scyclow 6 years ago

I took the Empire Builder a couple weeks ago, and the Lakeshore Limited + California Zephyr last year. As much as I enjoyed the trips, I have to admit that they longer lines are incredibly impractical. Amtrak is operating at a huge loss per passenger ($32 on average)[1], and the prices aren't even that much cheaper than flying. It's viable for people with more time than money, but most of the passengers are just weirdos who enjoy wasting their time taking the train cross-country in 2018 (like me).

In any case, I'm sorry to see them thinking about nixing the dining car, since it was one of my favorite parts. The food is surprisingly good (if not over priced), and it's a great way to meet random people from around the country. Coming from the liberal New York tech-bubble, I definitely met a bunch of people I wouldn't have otherwise had a chance to talk to.

But at least they're not getting rid of the observation car! Sitting in it through the Rockies on the Zephyr was a great way to see that beautiful stretch.

[1] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/privatiz...

  • shriphani 6 years ago

    I took the california zephyr after 2 harsh years (professionally); from Chicago to SF.

    So many inner demons were vanquished on that trip. That train route is truly a love-letter to America - the Colorado river, the Sierra Nevada, beautiful life-changing stuff.

    • Balgair 6 years ago

      > That train route is truly a love-letter to America

      Jesus, now that is a great line! You should write more poetry, or just more in general.

    • imh 6 years ago

      That sounds beautifully scenic. What time of year would you recommend for it?

      • f_allwein 6 years ago

        Everything you could possibly want to know about cross country trains: https://www.seat61.com/UnitedStates.htm

        • hn_user2 6 years ago

          Seat61 has been an amazing resource for traveling the world by train. Until you just mentioned it in this context, I had never thought to use it for beta about train travel in the USA. Looks like I know what I'm reading the rest of the day.

  • tspike 6 years ago

    I don't disagree with your comment, but the thing that often gets lost in these discussions is that at least for the Empire Builder, people generally aren't using it to go from Chicago to Portland or Seattle.

    Sure, a flight from Chicago to Seattle would be much faster and cheaper. But what about getting from Minot to Whitefish? Or Spokane to Wenatchee?

    I personally use it 2-3 times a week to go between Bingen and Portland. Most of the people I ride with eastbound are going to Pasco or Sandpoint or Spokane, not Chicago.

    • scyclow 6 years ago

      That's a fair point. As uneconomical as it is for Amtrak, there really isn't much in the way of long-distance transportation options for people in some of these small towns.

      • rdl 6 years ago

        Bus? (Sometimes operated by Amtrak, even)

        • scyclow 6 years ago

          Technically yes, but if I had to take a bus for 20+ hours I'd want to shoot myself.

          • seanmcdirmid 6 years ago

            I did it for 4 days (cross country for $49!) as a 16 year old. It is definitely an adventure.

    • cc439 6 years ago

      Most of those trips appear to be under 3.5 hours each way... Why not drive since it's likely faster and cheaper than the train?

      • xvedejas 6 years ago

        That's just about the distance that I prefer to take Amtrak over driving or flying (mostly I travel SF <-> Fresno). I can get work done, unlike when driving, and I don't have to deal with all the pains of getting to the airport early and going through security.

        • tehlike 6 years ago

          Unsolicited advice: get yourself global entry.

          • JBlue42 6 years ago

            Unsolicited advice: Not everyone is into sacrificing money to avoid bullshit security theater that has been going on for 17 years.

            Trains have the beauty of being able to go to the station, hop on the train, hop off. No wait or lines. I've had great trips taking the subway to Union Station then a train to San Diego. If trains were more affordable, widespread, and faster, it'd probably help the US immensely.

            • tehlike 6 years ago

              It may sound a bit arrogant, but global entry is 100$/5yrs, and TSA-pre is 80$ for similar amount of time.

              If you are well-off to be using air transportation, it would be worth it. Though, I might be agreeing with you on the utility of excessive security check. As a foreign national, I can tell you that US requires 4x the security checks in foreign airports in inbound flights to US.

          • xvedejas 6 years ago

            I already have global entry / TSA precheck. My preference is still for Amtrak for certain journeys. Consider that flying SF to Fresno costs hundreds of dollars each way. Amtrak costs $30.

            • tehlike 6 years ago

              Sure i get that. But most cases global entry is a real time and stress saver.

      • Spooky23 6 years ago

        Trains generally drop you in the middle of a central business district. If you’re driving to a major city, you’re spending $30-75 a day in parking or driving to suburban motels.

        If you need to be in Manhattan for more than 2 nights, the train is free vs a car given a 2 hour radius. That’s probably not the case for Minot, but it is for many places.

        Also unlike planes it’s a no bullshit environment. No security theatre, no getting there an hour early. On some routes you can buy a ticket on the train.

      • cge 6 years ago

        In my case: my frequent travel by train is around 3 to 3.5 hours one-way, on routes that would be around 1h40m to 2 hours by car. Using a $0.30/mile figure for driving, the train is around the same price, or a bit cheaper, than driving myself, so long as I am using multi-ride tickets.

        However, the train is a comfortable environment for me to do other things. I can read, write, and do quite a bit of research work; I can comfortably use my laptop and usually have a decent internet connection.

        If I drive myself, I can do very little else but drive during the time; if I have someone else drive, I can do some things, but it can be quite difficult and rather nauseating, no matter how nice the car.

        Thus, my choice is usually between a 3.5 hour trip where I can pretty much do much of what I'd be doing were I not traveling during that time, or a 2 hour trip that will actually hinder the better uses of my attention: the shorter duration trip ends up taking much more of my time.

    • xyzzyz 6 years ago

      Flying from Spokane to Wenatchee is really not much slower than Amtrak. It's probably much more expensive though.

    • dominotw 6 years ago

      I take it from chicago to kansas city couple of times a year and I see lots of Amish people on the train.

      Seems like a good option for people who can't take the plane. I would have never spoken to the amish if not for amtrak.

      • theBobBob 6 years ago

        My knowledge of the Amish is obviously rather slim but why can't they take a plane but can take the bus? I know I that they shun most modern technology suite h as cars etc but I would have thought if they can't take a plane that they also wouldn't be able to take the train.

        • dominotw 6 years ago

          From what I gathered they live in communities spread across a small area of the state. They get on and get down at small towns that amtrak makes a stop, those towns are not served by airplanes. Not sure about technology thing though, never felt comfortable asking them about that :D.

    • envoked 6 years ago

      Whoah, another Hacker News reader from Bingen/White Salmon?

      • fisherjeff 6 years ago

        I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of gorge residents on here

        • ta58787 6 years ago

          At least one more

          • envoked 6 years ago

            Is there/would y'all be interested in a mini HN reader meetup? Perhaps over beer in Hood River? I settled in White Salmon late last year due to its proximity to outdoor activities without knowing too much about the area. I'm surprised there's an underlying tech scene. I guess primarily due of Insitu?

            • fisherjeff 6 years ago

              Yeah, Insitu’s definitely a big part of why there’s such a surprisingly big scene. I’m also always game for a malty beverage...

            • tspike 6 years ago

              Sure, I'm up for it

  • Bucephalus355 6 years ago

    Huge loss? They cover 94% of their operating costs. The federal government only provides the remaining 6%.

    What if a specific National Park, arguably of equal value to the Amtrak lines, generated 94% of its own money?

  • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

    I was considering taking a trip from NYC, since I like railway journeys. The NYC-Montreal (10.5 hours) and NYC-Toronto (12.5 hours) trips would be perfect... but they only have the café cars, which means microwaved, pre-made airline food.

    Apparently Amtrak considers these to be "short-distance" journeys, which don't have dining cars. I don't know if these ever had dining cars, but the idea of spending an entire day with just frozen pizza on the menu is just out of the question.

    And then there are the couch seats. Who wants to be in a couch seat overnight for 12+ hours? Sleeper cars were $1,500 (!) for the dates I checked. Coming from Europe, where trains are modern and super cheap, this was extremely depressing to me.

    I just checked the Empire Builder for a random date in May, and they charge $2,000 for a sleeper car. It's a 45-hour journey!

    • ikawe 6 years ago

      I recommend packing most of your food. Sandwiches, granola, nuts, fruit, raw veggies.

      Not exciting food, but better than microwave hotdogs, and even with a spartan meal plan the trip is totally worth it.

