What the fuck is wrong with these mongoloid slackers? They completely underschedule longhaul trains everywhere outside the NEC so almost no one can use them for shorter trips and then wonder why ridership is in the shitter. Each route should be minimum 3x a day per direction.
NEC here, I don't know that feel
>>1992027I see both sides of it in Seattle. The Sounder regional trains are great up to Vancouver and down to Eugene. Then there's the Empire Bungler.>want to go to Spokane>check train schedules>one (1) train each way per day>depart 4:55pm>arrive 12:37am>after all the hotel checkin desks are closed>fuck you unless you've got family nearbyIt's not like there's no demand, they run BUSES from Seattle to Spokane and back, but they can't manage more trains per day because ______?
>>1992029>but they can't manage more trains per day because ______?they don't have the moneythe answer to pretty much every question about amtrak is "they are chronically underfunded"
>>1992023Yesterday I called amtrak customer service to change my ticket because the website kept crashing. The hold music was RnB and a sassy black lady picked up. Truly an american institution.
>>1992160The Civil Rights Act / EEOC creates an effect I call the Shaneequa Event Horizon, where because sassy black women are impossible to "out diversity" (because they vote 96% for Democrats) any federal agency will eventually fill up with them until the agency fails at its core responsibilities and they get outsourced. If this happened to Amtrak and passenger rail got deregulated we'd see a 10x in available trains.
>>1992161If passenger rail got deregulated it would become a shitshow like every other deregulated industry that immediately cuts corners for profit see also Boeing and their ```airplanes'''.
>>1992023is commuting via the hiawatha service at all reasonable or worth it? I want to avoid living in Chicago and Milwaukee seems comfy
>>1992161I don't think there's another board where people are this committed to blaming anything and everything on minorities. Pinch flat? The jews did this. Train delay? Pajeets. Plane crash? It was trannies. Shipwreck? The blacks. Crosstheaded the pedals on your dumpster dive OTS? The blacks again.Granted I only go on /g/, /ck/, /lgbt/, and /n/. Maybe that's not a full cross section.
>>1993792That's not what deregulations mean.
>>1993794Spending 3 hours a day commuting would probably suck, but it’s doable, the schedules line up with commute times; you get into Chicago at 7:24 AM and leave at either 5 or 8 PM. It would drain your wallet a bit tho, it’s about $50 a day, so a hybrid position where you only go in a couple days or once a week would be ideal.
>>1993794That's still a 90 minute to hour long commute from Milwaukee to Chicago, assuming the train hits exactly when you need it to.
>>1992023>>1992029>>1992151there is zero demand. amtrak doesn't make money because no one wants to take 6 times as long to get somewhere as it would take to drive
>>1993927every time frequency on an amtrak service is improved ridership goes up>>1993796/n/ is normally level-headed but there's been an influx of /pol/faggots latelyultra-election tourist ones, too
>>1993946enough to offset the costs? amtrak is perpetually in debt
>>1993903$50 a day sounds brutal, does Amtrak not offer a commuter pass?>>1993912yeah but I don't mind 90 minutes on a train, the real issue is reliability. I'd hate to get stuck in Chicago without a car.
>>1994042What a cute femboy, giwtwm
>>1994024why does everyone expect amtrak to run a profit when they don't own the property around their stations? Do we expect tolls to be profitable too?HK's MTR and Japan's JR are both only profitable because they own the valuable real estate around the stations. if Amtrak could leverage the same they'd be making billions
>>1994046because what is the point of a train that takes 12 times longer to get somewhere than driving does if it is also going to be a money sink on the tax payers?
>>1994046>JRBuilt by the government then privatized>if Amtrak could leverage the sameDoubt they're legally permitted to and even if they could, the chance to buy cheap land remotely close to city centers disappeared decades ago
How is Amtrak going to get the line reservations when they're competing with coal and bulk commodities for rail time?
>>1992023Long-haul routes are kind of a special thing, like preserving a traditional way of travel without too much practical use.But they could just run a bunch of regional lines between major cities more frequently, maybe buy some smaller DMUs for that. I'm talking journeys that are maybe up to 4-5 hours, start with two or three trains a day. That wouldn't be very expensive and it might get people to use trains more regularly. They could also work as feeders for the longer lines.
