 80, and the middle lanes somewhere in-between... and the highway patrol travel in the midst of this doing 85 plus plus, not stopping anyone. So: is the highway patrol cheating? Or, merely going with the flow? One see this in many places in the west, where the feds mandate 75 as a max, yet the traffic runs along well above that and no tickets are issued, no body is stopped - saw this in WY, SD and NE two weeks ago; saw it in TX, AZ and NV a couple weeks before that - the question there is: who is more intelligent: the drivers on the road dealing with reality, or some bureaucrat behind a desk in WashDC with a political agenda? I don't think the drivers are suicidal, don't think they're even stupid, don't think they have a death wish - they merely drive at a rate that works for them and everyone else around them. (NV on its open roads, still enforces its ages old safe and sane speed limits, ie, if what one is doing is reasonable, given the circumstances, then it must be right.)

Is it cheating that in a race btwn a horse and a human, that the horse is unable to walk on two legs? Or a race btwn a fish and a human, that the fish has the unfair advantage of being able to swim underwater for protracted periods or time? ie, cars, trains and planes are different entities and as such different realities prevail... but that's the way reality and nature work.

 

[gmushial]

A follow up: so, would it suddenly no longer be cheating, if the speed limits were posted to 200 mph yet the cars chose to drive at the same speeds as when they were posted at 75?

 

[Texan Eagle]

I call it cheating because the train and the plane can't violate speed restrictions, so why should the car be able to?
Not even from a moral or legal standpoint, but a practical standpoint. How can you make a travel time comparison if you outright allow one of the modes to violate the terms of the "race?" An airliner can't exceed 250 below 10,000. They'd be able to shave a lot of time off if they were able to do 275...

This is not about "race", the discussion is about practicality, as to why a lot of people in this country prefer to drive over taking Amtrak, and you're not gonna make any new Amtrak fans if you tell them "but if you stick to 65 mph, Amtrak is not much slower". The reply you will always get is- "but why do you bring in this hypothetical thing about sticking to 65? I drive every month from A to B, I go at 70 mph like rest of the traffic and reach in 4 hours while your Amtrak thing takes 7 hours.. I don't care what speed it goes".

 

[Alexandria Nick]

I guess because, in my head, a lot of the delays I've experienced with Amtrak were because of slow orders, heat restrictions, and that sort of thing. Saying "driving is faster because the train is slow" because the train has a heavier obligation to obey the law. How many of us are going above the construction zone speed restrictions because we can, despite the heavier fines, when Amtrak can't do that?

I'm a rule follower by nature and I don't like that...up front to say "we're going to break rules and run the chance of getting caught, then building that in to the scenario."

 

[Ziv]

I find it sad that in the 21st century we are still admitting that Amtrak LD trains are as slow as automobiles. And nearly as expensive as air travel in a lot of places. IC speeds should be 125 or so and we are stuck for most of the LD routes at 79. That is pathetic. 95 would be decent and 110 would be better, but if Amtrak LD routes could spend a quarter of the trip at 110 and a quarter at 125, we wouldn't be talking about Amtrak being anywhere near the speed of a car on the interstate.

It ain't going to happen soon for the vast majority of the routes in the US, but simply getting half the Amtrak LD routes up to 95 mph would be nice.

But even if the route is rated for 125 mph, it doesn't matter if Amtrak has to slow down for a freight that is doing 60 mph, or less.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I'm saying that Amtrak speed is not a significant problem for potential travellers. I'm not saying that Amtrak is fast. Back on the original topic, I will say that I ride RNO-SAC-SFD a lot. Here's why I don't ride Amtrak:

Amtrak runs 1 train a day (the CZ) on this route. It takes 5:37 to SAC and costs $45 one-way, per-person. It also takes 8:29 to SFC (Ferryi Building) and costs $51.

Greyhound runs 5 buses a day (Route 540) on this route. They take 2:40 to SAC and costs $5 one-way, per-person. They also take 5:00 to SFD and coss $10.

