Why Train Travel in the United States Makes No Sense [View all]

[MineralMan]

I travel from St. Paul, MN to the Los Angeles, CA area several times a year. My 94-year-old-parents live there, and that means that I never know when I'm going to need to go.

By air, flying the next day after I know I need to go, the trip costs an average of about $500, round-trip, if someone picks me up at LAX. The flight takes 3.5 hours. Add a couple of hours to that to get to the airport and get through security with plenty of time to spare, and I am in LA in less than six hours.

By contrast, I could take Amtrak from St. Paul to Los Angeles. There's a train leaving at 10 AM on most days. A round trip costs about $500, depending on the day of the week. But...and here's the kicker...the minimum time needed on that train is roughly 72 hours, each way. That means that each trip involved six days on the train.

How does that make any sense at all? Typically, when I go to see my parents, I spend four days there. My preferred flight to LAX arrives at about noon, so that's one of those days. The return flight leaves LAX at about 1 PM, which I also count as a day with my parents. So, I'm gone just four days.

If I went by train, the entire trip would take 10 days of my time, with six of those sitting on a train.

Who can do that? Not me. Worse, the train trip costs the same as the trip by air.

This country is too large for train travel between many major cities to make any sense at all. It might work on the East Coast, I suppose, or even within a state, but those are driveable distances, so i would just get in my car.

Is the answer high-speed rail? Not really. My St. Paul to Los Angeles trip would still take too long to make sense.