Better bus coverage and reliability would be ideal but perhaps this could be used to help make the case in the mean time.
Of course this also requires proper bicycle infrastructure to be available, but it shows how well this could work.
But with those two restrictions you would still serve a very significant chunk of the population of pretty much any country. It's really the bike infrastructure that's the limiting factor elsewhere.
Busses seem suboptimal if you don’t need a driver. They’re too big.
Peoples’ travel plans in space and time are naturally heterogenous; the less we force passengers to travel to and from stops or change their plans to match a schedule, the more people will ride.
If you've ever taken a cruise you've seen this work beautifully. Even with multiple excursions, busses are optimal for getting people around because the 100s of people on the ship are ultimately going to the same places.
Cruises are one of the rare cases where our buses are correctly sized and competitive against rail, in large part because you’l continuing the social experience of being on a cruise ship.
When you consider what makes a bus-sized bus perfect for tour groups and the like, it quickly becomes apparent why they’re not optimally sized for transit outside the constraints imposed by driver economics.
Drivers are the dominant operating cost of a bus system, and they’re typically paid regardless of ridership. That means you have a minimum ridership per driver required to offset their cost.
Bus systems thus size the bus and route to ensure that minimum ridership. That, in turn, requires aggregating demand, i.e. forcing people to change the places and times of their transit to line up with the bus’s. Analogous to lift and drag, the more you force people to change their schedules, the more you lose potential demand to alternatives.
If you don’t have a driver, you can make your transports as big or small as you’d like. In rare cases, they’ll be bus sized. But most busses either aren’t consistently full or lose a lot of potential riders because their schedules and stops are inconvenient. A fleet of smaller vehicles sops up that demand without hauling around a bunch of dead mass off rush hour.
Consistently one of the most sold-out and profitable routes.
These used to be quite a big deal, but in practice most such services have died out.
There also used to be _car planes_: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Traders_Carvair
Every commuter rail line really should do this. Obviously Caltrain could not do this for every train, but how about some trains?
[1] https://cdn.acerail.com/wp-content/uploads/ACE-Shuttle-Map-S...
Since Amtrak is often delayed due to freight having priority, traveling the other way is more risky from a scheduling point of view, since the train starts in Seattle and could already be heavily delayed by the time it gets to San Jose.
https://www.amtrakvacations.com/travel-styles/famous-routes/...
Fun fact: by law, Amtrak has priority. Not that it matters much, even back when laws themselves mattered.
Could this be fixed by legislation on max train length to ensure all trains fit in sidings? Yes. Will that legislation get passed? No.
An interesting video on the subject: https://youtu.be/qQTjLWIHN74?si=t3u3iyZj1kRQQUCe
Apparently the problem is the law is not enforced that much? And that there are loopholes around it.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/norfolk-southern-agrees-give-...
But when you don't have them or only every 100km or whatnot, or any of the potential places (such as in a train station) just isn't long enough to accept and buffer a 3 miles long train... then good luck, there just is no physical opportunity for the faster passenger train to speed ahead, not to mention the absurd amount of energy wasted in braking and then re-accelerating that 3 mile freight monster.
Fixing this would be possible - either by limiting the maximum length of a train or by forcing the extension of parallel rail segments. The former makes logistics significantly more challenging plus it requires more staff (which is the real problem, long haul isn't wanted much these days, neither rail nor road), the latter is darn expensive and someone has to foot the bill - Congress certainly won't.
> Fixing this would be possible - either by limiting the maximum length of a train...
It can't be both. Splitting a freight train and then stopping and starting the smaller trains would take the same amount of energy as stopping and starting the single long freight train.
Unless they're deliberately moving empty freight cars to make it artificially long.
Are you sure about that? I've never looked up the law, but my understanding is that, for most (all?) of its routes, Amtrak is running on privately owned track, and, on such track, freight has priority.
(I'm surprised at the number of downvotes. The replies indicated that I'm wrong, which is awesome in the sense that I like riding Amtrak and want it to have priority, and so I understand the frustration; but I think that I cannot be the only one who has heard from every Amtrak rider they've talked to that freight has priority, and surely it's a good thing to seek an authoritative answer? Maybe it looked like I was rhetorically saying that someone was wrong rather than honestly seeking clarification.)
But for some reason the government basically stopped enforcing it like 40 years ago.
So in practice it tends to work the other way.
Fair warning I haven't read the text of the law in full, only heard this second hand.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/house-bill/15427
If I had one wish it would be a second daily Coast Starlight offset 12 hours from the current one. LA Union to SJ Diridon is roughly 9am to 8pm in both directions, so my second train would be the perfect night train from LA to SF.
