All Eyes on Amtrak

The private sector screwing up the rail system so bad, is the whole reason we have Amtrak. Google "Rail Passenger Service Act" ...(With 15 Billion dollar bailouts by our government to the airlines, might as well rename the airlines to AmAir...)

Great article however, Amtrak and the US has a long way to go to make it a true alternative. I recently investigate using Amtrak for a family vacation to the Chicago area. From NYC to Chicago it is approximately a nineteen-hour train ride Vs. a twelve-hour ride by car or a three-hour flight. The system needs to be upgraded, more convenient, and better managed before it is a real solution to the current problem.

My mom and aunt are planning a trip to visit me in Florida from Mass. My aunt suggested looking into Amtrak as a less expensive alternative due to the high cost of fuel raising airline prices. HA! Fat chance of that! They wanted $700 EACH and it would take them 23 hours to get there, provided there were no delays and judging by Amtrak's reputation as pointed out by one of the other posters, 23 hours is a long shot. Meanwhile, I'm finding them tickets for a total cost with taxes and fees for both of them under $700.

My grandmother and friends did use Amtrak recently but it was for a short 1-hour trip and given that they're all in their early 90s and didn't want to drive that far, it worked well for them and was inexpensive but Amtrak cannot compete with the airlines for longer trips.

I find it hilarious and also pathetic that he was threatened with arrest for filming a piece that would theoretically make riding the train look like a nice alternative to driving. Well at least we're fighting them over there instead of in the dining car of the Acela.

We have found Amtrak to be very reasonable in price and luxery. We live where we have very few options to mass transit, we are 250 miles from an airport and 30 miles from a train. Yes due to many factors out of Amtraks hands, they are not always on time, but then again when was the last time an airplane was on time. If Amtrak was available in my area for mass trainsit, I would use it. We travel amtrak for vacations and have found them to be way better and cheaper than driving. The employees are wonderful, the train is great and each trip is an adventure. We started riding two years ago and will continue for many years. Why? The price of gas and the new airline rules and airline hassles.

My earlier message addressed factual errors included in this news story, and the inability for reporters to provide an accurate analysis of passenger rail service. I mentioned that my corrections would not (probably) change the opinion of many who read this article. Indeed, the ignorance of the public always reveals itself in the blogposts that follow. For example, The point of this article is many, many people are riding Amtrak and the real question is why, or what's behind this. This is an important question because there may be a significant change in the way the public is getting around. However, the last to posters make a comment whicm may be important to them, but is extraordinarily irrelevant,. And this happens quite often in discussions about Amtrak. For example morning mom raises the issue of ticket prices (makes her point but does not mention that Amtrak offers two for one tickets for weeks on end, and, the average non-discounted ticket fare averages $.12-$.18 cents a mile. The new federal mileage rate for auto is a little over $.50 a mile. So comparatively speaking is Amtrak that expensive. My wife needed to go to a funeral an we checked tcket prices: S. Louis to Minneapolis on every Orbitz-Expedia site ranged from $695-$1750 dollars. So is Amtrak that expensive. And then Freddie 69 joins the discussion and once again digresses from the subject of more people are riding Amtrak. Freddie talks about the travel time; FREDDIE, that's not the issue here. If you want to compare travel times let's talk also about daily airline delays, and cancellations, and roadway closings due to construction or when there is an accident an entire interstate is closed down for 7 hours.

My earlier message addressed factual errors included in this news story, and the inability for reporters to provide an accurate analysis of passenger rail service. I mentioned that my corrections would not (probably) change the opinion of many who read this article. Indeed, the ignorance of the public always reveals itself in the blogposts that follow. For example, The point of this article is many, many people are riding Amtrak and the real question is why, or what's behind this. This is an important question because there may be a significant change in the way the public is getting around. However, the last to posters make a comment whicm may be important to them, but is extraordinarily irrelevant,. And this happens quite often in discussions about Amtrak. For example morning mom raises the issue of ticket prices (makes her point but does not mention that Amtrak offers two for one tickets for weeks on end, and, the average non-discounted ticket fare averages $.12-$.18 cents a mile. The new federal mileage rate for auto is a little over $.50 a mile. So comparatively speaking is Amtrak that expensive. My wife needed to go to a funeral an we checked tcket prices: S. Louis to Minneapolis on every Orbitz-Expedia site ranged from $695-$1750 dollars. So is Amtrak that expensive. And then Freddie 69 joins the discussion and once again digresses from the subject of more people are riding Amtrak. Freddie talks about the travel time; FREDDIE, that's not the issue here. If you want to compare travel times let's talk also about daily airline delays, and cancellations, and roadway closings due to construction or when there is an accident an entire interstate is closed down for 7 hours.

I actually find their prices to be very high. Especailly for a cross country trip. 2-3 days is a little much for the amount they are charging.

This article has several factual errors. Although this will not change the opinion of many readers, nor result in a correction by Newsweek, I will mention one: Amtrak's current annual budget is just under 1.3 billion not 2 billion. The federal investment and improvement act which is pending will increase funding to about 1.9 billion (Newsweek probably got confused and switched the numbers, thus the 2 billion figure cited in the article).

It would be very nice for a writer or reporter to report on Amtrak in a rational and unbiased way, and get the facts and figures correct. Indeed, there is a seeming contradiction in comparing Amtrak to the admiral qualities of European and Asian rail, and then say that Amtrak should be privatized. The rail systems in these other countries are not private, indeed they are government run. And they all lose money, except in China.

Amtrak's prices are not all that high. They average out at around $0.12 a mile. The concept of private operation is a legacy of the Nixon administration who created Amtrak t o be a pall bearer for the nation's passenger railroads. In 1967, the federal government removed Mail/Express contracts that sent marginally profitable routes deep in the red. Intent on serving only lucrative freight customers, the railroads asked for a solution to ICC orders not to discontinue routes. The got it. The result was the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. If private enterprise could not make a profit why should Amtrak have been strangled with a higher standard? Why hold Amtrak to a different standard than our extensive US Interstate Highway network or government support of aviation safety, security, and navigation?