Top 10 reasons to travel by train

Submitted by jbr on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 4:03pm

At some point maybe the legitimacy of rail will be so obvious TDOT will not be able to ignore it.

From MSNBc.com ....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25834942/

jbr's blog

vote

Virginia is about to pull

Submitted by metulj on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 5:08pm.

Virginia is about to pull the trigger on rail to Roanoke and Bristol. We're getting more trains here in Charlottesville. What will TN do? Pave the Smokies?

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/news/article.asp?id=17309

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/activities/drptplanning_details.aspx

Warning PDF:

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/activities/files/Statewide%20Rail%20Plan%20...

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

11. Bar cars.

Submitted by R. Neal on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 5:57pm.

11. Bar cars.

The new ACES train from Penn

Submitted by metulj on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 6:13pm.

The new ACES train from Penn Station to Atlantic City has a full lounge car. I took the Regional to Boston recently and they had Sam Adams and Brooklyn Lager for $4 a bottle and PBR for $2.50 a can. I showed my Knoxville pride to the tune of $15.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

11. Bar cars Eleven? Try #1

Submitted by edens on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 5:09pm.

11. Bar cars

Eleven? Try #1

I would love it...

Submitted by talidapali on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 8:32pm.

If Knoxville could get passenger rail service. I love trains. I like riding them. What better way to travel on a vacation? You can relax...take your time and enjoy the trip...when you get sleepy you can snooze and still make hundreds of miles progress.

I wish we had passenger rail service all over this country and going to Canada and South America as well. How cool would it be to go on vacation to Argentina or Peru by rail through the Andes Mountains, or to Brazil along the coast of South America?

I love road trips, but I would be just as happy riding a steel rail road as taking a road trip in my truck. And getting there is half the fun anyway.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

Robyn Hitchcock - "I Often Dream of Trains"

Submitted by Andy Axel on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 8:46pm.

____________________________

"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

Come Ride The Local

Submitted by redmondkr on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 9:44pm.

I shot this on the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's local a few years ago. It's designed to give the feel of 1930s branch line passenger service.

As a life-time member I get unlimited free rides. We don't go very far but it's a pretty good way to scratch the itch.

Visit us at

The Home

I rode a late night train

Submitted by JaHu on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 11:43pm.

I rode a late night train from Charlotte to DC a few years ago and I really tried avoiding going to sleep. You see, I have a slight tendency of snoring. The car which I was seated had a quite a few passengers in it but it was far from full. While sitting there relaxing and enjoying the slight rocking of the train, I thought I'd close my eyes for a brief second to give them some needed rest, ...when I woke up, I found myself totally alone in the car. Next time I think I'll get an upgrade to a bed car. It'd probably be best for everyone.

Anyone here remember when

Submitted by JaHu on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 11:53pm.

Anyone here remember when L&N had passenger train service. I remember riding on the last passenger train to leave out of Knoxville. It was only an excursion that went to Ootawah and back. I still have the memory of being a pupster walking down the steps then boarding the train at the depot.

DC

Submitted by Up Goose Creek on Sun, 2008/07/27 - 8:27am.

I kind of, just barely, remember my dad taking the train to DC. I think around 1960.

I'm anxiously awaiting train service from Bristol. It seems so counterproductive to drive south to Greenville or spartanburg when you are ultimately traveling north.

____________________________________
"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse."

My sister used to take the

Submitted by R. Neal on Sun, 2008/07/27 - 8:30am.

My sister used to take the train between DC and Knoxville when she was attending college sometime in the 1960s.

just a crazy thought

Submitted by Bird_dog on Mon, 2008/07/28 - 10:18pm.

I know that securing right-of-ways for passenger rail is a huge hurdle and expensive...

What about building passenger rail in the median strip of the interstate highway system? The land is not being used and the routes are well-traveled without intersections and crossings...

Not a bad idea...

Submitted by RayCapps on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 11:09am.

That's already being done in lots of urban areas with their metro lines, of course. One potential hurdle is that those medians tend to disappear just as the available land gets scarcer and more expensive - as you approach urban areas.

I'm a huge supporter of passenger rail. To establish my "rail cred," it's my personal favorite sort of vacation. I've traveled the Royal Scotsman, the American Orient Express (the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons route), the Empire Builder to Glacier National Park, I've taken the Chunnel from London to Paris and back. Someday, I'm going to have the time and money to go from London to Vladivostok or Beijing entirely by rail.

I sincerely believe there's a future for regional passenger rail in the United States, especially if it's subsidized to the same level as either air or automobile travel. I'd say any major city that could be reached by rail in somewhere between 8 to 12 hours (purely a guessed range) is or should become viable. Owing to the distances involved, there's probably a limit to how much we could reasonably expect from long haul passenger rail, though.