>>1992023Americans like their cars.
>>1995958Americans like trains, too.
>>1995958Americans turned to cars because trains went to shit
Fucking Amtrak gave my bike away to someone else from the luggage car. If I was able to lock it myself, or stay with it in the disabled wheelchair area, I'd still have it. But, nope, it's against their policies. But at least the train was on time. Fucktards.
>>1999706I think you have the causality reversed there.
>>1993946good
>>1993927the train from vancouver (canada) to seattle is only twice as long as driving. new york to DC is one hour longer. if these trains had proper speed of something even close to the slowest HSR in europe then the time would be about the same, far less if they were actually HSR. the demand isn't there because the infrastructure is shit, it shows that ridership is so good on brightline FL because it goes at a reasonable speed and provides a good service.
>>1992027It's nice living near the only function stretch of American rail infrastructure and mostly only needing to take trips near it.
>>1992023they're underscheduled because congress won't pay for them, live in a communist state like I do and you get more than 1 train per hourIllinois > Kentucky and it's not even close
>>1994046The real estate around stations is completely worthless if you don't have an extensive suburban and/or regional train service and if people will drive to your station and expect huge parking lots. In this case you won't have people passing through and going to the shops in your stations because a) very few people use the station and b) it just has a huge parking lot around it making the area not walkable.tl;dr making money from real estate only works if your urbanism favors train use in the first place.
>>2002976if you replace the parking lots with mixed use development then the people will be there because that's where they live.
Amtrak can't buy line time because bulk freight owns the lines, and amtrak rents time. Not unexpectedly bulkfreight gives themselves the best windows, and amtrak buys poor quality line time around bulkfreight.
>>1999720If trains were better than cars then why would people ever switch?
>>2003963because they gradually became worse. people still rode trains a lot until the 50s when cars had been around for a while. and by the time america had nearly entirely abandoned them in the 60s, japan already had trains going 220km/h
>>2002982Wrong. You need to have mixed use all around the station area, and then dense commercial use at the station itself. That's how Japan does it.So unless you're about to rebuild all the hollowed-out american cities it's just not going to work out, sorry.
>>2003972I literally said replace the parking lots with mixed use, which is apartments and retail, maybe even a mall nearby which has been done in many places and is a successful way to get people to take transit there.
>>1999706this
its not amtrak's fault its the government that owns them
>>1992023>Each route should be minimum 3x a day per direction.I've always wanted this with the Coast Starlight. Two trains daily, one departs in the morning and the other at night. Would solve a lot of the issues with a twelve hour ride between Los Angeles and San Francisco if you could just sleep on the train.
>>1992027NEC is still wildly underserviced compared to hereI looked up providence (urban area ~1.3million)>2-3 trains per hour totalNearest city to me of comparable size (urban ~1million) has around 40 trains per hourEven my hometown of 10k people has 8 per hour, and they are still pretty busy all dayLike I get that the USA has issues with regular public transport, but I didnt think the north east was that bad
>>1993927yeah, it only becomes a good option when it is decently fast so it is as fast as or faster than driving, and also when the destination and origin both have decent intra city transit.No point in getting a super fast train to somewhere like spokane where you probably need a car to get where you are going anyway, so it is easier just to bring your car
>>1994046>why does everyone expect amtrak to run a profitShould've been built on Conrail's model.
>>1994042Such is life for supercommuters. Same thing in Seattle with Sounder vs. Amtrak.
>>1993927the travel time on the Empire builder from Spokane to Tri-cities and Tri-cities to Portland is actually reasonable compared to driving, and there aren't a lot of flights available at the Tri-cities airport. The problem is the departure/arrival times are really awkward, especially to and from Spokane
>>2015707The empire builder actually ended up saving a few dozen people this summer from a busted air travel system. The crowdstrike and Azure double crash happened as people were trying to fly home from the RNC in Milwaukee to Washington and Oregon, so people whose flights got canceled bought train tickets instead of hotel rooms.
