Amtrak

So in part to examine the passenger rail system in the states, part to look at the ways cities reveal themselves to rail, and part because it was cheap I took an overnight train from Omaha to Denver. Plagued by budget shortages and right of way issues, Amtrak has really taken a back seat in our country to the air network. Nonetheless with President Obama's initial funding of 13 high speed rail projects it signals the sign of a transition between transportation priorities.

The issue that always will need to be addressed in these projects is how you make it more attractive than a car, how you work to connect the rail to other city networks, and ultimately how you attract a population oriented to the car to reorient to travel by train. Europeans almost intrinsically do this because they drive small cars that aren't long distance worthy.

Anyway I want to talk more about the experience and some conclusions that I made. So the interesting thing about Amtrak is the fact that it was created to take over passenger rail from many freight railroads throughout the US who had wanted to remove passenger service for quite a while. Commercial Aviation and the highway system pretty much put the nail in the coffin. So what remains is a system that has been pared down to bare minimum, and in doing that has become inefficient. So in order to take the train from Omaha to Denver that requires taking the California Zephyr, which operates between Chicago and San Francisco. It operates once a day, meaning that wherever it is in its 52 hour trip when it comes to you is where you pick it up. In my case this meant getting on at 11:05 PM, or at least that was what is originally planned. The thing about the Zephyr, and most Amtrak Trains for that matter, is the fact that because they operate on freight lines they are subject to the right of ways of freight trains. So the schedule is up in the air and therefore the train is notoriously late.

My train was delayed an hour getting into Omaha, and didn't leave until 12:35 AM, an hour and a half late, and arrived nearly 2 hours late. The train itself is ok. The seats are big and adjustable, the legroom is phenomenal, and each car has 4-6 bathrooms, making it fairly comfortable for this sort of trip. The train is also double-decked, providing a lot of usable space that most European trains don't (this is more likely due to speed than anything else, at a certain speed the body roll of the trains wouldn't be safe and would be tipping prone). The train is actually fairly comfortable, not really the nicest for sleeping as I found out, but I seemed to manage. Some of the things that it really lacks are modern amenities, such as power outlets, but nonetheless it seems to be fairly nice for a train. The main problem is the time it takes. It was supposed to take 9 hours to go from Omaha to Denver, a distance of around 540 Miles. The problem is that with all the stops and the delays and slowdowns the truth of the matter is that its faster to drive, and flying is infinitely quicker.

The other thing about Amtrak is how quirky it is. Its not that much less expensive than flying, so the people that it attracts are the ones where the factor of time cost is 0 or hate flying. There were quite a few Elderly People, which I imagine don't like flying. The main quirky-ness of it is the system. Amtrak abandoned Union Stations in favor of small cinder block outposts, which fast forward 30 or 40 years are dreary, run down, and just generally not the nicest place to be. Every Automated electronic ticket machine I've seen has malfunctioned, and isn't being used. The way it worked in Omaha was the night conductor that was getting on the train gave us a safety speech and then came around checking tickets and assigning us to cars. I cant really explain why I thought this was so weird but it was. I guess possibly because it was making things that were implicit extremely explicit. All this stuff about holding onto hand rails and headrests when walking seems like common knowledge. Its just plain intuition. I never got briefed on how to cross between MTA cars or hold on, it was kind of a natural instinct. The other thing that is kinda funny is how explicit some things are, as well as how rail enthusiast oriented it is. The fact that we were going through a BNSF yard was announced. The conductor also came on to talk about what tracks we were on and why we were delayed. The many announcements during the morning were oriented primarily to the dining car. Announcing when peoples tables were ready to prevent a log jam. Its this kind of organized linearity that is critical, but also humorous in its explicit nature.

The other real inadequacy of the whole experience was the fact that it took Amtrak 45 Minutes to get checked luggage to us. And thats for the one train that comes into the station each day. The dis-economy of scale for a station handling two trains a day is astounding.

Regardless it was an interesting experience. At some point I want to mine the planned map to try to understand the speeds and distances that the plan calls for.

I will also show the images that I took of the progression into the city. As expected, the experience of going into the city is freight and industry centric vs a showcase of the city.