Edit: Ok, car-culture had my brain twisted. I paid a shitload of money upfront to buy my car, which is why I had access to it as an alternative to the train in the first place. That there is enough for me to retire this question, although I’ll leave the post up. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, happy New Year.
So over the holidays I went to visit family in central Oregon. I compared taking the train (there’s an Amtrak stop in the city I was going to) compared to driving. I ended up driving roundtrip, solo, in a premium-guzzling, 4-door sedan for the price of a one-way train ticket, and also saved about 4 hours total travel time.
I had it in my head that taking a train was supposed to be the economical choice, as driving the whole way, by myself, seems so inefficient. I certainly consider flying that distance to be a luxury over any ground-based transportation and would expect that to consequently be the most expensive.
On top of the base cost of travel, I was able to bring a car full of stuff rather than try to lug my… luggage, onto the train.
Before I go ranting to friends and family about the failings of our train systems, is my head in the wrong place? I saw another thread recently talking about how Amtrak should buy out freight for right-of-way, or construct pull-out track, in the name of decreased travel time but those sound like they’d raise ticket prices even more. So are trains SUPPOSED to be cheaper or more expensive than driving a car?
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