>>2003971IIRC it was the one-two punch of airlines eating the railroads' lunch on prestige long-distance routes, and the freight trains on the lines running trains so long they couldnt fit onto sidings and grant passenger trains the right of way, making routes extremely slow or fraught with delays. Not to mention serial disinvestment, such that potentially high speed railsets were running with/on tracks, signals, and overhead lines dating back to the turn of the century, which didnt help either.
>>2015727Air travel and highways improved so quickly that mid 20th century stopover points were completely bypassed by the 2000s. Railroads that needed capex and possibly new land rights for each foot of improved track couldn't compete. Now we've hit the point where building more highway lanes doesn't improve urban congestion and airports are reaching runway capacity so modernized rail has a shot.
>>2015732>and airports are reaching runway capacityToo bad we just don't have the tech to build new runways and terminals
>>2015734In many cases we don't have the space. Spreading flights between airports in a region means they need connecting trains.
>>2015739>In many cases we don't have the space.No way, eminent domain is real and has been used to expand airports many times>Spreading flights between airports in a region means they need connecting trains.It's always going to be less expensive and faster to simply expand airport capacity than build rail lines for hypothetical uses
>>2015732I dont think it was a question of cost as much as one of political will; those highways werent cheap, nor were they built without the big 'eminent domain/gubment expropriation' stick.
>>1994046>why does everyone expect amtrak to run a profitThe federal government is almost 40 trillion dollars in debt. Short of letting the welfare state collapse there's only a narrow path back to solvency. It might be faster to revive private passenger rail than to keep kicking the Amtrak whale down the beach.
>>1993800less regulator influence and company/private base self-"regulation" is what is commonly understood when speaking of "deregulation"inb4>real capitalism has never been triedmiss me with that gay shitthe "free market" is merely a concept, not a sound policythings need to be regulated, not least to ensure the very idea of the so-called "free market" can continue existing across time read adam smith or soemthing lmao
>>2017919>there's only a narrow path back to solvencyprint money, tax on loans?
>>2018144Printing money causes more debt because it's all loans from the Federal Reserve. The only escape hatch would be something like minting a stack of trillion dollar coins, depositing them at the treasury, and immediately melting them down, but this would be a giant stick in the eye of anyone trying to use the dollar as a store of value in a world of US manufacturing decline, so shouldn't be done until our productive economy starts growing again.
Amtrak stations are pretty sorry places, but they're at the point where they're interesting sorry places. Orlando Station had clear water damage, but it had some really nice looking wood bench seating and the remnants of payphone booths. The buildings are old, maybe falling apart, but they're clean and loved.>The real estate around stations is completely worthless if you don't have an extensive suburban and/or regional train serviceThat's irrelevant. Stations along the sunbelt have prime downtown locations in growing cities that would get hefty checks from developers.
>>2018242>Amtrak stations are pretty sorry places,depends entirely on the stationNew York PennWashington UnionChicago Unionetc
>>2018259There are a couple of real stinkers but anything that's a rural platform, street running, or an old building is generally good. NYC Penn Station was a piss stained underground airport terminal last time I was there, for both Amtrak and LIRR.
>>2003971>until the 1950sPeople riding trains, both total count and per capita started dropping off as early as 1920. It spiked for WWII but continued to drop.
>>2018299NY penn is brand new
>>2018347nta but 90% of the complex is still a cesspool, they just bolted on a nice part for photo ops
>>2017919government debt is a meme, most if it is owned to itself, and the rest of the countries can't call on it, unless they want to loose access to USD
>>2017933The airline deregulations meant the airline companies could control operations like fares, routes, and market entries, not the government. It has nothing to do with Boeing's self-destruction.
