I had some vacation time and I’ve never ridden a train before, so I thought I’d look it up. I’d seen a few YouTube videos and it looked like something I’d like. I’m not a fan of air travel at all.
I went to look up tickets and was shocked at the price. I could drive for cheaper and faster including my own stops. I could fly for cheaper and faster and wouldn’t have to pay for a sleeper car or hotel. It seems like there’s no benefit to taking a train at all. Even the hassle of flying is worth the time and money saved.
Ps and why does a sleeper car (the thing that had me curious from YouTube) $1000/night?!
Amtrak isn’t funded by the US government. They have to extract all their funding from operations.
Amtrak’s service is bad mainly because the line operators have found ways to make it impossible to effectively operate. That means late and long delayed trains with unpredictable arrival/departure times.
Amtrak is slow, mainly because it has almost no dedicated lines. It has to share them with line operators.
Very few people use amtrak.
The end result is a high price. Few people using amtrak means it has to hike ticket prices up.
The only way for Amtrak to get better is extensive investment by the feds and regulation of rail lines in general. Without that, as you’ve correctly observed it will always be disadvantaged compared to other modes of transport.
But hey, the war in Iran might make it cheaper than driving so that’s something.