High Speed Amtrak

I wouldn't bet on the EU not going away. They're having plenty of ssues (look at France this summer, with the riots), plus the obnoxious rates of unemployment in places, etc. I can't imagine living in a country where 8 - 10% unemployment was the norm. But France, Germany, Spain, Belgum, Italy...

Suddenly, the 'poor economy' and 'high unemployment' in the US looks good by comparison...

I wouldn't bet on the EU not going away

It's not. You're going to see some surprising changes next year, especially when Germany gets their turn at the presidency.

I can't imagine living in a country where 8 - 10% unemployment was the norm

You're living in one; so you don't have to imagine. Those figures don't include those names that were taken off the unemployed lists because their benefits ran out.

As for Germany, they are the biggest exporter in the world—bigger than China, in fact. Pay attention to how many US companies have been bought out by German ones. Huge turnaround in the offing in the German economy.

Suddenly, the 'poor economy' and 'high unemployment' in the US looks good by comparison

Pay attention to the truth. The USA produces next to nothing nowadays. Manufacturing is less than nine percent of the economy. Drought is threatening the agricultural sector; and as far as high-tech goes, both Asia and Europe are starting to outpace us by far. Borrowing and spending are out of control; and countries are starting to look towards other currencies to hold in reserve versus the dollar. Not trying to sound like a doomsday preacher, but there's a lot of bad things happening here.

Nasadowsk wrote:I wouldn't bet on the EU not going away. They're having plenty of ssues (look at France this summer, with the riots), plus the obnoxious rates of unemployment in places, etc. I can't imagine living in a country where 8 - 10% unemployment was the norm. But France, Germany, Spain, Belgum, Italy...

Suddenly, the 'poor economy' and 'high unemployment' in the US looks good by comparison...

I live here. I think I am a better judge of what is going on than people living thousands of miles away. Besides I have written extensively on the subject.
http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews ... pe/eu.html

However, looking at the US, I suspect it is not as stable as you hope. Its huge trade and fiscal deficit and debts to China may be a permanent loss of hegemony.
A modern economy needs a high speed rail system. Can the US develop the necessary structures to build one?

george matthews wrote:However, looking at the US, I suspect it is not as stable as you hope. Its huge trade and fiscal deficit and debts to China may be a permanent loss of hegemony.
A modern economy needs a high speed rail system. Can the US develop the necessary structures to build one?

Stability is one thing, but theres no doubt that the US is still he dominant player in the international economy and if China knows whats good for it it will keep buying our debt to ensure that it still has US companies employing (directly or indirectly) millions of its citizens. These may not be the best times for the american blue collar worker but those jobs in China still pay dividends to the top American companies (the savings in labor). Not to mention how many American financial firms underwrite deals in asia. There is also the issue of the US's so-called "soft power,' the USA is the most marketable society on the planet and its value as a brand name shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Even in the middle east American chains have a strong presence and aside from the occasional cartoon riots are generally well patronized.

But i digress. Right now the US does not need a high speed rail system. Have you even thought to compare the population densities of the US and the EU? The EU has 3.5 times the population density of the US, as well as urban areas that have been well defined for hundreds and hundreds of years. There is also no European country that even comes close to covering as much land as the US, how many European airlines could even think about surviving providing only domestic flights? I read somewhere than almost half the worlds airports are in the US. Right now outside of the Northeast Corridor there is really no part of the country that has the density or the urban infrastructure to make HSR practical. Without at least a decent sized subway system to serve the endpoint cities it makes the train useless, the time and cost savings would be eaten up taking an inefficient and slow taxi to your final destination, or worse, renting a car. What we should be doing now is exploring possible routes for 25-50 years down the line when airport capacity will begin to become unable to keep up with demand and other mass transit networks will be in place to accomodate travelers at the endpoints, as well as sufficient population to provide adequate ridership. I think the most practical idea would be for the govt to start buying ROW little by little in strategic areas. Right now a lot of ROWs will be much cheaper than they will be in the future, and there will probably be less NIMBY backlash. Im sure that the gov't could strike some sort of deal with the freight carriers to share the burden of updating and widening some ROWs and establishing or restablishing others. A 3 track ROW could be purchased but only one or two tracks built at first so that they could be profitably used for freight and once passenger demand picks up they could add the additional track(s) and put them in use for passenger service. I think this is definitely the smart way to go and if not implemented im sure there will be much regret when DC to Chicago is as densely populated as Boston to DC is now.

