New Rail Study

[doctorwayne]

Today under Amtrak and their tight operating budget you simply can't take a train from Columbus,Oh to (say) Chicago or New York..Greyhound Bus is the only public mode of ground transportation to Chicago or New York from Columbus.

I recall reading that, in pre-Amtrak days, a hog could travel from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast without changing trains, whereas it was not possible for a human passenger to do so.

Nowadays, the hog rides in a truck, going just about anywhere it needs to be, while the human passenger, if he wants to travel by train, has even less choice than previously. Last year, I thought about taking the train to visit my good friend Deano, in Wisconsin. I can get an Amtrak train locally, which would put me in Buffalo, NY, with a long, late-night layover, waiting for a train to Chicago, the nearest that I could get by rail. That left either a bus ride (yeck!!) or a rental car. For the same money, I could have driven, making use of the Lake Michigan ferry service, arriving sooner and having money left-over for another two or three additional visits.

Rail is more fuel efficient that airplanes (or, for freight, trucks), and the tracks are, for the most part, still in place. However, the cost of all the support infrastructure, such as stations, booking and ticket sales, baggage handling, etc., not to mention track upgrades for passenger train speeds, along with increased signalling, dispatching, and scheduling costs, combine to make long distance rail travel a bottomless pit for public funding. Too bad, but that's the cold reality.

Wayne