Well, I travel about 150,000 miles per year and I usually hit every single major kind of transport; does that count? I'm sort of what you might call a 'travel enthusiast' but more than that, I take particular pleasure in debunking the "rail travel in Europe is perfect!" mythology.
In particular: there is no amount of money that will give you a "civilized" fast train from Pittsburgh to Baltimore: it's about the same as trying to do Barcelona to Marseille (also 210 miles by air, also 8 hours by train!), the geography simply doesn't support it.
That's all there is to it.
> Taking the bus from Baltimore to Pittsburgh can take you
> as much as 10-12 hours or more is the bus is late an you
> miss the connection - which happens often.
You did happen to pick a particularly lousy city pair (you conveniently didn't respond to my example of Amsterdam -> Frankfurt, a route I recently covered by rail ... let's try Paris -> Toulouse or Warsaw -> Berlin next time! Tell me what are these "any medium sized cities" you can travel between in speedy comfort for small dollars in Europe? There aren't as many as you'd think), but missing connections is something that can happen in any kind of travel situation. I'm not sure that makes it a bad system. And there are reasonable alternatives that don't involve connections -- hey, I'm sure we'd all love a tightly integrated point-to-point transit network that always goes where we're going, but that doesn't exist anywhere except japan, for what ought to be obvious reasons (Japan is basically one big metro area).
In your particular case, I'd look for service to a better transit hub, like Washington DC, and then catch a local train to Baltimore. Baltimore is a suburb, afterall.
> You want to fly to Baltimore to Pittsburgh? Fine, but you need
> to fork over $700 to $900 bucks and it will still take you 6
> or more hours because there are no nonstop flights.
Rubbish, US Airways affiliates Trans-States & PSA (both recently gobbled up by Republic) fly the route non-stop several times per day. I myself took that service just last month. PIT is however undergoing somewhat of a strange market situation with the demise of US Airways, so you'll see things like $400 one-ways to JFK but $100 r/t to Dulles. That should clear up soon with the recent introduction of service from Southwest ...
> You also mentioned driving - which is fine if you own a car
> and can drive it.
I only mentioned it as a means of providing a baseline for the time involved in going a mere 250 miles.
> So I guess it is you who must be inhaling - or perhaps be
> blinded by your own class and suburban life style - not me
> when arguing that this so called transportation 'system" in
> this country serves anyone but a bunch of suburban fatheads.
Maybe you forget that I live in a big, diverse city (Oakland, CA)? And have all my life (Buffalo & New York were my others)?
Put up or shut up.
/jordan