>>2018242>that would get hefty checks from developers.That's what matters most
I recently took acela express to DC and a regular ass amtrak back to NY. the trains reached the same top speed, the differences were entirely due to the number of stops
>>2020649Acela SHOULD be ~10-20mph faster as well. But even with that, depending on the time of day acela can actually take longer than the north east regional. And it's not due (solely) to station stops.Assuming you take the 8:00AM Acela from NYC to DC you get to DC at 11:01AM with 6 stops (Newark, Metropark, Philly, Wilmington, Baltimore Penn, and BWI)Assuming you take the 7:25AM North east Regional from NYC to DC you get to DC at 10:46AM with only 5 stops (Newark, Trenton, Philly, Wilmington, Blatimore Penn)So you save ~15 minutes on acela but stop at one extra station.In the opposite direction you can take the 7AM NRE from DC to NYC and get there at 9:52AM with 5 stops (BWI, Baltimore Penn, Wilmington, Philly, Newark) But acela is even worse in that direction in the morning, 7AM departure gets you to NYC at 10:02AM with 5 stops (BWI, Baltimore Penn, Wilmington, Philly, Newark)So even with both trains only hitting 5 stops on the way, NRE is still ~10 minutes faster for the 7am trips from DC.
>>1993792Using Beoing as an example of deregulation lmao
>>1992023BSNF/Union Pacific and all these other shareholder Dodge Brothers companies that hold the railroads hostage should be nuked with their assets bought out. AmTrak and everything else should then be reorganized into the state owned American Federal Railways under one umbrella with local governments having a say. Ditch retarded rolling stock and adopt railbuses, EMUs, and locomotives for correspondingly demanding lines. Electrify the mainlines. Fix the retarded scheduling and increase frequency.
>>1993796>minorities>actually being minoritiesWew lad.
>>1993796/g/ has been aware of the Jews (Intel), Chinese, and Indians for like fifteen years. If you don't know this you're part of one of the problem groups.>>2022245Sad!
>>1992023The federal highways receive more funding in one year than Amtrak has received since it was created in the 70s. It is not really Amtrak's fault. If you go to a state where the state funds Amtrak too, you can have 3x a day each way or more. For example, Pontiac, IL.
>>2024111>The federal highways receive more funding in one year than Amtrak has received since it was created in the 70sMakes sense because highways transport far more people than Amtrak does
>>2024116I really wonder what kind of education you sort of people got to think this makes sense.Highways cost a FUCK ton to build in the first place, Amtrak never had that massive upfront cost for the government. So highways cost more in the first place, cost more to maintain, and amtrak has NEVER received anywhere close to the same level of funding, even once in it's entire life, and you're really gonna try and act like amtrak is at fault for not competing with highways? Kill yourself or educate yourself, whichever you can accomplish first.
>>2024140>Highways cost a FUCK ton to build in the first placeThey also transport a FUCK ton more people than Amtrak and they move the most freight of any transport mode in the US, something that Amtrak cannot do
>>2024140I don't need no education because i have a brian. I can think for myself.
>>2010757>Nearest city to me of comparable size (urban ~1million) has around 40 trains per hourAmtrak is intercity only. Commuter rail during peak hours approaches that frequency.
>ride new San Joaquin cars>coaches are nice>but the cafe car has been completely scrapped and replaced with a bunch of fucking metal boxes full of sodas and chipsThis is an eight-hour journey btw
>>2028386sadly an 8-hour trip is a short haul route.
>>2018259they have a soup kitchen next to union station in dc so all the insane homeless people stay there and harass or assault people on the way in from columbus circle beautiful on the inside though.
>>2018347anon's talking about the underground portion with all the street venders and bums pissing in the stairways, not moynihan
>>1992029>The Sounder regional trains are great up to Vancouver and down to Eugene.Where is this ghost Sounder line that stretches from BC to Oregon?
>>2028861they were just following the Elon Levy model. trains are more efficient if you delete the passengers
>>2028386That's not amtrak's fault, that's due to the arcane way that California governs their state supported routes leading the San Joaquin rail authority to be stuffed full of the cheapest motherfuckers and thinking cutting the cafe attendant would be an easy savings. They totally didn't expect the blowback (somehow) and are now scrambling to attach a cafe car order to the next batch of Venture cars being built.
>>1992027feel bad
>>2028861How did that happen? Why didn't people go down to the platform?
>>2034592The doors are closed when not actively boarding or arriving.During the busier times of day they might be left open/unlocked, but at night it doesn't shock me they might've just been left locked by accident.
>>2002428planes take no infrastructure though and thats what they are competing against
>>1992023>nationalize something>it goes to shitEvery time
>>2037106It was nationalized because it wasn't profitable to run privately but we still wanted passenger rail service.And now everyone is SHOCKED the non-profitable previously private industry is STILL not profitable when run by the government.People are retarded.
