Taking Amtrak When Snow Cancels Flights Between New York and DC: Amtrak Acela Express Business Class Washington, D.C.-New York – Review

Planes, trains and automobiles :-)

Always wanted to take the Amtrak somewhere. Definitely on my bucket list.

I can remember taking Amtrak from Boston to NY during a blizzard that shut down most of the East coast in the early 2000's. I had booked my ticket months in advance but the line of just-shy-of-fistfighting travelers was something else. People standing in the aisles the whole way from Boston to NY, a lady sitting on the toilet typing on her laptop who would get up and move whenever somebody needed to take a leak. What a ride.

I love trains! (Even more than airplanes!)

Had I chosen to fly, the trip would never have taken place because all flights to and from New York and D.C. had been cancelled. It’s clear to me that the train may simply be a better way to traverse the Northeast Corridor efficiently.

While I don't find fault with the final conclusion the argument is certainly flawed. Somewhere in the early paragraphs the author said he obtained a seat on the last train before the rest were cancelled. Flights from Atlanta to Boston and New York to Chicago were disrupted for the best part of a week. It takes time to reposition crews and equipment to resume schedules as published. As for the seats, the author has never flown the old rout from St Louis to Hawaii in a 17" seat about 12 hours you can't escape from.

I've lived and moved about the mid atlantic and Northeast states all my life. The trip from DC to NY city is only 31/2 hours by car, baring traffic and weather. In the 50s and early 60s the flight into Friendship, Baltimore or National, DC was expensive and barely beat the automobile. Today with travel to the airport, sometimes driving in the opposite direction of your final D, Parking, security check, check in, taxi time, holding time, flight time, disembarking time and travel time to the final destination, the choo choo will beat air transport most every time. Would you ship a package by air freight from DC to NYC or ship it by truck?. Boston is a little farther and involves changing trains, or used to. Florida from BWI is no contest as long as you don't need a car when you get there. It's only a 10 - 12 hour drive to JAX and an overnight train ride by Amtrak. Even Chicago is only a 12 hour drive out I70.

Guys, I'm an ex airline employee, and now work for said railroad. It's kinda neat, on the route I work, I see alot of people who used to fly the same route. The air service was cut back because of the airline industry, not by us, but we ( the railroad) are just as convenient as flying used to be for these passengers.

Many look at us as competition but I see AMTK and the airlines as more of a complement to one another. We have many people that will take our trains to hub cities and then fly from there.

Where do you recommended it be made available and used at the level of the NE Corridor?

This is the stat that Southwest cites when they made the decision to cease their BWI-EWR and BWI-LGA pairs.

The shame of it all is express train service of this kind is largely unavailable elsewhere in the US.