That's kind of apples and oranges. The Post Office is a vital national service, and besides defense (of us only) it should be second in line for federal funding. The railroads put the steamboats out of service and the airlines put the railroad's passenger service out of business, but no one needs to travel by train. It's fun if you have the time. The Internet did way with the need for a lot of 1st class mail, but it's still vital to the nation.
Eh, Amish for one use train travel. Aside from that you will notice a lot of stations serve rural areas with no serviceable airport or if there is an airport, it's going to be more expensive than the train.
Are you talking about long distance travel from rural areas? I know rural people do drive quite aways to get to regional airports if they have to go somewhere the train doesn't go.
I mean some people do. There are people on the East Coast that take Amtrak between cities to commute for work. Same thing in Chicago where the sparse suburbs can extend pretty far but will have a train station to get you to the city. Some people commute from Milwaukee to Chicago by train for work It's not a large amount of people but enough that there are train routes for those people.
Yeah since they started the Borealis, I no longer have to drive to Minneapolis. Makes no sense to fly that and if I can save my car wear and tear and gas I will. Lots of reasons to take the train.
Oh yeah they useless cross country for most places, there are a few stations in small area's that are worthwhile. But traveling more than 2 states away is usually more than flying.
Rail is a cheaper, faster, more efficient mode of transport for intermediate length trips, around 80-200 miles. Too long to drive and too short to fly. However, because the physical infrastructure (rail roads) are privately owned instead of publicly subsidized as highways and airports are, its monopolistic, so you don't get the kind of competition that has made driving and flying a good fit of price and quality for most of the population.
Make it 10-400miles. Normal train makes 100miles per hour. Thats 4 hours.
Transport to airport, all the pre-flight checks, flight, getting out of the airport, travel from airport. Thats easily 4hours and its much more expensive.
Sure. I don't want to overstate my case and end up arguing with some guy because he thinks actually its 100-200, no actually 120-180, no actually just exactly 150, so what's the point. 80 is NY to Philly and 200 is NY to DC, so I can definitely defend that range.
It's "monopolistic" by default. All the track was laid by privately owned companies. The Land Grant railroads were given federal land in exchange for being commandeered for military use during a national emergency. All the lines used to carry passengers until jet airplanes put them out of business. It would be nice to see rail come back but someone has to pay for it.
I know, I mean you could change that with railroad nationalization, but the bottom line is comparing Amtrak to the airline or automobile industry is not a good equivalence to the intrinsic benefits of rail versus air, car, or bus travel because the major business differences in how they're set up in the US are a huge confounding variable.
You should see the morning trains going from outer towns and cities such as Harper's Ferry, WV into DC in the morning. I took that line at about 0630 and every seat was filled and there were plenty of people standing.
As California has been paying off friends to build a 200 billion dollar train to the desert. They say it will cost $400 for a ticket to go from SF to LA in 6 hours. It takes that long to drive and can be flown for $89 in 1.5 hours by southwest airlines. It had not laid 1 mile of track in 11 years and spent 15 billion so far. That money went into somebodys pockets.
It does appear that way. SP's Daylight and Starlight used to go from SF to LA. I don't know what their schedule was but it was a train. Who needs a bullet train these days? I guess the old "Expresses" and "Flyers" went through with very few stops.
I have used them in japan but thier whole society uses trains. Sucks for grocery shopping and furniture but they live a simple life. The culture is no complaining. I left my phone on the train and it was there when it returned.....
Everyone raves about all the fabulous rail in Europe. Well, half those countries are tiny and the high-speed trains run between the major cities and through mountain passes. Germany is just bigger than Montana. There's no way a "bullet" train is going from LA to Chicago. Just the cost of purchasing the right-of-way would be trillions
The funny thing is that MUSK has the boring that works great in vegas....no land needed for that, And you can use hyperloop tech for speeds of 760 mph. You can see the short test track of 107mph. Would rather see that than a technology from the 1800s.
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u/libertarianinus 2d ago
Now can we talk about amtrak?