>>1993927Amtrak simply does not go from where I am, to where I want to visit.A town near where I live is surrounded by rail-yards, has a facility for rebuilding diesel locomotives, and is a junction for two major and one regional railroad, but if I want to ride Amtrak, I have to drive ~60 some miles to be greeted by the following services at said "station">Unstaffed station>ATM not available>No elevator>No payphones>No Amtrak ticketing kiosks>No restrooms>No vending machines>No WiFiOh yeah. That sounds just thrilling.Here's a pic of the station, just for laughs.
>>2037108>It was nationalized because it wasn't profitable to run privately but we still wanted passenger rail service.Then SUBSIDIZE it, we already do it with airlines, the highway system, and previously transatlantic passenger shipping. But for God's sake, don't take it out of private hands and create a Frankenstein railway with no tracks that nobody fucking wants.
>>2037108>And now everyone is SHOCKED the non-profitable previously private industry is STILL not profitable when run by the government.People wouldn't mind a money-losing service that provided convenience, reasonable amenities & pricing, and a reliable service. People would put up with the losses if that was the case, but Amtrak offers the complete opposite for most people.>>2039613>Then SUBSIDIZE itThat would have been the ideal course of action back in the 70s. But the institutional knowledge and facilities to handle passenger traffic that railroads once had is long gone, subsidizing it now wouldn't work imo - and the price you'd have to pay for the Class 1's to do it would be politically unrealistic.
>>2039613why is subsiding it any different?
>>2039614>That would have been the ideal course of action back in the 70s.That's what I mean, obviously it's way too late for that now.>>2039634As >>2039614 pointed out, it would have kept all the institutional knowledge and infrastructure that private railroads already had to maintain/improve passenger service "in-house", whereas almost all of that was lost with the creation of Amtrak, permanently crippling passenger rail service in a country where it had once been one of the best on the planet. Now, they can't even build a single fucking high speed line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.btw, the existing Amtrak service, the Coast Starlight,A. Doesn't actually run between LA and SF (requiring a transfer at Oakland by bus)B. Takes several hours LONGER today than its original progenitor (Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight, pic related) did using steam locomotives in the 1930s.
>>2040584why would private railroads *want* to do more than the bare minimum to keep subsidised services going, though?
>No other US/North American train threadsWe were so close in Minnesota to getting a second line on our regional railroad. Biden green lit our funding, the state green lit our funding, we were set to start digging. Then DOGE came, the state couldn't justify it without an 80% match, and now it got cancelled. The other line, the Northstar, ends about 25 miles short of where it should.https://www.fox9.com/news/mn-lawmakers-pull-funding-northern-lights-express-train-duluth
>>2040584>B. Takes several hours LONGER today than its original progenitor (Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight, pic related) did using steam locomotives in the 1930s.Hot take, steam engines peaked in the 1920s. That was the point where the world had completely, totally figured out everything necessary to make steam power effective. Once the PV=nRT model had been fully explored, nothing was left for steam power. Every ounce of understanding has been understood. This is still true today, if you look at any coal, oil, gas or nuclear plant, boiling water is no longer a problem with major inefficiencies.
>>2041042>The state is broke and couldn't afford it.That's your real problem, chief.
>>1992029Sounder is shit. Every time I've had to go up to Everett I've always ended up taking the 1 as far north as possible and bus from there. >ooh wow 3 trains a daysome of us have jobs, we're not just hobos riding trains for fun. I have no idea why the Seattle area is supposedly held up as great public transit. Once you get outside the downtown-redmond-bellevue-UW area the schedules are garbage. And the only way to get to Olympia is a hodge-podge of bus or you can gamble your luck on a train running at the exact time you need it, which it won't. Why does the 1 line not extend to Olympia? Why? What fucking reason they only built 1/3 of a reasonable fucking rail line? So the biggest city does not even connect to the capitol except with a train that only runs 3 times a day. Then they wonder why everyone drives. And when they do build anything they build something completely fucking useless like the monorail or whatever the fuck tacoma is doing or the slut. Then people get the idea trains are useless impractical gimmicks for tourists because that's the only kind of rail they build. No one uses amtrak because it's slow and infrequent. So we don't get upgrades like passenger rail priority (rather than freight trains getting the go first while the passengers sit and wait 45 min for it to pass) or high speed rail (which would actually make it appealing to use) or better frequency (which would make it practical to use, especially for commute reasons). Instead we get NOTHING and amtrak wonders why no one is interested. 9/10 of the population lives in one small area from Olympia to Everett and they can't manage to provide reasonable train service? The 1 line is always packed. Obviously people want fucking train service. And yet. Here we are. In another 50 years maybe it will go to Ballard and West Seattle! Isnt' that fucking exciting?1!
