[juliangregorian]

How much do you actually take NY area commuter rail or Bos-NY-Wash corridor trains? It sounds comparable to what you describe.

[rattray]

I just did a quick search on Amtrak - NYC-BOS is at least $100, and takes around 4 hours. It's a similar story going to DC ($80-$250, 3-4h).

[juliangregorian]

Boston is almost 3 times as far from NY as Beijing is from Tianjin. Trenton, on the other hand, can be gotten to in under an hour and for $40. I just did a quick search and found that the Beijing-Tianjin fare is actually about $15, not $6.

So it does seem on paper that China has Amtrak beat by an economic factor of 2-3x, but this is also before you factor in local purchasing parity and so on.

Let's at least compare apples to apples, though.