Now I know these buses are all falling-apart-G4500s, but they are cheap, frequent, and timely. Some of the Limiteds take as little as 2:25 actual time to get to SAC. Sure, the Locals are slower, but still a LOT faster than the train. The buses do get late if those trash G4500s malfunction, or if it has to wait for connecting passengers, but overall it still makes the train a total non-option for me. I've already ridden over Donner Pass on the train multiple times, so I don't need to do it again. And when you sit at the front of the bus you actually get a splendid view as long as the front AC vent is not emitting terrible "G4500 odors" for some weird reason.

 

[jis]

One can make all sorts of convoluted arguments that one wants to satisfy oneself, but the fact is that as a matter of reality of driving following normal practices vs. Amtrak trains, in most cases (other than the NEC) for reasonable driving distance Amtrak trains are not competitive with driving times. OTOH, in most cases an Amtrak ride is probably less strenuous on the driver and for a single person driving vs. taking Amtrak very often it will be more fuel efficient and sometimes even cost competitive. Again this assumes that you own a car and the cost of the trip is the incremental cost and not the fully allocated cost. Because no one in reality computes the fully allocated cost to make a trip decision. OTOH, sometimes the trip cost using a rental car can come out to be cheaper than an Amtrak trip too.

So it is complicated.

And of course I know that Swadian will take the trouble to convert almost any thread into a bus thread. So I am not going to touch that part.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

One can make all sorts of convoluted arguments that one wants to satisfy oneself, but the fact is that as a matter of reality of driving following normal practices vs. Amtrak trains, in most cases (other than the NEC) for reasonable driving distance Amtrak trains are not competitive with driving times. OTOH, in most cases an Amtrak ride is probably less strenuous on the driver and for a single person driving vs. taking Amtrak very often it will be more fuel efficient and sometimes even cost competitive. Again this assumes that you own a car and the cost of the trip is the incremental cost and not the fully allocated cost. Because no one in reality computes the fully allocated cost to make a trip decision. OTOH, sometimes the trip cost using a rental car can come out to be cheaper than an Amtrak trip too.
So it is complicated.

And of course I know that Swadian will take the trouble to convert almost any thread into a bus thread. So I am not going to touch that part.

Hey, I'm not trying to convert this into a bus thread, I'm just showing why I don't ride Amtrak nearly as much as I used to.

 

[Barciur]

From the Indian train tracker, there's both red and blue labels. Does that denote how late the train is?
IR dosen't thave great OTP either, only 67% running on advertised. But Indians still take train a lot more than Americans because they have a lot more trains and they're cheap.

We Indians also have much more of a "We will get there whenever we get there" kind of attitude. So that helps too.

Sure produces less stress and unhappiness... also may be related to viewing the train ride as part of the "experience" vs merely just a way to get from point A to point B.

This is an interesting one. I was shocked when I did a search on Twitter with the search word "Amtrak" and I've seen people say stuff like "this trip is already 40 minutes late I'm never taking Amtrak again!" etc. Honestly.. this is just crazy. What if you get stuck in traffic due to an accident and spend an extra hour on the highway? Never driving again?

I understand complaining about an hour (although not to an extent of saying how shocking it is and never taking a train again..) or 2-3 hours. The longest delay I've ever had was 3 hours (not AMTRAK, the longest AMTRAK delay I've ever had was 20 mins, but I don't ride that much), but maybe it's because of being a railfan that I find this acceptable and will never give up on trains.. but still.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

From the Indian train tracker, there's both red and blue labels. Does that denote how late the train is?
IR dosen't thave great OTP either, only 67% running on advertised. But Indians still take train a lot more than Americans because they have a lot more trains and they're cheap.

We Indians also have much more of a "We will get there whenever we get there" kind of attitude. So that helps too.

Sure produces less stress and unhappiness... also may be related to viewing the train ride as part of the "experience" vs merely just a way to get from point A to point B.

This is an interesting one. I was shocked when I did a search on Twitter with the search word "Amtrak" and I've seen people say stuff like "this trip is already 40 minutes late I'm never taking Amtrak again!" etc. Honestly.. this is just crazy. What if you get stuck in traffic due to an accident and spend an extra hour on the highway? Never driving again?

