On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:32:10AM -0800, Marshall Clow wrote: > 3) Train - about 17 hours - $130 round trip. > > Help me out here - why would I take the train?
Recently I went from DC to SF. It took about five hours of flight time each way on JetBlue, which sells round-trip direct tickets for $200. It was very pleasant. I could take the train next time. Amtrak assures me that I could leave on Jan 30 and arrive on Feb 2 -- three full days of traveling, with switching trains in New York and Chicago. Oh, I couldn't actually find a train to SF (Amtrak says no service), so that'll only get me as far as LA. And it's more expensive. Obviously, as has been previously mentioned in this thread, in dense urban areas trains can make sense. It's often faster for me to take the Metro Red line into downtown, especially during rush hour. But expressed as a percentage of geography, dense urban areas are a very, very small portion of the country. And me that if trains make sense, there's no obvious reason to me why they must be subsidized. -Declan
