Step inside the sprawling factory in California where the largest fleet replacement in Amtrak’s 55-year history is coming together piece by piece.
Step inside the sprawling factory in California where the largest fleet replacement in Amtrak’s 55-year history is coming together piece by piece.
Amtrak works best on two routes: the Northeast Corridor between Richmond, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, and the car train between DC and Florida, where they’ll bring your automobile so that you have it at your destination.
I just looked at ticket prices on the Northeast Corridor. The very popular DC to NYC route is between $25 and $55 per way if purchased at least 2 months in advance, depending on the popularity of a particular time. A plane ticket would be probably $150-$350.
Plus the actual seat experience is akin to business class on an airplane, so maybe the better comparison is $400-$1000 for the equivalent airplane.
But that’s basically the only route where downtown to downtown is faster than airplanes (because both DC’s and NYC’s train stations are in a much more convenient walkable/transit friendly location than their airports).
Oh, and children under 12 can travel at 50% fare and still take a full seat. So for families, the train might be much cheaper.
Then again, passenger rail is a disaster for the other 85% of U.S. residents who don’t live in the Northeast.
Much to my surprise, the daily Amtrak Floridian (Chicago-DC-Miami, a recently combined version of Capitol Limited and Silver Star routes) is like $18 between Tampa and Orlando. That’s 1h45m by train or by car. Cheapest car rental I found was $62/day. Must be a popular route… or they already made their money in the first 40 hours and feel generous.