Jealous! Maybe someday there will be a passenger train that stops in Columbus.
Because the train is so slow through western Pennsylvania, I'm thinking that if I wanted to go to New York again, I'd drive to Harrisburg and take the train from there. But I've never tried.
The US is cursed by the country being too large for the federal government to prioritize the Northeast and simultaneously states being too small for the Northeast train to be dealt with state-by-state.
Took the train recently from NYC to Lancaster, which was delightful. But still had to rent a car for that trip because the next leg was going to Western Mass and the Connecticut river valley portion above New Haven is slow and infrequent and then you also can't take a train along the mass pike route.
Anyway 2 is a solid plan, the Harrisburg to NYC route is solidly functional.
It's only 3 and a half hours of driving.
Total travel time from door to door is probably 90 minutes longer for me by train. The trip itself is probably 45 minutes longer, plus waiting at the station and travel time to and from stations. But much more pleasant.
There's a movement to restore Amtrak service, ended in 1979, across southern Montana. It would be cool to have regular trains between Billings, Bozeman, Helena, and Missoula. The trouble is, it'll end up being a line from Chicago/Mpls to Seattle/Portland -- maybe once a day each way, maybe 3 days a week -- and so it's pretty unlikely to displace much car traffic most of the time. And not many people want to go east of Billings anyway.
Speaking of state border insanity, New Jersey Transit doesn't go to Allentown, the line just ends at some place called Hacketstown?
The trouble is, it'll end up being a line from Chicago/Mpls to Seattle/Portland
Why would anyone build a second line with those endpoints when the Empire Builder already exists? Maybe I'm missing something.
Oh, I see - is the idea that it would be an alternate route for the Empire Builder, maybe taking the south route between Fargo and Spokane based on a Wikipedia rail map?
I think I've reached the point where I'm not willing to ride long-distance (2-3 nights) trains in coach but not the point where paying for a sleeper would be something I could do without thinking of it as a vacation. I do love train travel though.
It's funny how we're driving right through a lot of towns that don't actually get a train stop in them. That would be frustrating. And fwiw, the train is 95% full, so demand is being exercised.
I went with my son from Pittsburgh to Lincoln by train. Midnight departure with a sleeping compartment, lunch in Chicago with time to tourist, evening departure with another sleeping car and a 3 am arrival.
The best time to plant a rail system is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
Why wouldn't ten years ago be better than now?
But it really does irk me that driving three hours to Harrisburg cuts at least five hours off my train trip. Plus gives me options about what time I travel.
11: I'm an evangelist on this subject, so maybe I've mentioned this before, but the Amtrak credit card lets me go on long-haul trips with roomettes once or twice a year with points only, only spending money on snacks and tips.
1: I guess it's up to our Republican Governor, so probably shouldn't hold my breath.
Does Dayton still have electric trolleys?
10 The point is that in Montana, the Empire Builder connects small towns and Glacier Park, while the North Coast Hiawatha (the southern route) connects the cities. Politically, I get the need to have the EB -- there's no east-west interstate across the northern part of the state. But the better logic for the train line would seem rather to be the same as for the interstate -- connect people where they live.
The current thinking is to have the new Hiawatha go through Helena rather than Butte, which makes sense in the modern era.
It really should be daily service between Missoula and Billings, with 3 days a week Missoula to Seattle and Billings to Chicago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Coast_Hiawatha#Efforts_in_the_2020s
This is about more than just our restored route.
20: I'm skeptical that even in a better functioning country that Pittsburgh-Philly is a viable train route. The smart route through the midwest has always been the "water level route" from NYC up to Albany west along the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then along the Great Lakes to Chicago. At best Pittsburgh should be connected to Cleveland or Erie as a spur along that route. Southcentral PA (and similarly the Lehigh Valley and the Connecticut River Valley) are close enough to the core DC-Boston corridor that they should have regular good service connecting them to that route, but there's just never going to be frequent traffic over the mountains in PA. It's just not a very good train route.
So, here's the thing. It used to be a main route back in the day. The route over the step part (Horseshoe Curve) was a celebrated feat of usefulness.
The obvious reason is that Erie sucks.
There's this hilariously stupid route that runs, checks notes, three times a week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_(train)
29: I'm skeptical that it ever had more than say 20% of the traffic of the water-level route.
28. I take an over-hill route a few times a year. greater DC is 5M people, Chicagoland is 6M, cities en route including Pittsburgh are also real places. It's a night train, beats flying at the crack of dawn or getting in the night before if you need lodging. I love it, great views of the river, most of the route is along the water. The train's usually crowded. I also can walk to my Amtrak station, there's a place that makes fantastic arepas right by the station.
The Wikipedia page for the Curve says in the 1940s there were 50 passenger trains a day, plus freight and troop trains. I don't know what to compare it to, but that seems like a lot of trains.
Yeah, I think I was wrong, Pennsylvania Railroad was a little larger than New York Central, so although I can't sort out how of that traffic is east-west rather than say NYC-Philly, the two routes were likely roughly comparable in size. Unclear to me how much of that traffic over the mountains on Pennsy was passenger, it ran much slower than New York Central did, and so I'd still guess it was less compelling for passenger routes as opposed to freight.
Some Amtrak routes look like Nightbus routes that hit more stops than maybe they would if there were separate services instead of just one. I've taken both DC-Chicago routes, albeit only a few times back in the late 90s/early 2000s and they were full most of the way through, though whichever was the slower one had fewer people ride all the way to Chicago.
The museum in Altoona is very convincing.
The little museum at the Curve. I've never been to the bigger museum in town.
I realize in practice we have to pick and choose our routes, but ideally metros of millions like Pittsburgh would have intercity rail radiating out in every direction as a matter of course - Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, DC, Charleston, maybe even a spur going to New York directly.
New York and Philadelphia. The rest are not needed.
32 According to the link is 27, they're looking at making the Cardinal a daily train.
I looooove trains.
It's so wretched that we trashed the train system in favor of cars
I looooove trains.
It's so wretched that we trashed the train system in favor of cars
To all the trains I've loved before.....
I used to talk over the hitch between rail cars on my way to class. It turns out that is not safe.
The US is cursed by the country being too large for the federal government to prioritize the Northeast and simultaneously states being too small for the Northeast train to be dealt with state-by-state.
Except Vermont, smallest of the lot, and probably the best-connected on per-capita basis. Its not so much a question of size as of will.
The issue isn't size per se, it's borders. New Jersey Transit doesn't go to Allentown. Metro North doesn't go to Springfield. If NJ elects an idiot then NYC can't build a new Hudson tunnel. Somehow Delaware exists. There's just too many jurisdictions along the natural main routes.
Delaware exists to remind other states how to design a nice license plate.
I wonder how hard it would be to convince the dumber conservatives on Twitter that the NOTAM system broke this morning because of Wokeness, because they renamed it from Notice to Airmen to Notice to Air Mission.
The only way sleepers are affordable is if you get them way in advance or you have an Amtrak miles credit card instead of frequent flier miles.
Computer systems that cause silent agony to millions when they malfunction:
1) AM
2) NOTAM