[beatgammit]

They should be dropping prices, not raising them, at least for longer trips. It costs about the same to take Amtrak vs an airplane for a direct connection 750 miles away, which is ridiculous because it should be far cheaper to run a train at 60mph than an airplane at 400+mph per passenger, and trains can carry far more people than airplanes. They also need to be way faster (120mph at least, ideally faster than that) to be a reasonable alternative to airlines.

The only way Amtrak gets to raise rates is if it drastically improves service.

[bluGill]

Trains need infrastructure all 750 miles of that trip. Airplanes need infrastructure only at each end of the trip. Thus airplanes are cheaper to run very long distances.