theres no doubt that the US is still he dominant player in the international economy

OTC, there's plenty of doubt. The only thing that the US is really chief in is consuming. (Oil, especially, and merely for transportation, to boot.)

All the borrowing that's going on is dependent quite a bit on these countries propping up our fiat currency, not to mention all the commodities trading that use the dollar.

if China knows whats good for it it will keep buying our debt to ensure that it still has US companies employing (directly or indirectly) millions of its citizens

China's not afraid of the US, because those selfsame US companies would not remain loyal to the US if they were to move against the dollar. Indeed, China's moved already, unpegging the yuan from the dollar back in 2005. It's the US companies that are dependent on China, not China dependent upon the US companies—their Communist government could take over operations in a heartbeat and eject the US owners, and frankly, the USA would do nothing to stop them if that were to happen, because the US has no wealth left (not to mention that China has no shortage of alternate consumers, when you regard the EU, Russia, virtually all of Asia, communist Africa and socialist South America…and itself).

Right now the US does not need a high speed rail system

Oh? Consider if we had a high-speed rail system on 9/11. When I was working at Honeywell, everyone knew that I was the fellow who knew the most about trains there, and they were asking me about trains to bring our staff home from places like Arizona, Texas, several other states—when the bosses heard how long the trains take to get from place to place outside the Northeast Corridor, and how few trains run and how few destinations they serve, they instead chose to keep our people in hotels until the planes flew again.

On the contrary, what the US doesn't need is to continue to have forced dependence on the bloated commercial aviation system.

Have you even thought to compare the population densities of the US and the EU? The EU has 3.5 times the population density of the US, as well as urban areas that have been well defined for hundreds and hundreds of years

Canard, especially when average population density for the whole country is the benchmark.

As for the EU: Sweden's population density is roughly the same as the USA, and per that argument, it shouldn't even have the X2000. But it does. My home country, Ireland, has three times the average population density of the USA, and one of the most robust economies within the EU, but its passenger rail barely achieves 100 mph (Dublin-Cork, formerly 90 mph; the second-fastest intercity rail line, Dublin-Belfast, has a top speed of 80 mph); however, citing "population density", the argument follows that it should already have TGVs running on its soil.

Not to mention, the "population density" argument speaks against the interstate highways, most of which are built through the most sparsely-populated areas. This illustrates that land-based transportation arteries are designed to connect cities to cities, not to merely be adjacent to population centers. "Population density" also cries against the many small "international airports" that are of little utility to most people (two of them near me are Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Airport, and Lehigh Valley Airport for Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, here in PA—I can't even get flights out of those airports bound for Philadelphia or New York, both those cities being 100 miles away from me at least; nor of course can I get a train traveling to those places, although trains used to be commonplace in the past, so I have to either drive or take a bus).

There is also no European country that even comes close to covering as much land as the US, how many European airlines could even think about surviving providing only domestic flights?

There are plenty of "low-cost" airlines trying to compete with the high-speed rail networks, within the borders of EU member states. The trains still hold their own and have the lion's share of passengers.

outside of the Northeast Corridor there is really no part of the country that has the density or the urban infrastructure to make HSR practical

OTC, the density of urban infrastructure is the greatest barrier to HSR you can have. For high-speed runs, what is most desirable is great swathes of relatively unoccupied land that new-build of such corridors would have minimal impact upon. In France, SNCF's TGVs operate at 137 mph on traditional rights of way in the inner cities; it is when they reach the exurbs and rural areas to run on the LGVs that the trains run at optimum speeds.

Again with "population density": That is used as a justifier for commuter rail, not long-distance rail.