      Also some routes have a stop over which gives you an hour or so to scramble for a hot meal.

      Another pro tip for the thrifty, bring a blanket and sleep on the floor in the observation car.

      Ear plugs help in case other people are hanging out, but usually it’s pretty quiet for at least 6 hours. You can wake up and watch the sun rise.

      You can always grab a nap in your seat later, but I have trouble sleeping more than an hour in a chair, whereas even on a hard floor I can zonk out for hours.

    • wenc 6 years ago

      > The NYC-Montreal (10.5 hours) and NYC-Toronto (12.5 hours) trips

      Budget 2 extra hours due to the border. It can take up to 2 hours to for the train to clear customs. Source: been there, done that.

    • db48x 6 years ago

      From the price you were probably looking at the larger bedroom, rather than the roomette, which is generally half the price.

      • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

        No, roomette. Chicago-Portland direct round trip, in mid-May, is $1,900 for the two-person "Superliner Roomette". I checked a bunch of possible journeys, and the cheapest round-trip roomette ticket was $1,000.

        • db48x 6 years ago

          Ah, ok. You picked a day that is very crowded; the price goes up as the rooms are filled.

          Edit: use http://biketrain.net/amsnag/amSnag.php to find a cheaper day.

          • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

            I actually checked a whole bunch of different dates. Cheapest non-stop I can find using that biketrain.net page is $1,532 r/t.

            • db48x 6 years ago

              You could drop that to $1118 by buying further in advance; check August, for example.

              • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

                Still completely insane.

                • db48x 6 years ago

                  It's not obviously insane compared to driving. It's a 4200 mile trip, basically the length of Europe and back. That's a minimum of 6 days of driving, ~$400 in gas, 5 nights in hotels during the trip (at least another $500), plus meals (three fast-food meals per day could be ~$200).

                  Obviously you can economize on any of these at some cost to your comfort and sanity. But because you can read a book on the train, or play computer games, or work, or socialize (or all of the above), you can easily conclude that a modest premium is worth it. That makes the $1100 fare a bargain, and even the $2000 fare might be worth it.

                  The real cost is the time. Most people who get yearly vacations can count on two weeks worth, and most of them aren't going to want to spend half of that on the journey; they're either going to go somewhere closer or they're going to fly. And that's still $400 for a cheap coach ticket, 8 hours in the air, and all the suffering you can bear in the airports at either end. Plus a taxi at each end, or long-term parking. You do get an extra 4 days to explore Portland though.

                  • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

                    Driving is not the alternative for me. Flying is. Chicago to Portland is a 2.5 hour flight for $180-200 round trip, make it 4 if you factor in transportation and security.

                    That's why it's insane.

                    Trains should be competing with flying. Given the choice between a stressful, polluting airplane and an environmentally friendly electric bullet train with meals, legroom and cheap overnight cabins, I would choose the latter. But it can't cost 10x that of a flight.

                    • db48x 6 years ago

                      I was extremely bored this evening, so I went looking for similar trips on European trains. I found a trip in May from Lisbon to Warsaw. Like the Chicago to Portland route on Amtrak, it's about 2000 miles and 42 hours. It has 6 transfers, including a 4 hour transfer from 10pm to 2am (ouch), and a few hours later a two hour transfer from 3am to 5am (very ouch). Only one of the trains has actual sleeping compartments. To match Amtrak I choose a private 2-bunk compartment on that train. I picked 1st class fully-refundable tickets on all 6 trains, again to match Amtrak. I've no idea if any of these trains have a dining car; I did see a photo of some vending machines. On the other hand, a ticket in a sleeper on Amtrak includes three meals a day.

                      The resulting price was $1067 for a one-way trip (the site couldn't find any return tickets). So even the high-priced $2000 ticket you saw doesn't seem that bad; that's the same cost as a trip of similar length in Europe.

                      • lobster_johnson 6 years ago

                        For multi-country trips, you want a European rail pass, e.g. from this site [1].

                        A 5-day ticket for the entirety of Europe is about $480, though you get a 15% discount for two people. If you're only doing 4 countries, it's about $360. For $968 you get unlimited travel for a whole month.

                        As for sleeper cabins, prices vary depending on the route, but it's often somewhere around $20-50 per night per person [2] for a private, multi-bed "couchette".

                        Comparing US states to Europe is a bit like apples and oranges, though.

                        [1] https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass

                        [2] https://www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/about-reservations/...

    • lionhearted 6 years ago

      Go to the grocery store beforehand — they don't mind you bringing food onboard.

  • starpilot 6 years ago

    > I definitely met a bunch of people I wouldn't have otherwise had a chance to talk to.

    To elaborate on this, Amtrak staff will seat you with strangers to fill up tables. Kind of excruciating for an introvert, but looking back I had some good conversations.

    • scyclow 6 years ago

      On the first night of my last trip I was really bummed out that they didn't sit me next to the group of Amish folks. Instead I had to eat dinner with a family from New Jersey :P

      • ekianjo 6 years ago

        Amish folks take trains? Isnt that against their principles?

        • Horseshoe 6 years ago

          Not at all. They can take trains, just as some will ride as a passenger in automobiles, trucks, or vans. As long as they aren't sitting in the engineer's seat or doing the actual driving :-)

  • op00to 6 years ago

    How much does the US subsidize air travel via FAA, airport subsidies, etc? What about road subsidies? It’s like somehow rail has to be profitable on its own, but not bus or air.

    • jessriedel 6 years ago

      > How much does the US subsidize air travel via FAA, airport subsidies, etc?

      My plane ticket receipt contains fees for half a dozen various government costs, including airport fees and a general US transportation tax. The FAA is pretty trivial, having a budget of just under $10B out of total American spending on domestic air travel of more than $800B.

      https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/miss...

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/207075/domestic-travel-s...

      For all I know air travel may very well be subsidized, but you'll need to point to some serious numbers for it to be anything like the money that Amtrak hemorrhages as a fraction of its revenue.

      • jcranmer 6 years ago

        Most of the costs of building and expanding airports are not borne by the airlines themselves but by the public via federal, state, and local governments. Admittedly, most of the cost of railroad infrastructure is not maintained by Amtrak itself, but the Class I railroads are profitable enough to take on major projects like rebuilding their routes to double-stack container clearances themselves.

        • sokoloff 6 years ago

          The FAA AIP (Airport Improvement Program) grants typically cover 90% of airport improvement projects, with 10% coming from the local entities (state/county/town as appropriate).

          That program is around $3.35BB of the $10BB total FAA expense.

        • pzone 6 years ago

          Expanding airports isn't done for free. Airports charge fees to airlines for use of their runways, and they lease the commercial space inside. Any subsidies that go on here are second order - certainly not $32 per passenger.

          • jcranmer 6 years ago

            Note that airlines don't reap the benefits of airport commercial revenue, and I expect most large airports make an operating profit, but I don't believe that many airports make a profit when capital costs are accounted for.

      • Retric 6 years ago

        There are a lot of subsidies, but they tend to be individually small.

        Essential Air Service subsidies Airlines serving rural communities which significantly increases overall ridership. Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act as just one example was 10 billion in loan subsidies after 9/11. Another example most Airports are heavily subsidies at least during construction, but so is some airline infrastructure like Indianapolis handing over $300 million for a United Repair shop. The military intentionally creates a huge stream of trained pilots without costing the Airlines a dime.

        All of this is intentional so no one subsidy seem all that large, and adding up a thousand little pieces take enough effort that nobody complains.

        PS: "Per passenger EAS subsidy in the 48 contiguous states plus Puerto Rico ranged from $10 to more than $977 per passenger in 2014" but it's only ~300 million per year so no big deal right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

    • mobilefriendly 6 years ago

      For other modes of transportation, the government subsidizes the infrastructure but private operators compete on it. For passenger rail the government nationalized most of the system and operates a money-losing monopoly service. Major difference.

      • wbl 6 years ago

        The rail is not nationalized, the passenger service is.

    • scyclow 6 years ago

      I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains. Part of what makes the train appealing for the longer rides is that if you're taking coach half of the car is empty and you know you won't have to sit next to anyone.

      • justin66 6 years ago

        > I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains.

        Just a thought, but if you're interested in numbers, it's an eye-opener to look at how much money airlines have lost for shareholders, bondholders, and the government via bankruptcies. If passenger rail was ever capable of tearing chunks out of the economy the way the airlines are, it must have been a century ago.

