Amtrak is not an efficient way to travel. Besides the screwy routes, the cost is as much or more than airfare, it takes far more time than air travel, and the "on time" record has a lot to be desired.
That said, it is a fantastic way to travel if you want to see the country and have time to do it. Six years ago, my Bride and I took Amtrak from Chicago to San Fransisco with a side trip out of Salt Lake to Yellowstone......it was one of our best and most relaxing vacations. Think cruise ship, but when you look out the window you see trees, industry, mountains, prairies, and even a few river rafting nudist instead of miles and miles of water. If you ever decide to travel this way, I highly recommend a "Roomette", or one of the bedroom options if you plan to be on the train overnight. They offer more room and far more privacy than coach.
As for the Atlanta station, well, nothing in Atlanta seems to be planned right!
While something like New York to Los Angeles will always be the realm of flight (until we get 5000mph maglevs...which aren't all that SciFi), there are many corridors where Amtrak and rail travel in general makes sense, even the long distance routes. I'll keep this short so I won't look at the other corridors, but I'll look at Atlanta's train, the Crescent.
Let's say you have to be in D.C. at noon. For our purposes, we'll say standing on the National Mall as that's pretty central to everything. It can be 30 minutes from Regan airport, so you have to be leaving the airport at 11:30, so you should probably plan to land no later than 11:15. Shortest flight I've seen is 1:45, so you're taking off from Hartsfield no later than 9:30. They say arrive 2 hours before your flight, that's 7:30 at the airport doors. Give yourself 30 minutes to get there, that's leaving your house at 7. Most people take an hour to wake up and get out the door, that's waking up at 6. Not bad, but still somewhat early, and no place to make a mistake.
The Crescent arrives DC by 10. To give the 30 minute travel cushion I gave the plane, it can be as late as 11:30, or an hour and a half which is pretty rare for the Crescent. It leaves Atlanta at 8 the previous night. But you get to sleep till 7 or 8 or whenever before you reach DC. Some of this will come down to comfort and cost, but the Crescent is pretty darn useful to reach DC. New York is 4 more hours away from DC on the Crescent so for the equivalent flight, you'd have to be up by 10. Ok, there, I admit, the plane does win strictly from a time perspective, but even then, that's pretty close.
Obviously, the problem is they aren't getting enough Federal funding. More money should fix it right up.
Actually, it is. Each time they add a train to a route, ridership more than doubles. They added one roundtrip on the North Carolina regional route (the Piedmont) and ridership tripled. Costs weren't even quite doubled since there's a good deal of shared overhead. The same thing happened to the Crescent when Virginia began funding just one roundtrip of a Northeast Regional down to Lynchburg. Even with arrival/departure times only an hour apart from the Crescent, ridership on that segment went up.
Also, I don't see anyone complaining how much roads cost vs how many people use them.
Well that's 180 from your "high road" reply in the campus carry discussion now isn't it.
Nope, I'm still attacking the argument and how it's presented, I made no comments about the person.
