> The fact that trains are far more economical than
> airplanes or buses on relatively short distances over
> relatively densely populated areas (such as Northeastern
> states, Chicago environs, and San-Francisco, Los Angeles,
> San Diego corridor) - but cannot compete with planes on
> longer distances (e.g. coast to coast or even NYC - Chicago).
Oh, the current administration thinks they understand this pretty clearly, based on the current attempts to re-work Amtrak . . . however, of course it's not a slam dunk either: All the gains that the NEC made after 9/11 are now erased and those travellers are firmly back in the air -- Amtrak just couldn't make a reliable railroad. But I invite the effort! I'm a big fan of rail myself, but I just can't let a comment about "Chicago -> New York in 12 hours" go by without a fight :-)
[ though I'm not sure I agree that rail is cheaper than busses; the capital investment alone makes busses attractive; then there's the flexibility afforded by not being attached to a rail ... ]
> Of these areas, only Northeastern states have something that
> resembles functioning rail transit system - albeit limited mainly
> to the NE corridor, but things start rapidly deteriorating when
> you move West.
Totally false. The San Luis Obispo->San Diego corridor is awash with rail transit, including connections to airports, regional rail, subway, trollys, etc. The Pacific Surfliner was Amtrak's 2nd busiest corridor (behind NEC) last month. The Capitol Corridor (Sacramento->San Jose) is similarly rich, not far behind that on ridership, and adding service and riders all the time.
> What is more, the travel across NE corridor is prohibitively
> expensive. The round trip between DC and NYC is $144 on regular
> Amtrak and $314 on Acela express. For a comparison, round trip
> between Lisbon and Porto (comparable distance) on the 1st class
> Alfa Pendular (comparable to Acela express) is about $50.
Sacramento -> San Jose is about $23 and is about 30 miles less than your Portugal example. The NEC is priced competitively! Amtrak isn't losing passengers on that route because it's too expensive, they are losing them because they can't keep the trains running on schedule.
> What makes the difference is the level of government subsidies
So you're all for fully funding Amtrak?
> in this country subsidies are used to make less efficient
> modes of transportation in this particular market niche (cars
> and planes) more attractive vis a vis trains.
Well ... it's not like they haven't spent _any_ money on Amtrak; $22B and counting. Mostly what happens when money gets spent on Amtrak is that some iron-era cargo railroad gets a nice boost in share price because they buy something or get them to upgrade some track that they don't own.
/jordan