Do people take the train in the USA?

[geoffk]

of course from NYC and North Jersey you can take the train to the beach towns of Long Branch, Asbury Park, Bradley Beach, (Avon and Ocean Grove), Belmar, Spring Lake (Sea Girt), Manasquan, Point

Pleasant Beach and Bay Head. All train stations within a mile of the beach. Was perfect there is past week and this coming week looks good.

[geoffk]

From Philly you can take the train to Atlantic City.

[mike carey]

I commented earlier on which routes people take the train in the US, but there is another aspect to this discussion. Much of what has been said has been about areas where there are frequent train departures on particular routes. In the US this is typically in the NE corridor where there are frequent trains and also airline shuttles. In other parts of the country both planes and trains are far less frequent. In those markets you have to plan far more exactly if you want to travel, and trains are still an option.

 

I can make a comparison about Australia. There are two trains a day between Sydney and Melbourne, a daylight service and an overnight one, that take about 10 hours. In parallel there are two airlines that fly the route every 30 minutes for most of the day, and they have budget subsidiaries. Sydney to Melbourne is the fourth busiest airline city pair in the world. People fly between the two cities but they also catch the train, the difference being that if you want to catch the train you have to plan your travel more precisely.

 

There are plenty of Amtrak trains that operate once a day outside the NE corridor that I would not hesitate to catch for the routes they run! There are heaps of places where transport options are all infrequent, if you want to travel there you just have to plan accordingly.

[+ friendofsheila]

Overnights on Amtrak are hell without a sleeper, which is extremely expensive.

 

I only do the train on daytime trips now.

[Rudynate]

I would love to go on a train trip, but who has the time to take two days to get where you're going and two days to get back? The longest train ride I ever took was two days, in coach - Athens to Frankfurt. It was tedious and fun at the same time. When you're crammed in a train compartment with a bunch of people, you get to know them really well. There was a young Greek guy moving from Athens to Frankfurt and his mother had packed him an enormous food basket - dolmas, olives, roast chicken, grilled fish, Greek brandy, bread cheese, etc., etc. It was enough to feed the entire group in the compartment. The morning of the second day, I woke up and my head was laying on his chest and he had his arms around me - in this compartment full of people. An Australian woman, with a cocked eyebrow said, "I notice YOU slept well!"

[body2body]

People do take trains in the USA, but for different reasons. I live in a city where commuting by rail is difficult. But, I've taken Amtrak's The Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle. I booked a Bedroom (complete with a sofa and an en suite bath). We traveled through picturesque rural Wisconsin, crossed the Mississippi River by moonlight. I got to see the Great Plains from ground level ( instead of from 35,000 feet). The highlight of the trip was traveling through Glacier National Park ( I actually saw bears fishing in a stream ). I enjoyed meals and meeting fellow travelers in the Dining car. You could enjoy people in the bar car, and when you wanted sometime time alone, adjourn to your compartment. It was a great way to see some of our beautiful country. As point to point transport it was slow and expensive. But if you think of it as "land cruise" it was great. A couple of years later I took VIA rail's "Canadian " from Vancouver to Toronto an even more spectacular trip.

[BSR]

Travel by rail (whether intracity subway, suburb-to-city commuter rails, or intercity Amtrak) is quite common in the Northeast Corridor (i.e., Boston to DC) but far less frequent in the rest of the U.S. When I lived in Boston, public transportation was just a way of life. Everybody took the T, as long as they lived within reasonable walking distance to a T stop, because parking is so difficult in Boston proper. The same with commuters from the suburbs: they loved taking the commuter rail (you can snooze, chat, read, etc.) whereas traffic was a nightmare and parking was a king's ransom. If Amtrak were less expensive between Boston (where I lived) and NYC (where most of my family is), I'd have happily taken it back & forth. But since Amtrak round-trip tickets 8 to 12 times a year were out of my budget and my dad discovered a free parking spot for me near his condo (no, I shall never reveal it), I always drove despite how much I hated the traffic nightmare.

 

Now that I live in the wide open spaces of Las Vegas and the American West, I can't imagine that a network of subways, commuter rails, and Amtrak would work here. Cities developed before the car (like Boston) are quite different from cities developed after the car (like Las Vegas). Las Vegas is so spread out and with free parking available everywhere, who's going to use a subway?? When I lived in Central Square and the South End, the 15-minute walk to the T didn't bother me. Trudging through the cold & snow is a survival skill all Bostonians learn, and it doesn't get that unbearably hot (for the most part) in the summer. But here in Las Vegas? If you think I'm walking 15 minutes in 115 degree heat, you're insane. Regarding intercity Amtrak, cities are just too far apart in the American West.

[+ friendofsheila]

I woke up and my head was laying on his chest and he had his arms around me - in this compartment full of people. An Australian woman, with a cocked eyebrow said, "I notice YOU slept well!"

 

This cracked me up!

[jackjackjack]

I'll just throw this out and most of you know about L.A. area, trains are not much of an option. Yes, there are the lines that run around Southern California. But since L.A. is sooooo spread out, you almost have to car it.