As someone who just rode in a sleeper car for the second time. I like amtrak when I can do this. It's completely unreasonable for a round trip, but I did Chicago->Seattle and Chicago to Boston (Where I"m currently here.. and will be flying back tomorrow).
It's a mostly great experience... all due to the scenery you're watching, not so much everything else.
What worries me if it becomes more privatized: You'll see the experience drop a lot more, features you need for long distance trips (big seat+power outlet) removed. You'll get a lot more stressed employees who will create conflicts etc.
What I would like to see:
- More prioritization on autonomous cars
- More frequent routes
- Infrastructure improvements for faster service (We could and should have a hub/spoke model for ICE like passenger rail)
- Support with integration into the communities they connect into. (Build the town around it) Create a standard that local rental car companies are working with the passengers arriving and leaving.
- General equipment refreshes (A lot of it is maintenance by schedule rather than reactory.. a lot of the experience is pretty dirty) Also there is an attitude with the coach passengers that the train is a trashcan because it's already pretty dirty. Being in coach is freaking brutal if you have to be on it more than 9 hours or overnight.
Btw Their employees are a lot more helpful about being functionally helpful when something goes wrong. Airline employees just escalate and pull the "screw you, you won't get help" when something goes wrong in person. (Yea I'm looking at you IAH gate agent that just left the desk right before boarding.. the captain was playing secretary). No the empire builder doesn't have WIFI.. but how will dinner work.. they're more than helpful at explaining it, etc.
Part of the reason that Amtrak is expensive is that it's so slow. For a flight from Chicago to Seattle you only need to pay pilots/flight attendants/etc for around 5 hours of work, whereas for Amtrak it's 46 hours or more.
You can get a California zephyer ticket from Chicago->Seattle for 160 in coach one way. That's a really good deal for 2k+ miles, generous baggage allowance, etc (if you can tolerate that).
Sleepers can go 1k+ for the 2.5d. In the winter (what I did) was 600$. I'm also not paying for the efficency. I'm paying for the experience of the hotel, meals, convenence of travel, and the ability to watch out the window.
Train prices go up a lot (a factor of 2 or more) when it’s close to the time of the train, since the price is based on how full the train is currently booked. You might get cheaper train trips by booking further out.
Buses will still beat the cost, but they’re slower and less comfortable.
I've never seen this personally (living in DC area since 2014). At best, flights were on par and you still had to transport from airport to destination vs being likely in the city center (as noted elsewhere in this thread already) and deal with all the other airport time. Bus is definitely cheaper today though with highly variable experience along the way.
If you consider the time-money spent in security checkpoints and riding taxis it’s a wash. Amtrak is able to charge more because it’s a better experience than a flight! But only on the NY-DC route.
Buses on the northeast corridor will certainly be cheaper. Trains (especially Acela) are competing with flying given the huge amount of business travel.
> given that it's so heavily subsidized by the government
It's not. Until the recent infrastructure bill, Amtrak didn't even have a dedicated yearly budget. Every year they would beg Congress for some money, get some amount less than that, then prioritize what they could given the funding. Moreover roads in the US never pay for themselves, they're just written off as an "economic driver" rather than expected to pay for themselves. Very few roads in the US are toll roads and much of the US is vehemently against toll roads. Fundamentally, public infrastructure is public infrastructure. The public pays for public infrastructure. If we expect Amtrak to be able to fund some non-trivial percentage of its infrastructure costs then we're placing an expectation on Amtrak that the US road and highway system does not have.
Amtrak hasn't built much new rail. Amtrak maintains its rail and rolling stock and buys new rolling stock. Most of Amtrak's rail routes were originally made by the private rail companies that owned American rail during the Industrial era. Even the lines leased by freight rail was originally made by private rail companies. These companies were going bankrupt and the US government created Amtrak as a holding company to deal with selling off or winding down existing rail assets.
Well, it's not really. It makes money on the Northeast Corridor and loses it on (most of)the rest of the country. A profitable Amtrak would basically service Boston to DC.
It starts at 9:30 and arrives at 8:30. So if you're in a sleeper, you're pretty much ready to get to bed when it starts. There's plenty to do on the train if you carry electronics, books, etc.
It's a mostly great experience... all due to the scenery you're watching, not so much everything else.
What worries me if it becomes more privatized: You'll see the experience drop a lot more, features you need for long distance trips (big seat+power outlet) removed. You'll get a lot more stressed employees who will create conflicts etc.
What I would like to see:
- More prioritization on autonomous cars
- More frequent routes
- Infrastructure improvements for faster service (We could and should have a hub/spoke model for ICE like passenger rail)
- Support with integration into the communities they connect into. (Build the town around it) Create a standard that local rental car companies are working with the passengers arriving and leaving.
- General equipment refreshes (A lot of it is maintenance by schedule rather than reactory.. a lot of the experience is pretty dirty) Also there is an attitude with the coach passengers that the train is a trashcan because it's already pretty dirty. Being in coach is freaking brutal if you have to be on it more than 9 hours or overnight.
Btw Their employees are a lot more helpful about being functionally helpful when something goes wrong. Airline employees just escalate and pull the "screw you, you won't get help" when something goes wrong in person. (Yea I'm looking at you IAH gate agent that just left the desk right before boarding.. the captain was playing secretary). No the empire builder doesn't have WIFI.. but how will dinner work.. they're more than helpful at explaining it, etc.