First of all the US has 25% of global GDP right now, China has 1/6th that, theyre nowhere near catching the US in sooner than about 30 years, probably a lot longer. If they want to get rid of us as an employer they would probably put a large dent in sales to the US, and id like to see them find a replacement for 25% of world demand (probably more if were gonna talk about demand not GDP). If the US were do go down anytime soon it would not be to anyones advantage. You also ignore my arguments about soft power which I think are the one biggest thing the US has going for it. but this is not an economic forum and this debate is also not gonna be settled by anyone anytime soon, let alone the two of us.

When I talk about population density I'm talking about the infrastructure in place to provide transportation to the rail passengers departure and arrival points, not the level of development that would block the ROW for HSR. Scranton, PA to Pittsburgh, PA is probably one of the least occupied stretches of land in the country and it would be real easy to route an HSR line between the two cities, however youre not gonna get anyone riding that train, even if it would cut the travel time in half if not better. There is a reason the NEC is the only place in the US with "HSR" and its that there are plenty of people with a desire to travel between the cities as well as fairly large rail networks to make rail desirable to people who dont live in the cities themselves and may not want to travel to the other cities themselves. If there isnt a decent public transportation infrastrcture to handle these passengers, then air travel is going to look a lot more attractive because airports are almost always more auto-freindly than train stations. An airport, which is on the outskirts of a town, has huge parking facilities as well as rental cars, etc, where it would make no sense to drive to a train station in the middle of a city to go to another city where youd have to rent a car to get anywhere outside of that city (or inside the city as well in many cases).

As far as your population density argument, I was not saying that if you have population density x, you need HSR. Ireland is tiny in comparison to the US, according to the Irish Rail website you can get from Dublin to Cork in less than 3 hours, thats 2/3rds across the country (not including Norther Ireland, of course) in 3 hours. In that case HSR would not really shave all that much off the travel time, its also an island so cant easily benefit from the international rail networks on mainland Europe.

The main thing is that the transportation cultures of the US and Europe are completely different, we love our cars here, we love the freedom they provide and in most of the country they are the most practical way to travel. There are exceptions to this, mainly around big cities, and especially where there are multiple big cities within a few hundred miles of each other. But you'll notice in many of those places there are already rail networks.

The whole crux of my argument though you sum up int he last sentence of your post:

Again with "population density": That is used as a justifier for commuter rail, not long-distance rail.

You are right, but I'm saying that you need the commuter lines to make HSR effective in the US. As I said earlier the NEC runs in the most densely populated corridor in the country and has by far the highest ridership, but it also has MBTA, SLE, MNRR, LIRR, NJT, SEPTA, MARC, and VRE, as well as public bus and subways in each of the 4 cities on the line. Those networks (particularly the subways) are what make the NEC successful for amtrak.

First of all the US has 25% of global GDP right now, China has 1/6th that

Where do you get your figures? Anything "dot-gov" is not going to have the whole truth on it, or it's going to have figures that bear questioning. Counting production of US companies in China is a false count of the USA's GDP. We're down to less than nine percent of the economy being reflected in domestic manufacturing. Only thing that's keeping us afloat is the reserve currency thing, our agriculture (currently under threat of drought—although it's relatively stable right now, it is worsening), house-building of all things (and that is starting to go flat right now—Ireland has the same problem, but has not reached its peak)

If the US were do go down anytime soon it would not be to anyones advantage

It would be to the nascent superpowers' advantage (new ones are China and the EU). Notice that one of the major oil producers in the Middle East (Iraq) started trading their oil in Euros prior to March 2003. Iran's been holding that threat over the USA's head for a little too long. Syria switched from trading commodities from dollars to Euros recently.

You also ignore my arguments about soft power which I think are the one biggest thing the US has going for it

"Soft power" is not working for the USA. Unless one thinks that having the USA doing what other countries want is what soft power really is?

Scranton, PA to Pittsburgh, PA is probably one of the least occupied stretches of land in the country and it would be real easy to route an HSR line between the two cities, however you're not gonna get anyone riding that train, even if it would cut the travel time in half if not better.