I understand complaining about an hour (although not to an extent of saying how shocking it is and never taking a train again..) or 2-3 hours. The longest delay I've ever had was 3 hours (not AMTRAK, the longest AMTRAK delay I've ever had was 20 mins, but I don't ride that much), but maybe it's because of being a railfan that I find this acceptable and will never give up on trains.. but still.

I agree, ranters are really annoying on the Internet. They keep whining about everything. They even whine about stuff that was their own fault. These whiners are a main reason why I don't use Yahoo! Answers anymore!

 

[Charles]

I'm just trying to figure out why you guys are all saying it is more expensive... I just got tickets to get somewhere I could not have gone otherwise because it was 72 bucks round freakin trip. Travel time about 1 hour slower than driving, and probably 1/4 of the cost of gas alone. I know it was 1/3 the price to rent a car, about the same as a bus, and so much cheaper than flying it isn't even funny. And instead of being stuck in the drivers seat for 10 hours, I get to be on a train for 11 where I can get up, go to the bathroom, eat, sleep, talk to other people.) I found this topic cause I ran a search after this experience asking "why don't more people ride trains?". Beat taking my car, hands down in every point except an hour longer travel time.

 

[cirdan]

Is speeding really cheating - in that one is comparing the actual travel time of either? If the ambient flow happens to go faster than the posted limit, is that significant? When I'm talking about the commute time to work - does it matter if the flow goes faster than the posted limit (I wish), or slower - what I'm interested in is the time required, no?

Isn't that a bit like comparing the cost of buying your groceries in different stores, and saying store X is cheaper because its easier to steal stuff there?

You have to compare legal with legal.

 

[Anderson]

Isn't that a bit like comparing the cost of buying your groceries in different stores, and saying store X is cheaper because its easier to steal stuff there?

You have to compare legal with legal.

I know what you're saying about legal and legal, but there's a material difference between "moving violation illegal" and "criminal illegal". Arguably if you want to exclude speeding you'd also want to exclude traffic jams for such a calculation, though the best approach would probably be to use the speed limit as a "base case" and include a "fast" case (i.e. speeding) and a "slow" case (i.e. frequent traffic jams).

To highlight this, driving to Richmond from Newport News (and I recognize that this uses specific locations in each city) should take 1:08 per Google Maps. That's a base case. If traffic is going fast, this can drop under 1:00. If I try this on a Saturday in the summer, this spikes to over 2:00 on a regular basis.

 

[SarahZ]

I'm just trying to figure out why you guys are all saying it is more expensive... I just got tickets to get somewhere I could not have gone otherwise because it was 72 bucks round freakin trip. Travel time about 1 hour slower than driving, and probably 1/4 of the cost of gas alone. I know it was 1/3 the price to rent a car, about the same as a bus, and so much cheaper than flying it isn't even funny. And instead of being stuck in the drivers seat for 10 hours, I get to be on a train for 11 where I can get up, go to the bathroom, eat, sleep, talk to other people.) I found this topic cause I ran a search after this experience asking "why don't more people ride trains?". Beat taking my car, hands down in every point except an hour longer travel time.

Charles - it depends on the route, to be honest. Sometimes flights are cheaper; sometimes the train is cheaper. Sometimes travel time figures in (as in, what is your time worth?)

I agree with you that spending a little more time on the train is better than driving. It takes just a few minutes longer to take the train to Chicago, but it's cheaper than paying for gas and so much better than driving. I LOVE taking the train to Chicago.

On the other hand, for a long-distance trip (like Chicago to Albuquerque, our most common one), the train is almost always more expensive than a round-trip flight, and it takes 26 hours. Don't get me wrong - we love the train - but I get kind of irritated about the time difference sometimes because it means I have to take two extra vacation days. If I'm going to take extra time off, I'd rather spend it with family/friends at our destination instead of traveling.

So yeah... bottom line... it depends.