        From 2011: "The industry in aggregate has lost about $60 billion over the 32 years since deregulation"

        https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/12/16/143765367/why-...

        I'm pretty sure airlines are one of those unusual industries in the US (like banking) that have throughout their existence lost more money than they've ever actually generated in profit and have been kept whole by the government. Sorry I don't have any hard figures on that.

        • ComradeTaco 6 years ago

          It's also worth considering that the American government has massively subsidized the airline industry. Trillions of dollars in defense spending for aircraft has propped up Boeing and its predecessors during hard times. That spending massively advanced civilian aircraft. Training pilots is another massive cost, which is mitigated by former American military pilots.

      • ericd 6 years ago

        Keep in mind that bus travel is extremely heavily subsidized in the form of the government handling maintenance of the national highway system

      • throwawayjava 6 years ago

        How do you define "loss" in this context?

        • scyclow 6 years ago

          Net loss. So, if a ticket costs $10, and it costs the bus an average $12 per passenger, they'd have a $2 loss per passenger.

          • throwawayjava 6 years ago

            But in terms of comparisons. That metric is really difficult to define for a roadway or an entire network of airports and the transit systems that connect them to cities.

  • danielecook 6 years ago

    My parents took us as kids on several long train trips. The trips are among my most cherished memories from childhood. We usually would train out and fly back. A few of the lines wind their way through the Rockies - the scenery is really beautiful.

  • jlarocco 6 years ago

    Do you know why they don't raise the price to cover the loss? $32 doesn't seem like a big deal for long distance transportation.

    • IncRnd 6 years ago

      They regularly raise the rates, and they keep losing money.

  • fulafel 6 years ago

    It's also viable for people who feel air travel is immoral due to its heavy climate change accelerating effect.

  • Fnoord 6 years ago

    > but most of the passengers are just weirdos who enjoy wasting their time taking the train cross-country in 2018 (like me).

    If you waste time while you're travelling with public transport you're doing it wrong. For example, something like an e-reader is pretty thin and weights a few hundred grams and can hold thousands of books. Noisy? I bought half decent earplugs the other day for just 12 EUR. All you gotta do is take them with you. But you'd do that in an airplane as well. Add to that, airplanes are terrible for the environment; trains are less bad.

    • kohanz 6 years ago

      OP doesn't mean "wasting time" by doing nothing on the train. They mean the time you could have spent doing anything else by getting to your destination faster vs. extra time spent on the train.

      • Fnoord 6 years ago

        I get that, but that isn't wasted time.

huebnerob 6 years ago

I've taken the California Zephyr between Chicago and SF a couple times now, it's a wonderful experience. 2 1/2 days of solitude from a world with increasingly few remote corners.

If you're at all interested, I recommend riding soon. These admittedly impractical long-distance routes are going to be the first to go when budget cuts necessitate it.

  • ghaff 6 years ago

    You're probably right. The California Zephyr or the Empire Builder are on my "should do once when the stars align" list but they probably won't be an option forever. I should probably consider doing one of them at some point when the stars get at reasonably in the vicinity.

  • ng12 6 years ago

    Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?

    • niftich 6 years ago

      If you're driving alone -- a reasonable assumption if you'd be in the market for a train -- a 31-hour "Google Maps" roadtrip takes 3 days, assuming ~10 hours of "map-time" driving, followed by 6+ hours of civilized sleep.

      The biggest constraint is "civilized" sleep, which is best had in a real bed at a real hotel, whose locations are constrained by settlements and whose typical availability hours begin at 15:00 local time and end at 11:00 local time. When you're driving west and passing through timezones, you can gain an extra hour that you can use for rest, while if you're driving east, you're racing doubly against the clock, as you're losing an extra hour you could be sleeping in a hotel at every timezone.

      My longest "map-time" drive sprint (not including stops) between sleeps is 19 hours, which was filled with delirium towards the end, and I would never recommend. I've done a 16-hour sprint to similar results, and have done multiple ~12-hour sprints with no issues whatsoever. In my experience, 12 hours is around the upper limit of how much "map-time" distance one can safely drive between sleeps, especially if one is to perform a comparable drive for three consecutive days.

      • bluGill 6 years ago

        Over the road truckers are limited to 11 hours per day for good reason, your brain thinks falsely it can safely do more, but studies show otherwise.

        I have found on my cross country trips that there are plenty of small towns scatters across the US to make finding a hotel within an hour easy (though I'm sure you can find exceptions). I have also found a lot of interesting "small town" parks and culture because I forced myself to stop and find something (anything!) to do after 11 hours on the road.

      • dredmorbius 6 years ago

        There are very few parts of the U.S. in which you'd travel more than an hourr or two between hotels. Virtually all towns have at least some services.

        Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, possibly the Dakotas, are principle exceptions in the lower 48, though this means an upper bound on this interval, at least along principle rotes. An example is the 75 miles along I-94 between Buffalo and Cheyenne, Wyoming, with no highway exits or onramps at all. There are, however, services, at either end.

        Alaska is a domain unto itself.

      • ng12 6 years ago

        Yes, but trains don't need to sleep. I'm not saying I'd recommend driving 31h at a time, I'm saying I don't understand why that would be so much faster.

        • icelancer 6 years ago

          Plenty of stops and built-in delays with overlaid industrial trains. Additionally, you aren't going generally as fast as a car can, especially on long stretches of rural highways.

        • brianwawok 6 years ago

          Driving you don't need to pull over to the side of the road for 2h and let semis pass you.

          On the train, you will often have to pull over to let freight trains pass you.

    • enos 6 years ago

      American rail is built for cargo, so there are no sections as fast as a freeway.

      Also there are several sections that are particularly slow. The track through the Rockies is the original 1869 route, with original curvy single track and original tunnels. Speed there is around 20mph. Sometimes you come close to I-70, where cars are going 60-80mph. The Sierras also have slow sections. That said, those were my favorite parts of the trip.

      • niftich 6 years ago

        This is mostly true, but in fact the route currently used by the California Zephyr through the Rockies (Salt Lake City - Soldier Summit - Moffat Tunnel - Denver) was built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad or its predecessors [1]; the section in question was completed no earlier than 1883.

        The more famous railroad finished in 1869 takes a more northerly route, through Ogden instead of Provo, and through Rawlins, Laramie, and Cheyenne in Wyoming instead of adjacent to I-70 through Grand Junction and Denver.

        The mountainous sections of the Zephyr, specifically the crossings of the Rockies and the Sierras, are indeed the least competitive vs. driving. Based off of the official timetable [2], the Zephyr takes:

        ~9 hours between Chicago and Omaha vs. 7.5 hours driving

        ~8.5 hours between Omaha and Denver vs. 7.5 hours driving

        ~15 hours between Denver and Salt Lake City vs. 8 hours driving

        9 hours between Salt Lake City and Reno vs. 7.5 hours driving

        7.5 hours between Reno and Emeryville vs. hours 3.5 driving

        Lengthening the driving time to include breaks, the train is viable between Chicago and Denver, and between Salt Lake and Reno, but is nearly twice as slow as driving on other parts of the route.

        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_and_Rio_Grande_Western_... [2] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

        • chx 6 years ago

          Stating the obvious here, I know, but Chicago-Denver has so many flights it's not even funny, United, American, Spirit, Southwest, Frontier, well over twenty flights any day.

      • jcranmer 6 years ago

        The nominal max speed of Amtrak trains is about 79mph [1]. When I was traveling up I-57 in IL (speed limit 70mph), the Amtrak train was going almost identically in speed.

        Most of the class I railroad track was built to handle high speed (by early 20th century standards) traffic, so trains can generally reach 70-90mph (although not so much in suburban or mountainous areas) with little modification. The difficulty is that there's no economic reason to push freight trains to high speed, and mixing higher-speed passenger and low-speed freight creates scheduling conflicts, so passenger speed tends not to hit its top speeds.

        [1] On freight track, that is. The NEC, which is all passenger traffic and all-electric, has higher nominal speed: even the "slow" NE regionals will hit 100mph on the empty track in MD.