It's hard to make a transit line sustainable on just retirees and vacationers. You need business travelers. For long haul rail, the travel time becomes a real hurdle to attracting that passenger demographic. Speaking personally again, as much as I detest air travel (and each trip makes me hate it a little more), I'm not prepared to spend an extra 4-5 days away from my family to avoid it. If rail could get me there in a day, I'd go that route and pay a premium for the privilege. Varying a bit according to lots of factors from service to amenities to timetable, though, there's going to be a time constraint that limits how many long haul options could be supported. Taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles is a wonderful excursion, but not so much a viable business travel choice.

City of New Orleans

Submitted by Bird_dog on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 4:42pm.

I took the Sunset Limited, in the early 70's, from Houston to NOLA just for the ride and it was fantastic. More recently, I have driven to Memphis to take the City of New Orleans down to visit my mom in S. Ms. It's cheaper than an tank of gas and makes the driving manageable and I have kiddos to visit overnight in Memphis. The accommodations are so much better than another trip on the same train from S. Ms. to Chicago in the late 70's.

What's your recommendation for a rail vacation to the west coast, say, starting in Memphis?

Out of Memphis...

Submitted by RayCapps on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 10:29pm.

Not a lot of options there. You're taking the City of New Orleans either north to Chicago or South to New Orleans. From New Orleans, there's only the Sunset Limited heading out to Los Angeles. From Chicago, you have three options,the California Zephyr to San Fran, the Empire Builder to Portland, and the Southwest Chief to LA. I don't really see a reason to go to LA from Chicago via Memphis, but all the other routes have something to offer, depending on what you're interested in. I love the national parks and the Pac Northwest, so I'm be partial to the Empire Builder. But both the Zephyr and the Sunset have plenty of charms to recommend those routes.

If neither time, money, nor train endurance are a problem, what I'd really recommend is enjoying the Coast Starlight between Seattle and Los Angeles before you return home. The Coast Starlight is definitely on my "to do" list.

They still don't allow pets

Submitted by bizgrrl on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 6:09am.

They still don't allow pets on Amtrak. You can get a dog on an airplane, you should be able to get your dog on the train.

From what I understand,

Submitted by metulj on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 8:42am.

From what I understand, Amtrak's experience with pets on the train is that, for some reason, people see fit to let the animals run loose because it is a train. Most of Amtrak's trains are short haul in the NE and in California, and do not have baggage cars in which to put the animals. I imagine the policy will or could change on long-distance trains that have baggage cars. The problem is that if you had an animal caged in the luggage car, passengers are not allowed in the luggage car to feed them or clean up after them and the trains make few long "smoking" stops that would allow natural breaks. I think the Crescent stops less than 5 times along its route to allow smokers to kill themselves. It is here in Charlottesville long enough to un/load passengers and that is it.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

No way would I put the

Submitted by bizgrrl on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 9:05am.

No way would I put the pupster in a baggage car. Airlines have rules that dogs in the passenger area must be in a crate and fit under the seat. I don't see why Amtrak, etc. can't do the same. The crates/dogs could be even a little bigger since seating on trains (that I have been on anyway) have more room than planes. The main problem I see is that trains don't seem to have as many attendants always watching over passengers.

I agree for short haul...

Submitted by RayCapps on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 11:15am.

If the dog or cat was crated the entire time, there's no distinction between short haul rail and air for pet travel. It's completely impractical for long haul routes, of course. Not only are you going to be hard pressed for "potty breaks" but keeping most pets confined for such long periods is going to be stressful for all concerned.

Here's the

Submitted by metulj on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 11:23am.

Here's the reason:

http://www.narprailmembership.org/pet.htm

It's one of those frustrating policies that is both stupid and "caring" at the same time.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

On the subject of...

Submitted by talidapali on Tue, 2008/07/29 - 5:13pm.

Short haul versus long haul travel by train:

I like the "Bullet" trains in Japan. Now those kinds of trains for long haul passenger service coast-to-coast would be very practical. They get you there in a reasonable amount of time. They would only have to stop in major cities along their route like Memphis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Chicago, etc. They are fast trains, and with careful planning, they could be very safe for wildlife as well along their routes.

For short haul I favor the mag-lev trains like the ones they run in Europe. One big bonus is the trains themselves produce no carbon emissions, although the electric plants here that would supply their power would, but we can work on reducing the carbon emissions of electric power plants here as well...since we are going to have to anyway. The elevated tracks make sense around urban landscapes where crowding and right-of-way issues crop up.

There is really no good reason why rail travel is not more available in the U.S., except maybe that we just haven't got the will to do it.

The rental car industry could get a boost from this mode of travel as well by offering rentals on electric cars for folks to hire for running about at their vacation destinations. The car makers get a big boost in sales of electric cars as well. The hotel proprietors could get on board with charging stations at their hotels which would attract the rail travelers that have rented those electric cars. And we all get a big boost of cleaner air and less congestion on the roads and interstate highways.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali