Amtrak vs Flying

So look at a situation in those dimensions and you decide if Air travel is really all that superior to Rail travel . I don't know about you But id rather give Amtrak the extra 2+ hrs and take it at half the cost!

However, when I took the International - quite a long time now ago now, at least 11 years - I was disappointed by how late the train was into Chicago, even though it left Canada on time. If I hadn't chatted up a nice missionary lady about our experiences in Africa I would have had difficulties finding a place to stay at after ten o'clock.

George Im not going to lie to you about that and say didn't happen but it did.. however the train when I rode it from 2000-2004 was on average 15-45 min late. not much of a issue when considering a 12 hr main trip time and having to cross international borders. the odd ball 2+ hrs late was usually due to train traffic in northwest indiana by the steel mills always just a few miles away from CUS on the toronto-chicago trip and because of constant freight derailments in Canada in the Sarnia area ( due to bad track maintenance on that line) for trains from chicago-toronto. On that Sarnia section I doubt our train ever traveled over 45 mph because of the badly jointed rails.

Well Buddah, as an employee of an airline, I will tell you differently. Contrary to your stating that you need to be through security two hours before departure, there is no such requirement and even if there was, there's no one enforcing it. No one from your airline knows what time you went through security. For the carrier I work for, flights to Canada are treated the same as domestic and so long as you're checked in 45 minutes before departure time, you'll be issued your boarding pass and you then have those 45 minutes to get through security and to the gate. If you check-in on-line, you don't even have to worry about the 45 minutes (unless you're checking luggage). I've made it through security with boarding passes for a flight in the past (flight was delayed).

That said, I think people do underestimate times for air vs. rail because all they look at is the time of the major mode of transportation. So NYC-BOS to them is one hour flying vs. four hours on Amtrak. So Buddah, your main point that flying takes longer than people think it does is valid but you've overdone it and that detracts from your argument (the flying snob is not going to be persuaded because he'll see your exaggerations and say bull).

lstone19 wrote: That said, I think people do underestimate times for air vs. rail because all they look at is the time of the major mode of transportation. So NYC-BOS to them is one hour flying vs. four hours on Amtrak. So Buddah, your main point that flying takes longer than people think it does is valid but you've overdone it and that detracts from your argument (the flying snob is not going to be persuaded because he'll see your exaggerations and say bull).

I agree. "Flying Snobs" and "Railfans" aren't the ones whose opinions should be shaping public policy and either carrier's business plans (I count myself in the latter group, so that includes me). Not to say that both groups don't make good points.

I used to live within walking distance of Baltimore's Penn Station. It was wonderfully convenient, and that included all kinds of longer distance train trips that would send the anti-ld crowds into fits of confusion and rage. Now I live further from the station, and almost within site of an I-95 entrance, so I end up driving quite a bit more. In between, I lived right next to the light rail line directly to the airport, and more of these trips became flights.

I used to be pretty militant about hating driving and flying, and loving train travel. I still love train travel, and get a bit defensive when seemingly intelligent people viciously attack a form of travel I find very enjoyable AND convenient, but I have learned that the other two aren't so bad, either. With the "Mineta Traveling Circus" hopefully mothballed for the forseeable future, maybe we can look forward to more conversations about how to make all modes of transportation better, smoother, and more inter-connected.

JPS

lstone19 wrote:Well Buddah, as an employee of an airline, I will tell you differently. Contrary to your stating that you need to be through security two hours before departure, there is no such requirement and even if there was, there's no one enforcing it.
. So Buddah, your main point that flying takes longer than people think it does is valid but you've overdone it and that detracts from your argument (the flying snob is not going to be persuaded because he'll see your exaggerations and say bull).

Well Istone19 I can understand your feelings, But you say you work for a airline? Id like to know which one? Ive traveled on the main 3 which are the only 3 with direct flights AA, UNITED, & AIR CANADA. Im sure ANYONE who has traveled by air long enough will tell you the airlines and airports general rule of thumb " arrive at least 45 min ahead of departure of domestic flights recommended 90 min. and at least 90 min for international flights recommended 120 min." even if it's not something they enforce. there have been the occasional times Ive showed up 20 min. before a domestic flight and was able to catch the plane. this " rule of thumb" can be found even the FAA website, and since 9/11 expect even longer waiting times. You work for the airlines and Im sure have no issues once you state that and arrive at security and customs. For the rest of us common people it is not that simple. NOT to turn this into a racial issue as I believe all races are created equal, but you are from Roselle which has a 90% white population I expect you fall into this category. I am in the other 10% minority population ( Im mixed). SO I can assure you my airport time are not exaggerated. Ive once shown up 1 hour prior to boarding on a flight and was held up so long by security and customs I missed the flight. (Note I have NO criminal record or any type of convictions, never went to jail or have any type of police record.) AS I said the 10 hours and 15 min. was on one of the more inconvenient days but the best Ive EVER been able to do is 8 hrs form point to point ( which I stated above). Provided taking out some key waiting times at the airport. I can and have driven from Chicago to Toronto in the same 8 hrs. which is also what I currently do. SO why not give Amtrak the benefit of the doubt and give them the extra 2-4hrs. If you have ever taken the BLUE line train from downtown to O'hare ( as you live right by the airport) you know that is roughly just under a 1 hr trip. and if you have ever been on TTC in Toronto and taken that to the airport you know my times are precise as they run on a timed schedule! SO I thank you for agreeing with me on the underestimation of time on a air travel trip, and respect your argument to my referenced times. However I assure you and anyone on this site that those times are not elaborated or exaggerated in anyway. I will pay the person who's willing to take the exact same trip with me and get me from point to point and using the "rule of thumb" in less than 8hrs using ONLY public transit.

buddah wrote:George Im not going to lie to you about that and say didn't happen but it did.. however the train when I rode it from 2000-2004 was on average 15-45 min late. not much of a issue when considering a 12 hr main trip time and having to cross international borders. the odd ball 2+ hrs late was usually due to train traffic in northwest indiana by the steel mills always just a few miles away from CUS on the toronto-chicago trip and because of constant freight derailments in Canada in the Sarnia area ( due to bad track maintenance on that line) for trains from chicago-toronto. On that Sarnia section I doubt our train ever traveled over 45 mph because of the badly jointed rails.

I travelled on a VIA train on the other line from?Aldershot and changed at London. The International was on time at that point. There was a delay after passing through the tunnel at Immigration, but I don't know if it was longer than the timetable allowed. After that the delays began, passing through Michigan. I was surprised and asked people and they said a freight train was delaying us. That was the first time in my life I have ever been delayed by a freight train (extensive train travel on many continents). I was amazed.

I promise I'll work Amtrak into this post so bear with me.

Mr. buddah, have you considered a more conventional approach to air travel? You are one of probably the only persons in your town to take that route to O'Hare and without doubt it has to be the longest possible way to get there. That said, let me tell you of my last air travel experience and the timing needed.

Left home for CLE at 9:12 AM (later than originally planned by about 10 minutes).
Parked at remote lot and took bus to terminal arriving about 9:55 AM.
No line at security so just a few moments to clear that step.
Arrived at the gate at probably 10:05 AM for a 10:55 AM flight to LGA.
Boarded and backed out about 5 minutes early.
Big tailwind, no ATC delays into LGA.
Parked at gate at about noon (30 to 35 minutes early).
Doing this well, decided to have lunch at the LGA food court (multiple selections there).
Board shuttle bus to rental lot and leave rental lot about 12:45 or 12:50 PM.
Navigate my way over to New Jersey through relatively light to moderate NYC traffic (didn't fly to Newark as it far more expensive).
Arrived at Metropark station at 1:50 PM.
Picked up co-worker who arrived Metropark on Acela 2164 a few minutes earlier than scheduled 2:16 PM. Had convinced co-worker to take train there from the south as it was drop-dead simple.

Total time from home in Ohio to Metropark was 4 hours and 40 minutes via LGA and stopping for lunch. Would have been less via EWR had I done that route. Granted, this was as good as it can possibly get and it can be far worse getting into the New York area in bad weather. OTOH, it's hardly the torturous experience that you make it out to appear.