        • andyv133 6 years ago

          To add to this, the FRA regulates track speed based upon condition of the track and some other requirements. Track condition is typically quite good (rail companies really want to avoid derailments), but one of the biggest impediments is grade crossings. The faster the track, the more extensive protection needed to keep trains and cars separate. Table 42 [1] here gives the requirements. Most of the mainline track is Class 4. You'll notice to hit 125 mph every grade crossing needs a full barrier between the car and train. And faster that that, complete grade separation (ie, bridge). US rail was not designed with this in mind and while they close a grade crossing any chance they get, they're still a major hindrance to high speed operation.

          [1] https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/hsip/xings/com_roaduser/07010/se...

      • 24gttghh 6 years ago

        There aren't no sections, but there are certainly very few that beat 70mph...for example, IIRC the Amtrak Downeaster hits 70-80 at at least one point (the speed limit of the train is 79mph throughout the route)...for like a mile or two as it crosses the Scarborough marsh ;)

    • Spooky23 6 years ago

      Driving in shifts for 31h is pretty awful. It’s really an apples to oranges comparison. That’s really a 3 day trip, especially if you’re targeting hotel check in times.

      The train is generally pleasant and relaxing. I used to do Albany->NYC a few times a month. It takes less time in that case, but I always looked forward to that trip to work, reflect or just observe.

      The problem with the trains is inconsistent times. They share track with freight in many routes and there is little rhyme or reason for many trips. The error bar for arrival for a Boston->Buffalo trip is 3-4 hours, easy.

      • ng12 6 years ago

        I'm not asking about the feasibility of driving nonstop, I'm asking why the average speed of the train is significantly slower.

    • closeparen 6 years ago

      3 days is a relatively aggressive schedule for the road trip. The train makes up for its low average speed by not needing to sleep overnight.

      The real problem is that the cost is greater than or equal to a 4-hour flight.

      • dvtrn 6 years ago

        Why is train travel so much more expensive? Fewer tickets being sold comparatively?

        • rdl 6 years ago

          Also because it's so slow. You're tying up a lot of personnel on the train, as well as capital equipment, for multiple days, rather than hours for a plane. With the same personnel (which cost about as much as pilots/cabin crew), you could run ~10 equivalent flights. Capital equipment is cheaper for rail than in the air, but the portion of rail capex/opex (either directly, or usually via fees to freight lines) is also high.

          This video is a good analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA

        • akshat_h 6 years ago

          Also, maintaining tracks is expensive, especially in a large country like USA, as compared to just maintaining two airports.

          Kinda makes me wonder how much money is spent on road maintenance that we are not thinking as a cost while driving.

          • kalleboo 6 years ago

            > Kinda makes me wonder how much money is spent on road maintenance that we are not thinking as a cost while driving

            Here in Japan all the highways are privatized and are supposed to be self-funded by tolls. Where I live pretty much any road trip over 45 minutes you're likely to hit a toll.

            All tallied up (gas+tolls), driving 3-4 hours costs about as much as taking the 1hr 40minute bullet train (which isn't cheap - about $90 one-way). Driving only becomes economical when you're 3+ people in the car.

            I imagine there would be riots in the US if the interstates all started charging tolls.

          • protomyth 6 years ago

            Amtrak doesn't own most of the track they use. They pay track usage payments to the freight railroads that actually own the track. In FY 2009 that was $115.4 million (3.3% of total operation cost). Cannot find the current numbers. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

            • jandrese 6 years ago

              $115.4M seems really cheap. You couldn't lay too many miles of track for that, especially if you're buying land rights along the way.

              • rbanffy 6 years ago

                Did the interstate highway system have to buy land rights?

                • protomyth 6 years ago

                  The government used it in Eminent domain power to acquire the land (which if owned was paid for). The interstate system was built by the government, so it’s a totally different situation as the railroads built and maintain the track Amtrack is using.

                  • rbanffy 6 years ago

                    I guess that then the solution is obvious.

                    • closeparen 6 years ago

                      It doesn’t seem like a good use of eminent domain to build a slower and less capable transportation network when airline service is already ubiquitous. “I prefer to spend more for a slower journey because I like trains” is a weak justification for the use of such an invasive power.

                    • protomyth 6 years ago

                      I'm not sure what is obvious. The government pays rent on something it didn't build. Cargo is vital to so many sectors of the economy, and passenger trains are not.

        • geerlingguy 6 years ago

          For shorter routes, it's the inverse; I go from STL to CHI (and back) often, and it's $30-40 for a pretty enjoyable short trip; 5-6 hours (compared to driving (4-5 hours), or flying (1 hour, but 2.5+ with airport time and stress included). Flights are usually $90+.

        • pocketstar 6 years ago

          I understand the root issues is Amtrack unions. Amtrack staffing is one employee to four passengers. I dont know what the ratio is for airlines but it must be lower. This video does a pretty good explonation i think: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA

          • hexane360 6 years ago

            It's certainly a labor issue, but can you explain how it's the union's fault? Staffing a train for 30+ hours is 10x more expensive than staffing an airplane for 3. It's not the number of workers, but the time cost of workers. Don't forget to account for the ground crew when discussing planes.

          • forapurpose 6 years ago

            > Amtrack staffing is one employee to four passengers

            I've been on Amtrak trains and have seen nothing like that number of employees. My impression is that 1 in 40 or 80 might be closer.

    • mindslight 6 years ago

      Track work, waiting on local traffic (especially commuter), train police pulling someone off the train, etc.

      You can tell the people who've never taken the train before when they start asking why it's stopped.

      I say this out of love, to set expectations. Cross country, if you want to get somewhere ASAFP take a plane. If you want to enjoy a leisurely week+, drive. If you're willing to spend a few days for the scenery of a road trip without having to do the logistics, take the train.

    • improbable22 6 years ago

      The timetable is set partly so that you sleep during the boring bits and have daylight in the mountains.

      At least it was when I did Chicago -> SF a few years ago. It was great, after the prairies you woke up in Denver & lots more people got on, spent a day going through the Rockies, sleep, and then a day in the Sierras. (I'm pretty sure we spent some of the night parked in a siding.)

    • yareally 6 years ago

      Probably having to yield for other trains.

    • hyperbovine 6 years ago

      I see you have never taken Amtrak before :)

      • drchiu 6 years ago

        I’ve not taken the train before, but I’ve heard that the experience is quite different in a good way. No traffic. No hustle and bustle.

    • dredmorbius 6 years ago

      The rights-of-way are shared with, and subservient to, freight rail, and the roads themselves are owned by the freight lines.

      Top speed is limited to 79 mph, and is lower in many areas.

      As with software development, delays tend to be additive, and not made up.

      Any service disruption (track, equipment, weather, accidents, crews) means hours, occasionally (though fairly rarely) days of delays.

    • praneshp 6 years ago

      33 stops.

      • redorb 6 years ago

        I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city.

        Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even.

        I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should define those regions or what makes a region good for rail and focus there. Amtrak to me is one of the largest scams the government does - it's a constant money losing operation. It takes in so much money - and loses money on every thing it sells from the tickets to the drinks and food.

        • dima55 6 years ago

          Building roads is also a money losing operation. Complain about something else. There's plenty here.

          • borkt 6 years ago

            Reconstructing an existing road is even worse. Want to repair a failing street? OK, but only if you make every aspect of the supporting infrastructure ADA compliant with the most current laws. We are legislating ourselves out of modern infrastructure.

            • matthewmacleod 6 years ago

              Or, just maybe, it’s good to make infrastructure accessible?

              • noonespecial 6 years ago

                He's got an unpopular opinion (and calling out the ADA specifically is probably the worst of the examples that can be chosen) but its worth a thought. When the choice is forced to be "perfect, or none at all", a possible outcome is none at all.

                On the balance, I find most of these rules to be acceptable most of the time, but it should always be considered that it can be taken too far.

                • closeparen 6 years ago

                  Regulation is a commitment that we prefer "none at all" to the status quo. No more, no less. We talk about regulation creating desirable outcomes, but that's an oversimplification - the ADA does not hire or conscript anyone into the business of creating accessible infrastructure. It threatens that if they won't make their infrastructure accessible, they can't have any. The threat of "none at all" is the whole mechanism.

                  • noonespecial 6 years ago

                    Which is just fine so long as we remember that none at all is inaccessible to everyone.

            • vkou 6 years ago

              Is opposing accessibility the hill you want to die on?

              Do you have a ballpark for the financial and human cost of making our basic infrastructure not-accessible?

