> Wouldn't train be faster than plane between NY & DC?
I'm glad you asked! :-)
In the general case, I don't think so. In some specific cases, yes (like if you're very far from one of the airports, but see below how this has changed in recent years). I've done each many times, and in about 15% of the cases 'bad luck' is what you get whether you're on a train or a plane. So that doesn't really count, and that's what Doug got today: anomoly, power loss, doesn't prove anything. Of course it all depends on where you start and where you're going: if you live a half block from Penn Station or a 5 minute cab ride from La Guardia, your results will be different.
When I lived in the East Village, it was always faster to fly to get to where I was going in DC; I've done it a few times since 9/11 too, and it's still true. Yesterday I asked Doug to give me an idea of his timetable, and I think I could have easily beat him, but probably not by enough to be significant. The simple way to check this was he was planning on a 7:15 departure from his apartment for an 8:05 train; if he left at 7:15, when would he be at the gate at LGA? In time for a 9am departure? By a lot. If so, scheduled arrival was 10:11, and US 2167 arrived on-time this morning. The Mt Vernon Square stop on the Yellow line is 15 minutes from DCA running every 12 on Saturdays; that's about half way to the Ellipse, which he had budgeted 30 minutes to get to from Union Station (from his 11:20 arrival). Could I get to the Ellipse by 11:50 from a 10:11 arrival? By a lot.
Summary: could have left his house half an hour later and would arrive on-scene half an hour earlier. He was budgeting about 4 hours door-to-Union Station; if he flew, it would have been a little over 3 ... one way to look at that is "25% faster" -- another way is "half an hour here and there" ...
It's certainly faster to take a train to Baltimore or Philadelphia than flying, but not DC.
> getting to and from the airports in large cities can be as
> forbidding and oppressive as Livingston's search for the source
> of the Nile.
If you were taxi-phobic (and trains were running), if you left 15 minutes earlier and got to Penn Station at 7:30 you could be at JFK via LIRR/AirTrain by 8:05 with plenty of time to catch AA's 8:50 flight to DCA which arrived at 9:58 this morning and is about $20 cheaper than the US Air Shuttle. Similarly you could take a 23 minute train to EWR plus a 5 minute AirTrain and get Continental's service to DCA ...
It used to be the case that people would start this discussion by saying: Penn Station is so much easier to get to than any of the airports. Now with JFK and EWR only about 35 minutes from Penn Station, this claim is specious.
What it comes down to is that the time in the air is something like 1:10 and the time on the train is something like 3 hours these days (when Acela is running, closer to 3:20 without). 2+ hours is an awful lot of time to navigate an airport: don't forget, it's only slow and uncertain on the departure, leaving an airport remains as quick as it ever was. That 8:05 train that Doug was going to be on _stops at EWR at 8:27_ ...
Doug writes:
> Train (when it's running): $80
> Plane: $120.
A 50% premium, but still pretty decent. Note that Acela is $126.
Carl writes:
> I was stunned to see that, yes, having to remove your shoes and
> belt is indeed part of the basic price of air travel anywhere today.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Who here has made fun of the buffoonery of TSA when someone 'accidently' is found to have a knife on board an airplane? Now fast-forward to people who are suspicious of concealed carry laws but pine for the days when they used to be able to fly with their pocket-knife.
/jordan