[pm24601]

Sure it makes sense to fund long-distance railroads!

Even today, most passengers on Amtrak are NOT riding end-to-end. They are riding between Utah and Nebraska; Or between South Carolina and Vermont; Or Boston to Connecticut.

On the California Zephyr - a coach seat is sold 2-3x times for different segments of the same journey.

[mercutio2]

I’m a huge fan of passenger rail, and I have a soft spot in my heart for the cross country Amtrak trains, having ridden them frequently in my twenties. But I don’t think you offered evidence that it makes sense to fund Amtrak.

Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue).

Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains. Buses are just lower status in the USA, which I think is a pretty silly reason to keep subsidizing Amtrak’s cross country routes.

[pm24601]

> Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue).

How much money does the interstate highway system make? Yet we keep funding that for some reason. How much money does you local streets make ?

And before you pull out the "completely different card" remember that both rail and highways serve the exact same societal need: Moving goods and humans from one place to another. We stick humans/goods in a box with wheels and roll them to their destination.

Explain why the box rolling on asphalt should be subsidized but the box rolling on steel should not?

> Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains

I don't believe you have ever taken a bus long distances. I have. Its like being stuck in an airplane. The long distance busses in Thailand are o.k. However you are still glued to your seat in a way that is not true for trains.

[mercutio2]

I specifically said comfortable buses. I most certainly have taken long distance buses that were not comfortable.

Train focused people need to get over themselves on the highway system. That is what path dependency is. Of course, as a train loving person, I wish the automobile industry hadn’t played so many dirty tricks to get us to an investment posture that makes passenger rail irrelevant, but pretending it’s not so doesn’t help.

Pretending that Americans aren’t happy to pay (whether through gas taxes or the occasional new-construction-over-maintenance boondoggle) for highways and local roads is a fantasy.

Americans, on average, don’t like trains. My wife, specifically, refuses to let us travel by train anymore, she hates them. It’s very sad for me, but my wife’s perspective is shared by the vast majority of Americans. They like cars. They like airplanes. They don’t like trains.

[pm24601]

And there are lots of Americans who DO prefer trains over cars.

Please don't be so broad brush in your statements.

WRT your wife - go to Europe and ride the trains there. Recently I went to Spain. In Spain even the ratty commuter train traveled at 90+ mph.

Ride the TGV or AVE train. Those are quick and comfortable.

If at that point she still feels the way she does fine. But "Americans don't like trains" is a statement that is not correct. On the east coast, Americans use the trains a lot

A much better statement is "Americans don't like an uncomfortable experience"

BTW: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

And in San Francisco Area, Caltrain is electrifying precisely because people love the train so much. Caltrain needs extra capacity and the only way to get that capacity is with electrification. Plenty of Americans seem to like Caltrain. Plenty of Californians are ready to use the HSR project when segments open up.

[mercutio2]

My wife’s interurban train experiences consist exclusively of trains between German and Japanese cities. She doesn’t like them. It’s not a great look to spend your time telling people that they’re insufficiently cosmopolitan because their preferences differ from yours.

The vast majority of Americans, when polled, don’t like the idea of taking a train between two cities. I say this as a card carrying member of NARP (they seem to have rebranded themselves RPA, but whatever)!

I just don’t think rail partisans are practicing effective politics by pretending that current US voters support tax expenditure’s on rail.

The average California voter might, just barely, be in favor of interurban rail. I think the jury’s still out on that one, because the actual money that’s been approved by voter’s in Prop 1A is so vastly insufficient to the task, but I agree that at least in California, there’s enough popular support to at least try to make a go of a decent modern train system.

[pm24601]

Well you are the person who started things off with Americans don't like trains.