          • redorb 6 years ago

            A larger percentage of people who pay taxes use roads than the percentage that pay for trains and don't use them.

            Only place trains win are very specific regions and for cargo

        • cortesoft 6 years ago

          Umm, the purpose of government is not to make money, it is to serve the public. While you can make arguments whether or not trains are where we should put public money, but you can't use the argument that 'it loses money'.

        • niftich 6 years ago

          Discontinuing Amtrak's long-distance services -- which are clearly not competitive in terms of ticket price or travel time with alternatives -- comes up time and time again, by members of Congress and commentators alike.

          However, successive directors of Amtrak have always opposed the discontinuation of long-distance routes. Congress could likely force the issue, but it's interesting that Amtrak leadership always leans in favor of them.

          There are some routes in the northeast that Amtrak turns a profit on [1][2][3], and some others are subsidized by states enough to still make them worthwhile to operate (CA, IL, NC). But if the long-distance routes were defunded, they'd likely never come back under the Amtrak banner, and significant layoffs would ensue.

          [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968720#15976146 [2] http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/12/amtrak-routes-by-2012... [3] http://www.riarp.org/blog/2014/11/25/september-amtrak-report

          • anderber 6 years ago

            A lot of the issue, I believe, is that those long-distance services cater to a lot of small towns that have no airport or good bus service. So Senators don't want to lose that service in their state. And they fight to keep the service, even if they are conservative.

        • jrnichols 6 years ago

          I'm still surprised that Oklahoma City to Fort Worth route exists. It's 2-3 cars, and stops in such exciting places as Gainesville, TX. (sarcasm definitely intended.)

          Yet every day, there it goes. Bypassing a city like Denton, TX where a lot of people live and commute to Dallas or Fort Worth. The opportunity for commuter rail is there... it's just not happening, and I wish that it would.

      • borkt 6 years ago

        It often runs a bit late in the morning as well.

    • objectivetruth 6 years ago

      A few reasons: the train has to slow down and then get back up to speed for each stop; there are stops in a few cities for refueling / shift change / restocking onboard supplies. These stops take a lot longer than just filling up your gas tank on a road trip, anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. And the article points out that Amtrak is lower priority than freight when track conflicts occur, so you will spend some time sitting on the prairie waiting for a freight train to go by.

      Realistically, nobody's making that drive in 31 hours anyway without a lot of caffeine and breaking the speed limit.

      • Fins 6 years ago

        With that much caffeine you'd be making a lot of pit stops.

        I did do it in 40 hours and some change, but with one speeding ticket in Utah, and by the time I got home I knew I ain't doing that on "google schedule" again.

reaperducer 6 years ago

Amtrak's current food is far superior to airline food. I'm speaking as a regular Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, and Southwest Chief first class passenger.

The only disappointment is that for some reason, I can't get food served in my room on the Sunset Limited. No problems on the other routes.

It's kind of sad if Amtrak has to sacrifice freshly-prepared food for airline heat-n-eat fare. But if it means an additional passenger car can be added, I'm OK with it.

Full trains are a bigger problem than fresh food for Amtrak. (Though its biggest problem is a shortage of trains and routes.)

  • imglorp 6 years ago

    > Full trains are a bigger problem than fresh food for Amtrak.

    And upgrading their network to Positive Train Control should be a higher priority than full trains and food. They've had several fatal crashes recently that PTC might have avoided.

    • jandrese 6 years ago

      I thought the holdup with PTC is that the freight companies don't care about it so aren't bothering to instrument the tracks.

      • andyv133 6 years ago

        They're working on it, and have been for a while now. The main problem is its just a massive amount of work. They had to develop a fail safe system almost from scratch (Which also has to be interoperable between railroads). And then they have to implement it, and since it requires installing new hardware (antennas, different processors, etc), every couple of miles along the track it is a time consuming process. And then there's all the backoffice infrastructure to manage it, and the railroad-grade hardware to be installed in every locomotive. BNSF alone has 34,000 miles of track, UP a similar amount.

        It'll be really neat when its done, and its in operation on some subdivisions, its only a matter of time.

        Source: Worked on PTC for BNSF.

  • SlowRobotAhead 6 years ago

    Depends on where you are flying. ANA is my favorite airline (Japan), but Lufthansa (Germany) has better food I think.

    EVA (Asia) food isn’t great, but United and Delta are still worse imo.

    • wdewind 6 years ago

      My experiences with ANA have been pretty fantastic. One time I was flying to Japan and the plane were going to get on was hit by lightning as it landed. Apparently the FAA then requires a mandatory rebooting and testing process that takes 6 hours. ANA did three things here that really separated them from other airlines:

      1. During the 6 hour wait, despite there being no news, I could walk up to the counter and say "Hey just checking again to see if there's any update?" and every single time, without fail, they were friendly, polite and apologetic for the situation.

      2. When we got on board the captain got on the loud speaker and immediately apologized profusely "for our incompetence." The plane was struck by lightning, a literal "act of god" and the captain still apologized to us.

      3. When we landed in Tokyo they handed us about $200 in cash to deal with taking a cab since it was much later than expected arrival.

      I just can't imagine this kind of treatment from an American airline, even on international flights.

      • SlowRobotAhead 6 years ago

        Thts cool, yea ANA seems to get it. I also appreciated the bidets on the plane toilets :)

    • gaadd33 6 years ago

      Singapore Airlines has amazing food if you use their book the cook service but even the lobster and steak, while good, is obviously not prepared from scratch in the galley.

      Amtrak's food was on par with Applebees, not amazing but still restaurant quality food. I don't think there's any airline that really compares since none have a full kitchen on the plane. E.g. here's amtrak's dining cars: https://www.amtrakvacations.com/content/uploads/2016/01/supe...

    • walshemj 6 years ago

      The BA LON - EDI route always used to have awesome cream teas on the evening flights to London :-) and being able to rock up show your card and have a drink and be on a plane < 30 mins later

      Then again I Was on full ride and was staying in the Balmoral or the Cally

    • dgudkov 6 years ago

      Never flew Asian airlines, but among European ones the best food I typically find on flights with Air France.

      • SlowRobotAhead 6 years ago

        Air France! Yea I forgot that one. That was very good! Iirc they had warm hand towels before each meal that were real towels instead of packaged towelettes.

  • walshemj 6 years ago

    Agreed in the UK I used to have to fairly regularly do London to Scarborough for conferences I always used to prefer to go up on the Friday on the flying Scotsman to York (and eat on the train).

    And have Saturday and Sunday as time to prep for conference and have some me time in a cool uk seaside resort

    • zhte415 6 years ago

      I'm curious what regular conferences are held in Scarborough?

      • walshemj 6 years ago

        Political ones mostly

  • craftyguy 6 years ago

    Food on the Amtrak line running up the length of Oregon to Seattle is terrible. Not airline terrible, but not far from it.

    Oh sorry for the contradicting opinion, I thought we were sharing anecdotes here.

DeepYogurt 6 years ago

I can echo the Zephyr experience. Fantastic service. We were late, but I would highly recommend it. If nothing else you can simply show up 10 minutes before departure and get on. Then just get off a minute or two after your arrival. You're treated like a human on a train.

dshep 6 years ago

I've only taken Amtrak once, from Portland to San Francisco. One of the best parts was having dinner in the dining car. Two older ladies invited me to join them because I was by myself and we had a nice chat while cruising through the mountains. Sad to see it go, but I guess it was only a matter of time.

  • dahdum 6 years ago

    I’ve done the same trip by myself, met so many interesting people in the dining and observation cars.

crmd 6 years ago

I have a strange love for the Acela Express' cheeseburger. If I wasn't sitting in a meeting right now I would go to Penn Station now and take a ride to Newark for that burger.

  • dag11 6 years ago

    Maybe it's a specific brand you can buy? The normal cafe car pizza is, for example, the very same DiGiorno microwave pizza I lazily ate throughout high school. So that too is comfort food to me, garbage as it is.

  • vibrio 6 years ago

    wow I'd have guess that was untouchable. Now I'm going to have to try it. Since ShakeShack appeared in Penn station, that and a tall beer or two has been my post-work Acela fare.

    • op00to 6 years ago

      It’s microwaved. It’s not good.

jMyles 6 years ago

I have traveled Amtrak quite a lot - across the country on the Empire Builder, Southwest Chief, and California Zephyr. And many other routes.

