I looked at the next train they were selling a ticket, which was the closest I could come to the flexibility you get on a £182 ($240) London to Glasgow ticket that came close to the "$300" mentioned by the OP.

I've checked again for tomorrow morning, $295. Perhaps I'm using the site wrong: https://imgur.com/TnuOGt3

295/226 is $1.30 per mile.

I'm ignoring the slower trains, non flexibile, booking in advance etc, as that wasn't what was raised. There are slower options for London-Glasgow that are nowhere near the full price (for example £57 tomorrow morning if you go via Edinburgh - saving £130).

I've just checked my emails - last time I took this train (albeit from NY to Washington), in March 2013, it was $498 for 2 tickets - $249 each.

This is for a far less flexible ticket than I get in the UK. For my $240 I can travel London to Birmingham, have the day there, and then continue to Manchester, have a meal and stay in a hotel overnight, then get a train from Manchester to Glasgow the next morning.

Washington to New York is half the distance, and nearly twice the price, as London to Glasgow.

> I've just checked my emails - last time I took this train (albeit from NY to Washington), in March 2013, it was $498 for 2 tickets - $249 each.

That price is far from typical for this service. The prices I quoted are what I just pulled off amtrak.com for a Friday NY-DC train on 12JAN18. A couple months ago I purchased a ticket from Fredericksburg (south of DC) to NY with only a few days in advance for only $130. Thee ten-trip option my sibling poster mentioned gives you the same flexibility you mention there. Please do not base your idea of the cost of rail travel in the NE US based on one very overpriced trip.

Edit:

Just saw your screenshot. That $295 is for the Acela (which is premium service). I just ran the same search, and midday trains are running about $152 for the NER and $168 for the Acela. The one you chose is literally the most expensive non-first class ticket you could book tomorrow.

If I was going at midday I'd get a $80 London to Glasgow ticket. The comparison was as close as possible to the fully flexible any train any time Glasgow/Euston high speed route that sitepodmatt brought up. It's still not as flexible as a UK train - you can't stop off in Phillidelphia for a few hours on your way you New York for example, can you even buy a ticket 5 minutes before the train leaves on that train?

I still don't see his $300 ticket, the only thing I can think of is that he's looking at a return ticket, but then that doubles the price on the Accela.

I was about to chime in similarly; a ten-ride ticket for NYP->POU is $0.38 per mile and you can take any train without reservations; an off-peak MTA ticket for the same leg costs $0.21 per mile. $1.14 per mile sounds high.

Those prices are a bit high for typical UK season tickets. 85 miles Poughkeepsie to NY 90 minutes, similar distance + time and number of trains per day to Salisbury to London (88 miles). A weekly season there (so 10 trips) will set you back £131, or $175, 20c/mile, half the price of Poughkeepsie to New York.

$0.38 / mile is the long-distance rail (Amtrak); the commuter rail line is $0.20 / mile (off-peak 10-ride or 10 rides on a weekly pass anytime).

"a ten-ride ticket for NYP->POU is $0.38 per mile"

I'm only going on what you said.

MTA.info says this ride is 247.50 for a 10 trip ticket, with a trip of 85 miles that would be 247.50 for 850 miles, or 30c/mile.

From what I can see when doing a like-for-like comparison between the UK and the northeast US, the US is surprisingly pricier than the UK.

Now to be fare the Salisbury weekly season is valid for 10 journeys (or even 40), but only over 7 days, where as the Poughkeepsie one is a carnet, you can do 3 days one week, 2 days the next, and that's better, but for the Monday-to-Friday person, I'd rather be paying the Salisbury-London fare than the Poughkeepsie-NYC fare. (I'd rather be going into NYC, just without the fare)

NYP is New York Penn Station, the Amtrak station. Metro North leaves New York out of Grand Central Terminal. Sorry; the phrasing, while unambiguous to someone commuting from the Hudson Valley, was definitely confusing to most everyone else.

Metro North also sells a weekly pass for $166.75. Unlimited rides during a calendar week. The 10-ride ticket has two prices, for peak and off-peak. Peak-hour 10-ride is $247.50, as you said; off-peak is $157.25.

Very few people actually buy a weekly pass on Metro North; either you are commuting infrequently (eg, weekend commutes) in which case you want a 10-ride ticket, or you are commuting daily, in which case you want a monthly ticket. A monthly pass between Poughkeepsie and GCT is $521. If you commute 20 days per calendar month, your per-mile cost is $0.16 / mile.

(Metro North fare information here: http://web.mta.info/mnr/html/planning/faresMar2017/hhfares_m...)

Actually, since there is confusion, going back to the very beginning --

For the train route I myself am familiar with, the line between New York and Poughkeepsie, two different train systems serve the route, Amtrak (the company that does the nation-wide train service in the United States) and Metro North, a commuter-rail line associated with New York's MTA, via their Hudson Line.

I started with the Amtrak costs because the New York <-> DC train is an Amtrak train; most daily commuters will be using the Metro North, as it is cheaper.