Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of U.S. train travel

Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by ghaff on Sunday April 25, 2021 @03:25PM (#26935734)

Yep. Basically the Northeast Corridor is a pretty profitable route. In part, this is because the Acela is basically priced as high as it can be while remaining competitive with air. Business travelers generally pay it because it's a bit more comfortable, a bit faster, and there are fewer plebes than the non-Acela option. Oh, and it's not their money. (And it is competitive with air depending upon your preferences.)

To be honest, when it's my own money I usually just take the regular regional train. It's about half the price and because it can piggyback off the electrification done for Acela, it takes less than an hour more.

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by benatkin on Sunday April 25, 2021 @04:43PM (#26936492)

Agree. It's 30 more minutes to read or something and 30 less minutes at my destination.

On other routes being slow is a massive liability though. If people could get from San Francisco to Portland in 10 hours, or even 12 hours, instead of 18 hours, it would be much more practical. At 18 hours it messes up your sleep schedule rather than just giving you more time to read.

It might just not be worth it to spend more on rail travel from Portland to SF though. It's just a reality of geography rather than somebody's mistake that travel from SF to Portland is harder than travel from DC to NYC.

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