>>1993927>people would rather line up to be molested by the TSA and wait 2 hours to board than step onto a fast reliable train and step off at their destination>the same people spend $5000 to travel to Japan to ride the shinkansenThe US is a lost cause.
>>1994046No, I agree with this. No one expects the highway system to turn a profit. It costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain the road system in the US which only services cars, and yet no one talks about the roads in term of profitability. Yet they hold public transit to a different standard, which sets it up to fail and thus perpetuates the car monopoly. Because if they were held to equal standards cars would never manage to show profit as they are like carpet bombs on your urban area, whereas trains are compact, don't waste ten trillion acres of space on aspault oceans and stinking noisy car sewers. Trains naturally support business. Train station? Perfect place to have restaurants, convenience stores, and even entire shopping malls like Japan does. Do you know what is next to highways in the US? Nothing, because no one wants to exist near a godforsaken fucking highway. Any houses that were unfortunate enough to be nearby when they built the highway will see the property value plummet so hard they get abandoned. Cars cost us more than the budget of 3/4 of the rest of the world's nations combined, destroy land value, waste hours of our days, waste hundreds of dollars a month for the average consumer that could otherwise be spent on something that generates value, and are a maintenance nightmare, a financial black hole, sucking up budget and returning only potholes and crashes. Trains are the embodiment of value. Wherever trains go, prosperity follows. Land near stations skyrockets in value. When we get what small crumbs of modern rail we're given, the stations bloom in 5+1s and luxury townhouses. AND YET what do they keep building and what do they keep defunding? Oh. Oh, the government keeps making the stupidest choices possible and then complains the budget is busted and they're broke. Oh, really?
>>2024148A road can never transport as many people per hour as a functional well-funded trainline. Look at the shinkansen. If all those people were in cars instead of on the train it would gridlock the entire country. You're a fucktard.
>>2043518>>2043519How's college?
>>2043516>the same peopleThe NIMBY cultists don't travel outside their county, anon.>>2042947Don't I know it. At least our governor and legislators are proactively balancing our budget, though. They're addressing deficit spending while the state still has a cash reserve to utilize while maintaining services that actually have a return on investment.>>2043518As a government agency I don't think Amtrak should necessarily own all their surrounding real estate. If they did, then they'd need to get congressional approval for any sort of construction. That would stymy actual development efforts surrounding the station.
>>2043519>A road can never transport as many people per hour as a functional well-funded trainline.Funding doesn't have anything to do with how many people a train CAN carry. All the stats about how trains can carry more people are based on the assumption that trains are 100% full which they aren't most of the time (except in highly populated dense areas).
>>2043607The only people pushing to build trains in shithole states like florida and texas are doing it as a psyop to destroy trains everywhereWe could be spending the money to improve trains where they are already getting used but that's like socialism or something and definitely deserves a coordinated backlash by the rational centrists who understand that both sides are bad (so let's do a thing that consistently helps one of those sides but you can't accuse me of taking sides here because I'm apolitical)
>>2034594>planes take no infrastructureare you fucking retarded? they need AIRPORTS, which are fucking massive, and their landing paths need to be cleared of large buildings for a large distance around the airport. they also aren't that cheap in the US and canada especially even for intercity travel and because of the US police state you have to go into security even for intercity flight on both directions of your trip. and airports are very rarely built in the middle of cities but train stations easily can be, yes its expensive to build new rail lines but you end up with a vastly more efficient and comfortable form of travel that many people would take if it were built properly and no one except CEOs would be flying 100 miles between major cities.>>2043528so college teaches you basic facts that anyone with a brain should know? I guess you skipped it for a reason
>>2045864>are you fucking retarded?>so college teaches you basic facts that anyone with a brain should know? I guess you skipped it for a reasonAd hom. You lose.