You base this assumption on what, exactly? Incidentally, Scranton to Pittsburgh (assuming that you're talking about the Susquehanna River basin towards Harrisburg) is quite populated between Scranton and Hazleton, and has the Allegheny mountain range to contend with.

You've picked two odd endpoints, and I think you are aware that those are not endpoints that any planner would pick. (It might be a good beginning for a route between Boston and Pittsburgh though.)

As for New York to Pittsburgh, we're all aware that the former PRR could be a lot faster—but there is a shorter route, using the former CNJ into Allentown and former Reading from there to Harrisburg. Mapquest gives a driving time between those two cities, using the highway routes parallel to that rail route (I-78 to I-81 to I-76), as 6 hours and 10 minutes, or an average speed of 60 mph over 370 miles (which has the potential for lawbreaking). No train operating between NYC and Pittsburgh operates so fast, despite part of the route being on the NEC and part on the recently-upgraded Keystone Corridor. Notwithstanding, using the example of the NEC, we are well aware that the capability of having a rail journey far shorter than driving is very possible, and not a technological harangue.

There is a reason the NEC is the only place in the US with "HSR" and its that there are plenty of people with a desire to travel between the cities as well as fairly large rail networks to make rail desirable to people who don't live in the cities themselves and may not want to travel to the other cities themselves

No, that's not the reason. The PRR certainly put a lot of money into that right of way, and despite the robustness of the work done to it, it is now crumbling and needs a lot of work merely to maintain the status quo, never mind to be able to raise the speed of the Acela Express to the promised 150 mph top speed.

If what you say is true, then the parallel route between New York and Washington DC, the former Royal Blue route (using CNJ, RDG and B&O) should be just as successful, based on rail connections and corresponding population density. But there is no like passenger service on it, the B&O having withdrawn the service in the late 50s. And within Philadelphia, the B&O and RDG are now severed from each other. Had the B&O occasion to invest in their route between Washington and NYC to the same level as the PRR did theirs, to compete with the PRR speed-wise, it would still be quite alive today.

If there isnt a decent public transportation infrastrcture to handle these passengers, then air travel is going to look a lot more attractive because airports are almost always more auto-freindly than train stations. An airport, which is on the outskirts of a town, has huge parking facilities as well as rental cars, etc, where it would make no sense to drive to a train station in the middle of a city to go to another city where youd have to rent a car to get anywhere outside of that city (or inside the city as well in many cases).

Airports are not auto-friendly. I have never encountered a single one that could be thus described—and I've been in and out of numerous airports. What I would call them is auto-saturated.

I think you are not focusing on the intent of high-speed rail, which is on connecting endpoints, as are airlines. If you have high-speed rail travel between two major cities, all of the facilities one would be seeking would be available at the major rail terminal(s) where such journeys begin and end. If you have a high-speed run between New York and Pittsburgh for example, at each end you have a relatively large public transportation network—and car rental facilities, if that's what you really want. (You also have quite a number of hotels within walking distance.) And you're in the center of the city already, not the outskirts, something no airline could ever do.

Ireland is tiny in comparison to the US

We're considering population density here, are we not? Ireland's population density is far higher than the USA's on average. FTR, Ireland is approximately the size of the state of Maine, with almost similar dimensional borders.

according to the Irish Rail website you can get from Dublin to Cork in less than 3 hours, thats 2/3rds across the country (not including Norther Ireland, of course) in 3 hours. In that case HSR would not really shave all that much off the travel time

That's a distance of about 160 miles, and an average speed of 53 mph. Compare that to the 225 miles between New York and Washington DC, and even having 125-mph service would shave quite a bit off the travel time. (An average speed of 78 mph, which the 125-mph Metroliner Service on Amtrak has been capable of for decades and the Regional trains can do at present, would shave an entire hour off the Dublin-Cork journey.)

