Now that Joe Biden may live this January in Naval Observatory Circle as Vice President that would free a seat daily on Amtrak’s Northeast corridor. But will it be enough? Amtrak ridership was up 14% in July and because of the high cost of petrol more than 28 million people (up from 25.6 million) will use the antiquated system to avoid long drives and high petrol costs. The problem is Amtrak’s infrastructure has not kept up. The US train system is a long-running joke showing signs of age and neglect.
The discrepancy between train travel in the EU and the USA is like night and day. The Dutch ran a news item a few years back complaining about the unacceptable number of trains missing their scheduled departure by up to 2 minutes (!). Because their system normally works like a Swiss watch most of the time a delay means a missed connection at another station and one might have to wait up to 11-minutes for the next train (horrors!). They should do like the UK and just lengthen the time of the journey. A trip to London Paddington from Bridgend station in Wales had 12-minutes magically added to the schedule to cut down on delays and save them fine payments. So at least here one has the impression of an on-time arrival.
Neglect is evident everywhere on Amtrak but on the high speed (by US standards) Acela line between Washington, DC and Boston. At 150 mph (220 kph) the line is just a hair above the Intercity line Dutch standard. The French, German and British TGV, ICE and Eurostar trains all exceed 300 kph or 200 mph.
Amtrak though is justifiably proud of its gleaming new Acela trains. 10x per day they crisscrossing the NE corridor. Everywhere else though, as this Wall Street Journal video shows, train travel is a huge struggle. Amtrak is plagued with delays, old equipment and poor quality track beds. Also since it only owns 700-miles of trackbed and rents the thousands more it needs from freight lines, delays are often very long if weather hits or heavy freight traffic is also underway.
This takes a huge economic toll between major cities as more and more people abandon cars for alternatives (such as rail) only to find out Congress has continually slept and deferred major infrastructure projects into the next century and beyond. Linking key corridor cities (Chicago-St. Louis, San Franscisco-LA, Atlanta-Dallas, etc) with high speed rail would be a boon to travellers and give them a much greener opportunity to take the train instead of the car.
US citizens love to mock Europeans, the French in particular, but the one area where the French, Dutch, Germans and Belgians excel is public train transport. I was stuck in a snowstorm in Frankfurt Airport with bad weather at both the Hub stopover and my arrival destination (Amsterdam and Cardiff) meaning a very slim chance of getting home at all on that Saturday. After a long week spent on the road, I wanted to sleep in my own bed and instead travelled on a German ICE high speed train from Frankfurt Airport to Paris, switched to the Anglo-French Eurostar to London and took a 1st Great Western home to Cardiff (actually a station closer to home). Elapsed journey time was just under 8 hours, double the time of flying under perfect conditions and I was home.
Congress seems to be listening passing a 33% increase in the budget for Amtrak and they need 5-10x that amount just to keep up modernising existing services and connections between cities. Starting new major projects is a pipe dream.
As CEO Alex Kummant said in a Wall Street Journal Interview: “There’s two railroads out there. There’s the one we run every day, and there’s the one everybody imagines is out there.”
An E-mail comment:
True, every word of it. Well done. I hope they wake up and support expansion… There again I am a dreamer.
I am originally from London ( UK ) and now live in Gallatin. Tennessee. I have dreamed of the day, that I could ride a train here. I would accept anything. To me GNER was a dream rail company, and I know there are better ones, but that is what I was used to, accept the old steam LMS etc. during the war and into the 60’s.
This year, I had a notion to ride the Amtrak. Sad to say, the nearest rail station to Nashville, is some 250 miles from here ( Memphis or Atlanta ) This is crazy. They discontinued Amtrak in the 70’s here in Nashville.
I was faced with a drive to either of those stations, but opted for Southwest Airlines to Manchester N.H, where my sister lives. After that 3 days visit. I was excited to be finally ready to board a train. We went to Boston South Station, and after one hours wait in line, we boarded the Acela for a trip to Washington DC.
The Acela to my mind, was very comparable to GNER’s service to Edinburgh. very comfortable and a very smooth ride. The train was packed, and only once did we get anywhere near the top speed, It is still a great train, and I envy those that live in the N.E. It is slow, with many stops, but the comfort and ride is so far superior to airline travel, that I was pleasantly surprised. Only one problem. The food in the cafe, was very much like the British Rail food in the 50′. accept in this case it was microwaved.
We spent 3 days in Washington, then caught the Crescent to Birmingham Alabama. What a difference that was. It remained me of the time I was transported on a train from Deal in Kent to Lympstone in Devon, with my rifle,duffel bag and assorted military equipment.
I was not at all impressed with the Crescent. 90’s rolling stock. The bathrooms survived for a few hours, until they were unusable. The air conditioning in the car behind us and in the dining car quit !
We were nearly frozen to death ! No attempt was made to repair either. The cafe was at the end of our car, where the attendant there was totally disinterested in his job. Once again microwaved food ! Miserable guy he was.
We did find out later, that there was a /restaurant dining car. We started to go there, when one of the servers, came out to complain to the server at the cafe counter, that the air-conditioning was broken down in the restaurant, and that is was so hot in there, that she was sweating on the customers food !
We gave that place a miss.
The fares are very reasonable, considering the distance traveled. Both of our fares combined, was $210. A bargain I thought. Only one problem. We arrived in Birmingham, 4 hours late. We missed the flight back to Nashville and had to spend a night in a hotel near the airport. That ” treat ” cost me an extra $200, by the time I paid for the room, cab fare, and food !
That Doubled the cost of that trip !
I would suggest, that anyone catching a long distance train in the USA, have plan B ready to put into immediate action.
I did write to the CEO of Amtrak, and graciously, they did refund part of my unexpected expenses.
That behind us, we are now heading out in a few weeks, for our next trip by Amtrak. Once again, as there is no rail service here in Tennessee, we are forced to fly to ride the Amtrak service.
We fly from here to Chicago, then take the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles, then hop over to Vegas for a few days, back to LA, then get on the Sunset Limited, and head to New Orleans.
A 4000+ mile round trip. Hopefully all will go well, and I will have something positive to say about the experience.
Blogs like yours, are a real help, in bringing rail to the attention of the population here. Maybe one day, we will have a world class rail system here, but I’m not holding my breath…
When you have the sort of people involved in decision making, like our Governor ( Tennessee ), then I have no real hope of seeing it in my lifetime. This Governor ( Bredesen ) wants to have Magalev, from Nashville to Atlanta via Chattanooga. Billions of dollars for the system, when we don’t even have the most elementary rail service available here.
” Ours is not to reason why ” I guess
D-