> The train is still longer, and time is money, we are taught. But certainty has value, too, even if it means at 11:29 p.m. departure.

Unfortunately this is misleading. Outside of the Northeast Acela corridor, there is no certainty in train travel in the U.S..

Although legally passenger trains are now supposed to have right of way over freight trains, in practice that’s just not the case. So a 14.5 hr train journey can easily be delayed by several hours.

▲

Loughla 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So I took a consulting job in a small town in Illinois called Quincy. I couldn't fly there without connecting in St. Louis, but I could take the train from Chicago. It was billed at 6 hours.

It absolutely left on time but had to wait for three freight trains on the way. 9 hours later we got to the "station". One of the other passengers said that their previous trip was cancelled and Amtrak bought everyone bus tickets.

In the Midwest, there are no guarantees with trains other than you'll get there. Eventually.

▲

xvedejas 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A couple of the lines I ride in California have decent on-time rates (mostly I ride the line formerly known as the San Joaquins)

▲

SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> a 14.5 hr train journey can easily be delayed by several hours

It can easily be delayed a lot longer than that. The last time I took Amtrak I was delayed over 24 hours.

▲

vl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Delays? What if you can’t buy tickets at all.

I was looking at Tucson to Seattle trip on a relatively short notice - all sleeping tickets were sold out multiple weeks in advance. And due to the length of the trip it’s not practical with non-sleeping seat.

	▲	rootusrootus an hour ago \| parent [-]
		For fun, I just got prices for taking my family to Tucson from Portland, a trip we took last week by airplane. It was relatively expensive from what I'm used to for a trip between two cities on the same end of the country, about $2500 total. Nonstop, just under 3 hours flight time. Amtrak would be about half that for a coach ticket. But as you point out, a coach ticket for a 40-45 hour trip is impractical. So I picked a family room (when possible, which was not on every segment). $7000. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I could waste money on first class plane tickets and still pay less than half that.

▲

jeffbee 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Haha hours. There is no upper bound. The average Amtrak delay on Norfolk Southern is 19 minutes per 100 miles. And the worst cases are all horror stories. A freight operator sidetracks Amtrak while a miles-long coal train rolls through at a jogging pace. The coal train breaks down. The Amtrak crew can't legally operate any more because of federal time limits. You are 1000 miles from a city in the middle of nowhere and by the time they dispatch another crew to your train you've been surviving on Fritos for days.

▲

GenerWork 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe Brightline in Florida has ownership of its tracks from Cocoa to Orlando.

	▲	bryananderson 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It does not, but it has a sane scheduling agreement with the railroad which the railroad actually respects. This is a common misconception because Brightline’s parent company Florida East Coast Industries shares heritage with Florida East Coast Railway, but the companies were split in 2007.