The main thing is that the transportation cultures of the US and Europe are completely different, we love our cars here, we love the freedom they provide and in most of the country they are the most practical way to travel

What does that have to do with intercity travel? Europeans also love their cars—remember that the long-distance limited-access highway was championed first by Germany, and consider the higher permissible speeds of cars on those roads. Ireland loves their cars to the point of it being pathological. US oil consumption is double that per capita of all those countries put together, and too much of it on transportation. The transportation "culture" in the USA has been dictated by government spending choices, not by the will of the people. Where there are fast trains, people will ride them—which is the true lesson of the NEC (because if it were merely due to the factors you cite in your last paragraph, then a 79-mph NEC would be just as busy as one at its current operating speeds, but I think we all know that would be false).

I'm with Irish Chieftain on this one. First of all, picking out Scranton to Pittsburg as an example pair of cities just blows me away. Of course HSR just between those two cities wont work. Greyhound wouldn't even run a dedicated bus just between those two. When talking about HSR, you need to look at it on a much bigger scale, like NY(or Boston)-Pittsburg. That's a service that the airlines eat up. It's also a service that should be provided primarily by rail, not by air.

2nd, as Irish Chieftain noted, you kind of forgot about the Appalchian Mountains in your "real easy HSR line between the two cities"

3rd, saying that HSR is negated by the slow cab ride or rental car at the end doesn't make any sense. There are FAR more transportation options in the DOWNTOWN, which is where the train goes, versus at the airport, where the best you will get is an express bus with limited headways or a local bus with low headways but slow service. You still also have your same taxi and car rental options as well, but now you are further away from the city. Yes, a lot of cities don't have an extensive subway network. The point remains however, that there are far more options for transportation from the downtown than there are from the outskirts

Ok this China thing has probably gone on enough, and it is certainly off topic, so this is the last ill say about it.

First, why are you for some reason ignorant of the buying power of the US? This the main argument for other countries keeping the US healthy and buying, when we're buying we're racking up that trade deficit and pumping money into (mostly) other countries, if we were to hit a serious recession over a few years there is no way that China (especially) and the EU (to an extent) would be able to find buyers to pick up the slack in time to stave off recession in those economies as well, due to the relatively sudden drop in exports. The GDP numbers I used are from the IMF, (I agree with what you said above, and I think the UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions are the only sources for reliable international economic info) and represent the GDP in American dollars using conventional exchange rates, if you use Purchasing Power Parity (which is similar in methodology to the Economists so-called "Big Mac Index") China is listed as closer to the US at about 3/4 of our 12.5 billion (approx 9 Billion) however many suspicions have been raised about the PPP figure for China because the basket of goods was heavily biased towards urban areas and like a lot of info coming from or with the help of the Chinese gov't there are some discrepancies. (On another note, as you mentioned before, the Chinese did unpeg the Yuan from the Dollar but not in order to increase the value of their currency, they're in fact keeping the Yuan artificially low to keep the supposedly crumbling US economy buying Chinese goods, this contributes to the big disparity between the nominal and PPP figures). But anyway, I will concede that the actual Chinese GDP is likely somewhere between the two numbers.

And "Soft Power" is a legitimate term in foreign relations circles, you can read an article explaining all about it by the Harvard Prof who coined the phrase Here. It is also widely agreed that the US is way ahead in Soft Power. I mean just think about it, Hollywood, the music industry, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds are all ubiquitous in most of the world, and love it or hate it people still buy the stuff. We also have the British Empire to thank for 1/3rd of the world being able to speak English at at least a very basic level, as well as English being the official language of Air Traffic control.

So that’s the last I’m going to say on this topic

Back to HSR, yes Scranton to Pittsburgh was an intentionally absurd combination to pick, and I was not referring to topography when I said that it would be easy to run a HSR line between the two, merely the lack of dense urban development blocking the potential ROW. And yes, I think Pittsburgh to NYC could work one day as an HSR line, but at the moment it would be kind of risky, as it is towards the fringe of the competitive distance scale of HSR vs. Air Travel, and Pittsburgh is also only about 300,000 in population (probably between half a mil and a mil though if you include the surrounding areas) so initially its a bit risky with the potential ridership numbers, and Air has a better chance in Pitt because westbound flights to Pittsburgh can connect to flights further west where HSR could not really compete effectively at the moment. As far as the travel options from downtown go ill agree in most cities you have better options from downtown, but only if you’re planning to go no more than about 20 miles from the city center (this is assuming there is no commuter rail or anything comparable), so it would really require travelers to want to stay in the city itself, which is not always the case. In the NEC you can get enough travelers who want to stay within the city limits to keep ridership high (although its not really an issue there since, as I mentioned, the mass transit on the NEC is very comprehensive).