MudLake wrote:I promise I'll work Amtrak into this post so bear with me.

Mr. buddah, have you considered a more conventional approach to air travel? You are one of probably the only persons in your town to take that route to O'Hare and without doubt it has to be the longest possible way to get there. That said, let me tell you of my last air travel experience and the timing needed.
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If you have ever been to Chicago my friend then you would know that the Blue Line train from downtown is the MOST direct route and frequent traveled route to O'hare airport. It runs directly down the middle of the highway to the airport a train every 10 min or so. you have other option such as taking a cab, hitching a ride from someone, or the Coach express bus usually 1 per 1/2 hour or so from downtown. Metra from downtown also go to Ohare but there every 2+ hrs and you still have to transfer to a bus to actually get from the Metra station and into O'hare not a walk for the faint. but all those defeats the purpose of taking public transit. and yes I too have had some good flight experiences where Ive showed up at Chicago midway airport 20 min before my flight to California and made it on the plane while getting my ticket and checking a bag, and that trip is just like yours, Domestic .I would NOT suggest you try that with an International flight. That's where my situation differs from yours. As I said air travel is beneficial to me as I stated above when going across country or overseas. but for a trip like Chicago to Toronto where there are international lines crossed and only about 500 miles apart in distance Id rather take the Amtrak as I believe its a better mode of transportation ( if there was still a direct train) or drive. I appreciate your example and as I said it works out differently for everyone. I'm pretty sure you will agree if you didn't drive to the lot and didn't catch that airport express bus your trip to the airport would have been a lot longer using public transit. One of the main reasons I said in my original post lets get out of the NEC ( where most transits are interconnected) and go to more remote locations for an example.

A relevant comparison needs to consider how a typical person would do it. A typical person flying does not go to the railroad station first, then take slow transit to the airport (and reverse the process at the destination) as Buddah does for his comparison. And you don't compare worst case air times to best case rail times. And you don't exaggerate.

Even ignoring the slow transit, Buddah's comparison has him arriving at the airport 3:15 early vs. the 1:00 that will be true for a typical traveler. Buddah's flight block time (actual gate departure to actual gate arrival) is 2:45 vs. the schedule of about 1:35 plus another 45 minutes getting through Immigration and Customs (it has never been longer than 10 minutes for me). I dare say if I needed to get from home to downtown Toronto, I could do it in five hours, not Buddah's over ten hours.

But there are other factors to be considered in making a fly vs. train comparison. Flexibility: once a day rail service compared to hourly air service makes a big difference. Reliability (how likely to be on-time and if late, by how much) makes a big difference. For the business traveler, flexibility can make up for reliability on a bad air travel day (I was once on a flight that was over five hours late by its schedule but 30 minutes early by when I had planned to arrive - on a bad reliability day due to weather, flexibility let me move to an earlier flight rather than having to wait for my also very delayed flight).

lstone19 wrote:A relevant comparison needs to consider how a typical person would do it.
1)A typical person flying does not go to the railroad station first, then take slow transit to the airport (and reverse the process at the destination) as Buddah does for his comparison. And you don't compare worst case air times to best case rail times. And you don't exaggerate.

2)Even ignoring the slow transit, Buddah's comparison has him arriving at the airport, I could do it in five hours, not Buddah's over ten hours.

3) But there are other factors to be considered in making a fly vs. train comparison. Flexibility: once a day rail service compared to hourly air service makes a big difference. Reliability (how likely to be on-time and if late, by how much) makes a big difference. For the business traveler, flexibility can make up for reliability on a bad air travel day.

Relative comparison from downtown Chicago to O'hare is the Blue line to O'hare as it is a direct route, has plenty of stops in the downtown loop area, unlike the coach bus that only loads at select hotels and intersection. Also the Blue line carries more people to and form the airport yearly than any other form of public transit. Taking a car to the airport defeats the purpose of PUBLIC TRANSIT! and if you have ever been on public transit in those 2 cities (CTA) / (TTC) you will know those time are not exaggerated. As I said the BEST time is 8 hrs.