I think the food is usually decent - the veggie burger is reliably edible.

What I can say is terrible - and what has caused me to cease using Amtrak - is the presence of the DEA.

In case you haven't experienced this, the DEA sometimes raids specific sleeper cars at a station, demanding money, guns, or drugs. I had no idea about this until it happened to me.

It was absolutely, positively terrifying. I (and my partner) were repeatedly threatened with violence if we didn't allow our bags to be searched (which of course we didn't). Our 2.5 year old was screaming in terror the entire time.

They refused to tell of their names or let us see the numbers on their badges - they only flashed their badges for 250ms at us.

We recorded them on both of our phones and a camera. At one point, a DEA agent physically tried to swat my phone out of my hands.

They told us that we had been selected "randomly", but I found out soon after that a colleague of mine, seven cars back, had also been "randomly" selected. I later found out from an Amtrak employee that we were the only ones on the train who had been raided and that it was never random - they research people in advance and select who to raid. Apparently being involved in any way in crypto-blockchain tech is enough to trigger such an event (indeed their primary questioning to my colleague was about his hardware wallet, which they took the majority of their time with him to inspect and photograph).

The Amtrak employee further told me that she and others are terrified of these agents - that there had been times when they themselves had been subject to their antics and also to unwanted advances at their departing stations. She said that they have learned to just leave the train and stay out of the way and also encouraged me to complain to Amtrak or file a lawsuit, saying that if we were able to get the DEA off Amtrak we'd be doing Amtrak employees a big favor.

If Amtrak can't protect me against armed thugs coming into my sleeper car and terrorizing my family, they are simply not a viable solution for transportation IMO.

I encourage you to reconsider Amtrak - if you ride often enough, this will happen to you.

A quick google search will show you that this is a common, if largely unknown practice. Here are some links:

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/10/dea-travel-re...

* https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-per...

* https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/dea-bribed-a...

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/05/12/...

  • solotronics 6 years ago

    wow I am really surprised this was triggered by cryptocurrency. this is terribly authoritarian and disappointing. if you don't mind me asking are you a US citizen? if so contact your local congressperson and file a complaint with the DEA office.

    has your friend ever had anything similar happen traveling by air?

    • Kalium 6 years ago

      > wow I am really surprised this was triggered by cryptocurrency. this is terribly authoritarian and disappointing.

      It is authoritarian and disappointing, but to me unsurprising. The cryptocurrency world associates pretty hard with drug trafficking. Coupling that with someone choosing a train over what might be an easier flight could be read as avoiding TSA.

      The low security of Amtrak likely makes it a common smuggling route.

      • solotronics 6 years ago

        I would be surprised if even 0.1% of drug trafficking is done with cryptocurrency. The big banks have been caught red handed doing industrial scale money laundering for cartels and producers.

        • Kalium 6 years ago

          I would be very similarly surprised! And indeed, big banks have been and are very guilty of aiding and abetting.

          Yet, I would also be very surprised if the percent of actual cryptocurrency usage that is legitimate even begins to rival that of typical currencies. And I may have missed the connection, but I fear I do not see how the illegal behavior of several large banks bears on the use of cryptocurrencies in narcotic markets.

      • jMyles 6 years ago

        I surmise that it has less to do with trafficking and more to do with simply whom they think will have money to steal. Perhaps that's the cynic in me talking, but to read the available coverage of this phenomenon, it certainly seems to be more about highway robbery than anything to do with drugs or weapons.

    • jMyles 6 years ago

      I need to do that. Life hasn't slowed down long enough to get the legal / political stuff figured out.

      No, neither of us have had problems traveling by air (and we do it fairly frequently).

  • mindslight 6 years ago

    And here I thought the sleep was poor back in steerage!

    It's interesting that one of those articles mentions ABQ. One of my times on the Southwest Chief, the guy in the seat next to me was in the "import export business", and upgraded to a sleeper car on the spot. Some jackboots got on at ABQ and started mildly harassing passengers looking for this guy. He was still on the train afterwards and insisted they had only wanted to talk (but was obviously being coy, flirting with the train attendant).

    Given that he was scarce enough to need to find en route, but yet somehow not scarce enough to take into custody, I had been wondering if he was some kind of informant and the train was a plausible way to get him alone to talk. But now I'm left wondering if I had just witnessed an early version of this armed robbery scheme.

    I hope you at least attempt to sue that blatantly criminal organization as well as your individual assailants. Although reading such accounts I can't help but feel what they really deserve is the gallows.

    • jMyles 6 years ago

      > Although reading such accounts I can't help but feel what they really deserve is the gallows.

      My reaction was quite different: I got the sense that these people are hurting badly. Being the vessel for state oppression must take a terrible spiritual toll.

      Let's not be so unsympathetic to those tasked with oppression, even though they make the bad choice to go along with it. The combination of desperation and mental illness that leads a person to do these sorts of things is nobody's envy, and I believe that a humane world will look not only for revolution but salvation for these poor souls.

      • mindslight 6 years ago

        Just to be clear, I was and am talking about the actual thugs who attacked you, not the train attendants or Amtrak etc.

        I generally try to understand people's motivations, analyze in terms of what larger systemic failings led them on a path etc. But when your job is to directly terrorize and rob people for a mere paycheck, I think one's Nuremberg defense has gone out the window.

        And there most certainly are people who "envy" these thugs, hopped up on the same propaganda that preaches their entire regime as being for the greater good. Sure, we can describe this as mental illness and hope to heal their brain damage - and I look forward to us ever having the luxury of being in that position.

        Which was really the crux of my quip. If we could count on actual justice - eg these criminals being shunned from society and going to prison for armed assault - then we wouldn't have to substitute idyllic placeholders like my hoping they'll somehow eventually come by vigilante justice. I'd say that you're even doing something similar in your own framework, asserting that they must be suffering a "terrible spiritual toll".

        Alas, all we can do for now is cope.

        • jMyles 6 years ago

          > Just to be clear, I was and am talking about the actual thugs who attacked you, not the train attendants or Amtrak etc.

          Sure - me too.

          > when your job is to directly terrorize and rob people for a mere paycheck, I think one's Nuremberg defense has gone out the window.

          Yeah, agreed. I don't want to make excuses for these people or understate their wrongs. They sucked. And they owe me and my family and everybody they've terrorized an apology. I don't have high hopes that it will come.

          > Sure, we can describe this as mental illness and hope to heal their brain damage - and I look forward to us ever having the luxury of being in that position.

          I don't know your situation, but I can tell you that I'm exactly in that position. Unlike a poor brown person who behaves exactly as I have during my life, I am not in a cage, nor do I estimate that the government has the political capital to mess with me very much. They're much, much weaker than we think.

          Not only am I in a more comfortable and privileged position than people who are more seriously victimized by this system, I'm also in a more comfortable and privileged position than the people who are tasked with doing the victimizing. I count my blessings that I have never been so sick or desperate as to take such a job.

          > Alas, all we can do for now is cope.

          ...and I acknowledge that my somewhat passive attitude in response is itself a coping mechanism.

          Nevertheless, I think that for compassion and peace to become the true orders of the day in the information age, we must never lose track of our empathy for the agents of our oppression.

          • mindslight 6 years ago

            > I can tell you that I'm exactly in that position

            I mean specifically the luxury of offering them mental help rather than punishment. Which can only happen from a position of societal authority, after these criminals have been removed from power.

            I do understand the argument of say not condemning an individual TSA ball fondler [0] because they didn't personally choose the policies of their job. But in your case you were outright attacked - I think individual criminality definitively crosses a line where one can no longer say the thugs are just poor people forced to do a job.

            It's kind of like when someone goes a bit too far blaming poverty for some instance of less-organized violent crime, and actually starts absolving the criminal as being another victim of the circumstances. In actuality, both the existence of the poverty and the crime itself are wrong, and regardless of the incentives being stacked against them, the criminal still chose to do wrong.

            > Not only am I in a more comfortable and privileged position than people who are more seriously victimized by this system

            As an aside, I will point out this means you actually have more of a duty to seek justice. A poor person will just get laughed out of an attorney's office when they ask about contingency, if they even got past the screening phone call. One of the problems I have with phrasing things in terms of "privilege" is that it makes it sound like you didn't get it as bad as you could have, so maybe you shouldn't be so angry at your specific situation. Don't slump into that.