And I will stick by my claims that Air is more auto friendly than rail, heading to an airport generally just means taking the highway the whole time, usually including a beltway around the city it serves, I’ve taken flights in and out of JFK and Newark in the past year and I really was not frustrated with the auto situation, certainly less frustrated than I would have been driving into NYC itself.

But as divided as these past posts have made us seem, I'm not against HSR in the US, I hope and believe that HSR is going to be a reality outside of the NEC before 2050. I just want to make sure that when the big chunk of dough rolls down from Capitol Hill it is put to use in a project that has all the angles covered. Right now most passenger trains have a really bad reputation with the public, the first HSR will need to make a good impression and be convenient and efficient for more lines to follow. I believe the US (assuming it doesn’t fall into a complete economic collapse in the near future as chieftain seems to imply) has the potential for a huge HSR network that will serve it well and be popular. I also mentioned the idea for buying up some ROW now in conjunction with the freight carriers with future HSR in mind in my first post, what do you guys think of that idea? (I’m not really that up on ROW issues)

mhig9000 wrote:

george matthews wrote:However, looking at the US, I suspect it is not as stable as you hope. Its huge trade and fiscal deficit and debts to China may be a permanent loss of hegemony.
A modern economy needs a high speed rail system. Can the US develop the necessary structures to build one?

Stability is one thing, but theres no doubt that the US is still he dominant player in the international economy and if China knows whats good for it it will keep buying our debt to ensure that it still has US companies employing (directly or indirectly) millions of its citizens. These may not be the best times for the american blue collar worker but those jobs in China still pay dividends to the top American companies (the savings in labor). Not to mention how many American financial firms underwrite deals in asia. There is also the issue of the US's so-called "soft power,' the USA is the most marketable society on the planet and its value as a brand name shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Even in the middle east American chains have a strong presence and aside from the occasional cartoon riots are generally well patronized.

But i digress. Right now the US does not need a high speed rail system. Have you even thought to compare the population densities of the US and the EU? The EU has 3.5 times the population density of the US, as well as urban areas that have been well defined for hundreds and hundreds of years. There is also no European country that even comes close to covering as much land as the US, how many European airlines could even think about surviving providing only domestic flights? I read somewhere than almost half the worlds airports are in the US. Right now outside of the Northeast Corridor there is really no part of the country that has the density or the urban infrastructure to make HSR practical. Without at least a decent sized subway system to serve the endpoint cities it makes the train useless, the time and cost savings would be eaten up taking an inefficient and slow taxi to your final destination, or worse, renting a car. What we should be doing now is exploring possible routes for 25-50 years down the line when airport capacity will begin to become unable to keep up with demand and other mass transit networks will be in place to accomodate travelers at the endpoints, as well as sufficient population to provide adequate ridership. I think the most practical idea would be for the govt to start buying ROW little by little in strategic areas. Right now a lot of ROWs will be much cheaper than they will be in the future, and there will probably be less NIMBY backlash. Im sure that the gov't could strike some sort of deal with the freight carriers to share the burden of updating and widening some ROWs and establishing or restablishing others. A 3 track ROW could be purchased but only one or two tracks built at first so that they could be profitably used for freight and once passenger demand picks up they could add the additional track(s) and put them in use for passenger service. I think this is definitely the smart way to go and if not implemented im sure there will be much regret when DC to Chicago is as densely populated as Boston to DC is now.

One word - Russia. Russia is in Europe (well some of it is, it's considered to be a part of it) and they're building a high-speed line between Moscow and St Petersburg, which is actually about the same length of the Northeast Corridor. And yes, they use domestic flights a lot. Aerflot is a very large airline.