You can NOT ignore public transit as that's one if the main point of my discussion ( Not everyone has a car or a ride to the airport or rail station) and again as I said given I arrive at the airport 2 hrs before the flight is scheduled to depart, not being at the gate 2 hrs before departure ( which I do sometimes to explore the airport) it will still work out to roughly 8 hrs, NOT 10+ not 5. I see its hard for someone who works for the airlines (yourself) to understand what the rest of us have to go through for " international " flights.

Yes other factors can be compared I use to do it all the time if I missed the morning flight I knew there was another direct flight just 4 hrs away on all 3 airlines. but if you are going to go there with the discussion them factor in what will it cost you if you missed your original flight, how will you deal with transportation when you get to your destination, missing a connection, etc. But lets not complicate this and keep it on the relative topic downtown Chicago to downtown Toronto AIR vs TRAIN. As I know you have never done this trip before especially by public transit you can not compare it and you Don't have any contrary examples to my travel times, so please stop trying to compare. If your a business traveler sure you can spare the extra expenses as I do now, but for "common folks" which it what I consider myself to be at times, that is not always an option.

In Toronto TTC/ Mississauga transit from the airport to downtown which you can catch from a number of downtown location $5.50 per passenger. airport bus which ONLY loads passenger on the street from in front of the Royal York hotel NO other downtown locations $20-25 per passenger. Catching a cab from downtown Toronto to the airport note: Toronto cabs charge for millage time if stuck in traffic and passenger occupancies. $40-70+. Ive done the $40 in the middle of the night for a red eye flight no rush hour traffic involved. Those are the only 3 ways you will get from downtown Toronto to the airport and Vice versa if you don't have a car!

The non-graphical browser I'm using right now doesn't allow me to easily quote but this all references Buddah's post immediately above.

1) Buddah, you're changing your story. Your detailed example of how you took 10:15 from Chicago to Toronto included 3:15 at O'Hare. 1:15 to get through security and then an additional two hours because you claimed you need to be through security two hours before departure. Now you claim you arrive at the airport two hours before.

2) While our check-in "recommendation" is higher for flights to Canada, our required check-in time is the same as for domestic flights. The only difference is a documentation check to verify that the carrier expects you to be admissible to the other country. Beyond, that flights to/from Canada are, from the passenger's perspective, the same as domestic flights at the U.S. end. As for being an airline employee, that gets me no special privileges in dealing with TSA or any country's Customs and Immigration. At a few airports, we might be told to use the employee/crew checkpoint but we're still subject to the same inspection.

3) I do public transportation at airports a lot but at the destination. I keep myself informed so I know my options when needed. Last year, I was in Philadelphia when due to a flight cancellation, I decided I'd be better off in Newark. Three trains plus the monorail later, I was in Newark (to keep this on-topic to Amtrak, I considered but rejected Amtrak for 30th-EWR as I didn't need the speed and SEPTA/NJT would meet my time need).

But another factor that is obviously unimportant to you is the value of your time. You'd rather spend 2 to 2.5 hours getting from Orland Park to O'Hare via public transportation than spend more on a cab to get you there faster. And that's fine. But the people that the airlines and Amtrak need to sell to to bring in the revenue they need do value their time sufficiently to make it worth it to them to use more expensive ground transportation or more convenient but higher fare airports. It's why Acela Expresses command a revenue premium over Regionals. Many people are willing to pay for speed.

Anyway, before a moderator says this is going astray, I'll just say I've said all I think I can productively say while keeping this reasonably close to the real topic. So I'm done with debating Chicago-Toronto travel times.

l008com wrote:Yeah so i wanted to start a discussion about this but I really have little to start off with. I can say that taking the train from boston to florida, minus the cost of the roomettes, is about the same. The rooms made it much much more expensive to take the train. Comparing a train with a roomette to a single seat on a plane might seem like an uneven comparison at first, but when you consider the amount of time you're on the train, most people would find it very difficult sitting in an amtrak coach seat for 30 hours straight.

Except (1) the seat is the size of a first class airplane seat (compare that price!), and (2) you can get up and walk around (go to the dining car, etc). You're not stuck in the seat for the entire trip.