>>2045872the >le anyone who goes against what I believe is a liberal from collegeis also an ad hom attack. how about making an actual argument next time retard
>>2045878>is also an ad hom attackIt was not an attack, it was a question.>retardProof you have no intention of making a good faith argument.
>>2043599>reeee nimby nimby nimbyI, unlike YIMBY cultists, actually think democracy is a better system than oligarchy or corpo-fascism, and yet I've traveled more than you, shocker I know
>>2048788>democratic when it comes to passenger train expansions>autocratic when it comes to auto highway expansionAs usual
>>2048806Oh yeah? Well what's up with your group adopting kittens and puppies from the pound just so you can throw them into hot lava? I have this confirmed by reliable sources so don't even try to deny it, you monster.
>>2043599>The NIMBY cultists don't travel outside their county, anon.Oops, you're wrong.>>2048806>autocratic when it comes to auto highway expansionOops, you're wrong again.Friendly reminder that if you keep trying to destroy people's lives, they'll eventually kill you (Americans tend to not respond well to unprovoked attacks by government).
>>1994046>why does everyone expect amtrak to run a profit when they don't expect the highway system to produce a profitFTFY
>>2002498>IllinoisFellow Illinois Chad here. Amtrak and Metra every other weekend. Pop into Chicago for a deep dish pizza and some shopping, then back off to my peaceful quiet little railtown in the "middle of nowhere." Life is good.
>>2048828Since when did americans rising up against the government ever end well for them?
>>2050581You could make the argument that highways recoup their costs by providing low-cost, fast nationwide transportation for almost any use or user, both passengers and freight. We get more out of it in economic productivity than we spend on it annually, so the highway system is run at a "loss."
>>20505831775.
>>2050582That's the way to do it. I lived in Chicago for years without a car.
>>2043516>wait two hoursNigger I've clocked my time from curbside to ass end C terminal gate at Denver international at under thirty minutes last week.>>2002428>only twice as longlet us know when you get a job so you can figure out how much your time is actually worth.
I'm taking a 20 hour amtrak ride this weekend, wish me luck
>>2052475In coach or a roomette/bedroom?
>>2052491roomette, so I assume I can't download grinder over the wifi and find another autistic foamer to join the 2 meter high club together or we'd disturb the other passengers
>>2052493if it's long-distance you're not getting wifi anyway
>>2052493No, but I make sure to bring a bottle of bourbon with me personally to help pass the time.You're allowed to drink in bedrooms/roomettes as long as you don't disturb anyone.
I have to say this is pretty much the GOAT way to travel. And yes there is wifi
>>2052723max comf
>>2043515>rail priorityNews about some of that:https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/norfolk-southern-agrees-give-amtrak-trains-highest-priority-over-freight-trains-and-make-itsNorfolk Southern will give Amtrak the highest priority on the Crescent route.Now we just need this on every route.
>>1992023>Daily trains pass through Lakeland station to Tampa.>Turning around in Tampa, passing Lakeland again.>Can't ride from Lakeland to TampaWhy?
>>1992027Why does acela stop in metro park, NJ?
>>2055736Weekday ridership is higher than Trenton
>>2053462Weird to see shit like this now that DOJ has been repurposed to investigate atheists and stuff, I suppose there won't be much of this sort of thing in the future
>>2015750Yes the issue is the same people that argue for trains at the people that argue against forced displacement of people like was done to create the highway system. Its this simple if you want rail again we are gonna have to tear down the poor neighborhoods again.
>>1992023americans do "public" transit wrong on purpose to better shill cars and car-centric infrastrucutre
>>2003433>>1995951Bulk freight actually makes money
>>2018351>he thinks the government is debting itself>never heard of the Rothschilds
Please answer:>>>/trv/2844463
>>2042914Thermodynamics ftw
>>2059942have you decided yet?
