I’ve just returned to the Bay Area from my trip to Florida by train, and I can report that while the US passenger rail system is, in the words of one Russian visitor whose acquaintance I made on the trip, “primitive” in comparison to that of other countries, it beats flying by miles.
Taking the train will not get you to your destination as fast as flying, at least if you’re traveling across the continent, as I was. On the other hand, that extra time is time to get valuable work done. For staying connected while traveling by train, I bought an inexpensive mobile broadband device with a monthly, no-contract plan, and had sufficient internet connection to get work done and stay in touch with friends and family. I had time and space to get up and move around. The food was excellent, and when I didn’t want to pay slightly high prices for dining car meals, I ate some of the healthy food I was able to bring aboard with me. I took two large carry-on bags and two personal items and checked three bags, and I paid no extra fees for any of my baggage. Security procedures were unobtrusive and did not threaten my health or personal privacy. All the train staff have been friendly and responsive. Train travelers are also on the whole a pleasant group of people, and I talked with a number of interesting people, some of whom have become valued friends and business connections.
I purchased a sleeper car for two nights of the trip to Florida. But on the way back, I decided to try traveling in coach the whole way. I’m glad I did—I actually had a fine experience traveling in coach. When I had a neighbor in the seat next to me, I simply slept in the sightseeing lounge with earplugs and a blindfold, and when I didn’t, I found stretching out diagonally across two seats almost as comfortable as a bed. For comfort, even first-class airline seats can’t match the roominess of coach seats on a train, and being able to move freely about the train for the entire journey is a real benefit for me. If you do choose to get a sleeper, your meals are paid for and you have access to showers on the train. It’s worth getting a sleeper if you absolutely need to lie flat to sleep, or if you really want full privacy.
On a train, you see the country in a way you can’t from the window of a plane. Not only do you have the experience of traveling through the landscape rather than looking at it like a Google satellite photo, but you can get out at stations across the country and take photos, take a smoke break if you’re a smoker, or just stretch your legs and do yoga. We also had historical guides traveling with us who described the history of the land as we traveled over the Sierra Nevada range.
Traveling by air is truly unsustainable. We simply can’t support a nation of business and leisure travelers dependent on consuming the shocking amounts of our limited fossil fuel energy required to lift a metal box thirty five thousand feet into the air and propel it across the country in a few hours. Passenger trains are usually much more efficient, even though our outdated trains tend to depend on diesel, and they could be lower impact and more pleasant still if some of the money we spend subsidizing our dying system of air travel and keeping up an unnecessarily cumbersome highway system were only redirected to modernizing our trains. More and more workers will no doubt use telecommuting for business instead of flying to meetings, and more and more travelers should try taking the train.
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I made this same journey in December! — over 5,000 miles round trip, all coach, getting off in Palatka, Florida to be be with my fading parents for a month. Agreed on all points, a very good description. Here is a slide show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nN7SsXwMUM
trains! better for sure.
I believe that Amtrak trains do consume more energy per passenger distance than the average commercial airplane, though. so in that one respect, trains are a bit less efficient than airplanes. the fuel consumed per passenger time, though, is a whole lot higher for airplanes. so the real trouble with airplanes is that they are so very fast that traveling huge distances regularly has come to seem entirely reasonable to a large number of folks.
Pretty much everything I was researching stated that trains, even the Amtrak ones, create less CO2 emissions per passenger mile. Admittedly not as MUCH less as they could if they were modernized, and their efficiency in part stems from the fact that a full Amtrak train can carry more people than a full 747 (if I’m not mistaken). That’s problematic because planes are almost always full and trains rarely are (mine was for most of the journey). But I’d be happy to see your numbers.
I really enjoyed Amtrakking it around the US (quite a) few years ago. But it’s interesting that it’s still enjoyable for those not just on a leisurely holiday. Certainly our experience then was there were endless delays, the train sitting still for hours and hours after being diverted to make way for cargo trains, etc. We were going from large city to large city, but I did feel sorry for the people getting on at smaller stations midway along in the middle of the night, whose train was 4 or 5 hours delayed.
This is about a million miles away from any long distance train trip I’ve taken in the EU or in Japan. It was a wonderful trip, but I can see why anyone with a stricter timetable or doing the trip for work would not find it a good alternative to flying. Frankly, even if I was on a shorter holiday, I’d probably have felt annoyed at the time cutting into my annual leave, etc.
it was the wikipedia. put Amtrak trains at 1.9 MJ/passenger-km in 2005 and passenger airplanes at 1.4 MJ/passenger-km in 1998 (MJ is megajoules). not exactly an authoritative source. and it was all about the number of passengers. I’ve only ever been on one Amtrak train that was even close to capacity.
anyway, the current push for high-speed rail in this country has me a little bit concerned. with careful design and high ridership, trains can be very energy efficient, but energy efficiency isn’t the only issue. and I can think of quite a few better projects those resources could be used for.
Living in the Northeast, I’m lucky to have access to the comparatively fast Acela corridor. My Mom worked in transportation for years, and was always frustrated at the entrenched ideological opposition to transit.
I travel Amtrak cross-country about once a year and love it, although by the time I get to Vermont from Northern CA 5 days later, I am very happy to be on solid ground. Most of the delays mentioned above are because Amtrak does not own the tracks it uses and must defer to freight trains, even if the freight train is off schedule. I treat my train trips like camping trips. I bring food, a pillow and blanket and lots of reading material, as I have been taking the same trip for 10 years. I do have parts of the country that I must see each time, however, such as the mountains and canyons in Colorado. I do wish that Amtrak had the domestic equivalent of Eurorail passes (there are passes, but only for people from out of the country), because it would be wonderful to be able to visit multiple friends on a round trip.
I think that high-speed rail should be a priority for the USA and other countries too.
I travel to the USA regularly, however I live in the UK near the new high-speed train station in Ebbsfleet, Kent. This CO2 calculator demonstrates how much you can save in CO2, almost ten times compared with short haul flights.
Investmest could be gained with commercial companies willing to gain from the geo-locations of new railway stations, similar to the UK. Train travel will save money for the country in expensive short haul flights and provide better transport for the future generations.