Interesting Amtrak article appearing in SF Chronicle

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

This article about riding Amtrak appeared in today’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/04/TR1C11GC4S.DTL

Sorry, but I don’t know how to make the link active.

2

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/04/TR1C11GC4S.DTL

I hit the spacebar after pasteing a link.

3

Thanks for your help, I’ll keep that trick in mind,

4

You are right the article is interesting, well written and informative about something that people like me grew up with.

I hope that the writer continues to give time and space in the future to the subject.

5

At $3 billion per year subsidy, Amtrak users get around $125 in subsidy per trip.

Perhaps now is the time to force Amtrak to charge a fee that covers the full cost of providing the service. Even with a $125 surcharge on Amtrak fees, it may still be cheaper than flying!

Of course, if Amtrak ever charged a fee that actually covers the full cost of providing the service AND people still use the service, it begs the question of why we need a government run passenger service in the first place. Let the railroads take back passenger operations and run their trains with the personal touch. Maybe a token per passenger tax credit to entice the Class I’s to revive their former price and joy.

At least that way taxpayers such as I who do not have the opportunity to utilize passenger train service are not subsidizing those who do have that opportunity.

6

The reporter was honest by pointing out that the round trip air fare was $310 to $149 less than Amtrak coach. Very, very few people are interested in spending more money for such a much longer trip. [And that doesn’t take into account the larger Federal subsidy per passenger for rail LD trains.]