            > ...and I acknowledge that my somewhat passive attitude in response is itself a coping mechanism.

            That was my point, and my comment was actually passive as well. You're pointing at the abstract concept of a spirit and saying theirs is worse off for it. A traditional religion might assert they're going to burn in hell. I'm focusing on actions in the concrete world, and since straightforward justice is (most likely) prevented, saying we can only hope they eventually receive corporeal comeuppance in some other way. They're all ways of setting aside the incongruity, so we can get over the fact that you (et al) were unjustly attacked, and get on with other things.

            > Nevertheless, I think that for compassion and peace to become the true orders of the day in the information age, we must never lose track of our empathy for the agents of our oppression.

            I'm a bit out of it in a few ways to fully grok this statement, but I feel like my problem with it is that the oppressive system is driven by energy (in fact, our energy - it's a parasite that benefits from the oppression), so all the understanding in the world will not stop it from continuing to exist (cf all those ambivalent poor people working for it so they can eat). Therefore, peace can only be obtained by a counterbalancing force pushing back.

            [0] Although I personally feel that taking the opportunity to give them shit undermines the do-gooder propaganda they're subject to, and helps to increase the cost of running the system.

  • shostack 6 years ago

    When did this occur to you?

    • jMyles 6 years ago

      30 Jan, 2018.

mschuster91 6 years ago

As a regular rider of Germany's night trains: what's the problem with eating in a roomette (sleeper car cabin)? First of all I already hate it when the cabin mates see me totally groggy - much less a whole fucking dining car. In addition, no dining car can fit as many people as there fit in a single sleeper car, much less a whole train composed of 10-15 sleeper cars.

  • rossdavidh 6 years ago

    Having done both, it's much roomier on the Amtrak dining cars, you get better food, and they will bring it to your cabin if you want that, as I recall, so it's not like you're forced to eat in the dining car. I like Germany's night trains a lot, but for Amtrak this is clearly a downgrade.

  • nowarninglabel 6 years ago

    I'm fairly anti-social, but I actually love meeting people in the dining car. Some of the best socializing experiences I've ever had.

  • herbst 6 years ago

    I took trains all over Europe the thing is the smell.

    Imagine someone taking MC Donald's in a train, which is already horrible on a open floor plan wagon. Some people just can't stand some smells and cabins are usually always small and don't provide enough fresh air to compensate for Smelly food.

    I've left cabins before, and I've seen other people do so. It can be a huge annoyance.

  • ant6n 6 years ago

    DB doesn't operate night trains since 2016.

    • mschuster91 6 years ago

      The ÖBB has taken them over - including the cars themselves.

seltzered_ 6 years ago

One thing I remember about the dining car is that if you’re traveling alone you sit with other people in a 4-person booth. It’s been at least one way to get away from staring at a screen/window alone and talk with people you may not normally encounter.

This said, maybe Amtrak is trying to optimize for the people that ride it - from my west coast anecdata it usually skewed to lower-income people needing to get somewhere on short notice (where air prices got too much), or worked for the govt in a way that it the price was discounted. (And to a smaller extent thieves, adventurers, photographers, and people afraid of flying)

Thinking aloud, it’d be interesting if Amtrak could pair with a food delivery app so folks doing a long distance trip could order something from a midway stop.

  • electricEmu 6 years ago

    I'm a West Coast, medium-income, short and overnight traveler, who doesn't work for the government, isn't an adventurer/photographer, and doesn't fear of flying.

    I ride Amtrak frequently (more than fly). I rather like the Amtrak steak. I think your model is wrong.

    • seltzered_ 6 years ago

      Thanks for the input. My model was just anecdata from riding a few times. Realized my negative sentiments are all from overnight trips.

jgrahamc 6 years ago

This is sad. I spent six weeks traveling the entire Amtrak system in the early 1990s and it was a wonderful experience. And the food was good.

Empact 6 years ago

I’m all for this move. If amtrak is to succeed, it has to do so on the basis of efficiency and service. If people aren’t willing to pay the prices neccessary to cover the cost of food, and unions are unwilling to reduce the cost of production, then we’re at an impasse and should cancel the service in order to free up operational capital for running more service and improving service in other ways. Trust me, people will find ways to eat! Making food a money sinkhole is contrary to history and experience. It makes sense as a loss leader, not when the system as a whole is a loss.

pkaye 6 years ago

I didn't have a good experience the last time I took Amtrak and had dining on board. It was the only time in my life I felt I was discriminated against in a dining setting. It was near the end of dinner time and food was likely running low so i didn't expect much. However after seating us, she took on two other groups and continued to fully serve them drinks and meal before coming back to our table for drinks. And by this time, nearly every item we wanted of interest was out of stock. With this kind of service, I rather they just serve premade airline quality food.

  • mistercleo 6 years ago

    Were you dining à la carte or without a reservation? Maybe the later arriving parties had already had their food set aside in the kitchen because they were traveling on a ticket with meals included and/or had a reservation. I travelled only once with bedroom accommodations and recall we were assigned reservation times when to show for our pre-paid meals.

    • pkaye 6 years ago

      Yes without a reservation. However, the first half of dinner hour was for reservations then they took people in without reservations. By the time we were called, anyone with reservations would have long been accommodated. I understand that food might run out but they could have atleast asked us about drinks.

tyingq 6 years ago

Midwest Express had crazy good food. Miss them. Eggs Benedict with mimosas on the way to Milwaukee. At low fare pricing with business class seating. No wonder they folded I suppose. Good while it lasted.

raintrees 6 years ago

My wife and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary with a 7 train, 3 week trip last year. The food was good for the first couple of weeks, but I think 3 weeks was a week too long - All things can eventually be monotonous.

We went out and scored a bottle of horse radish in DC to spice up the surf and turf... That helped.

The most picturesque of the routes we took for us were the California Zephyr and the Empire Builder.

https://raintreesbytrain.wordpress.com/

bpchaps 6 years ago

I'm actually happy with this, having taken around five >24hr Amtrak trips over the past few years. The dining car is pretty great overall, but the announcements for it get really, really grating really quickly. Because all announcements go over intercom, everyone hears it - maybe 20 announcements through out the day. Really breaks the mood if you packed your own meal.

scraft 6 years ago

I used to go to a business conference every year in SF (I am from the UK). Also, in the summer a few friends and I would regularly take 9/10 days off and rail around Europe, seeing new cities, exploring and having fun.

A few years ago, I had a bit of holiday available, so took it straight after the conference in SF to travel from SF to New York (with the most part of the Zephr train).

I explained what I was doing to one American at the conference and he couldn't get his head around it. "But you can fly" and "but it is cheaper to fly" and "but you can get their faster by flying". I explained I wanted to be on the train, unwinding, watching America move past my window, speak to all sorts of people. Go to sleep in one state and wake up in another. After a long chat, the American was happy to leave me be.

The next day I am talking to someone at the conference and the American from yesterday turns up, I do a little nod and wave to acknowledge him, but he comes over and interrupts. He is with 5 other Americans and says to them "this is the British guy I was talking to you about!" and I had to explain to more people what I am doing and why. It was then like a snow ball effect for the rest of the conference.

I spoke to so many Americans that had never been on a train, which seemed just as bizarre to me as I seemed to them.

Anyway, the Zephr ride was amazing, there was a drought and heat wave in California and Chicago was in -15°C freezing temperatures. I saw the land scale change from sky scrapers to empty space, climbed up and around the Sierra Nevadas, went through your after hour of flat farm land and so the outside change from sun to snow. I spoke to so many people from devout Christians from the South, to a train driver/operator (who told us when the driver wasn't doing as well as he could and explained how various parts of the train work), to a retired couple who are travel regularly to see their kids, to college students to military men.

In the observatory carriage you get an amazing view of the country going by and sometimes have guides come on board to give you some history and information about the area. This was supplemented by eager locals who told me even more and pointed out wildlife as we travelled.

I slept brilliantly in my bed each night and enjoyed nice food three times a day. It was like being on a package holiday where you eat too much, drink too much and sleep too much. Needless to say I really enjoyed it and have been on a few more similar journeys in the US since (but the Zephr was the best).

When I arrived in New York I was only there one night but that was fine for me, I was more interested in the train ride.

