[AnimalMuppet]

Why is that a no-brainer? In Seattle, first you have to get to the airport. Sea-Tac isn't exactly in Seattle. Depending on where you're coming from, King Street may be easier to reach.

Then there's the bit about arriving at the airport 2 hours before, in order to pass through security. Yeah, you can probably cheat on the two hours, depending on how long security lines tend to be at Sea-Tac. Still, it's a chunk of time you don't have to spend when you take the train.

Roll all that together, and I'm not sure that the train is much slower. And it costs less, and the scenery is better. So from where I sit, it doesn't look like a no-brainer at all.

Have I missed something?

[mikey_p]

One major downside is that the schedule is very unpredictable between Portland and Seattle, due to right of way being preempted by freight traffic. It's not uncommon to have to pull into a siding and sit for 10-20 minutes several times.

That said the comfort between train and air travel is night and day, you get much more space, plenty of outlets, room to get up and move around, purchase food and drinks, even if the food is worse than airline food.

[selimthegrim]

On the east coast Amtrak is doing this thing where they pull the dining cars off of long distance trains and have snack cars only and offer lower roomette fares in return. Reviews are mixed.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

The food is worse than airline food? Wow. Is that even possible?

[lostapathy]

How can the food be worse than airline food? I haven’t been on a flight in years that had anything other than prepackaged snacks available at any price.

[Symbiote]

I have eaten one Amtrak meal.

It was a burger in a plastic wrap, which was microwaved to heat it.

I've had bad airline food, like British Airways ten years back, and food from British trains, but Amtrak's offering was easily the worst. Hopefully they've improved by now.

The best meal was on a Swiss train (in Germany). That was also the cheapest Swiss food I've ever had.

[rayiner]

> Have I missed something?

Yes. Sitting for hours at the Amtrak station waiting for a delayed train to arrive.

[moorhosj]

Have you never taxied at an airport waiting for a gate to open or had a flight delayed/cancelled?

[rayiner]

That's relatively rare on routine domestic flights compared to Amtrak outside the NEC. To pick a completely random data point: there were 5 trains between Seattle and Portland yesterday. 501 Cascades left 2 hours and 48 minutes late. 517 Cascades left 1 hour and 18 minutes late.

Day before yesterday was better. The 501 was only 22 minutes late, but arrived 44 minutes late. The 517 left 10 minutes late and arrived 34 minutes late. The 507 left 10 minutes late and arrived 28 minutes late.

But Monday was worse again. The 501 left 26 minutes late, arriving 21 minutes late. The 11 Coast Starlight left 58 minutes late, arriving an hour and 20 minutes late. And the 517 Cascades left 39 minutes late, arriving 56 minutes late.

I can't remember the last time I had a routine flight between nearby cities delayed.

[moorhosj]

==I can't remember the last time I had a routine flight between nearby cities delayed. ==

My brother-in-law had a flight from Chicago to Cincinnati (1h and 15min flight time) cancelled on Friday. Shorter flights don't gain as much altitude and tend to use smaller planes so they are more impacted by weather.

More broadly, through November, flights have been on-time 78.7% of the time in 2018 [1]. Keep in mind that on-time can still be as much as 15 minutes late.

[1] https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/reso...

[OldHand2018]

> Yes. Sitting for hours at the Amtrak station waiting for a delayed train to arrive.

That really depends on where you are. You could do a lot worse than waiting for a train in Chicago [1] [2]. Amtrak sold development rights to a parking structure across the street from Union Station and got a boatload of money, which they are spending on upgrades and restoration, including a 400-room luxury hotel on the roof of Union Station that will give them a nice continuous revenue stream to continue developing rail projects.

[1] https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/6/24/12024162/chicago-transp... [2] https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/11/28/13764122/chicago-archi...