The US is slow to build a high-speed rail system because not only are Americans not into trains, since they have been used to cars for so long. What people need to know is that high-speed rail is useful and in fact necessary. Also, they have to deal with people like Bush and McCain who don't like rail systems and want to get rid of Amtrak. If Amtrak somehow can get about $5-10bn more than their measley $1.7bn budget, major improvements could happen.

America is also different in Europe in that corridor services are used rather than cross-country ones. If corridor services can average a minimum of 200km/h (125mph) then they will become much more popular. Also, there is very little electrified rail in the US, a big obstacle to high-speed services. If corridors such as the Pacific Surfliner (Los Angeles - San Diego) and the Capitol Corridor (Sacramento - San Francisco), which are the second and third highest used rail lines respectively in the US were made high-speed, then it would be quite popular.

I would choose Washington D.C. - Richmond. I say this because then if a train was coming from Boston and going to Newport News VA. There wouldnt be a need to change engines in Washington.

That and it paves the way for continuation to Florida. Granted, HSR from Boston or even New York to Florida most likely wont compete with air times, but HSR from DC and Richmond could. That's something a lot of people ignore when they put down LD HSR corridors. It's not about competing with air travel times of the entire line, it's about competing with air travel times over multiple portions of the line.

Those networks (particularly the subways) are what make the NEC successful for amtrak.

Most business people head for the taxi line, not the subway. Take a look at 30th St PHL after an Acela arrival and see how many head to SEPTA. Many of my collegues have come to love the Acela, but try convincing them to cart their luggage onto the subway. Whether it be BOS, NYC, NWK, PHL, BAL, or WAS the majority of riders head for the taxi lines or rental cars.

If rental cars were not attractive to people using the train there would not be rental offices in stations.

Other corridors have been successful without that "infrastructure" as well. LA-SAN comes to mind which was extremely popular before either city had rail transit options. Corridors to Chi are successful even though there is no direct transit link at Union Sta.

Suburban stations are also worthwhile as lots of businesses are located in office parks instead of the central city now. Rt 128, Newark, MetroPark, Trenton, and Wilmington all serve this function and help take people off the road. BWI & New Carollton used to have Acela's stop as well and were used. Not everyone travels from city center to city center - some travel from metro area to metro area, or metro area to city center. Suggesting eliminating some of the busiest rail stations in the country from the Acela's makes the service less attractive to save a few minutes on the schedule. Minutes can be saved more appropriately by increasing track speed - specifically on MN in CT, across the Hells Gate and up to New Rochelle (on wholly owned Amtrak line), thru PHL, and thru BAL.

Most business people head for the taxi line, not the subway. Take a look at 30th Street (PHL) after an Acela arrival and see how many head to SEPTA. Many of my colleagues have come to love the Acela, but try convincing them to cart their luggage onto the subway. Whether it be BOS, NYC, NWK, PHL, BAL, or WAS, the majority of riders head for the taxi lines or rental cars

How much luggage are they taking on these relatively short trips, that they need a taxicab or rental car? Surely an overnight bag would suffice…? (This begs the question of how they got their voluminous-sounding luggage to the office in the first place.)

Irish Chieftain wrote:

Most business people head for the taxi line, not the subway. Take a look at 30th Street (PHL) after an Acela arrival and see how many head to SEPTA. Many of my colleagues have come to love the Acela, but try convincing them to cart their luggage onto the subway. Whether it be BOS, NYC, NWK, PHL, BAL, or WAS, the majority of riders head for the taxi lines or rental cars

How much luggage are they taking on these relatively short trips, that they need a taxicab or rental car? Surely an overnight bag would suffice…? (This begs the question of how they got their voluminous-sounding luggage to the office in the first place.)

The art of travelling by train needs to be relearned. Of course the older trains had more, and more convenient, space for luggage. In the past Commercial Travellers and travelling actors went by train. If train travel becomes more popular the design of trains will have to change.