If you have arthritis, (2) makes all the difference. For people with any similar issues, there's no comparison -- Amtrak wins hands down. 30 hours in a sprawling seat, able to move, versus 3 hours trapped nearly motionless -- it's massive.

If you're overweight or over 6 feet tall, (1) makes all the difference.

If you have any problems with "airplane air", you will also find 30 hours in a Amtrak seat more comfortable than 3 hours in a plane seat. Then of course there's also the noise -- planes have a blanket exemption from the occupational noise hazard standards, and *will* damage your hearing after enough flying.

Amtrak is simply a healthier, more comfortable way to travel, and it's also cheaper.

It happens to be significantly slower. That is a serious disadvantage -- a lot of people will trade away a *lot* in order to have a faster trip. That's why we need to make the routes faster where it would make them more time-competitive with planes, and where it would make them more time-competitive with cars. (Stuff like Chicago-LA will never be time-competitive and should be treated differently, with a focus strictly on comfort and reliability. However, Chicago-NY could pick up a lot more people if it were only somwhat faster. Remember that a lot of the customers are coming from points in between Chicago and NY, and have circuitous plane routes; you're not trying to compete with the direct Chicago-NY plane travel time).


I will say to MudLake and buddah, Chicago's actually an unusual situation. The road delays getting to O'Hare are completely outrageous. Almost everyone coming from downtown or beyond would take the Blue Line if they were interested in speed; even when it was subject to massive slow zones it was faster than driving during the morning or evening rush "hour" (which last for several hours each). (Planes to Midway used to command a premium because they landed closer to downtown; not sure whether they still do.) The Chicago area is arguably the second-friendliest US market for train travel after the cities along the NEC, with pretty decent train service and fairly unpleasant roads and planes. Chicago's ripe for a massive modal shift to rail; the money just needs to be put in for the upgrades (many of which are already designed).

The rather nice roads and airports in Cleveland are much better and easier to deal with -- no comparison really.

I mentioned recently that I was allowed to travel to a conference in Miami, where I am, in fact, right now.

The price to travel from my home in Northwestern PA was attractive. The time was not. I would have to fly to New York and then "train it" south, and the time to get here would have made it impossible to come. I was hoping I would be able to.

Dave Becker

neroden wrote: I will say to MudLake and buddah, Chicago's actually an unusual situation. The road delays getting to O'Hare are completely outrageous. Almost everyone coming from downtown or beyond would take the Blue Line if they were interested in speed; even when it was subject to massive slow zones it was faster than driving during the morning or evening rush "hour" (which last for several hours each). (Planes to Midway used to command a premium because they landed closer to downtown; not sure whether they still do.) The Chicago area is arguably the second-friendliest US market for train travel after the cities along the NEC, with pretty decent train service and fairly unpleasant roads and planes. Chicago's ripe for a massive modal shift to rail; the money just needs to be put in for the upgrades (many of which are already designed).

The rather nice roads and airports in Cleveland are much better and easier to deal with -- no comparison really.

I fly into O'Hare probably six times per year (for many years) and know what it's like to both drive and take the "L" to/from there. I used to live there, too. All I can say is that driving to Union Station to catch an Amtrak train is much worse. Yes, there are Metra trains but many lines don't terminate at Union Station.

Secondly, to somewhat rebut Mr. Buddah, most of the passengers I've observed on the Blue Line were not air passengers unless you count flight attendants. Instead, most that I've observed have been airport and/or airline employees.

As mentioned in another area I'm traveling BOS/WAS/ORL/SRA and return at the end of March. The same trip I took last year at the same time. I'm not a rail nut, nor am I afraid of flying. (I spent over 30 years in the airline industry covering over 60K miles a year in the last three years of tenure). I have a life time space available term pass on one of our largest and oldest carriers. If I wanted to fly down to SRA and return paying full first class fares I'd save about $300 from what my Amtrak trip is costing. If I wanted the trouble and agrivation of non-reving I'd save well over a thousand. The simple reason I take Amtrak is: I prefer it.
Best regards,
Rodger