After a tiring week at the conference, the train ride was such a breath of fresh air, a chance to decompress and relax, being forced to do nothing except enjoy the surroundings, have a few days off from appointments, to dos, worries and stress.

I have been to quite a few American cities, but felt I got a better sense of what America is from taking that train ride.

Stranger43 6 years ago

So Amtrack is downgrading their food to the same level as their far more successful European counterparts and everyone panics and sees it as a sign of their imminent demise.

I think people are overreacting a bit but then again i am used to the cramped overcrowded European railway network which likely have much different problems to what's seen in America.

lionhearted 6 years ago

I logged in to post my ode to the San Francisco<->Chicago California Zephyr... but looks like it's already pretty well-covered.

It's really incredibly beautiful and great for thinking. SF<->Seattle on the Coast Starlight is also wonderful, those two routes are absolute gems.

Worth doing them now if you're at all interested; they might well not operate in a few years. Amtrak USA Rail Pass is also an exceptionally good value if you're looking to see a lot of the USA in a short period of time —

https://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-u...

halfnibble 6 years ago

Somebody get this man a plastic spoon!

ape4 6 years ago

Doesn't the low pressure in a plane contribute to the blandless. Not a problem on trains.

  • asteli 6 years ago

    The recipes used account for this, increasing spicing. The low humidity is also a factor I think.

    The larger struggle is logistical, not culinary. You're eating what amounts to a recently-frozen TV dinner, designed for the least-spice-tolerant palate, engineered to not dry out in the time between being reheated and served.

    Even if you can nail the flavor, there's no way to get a good texture (imagine good french fries, or breaded chicken) when you account for what the food has to go through to be served hot in the air.

jccalhoun 6 years ago

I would love for there to be some actual high speed rail in the USA but there really isn't. The only Amtrak anywhere near me is if I drove 70 minutes or so to Indianapolis to get on a train that left at 6am and got to Chicago at 10 am. No thanks.

kazinator 6 years ago

Want decent airline food? JAL, ANA.

darkstar999 6 years ago

Took the Amtrak from San Diego to Anaheim last year business class. It smelled like a sewer. Wifi was unusable. Is that normal?

  • HuggableSquare 6 years ago

    Amtrak wifi is typically pretty bad because it's cellular, so it ends up roaming between towers constantly and you have a ton of people all on the same network. As for it smelling like a sewer, that is not normal, no.

hb3b 6 years ago

The steak on the Acela is great!

rayiner 6 years ago

> Yes, you heard me right, and I believe it’s part of a plan to dismantle the National Network—shutting down most, if not all, long-distance trains, to focus on the Northeast Corridor, Midwest (Chicago) and California short- and medium-distance services, and state-supported trains.

That would be fantastic.

rdl 6 years ago

Taxpayers (and freight customers) shouldn't be subsidizing a novelty form of transportation for rail fans. If there's a subset of people who want this service, they should pay sufficient fares to cover the cost of service. Amtrak isn't doing that.

  • anderber 6 years ago

    "Yes, Amtrak is subsidized. So are all competing forms of transportation. Highways cover only 51 percent of their costs from all user fees, including the gas tax. The rest is paid by subsidies of one form or another, especially from local property taxes. Airlines receive massive subsidies in the form of airports and the air traffic control system. The day after 9/11, the airlines ran to Capitol Hill and were immediately given billions of dollars in additional taxpayer money, no questions asked."

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/dont-railroa...

    • rdl 6 years ago

      Airports are largely self-funded by user fees (or via federal funds which come from other user fees and fuel taxes), and airlines (except for bailouts in 2008-2009) are almost entirely commercially funded.

      http://airportsforthefuture.org/did-you-know/

      Air is the true competitor to the long-haul train in the US. It is cheaper and faster. There are separate arguments for/against transit and regional trains, but long-haul passenger rail, which is what is discussed in TFA, is essentially a novelty.

      • fulafel 6 years ago

        There's the small problem that air travel is environmentally unsustainable, with no fix in sight. It should be heavily taxed to account for the env. externalities.

        • rdl 6 years ago

          Taxes to account for environmental externalities (in the case of air travel, noise, CO2, altitude-related pollutants are probably the main things) make sense for everything. Air travel beats road and rail in some cases on this, doesn't in others. Taxes and thus pricing in all the costs would let consumers decide.

  • riffic 6 years ago

    You're correct - taxpayers should be subsidizing an improved form of rail transit instead (see china, europe, japan.)

    • pzone 6 years ago

      Taxpayers should barely subsidize trains, if at all. If they're not profitable it's a very strong sign they shouldn't be run in the first place. (Or prices should be increased.)

      America is very different from Europe and Japan. Japan's population is concentrated in a single megalopolis. Europe is denser than America as well, 700 million people in roughly the same area. Another reason sprawling rail networks aren't a great idea in the US is that our geography is cleaved down the middle by a 1000 mile swath that is sparsely populated, and bordered by a massive mountain range.

      • ascagnel_ 6 years ago

        Ironically, one of the biggest problems Amtrak faces is that it's forced, by Congressional decree, to service unprofitable routes on track time that must be paid to freight carriers.

        If Amtrak operated only the Northeast Corridor, and could reinvest in that region instead of having to beg for nickels, the US could have train service in a region that more closely mimics the relative density of Europe. Acela is a step in that direction, but a half-step at best.

        • pzone 6 years ago

          Yep, but you get romantics who just can't imagine reducing train service on those unused lines out of the romance, and they come and downvote people who suggest maybe this things aren't much of a public service, and people who aren't using them shouldn't be paying for them.

  • Doctor_Fegg 6 years ago

    As a non-driver[1], I totally look forward to the day when my taxes are no longer used to fund the road network and its deleterious effects.

    [1] can drive, choose not to, don't own a car

    • rdl 6 years ago

      Federal highways are about 30-50% funded by gas tax in the US; I agree fuel taxes should be increased to the point where they pay for the road network. (State/local roads are separate, and are much more multi-model in use, at least in cities, so it's harder to apportion costs.) (https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2009/09/17/do-highway-users-pay-...)

johan_larson 6 years ago

Good, good. The sooner Amtrak alienates its remaining customer base, the sooner it can be scrapped. There are only a few parts of the country that are settled densely enough -- and broadly enough -- for passenger trains to make sense. Any moves toward consolidation of service to only those areas should be welcomed.

  • gascan 6 years ago

    Why do you want rail to be scrapped?

    • johan_larson 6 years ago

      I don't want to scrap it all, just the parts that require hefty subsidies to serve places that have realistic alternatives. US households usually have cars and for those that don't, intercity buses tend to serve even very tiny burgs. So most people most do have realistic alternatives.

      Trains are the right solution in some cases. Commuter rail often makes sense. And in some densely populated regions, intercity trains make sense too. But in most of the US, because of the distances between cities, cars and planes work better.

      • gascan 6 years ago

        the parts that require hefty subsidies to serve places that have realistic alternatives

        You realize roads are built & maintained entirely at public expense? But we are so used to taking roads for granted.

        Public money spent on rail, is public money that doesn't need to be spent on roads. So, IMO, the first question is how many passenger-miles we get per dollar on rail, and how many per dollar on roads.

        • ascagnel_ 6 years ago

          You also can't discount the benefits of modal redundancy in transit. Trains don't just carry people around -- they also take drivers off the road. When NJTransit's rail-workers union was agitating for a strike a few years ago, the state DOT advised drivers to expect a few hundred thousand extra trips per day to make up for the service outage.

        • yongjik 6 years ago

          > You realize roads are built & maintained entirely at public expense? But we are so used to taking roads for granted.

          Reminds me of the famous (and probably fake) quote: "Where was the government when I was on food stamps?"

    • Redoubts 6 years ago

      Why should it be kept?

      • anderber 6 years ago

        It's a great option of travel. It's good for us to have a variety of ways to travel. Sure, the government doesn't subsidize train travel as much as it does for air and road, but I believe it's important, and so do others.

        "Yes, Amtrak is subsidized. So are all competing forms of transportation. Highways cover only 51 percent of their costs from all user fees, including the gas tax. The rest is paid by subsidies of one form or another, especially from local property taxes. Airlines receive massive subsidies in the form of airports and the air traffic control system. The day after 9/11, the airlines ran to Capitol Hill and were immediately given billions of dollars in additional taxpayer money, no questions asked."

        http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/dont-railroa...