I'm sad to report that renting a family bedroom or two joined bedrooms on Amtrak to take a journey on say the California Zephyr didn't pencil out. It is costlier than flying (about $2000 vs $1600 at the low end for both options, resp.) Even if you account for the cost of staying two extra nights at the destination it about breaks even.
With children I don't want to risk the days of travel becoming an ordeal as opposed to hours of flight time. The "digital detox" might quickly go sideways and require hours of screentime pacifiers. Maybe when they are older.
Happily the QM2 actually made financial sense and there would be more room to move about and explore the ship.
I think rail travel makes the most sense in the Acela context the article opened with - routes between cities that take less than a day. For cross-continent travel the time savings of air travel make rail travel a harder case to argue.
- A road trip would be both more expensive (fuel, hotels and maintenance/rental), strenuous and also less safe given the number of miles to be driven.
- There is quite little to see in a cruise if not near a shore or on a plane flying at cruising altitudes well above the clouds.
While times have changed and it is lot harder for parents now, I cannot help but remember growing up the number of cross country train trips just sitting at the window with nothing but a book/magazine or conversations with passengers and it was formative life experience even when quite young. It wasn't that long ago and my generation was just as addicted to tech but we were limited to doing that only on a desktop with a modem.
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If you want to see and show the kids to help them understand the size and complex geography and beauty of the country they will inherit despite what limited time screen distractions allow, I don't think there is any better way to do it.
Amtrak isn't useful for that. For see the continent you need to get off the train for a few hours here and there to see something. That means flexible tickets; more trains so you don't have to spend a day in a small town with 3 hours entertainment, and enough space that you can make a last minute decision to see some little tourist trap for the fun of it knowing you can get the next train.
> A road trip would be both more expensive (fuel, hotels and maintenance/rental),
Very much it depends. If you are single Amtrak is cheaper (coach seats). a family is a lot cheaper to drive, since most of the costs are fixed for everyone. You likely own the car and so are making payments anyway. Gas is the same for 1 person or a full car. Hotels are rented per room. My last trip I needed a rental car to get to the family reunion 1 hour from the station, just the cost of a rental car would have paid for gas and hotel to drive my own car (the strenuous miles is why we took the train anyway, but it was more expensive than driving)
> There is quite little to see in a cruise if not near a shore
I've never been on that type of cruise (they exist, just not what I've been on). What I've been on the sea days were near shore taking in the beautiful scenery (you don't take an Alaska cruise for the ports, you take the cruise to watch the shore on sea days), or the ship hopes between islands at night and so you are at a port all day (though next time I think I'd get a resort and stay on one island). Beware.
Amtrak is often a great choice to get around. However there are problems and they are not to be overlooked.
I can only say your understanding of Amtrak offerings are very inaccurate.
Amtrak offers plenty of trips with kind of features you are asking for https://www.amtrakvacations.com/travel-styles/cross-country-...
For example the NYC to SF is an itinerary goes like this https://www.amtrakvacations.com/trips/great-american-majesti....
It is a 12 day one way trip that includes plenty of overnight non train stays(i.e. hotels), full day sight seeing stops etc .
You can mix local car rentals to take extended side trips add much longer breaks with hop-on/hop off if you plan to do so.
There are national park themed trips specifically, or number of great regional options or other cross country journeys like LA to NOLA etc.
It will be never be perfect exact fit to your specific tastes and needs, no public transit can ever be,. However that doesn't mean it is not a great option for a traveling family vacation with sight seeing and breaks, where you can actually spend quality time with the family rather than just looking straight at the road all day, while everyone else is on the phone.
However, we live along the Surfliner route, and for weekend trips it's fantastic. It's a 1-3 hour penalty versus driving depending on which city we're going to, but the kids vastly prefer it because they're not strapped in and we can all interact.
Good example is the Amtrak Cascades which reaches 80mph. The rolling stock can reach 125 mph. High speed rail would be nice, but Portland, Seattle, Vancouver may not be big enough to support it.
If you already have a route in place using that is cheaper, but often you are stuck with decisions that made sense in 1850 when trains didn't go very fast. Where you are building new track is should always be build to 350km/h standards (you run at 300km/h, but build to a higher standard just in case you need to run fast to make up time at the cost of efficiency). There are many towns with populations of 50,000 or so people that you wouldn't build new track too, but if there is existing track running slower trains make sense.
Seattle to SF, however, is only about 1300km, so a bit over 4 hours under ideal conditions. At that point, it's probably quicker than a plane (no need for the whole getting to and from the airport thing, or the security, or the inevitable delays).
We went coach amtrak which was cheaper and more comfortable than flying. I'd do that again.
Turns out flying was both cheaper and faster.
The Acela is useful if I'm trying to make a tight time window. However, I prefer the café car booths on the Regional.
The interior of the cars was old and beat up. The tray in front of me didn't work. The bathroom door was borked and there was this persistent hint of a foul smell.