>>1992029>>2043515When I was a kid my grandparents lived in Montana so I would take the Empire Builder from Seattle out there at least once a year. Board in the late morning, get a comfy meal in the restaurant, sleep in the bunk bed car, wake up in the early morning to my grandparents picking me up in their random tiny town, extremely comfy desu.Regarding the monorail, I had a job in highschool where I actually used it to commute from downtown to Seattle Center lol. I can’t imagine it gets used much for work.
>>1992023Amtrak is mid, but the local transport in my area going east to west is even worse. If I wanted to travel from Santa Rosa to Sacramento directly by public transit, my only choice would be Amtrak. The county bus line that used to go between Sonoma County and Napa County was canceled in 2018. So the only bus that goes from one to the other is the Amtrak bus. It's slow and costs more than the local bus did, but now it's the only bus on the road. If it didn't exist the only option for public transport would be to travel to San Francisco (bus or train and ferry), then to the East Bay (BART and bus) to board for the train to Sacramento. Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano Counties all have over a million people in total but there is no public transportation system going east to west. It isn't Amtrak's fault the local transport systems have such a hard time bringing people to their train stations.
>>2062712That's the problem with just about all rail based mass transit, it goes in and out of a big hub but there's no "periferico line" so to speak
>>1992023Why is a round trip from NYC to Delaware 200$? Who knows, god is dead, Amtrak is all that remains. Death to this nigger company genuonely
>>2064866is that too high for you, or too low?
>>2064866there is no need for racism
>>2066369Pls respond
>>2026197That's including the commuter rail in providence.Maybe boston has something like that, but that's an urban area of over 4 million
>>1999706more accurate to say because the glowies wanted it.
Took The Vermonter the other day. Why is it so much cheaper than NEC? It's like the same price as a commuter train. Meanwhile a trip between NYP and Newark Airport on the NEC is like $86 on Amtrak
>>2074105As the train rolls across the land, imagine the land beneath you generating little $ signs that float up into the air like super mario or sonic the hedgehog. The more rapidly the dollar signs rise, the greater the fare. In the northeast corridor it's high dollars the whole way through but once you venture off the beaten path, not so much
>>2074105higher demand on the NEC, it's the same with airlinesfor ny-newark airport there's no much reason to not take njt instead
>>2062712Isn't there a train in Napa (or was it Sonoma?) Like one of those dinky little feeder trains like they have in Princeton NJ?
>>2075832How much is the NJT fare
>>1994042Might as well just live in the chicago area and stop being retarded but, it's your wallets funeral
>>1999706Americans were unironically psyopped into the status quo. The history bears it out. At the same government action tilted for cars and suburbia, it tilted against trains and cities, and a massive propaganda campaign was launched. It was very deliberately engineered to artificially inflate the consumer economy. HOWEVER, what trainfags never want to admit is that cars are legitimately useful and have their place in society. Rome had traffic problems 2000 years ago; they had traffic control in cities too small for sewers. European chariot racing predates European literature. And something that literally never gets brought up when discussing American transit policy in comparison to Japan is that Japan has abundant, profitable expressway, and actively expands them even in urban areas. They're not mutually exclusive at all. You can have high quality rail funded by station real estate, and you can have high quality expressways funded by tolls. Both modes are useful and deserve their place in society.
>>2078761Which vlogger told you that
>>1993796>The jews did this.I mean sometimes it's trueAnd trains can be enormously comfy but usually not in America. Some rural European regions used to be lovely. I'd like to go on a trip through Japan.
>>2078788/n/ - crying about cars and why your pinch flat is actually a form of circumcision
Amtrak to shut down all routes in blue for 10 days.https://media.amtrak.com/2026/08/amtrak-announces-pause-for-progress-infrastructure-upgrade-in-washington-d-c-for-nine-days-this-october/
>>1992027>Be American>Live in largest city in America>Have less rail lines than a provincial town in Germany>Brag about it on a Chinese Flyfishing ForumI shiggy diggy
>>2082578>why don't you have trains like vee do in Germany?America isn't europe. Get over it.
>>2082661So you DO know that feel
