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Why is travel by rail so f'n expensive?
- Thread starter SunnyD
- Start date
ViviTheMage
Lifer
rail is SUPER cheap in Europe, well so is airfare actually ^_^... where are you trying to travel to/from?
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Point A to Point B in the US. Doesn't really matter where, it's at least 2x the cost of airfare. I looked into it before and it was no better then either. And the fact that it takes some 3-4x longer than driving is stupid too.
You'd think that with the rail infrastructure having been in existence for some 200 years, it would have paid for itself many times over even with maintenance. I guess this is why Amtrak needs to be bailed out repeatedly and federally subsidized.
acheron
Diamond Member
I've done that a few times, and it's nice, but even there I can get a roundtrip flight from Dulles to Logan on Jetblue for half the price of round-trip Acela, and even cheaper than roundtrip NE Regional (same route non-Acela)... I just priced it out since I'm doing that next week.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
...because the gvt doesn't give a flip about rail service. Passenger rail is very useful, but not very profitable outside of densely populated areas....
I miss the Amtrak station we used to have. (got shut down years back)
I miss the Amtrak station we used to have. (got shut down years back)
HardcoreRobot
Lifer
bc govt subsidies have encouraged inferior business practices to succeed
Brainonska511
Lifer
Off the top of my head, a couple problems with US Rail:
1) In most of the country, Amtrak does not own the rails, so they must work out deals with the rail companies that do own them. They also go slower because of that in some parts because of the heavy freight traffic.
2) The parts where Amtrak does own rails are not kept up well. For example, the NE corridor: the rail bed is deteriorated and the curves are too sharp for the Acela to go full speed the entire distance.
3) More popular lines are subsidizing lines that need to die off. Intercity-high speed rail links are good and can make money (<500 miles apart). Passenger rail greater than that distance doesn't make much sense.
1) In most of the country, Amtrak does not own the rails, so they must work out deals with the rail companies that do own them. They also go slower because of that in some parts because of the heavy freight traffic.
2) The parts where Amtrak does own rails are not kept up well. For example, the NE corridor: the rail bed is deteriorated and the curves are too sharp for the Acela to go full speed the entire distance.
3) More popular lines are subsidizing lines that need to die off. Intercity-high speed rail links are good and can make money (<500 miles apart). Passenger rail greater than that distance doesn't make much sense.
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Let's put it this way - my wife and kids are going to visit family in a couple months. I don't really want her to have to drive even though it would just about be the cheapest option.
900 miles, ~6 tanks of gas, food stops, 1 hotel stop in either direction (if not two), and about 20 hours of bliss in the car with the kids. That would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 to pay for that hell.
Airfare - cheapest fare I've found so far with taxes and fees comes out to about $700 for all of them, round trip.
Rail - this is a laugh: $588/adult and $450/child, ONE WAY. That would mean about $2200 round trip, and only leave about 2 days at their destination before hopping on the train to come back.
900 miles, ~6 tanks of gas, food stops, 1 hotel stop in either direction (if not two), and about 20 hours of bliss in the car with the kids. That would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 to pay for that hell.
Airfare - cheapest fare I've found so far with taxes and fees comes out to about $700 for all of them, round trip.
Rail - this is a laugh: $588/adult and $450/child, ONE WAY. That would mean about $2200 round trip, and only leave about 2 days at their destination before hopping on the train to come back.
Suspicious-Teach8788
Lifer
It's not THAT expensive. $28 from Sac to San Jose. Ok, it's expensive, but it's not 2x airfare. SF/SJ to LA is not more than airfare unless you get Southwest's like $49 deal or something.
The justification is that it's a RAIL vs. CAR thing. So if you're paying $4/gallon to drive 100 miles, they believe they can charge you 100 miles / 20mpg = 5 gal * 4 = $20. To make rail sound cool they charge you $18 and show that you save versus driving. Any carpooling makes rail look like shit. And of course for subways like BART they can charge you like $4 for going Oakland to SF when it's really a 5 mile journey, but because you pay $4 toll, they show that you're saving because you're not paying for gas. Pathetic?
Public transportation in the US is just terrible. Fuck Amtrak. If they can make HSR in CA for $55, then great, but I highly doubt it's gonna be something people hop on everyday like metro systems around the world because I bet they will charge an arm and a leg for me to go SJ to SF.
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