The woman across the isle was bombed and clearly going through something, but before long she fell asleep and when she woke up was docile as a lamb.
I've read that the main advantage of inter-metropolis rail travel is that you enter and exit in the middle of town. This helped for NYC and DC -- I took a short subway ride to Penn Station on the NYC side, and then walked from Union Station to my friend's house on the DC side.
Rail is the most comfortable way to travel by far. If only it were cheaper and faster.
Your first half would describe a pretty miserable trip for me. I’d gladly take TSA over what you described.
I complained, but it wasn't that bad. Mostly I was pointing out that the "premium" line is in disrepair. This is why they're replacing them.
I've ridden plain old Amtrak many times before, and it can be hit or miss but is invariably better than a bus or a plane, in my opinion. Big seats, plenty of room to walk around, a dedicated lounge car, big windows, no TSA.
If the train shows up, that is.
And don't forget about TSA checks which can be stressful.
They're like aliens seeing humans preparing food but not understanding what taste is.
It's probably harder to drive a train into something than it is to fly a plane into something, but a bomb on a train could do a lot of damage even if it wasn't as cinematic as a bomb on a plane. And, having traveled on Amtrak and seen what people try to cram in to the limited space available, it's not clear to me that some sort of baggage control is automatically a bad thing.
(Don't get me wrong, I like not having to go through those airport-style controls, but it's a tragedy of the commons sort of thing, where abuse of it by a few renders it unpleasant for everyone.)
If you know anything about Florida drivers you won't be surprised to hear there have been 180 fatalities on Brightline since its inception in 2017.
... Wait, _seriously_? That seems implausibly high, for one not-very-frequent train line. Are these just uncontrolled crossings, with no barriers, or something?
(un)surprisingly, this will be operational well before the California HSR (SF->LA) boondoggle.
(un)surprisingly, this will be operational well before the California
HSR (SF->LA) boondoggle.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/11/nx-s1-5495584/brightline-west...
I think if they can hold out they could be successful, but thats a big if.
https://www.wlrn.org/business/2025-08-12/brightline-fares-pr...
Too many rail projects seem to have been prosecuted by purists who are anti-car or anti-plane. That leads to bloat, or ignoring designs that would increase real ridership (e.g. adequate parking at endpoint, or RORO stock).
I've ridden the Piedmont a couple of times and it's very convenient compared to driving, especially during inclement weather. Could it be better? Yes - especially in Charlotte where they have a half-completed station in Uptown while the current station is in a sketchy industrial area and isn't convenient for anyone.
Once Charlotte Gateway station is completed it will link Amtrak service with local commuter rail and streetcar service (and bus/ride-share).
Amen!
I recommend taking a look at Newsom's proposal for a regional program unifying San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento, and the Bay Area into a single unified rail system along with expanding ACE to Modesto a couple years ago - that would have been a game changer, but the purists struck along with other more politicially palatable options.
> Too many rail projects seem to have been prosecuted by purists who are anti-car or anti-plane
Exactly! And a la Tsebeleis, they are a significant veto player that are functionally turning a stag hunt into a Nash equilibrium.
Is Brightline faster than driving?
The new LA-Las Vegas line should be faster than driving, but it's not here yet.
Which sucks for a public good. Imagine if roads worked this way (and no, surge pricing of express lanes don't count, since there's no discount for using it at the same time having booked it two months in advance). Or, like, water use.
Which is genuinely infuriating when you subsequently board a half-empty train.
It looks like Amtrak trips are up 7.5% since 2019 (https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=23182). Does that count as booming?
I wish the West Coast also had frequent service between Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, and points between. Driving and flying stresses me out and is generally an awful experience. When I arrive by train, I'm more relaxed than when I started.
You can't bring a whole dorm and your closet, but a backpack and a bag for clothes are manageable. I always brought some bags of beef jerky and would watch the scenic view or listen to an audiobook. Just sitting on the train, enjoying my snack and watching nature was a nice way to pass time time.
I think high speed cross country rail travel is not very practical either to build or for travelers. The distances are too large, terrain too difficult and population densities are too low west of the Mississippi. It’s worth noting that the US train network is optimized for freight and we carry much more freight than many countries by rail.
High population density corridors like BOS-NYC-PHL-DC and SB-LA-OC-SD make a lot of sense and would be great to see even better service. We are seeing a high-speed, private service building track between Ontario, CA and Las Vegas. Distances to Vegas and Phoenix are short enough and population densities high enough that it makes travel by train from SoCal competitive with driving and air.
For me online addiction/enthusiasm has swung me towards trains. I'm fairly happy sitting there a while if I can do stuff online and get bored driving or doing airport faff.
Apparently it takes 8h to do DFW to Little Rock despite this being a 6h trip by car. That's not great.