New York is only 1.5 hours away they said, you could go there every weekend they said...
What no one told me was that trying to drive into the city at any time of the day could take as long as 5 hours. So after making that same mistake of driving in countless times, tomorrow morning I'm boarding a train and doing it the smart way.
I've got some business to take care of in the city and I've got a bit of shopping to do for Vinney's birthday later this month, so the train will work just fine. I recently had my first North American train experience; we took the train down to Newark to fly out to IDF last month, and man was that so much better than flying.
Flying these days is more than just a pain, I've forgotten how easy it used to be - but then I took the train. Nothing is better than riding a train, sure you get to where you're going a lot slower but you just hop on. There's no baggage check, there are no people boarding out of order and taking up all of the luggage space, and there's no silly hour long wait at the train station. Everything just works. You get there a few minutes before your train and hop on. You sit down, you've got an AC plug at your seat and you don't have to worry about shutting off your electronics during takeoff and landing of course.
I can't say that security is the tightest at these train stations, and maybe they will eventually get to the point of being as troublesome as airports but until then I will enjoy their ease of use.
The USB Flash Drive roundup has been coming along well, the testing is all complete and there are a few interesting things that I've uncovered during the process. I'm working with a few of the manufacturers to resolve some issues and shed some light on others, so hopefully in the end it'll mean a better review and better products for everyone.
Take care
What no one told me was that trying to drive into the city at any time of the day could take as long as 5 hours. So after making that same mistake of driving in countless times, tomorrow morning I'm boarding a train and doing it the smart way.
I've got some business to take care of in the city and I've got a bit of shopping to do for Vinney's birthday later this month, so the train will work just fine. I recently had my first North American train experience; we took the train down to Newark to fly out to IDF last month, and man was that so much better than flying.
Flying these days is more than just a pain, I've forgotten how easy it used to be - but then I took the train. Nothing is better than riding a train, sure you get to where you're going a lot slower but you just hop on. There's no baggage check, there are no people boarding out of order and taking up all of the luggage space, and there's no silly hour long wait at the train station. Everything just works. You get there a few minutes before your train and hop on. You sit down, you've got an AC plug at your seat and you don't have to worry about shutting off your electronics during takeoff and landing of course.
I can't say that security is the tightest at these train stations, and maybe they will eventually get to the point of being as troublesome as airports but until then I will enjoy their ease of use.
The USB Flash Drive roundup has been coming along well, the testing is all complete and there are a few interesting things that I've uncovered during the process. I'm working with a few of the manufacturers to resolve some issues and shed some light on others, so hopefully in the end it'll mean a better review and better products for everyone.
Take care
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Kuroyama - Sunday, September 25, 2005 - link
If you got advice from Yale students then I think I know where your problem came from. When I was in New Haven I never had any problem driving to NYC in 1.5 hours, but then I was busy at school in the week and only went to NYC on the weekend, whereas I suspect you went in during weekday morning rush hour.vailr - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Amtrak's "Auto Train" currently offers service between: Lorton, VA (Washington, DC) - Sanford, FL (Orlando)http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagena...">http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentSe...12563212...
Due to Congressional budget cuts, this service may be discontinued(?).
Amtrak does offer service between Los Angeles and Oakland, via the "Coast Starlight". (There's no railroad bridge going north out of the San Francisco peninsula.)
Check Amtrak's "Weekly Specials" for bargain fares:
http://tickets.amtrak.com/itd/amtrak/WeeklySpecial...">http://tickets.amtrak.com/itd/amtrak/WeeklySpecial...
plinden - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
I took the train once from Los Angeles to San Jose (wanted to go to San Francisco, but there's no direct train between the two most important cities in California!). It arrived two hours late over a 10 hour scheduled journey ... again, wtf is the deal with that - scheduled 10 hours for a 400 mile journey between the two most important cities in California? Compare with France's TGV - Paris to Marseille (550 miles) in three hours.Sure, it was nice experience to do once, the scenery was interesting, I got some reading done, but really the only reason I did it was to travel with my father-in-law who's afraid of flying.
If as much money was spend on subsidizing Amtrak and upgrading the rail lines as is spent on the roads, that wouldn't have taken more than four hours. Only then would rail travel compete with air travel.
avijay - Saturday, September 17, 2005 - link
Anand, I use IE6 and recently have been having a lot of problems opening the review and news articles posted on the site. In the middle of loading a page, I get a stupid error saying "Operation Aborted". And this only happens on this site, both with the news articles and the review articles that are posted. I've tried numerous other sites to check whether its a problem with my browser and couldn't re-create the problem. I'm still looking into it. I'll appreciate if you can look into it on your end as well. Thanks.AtaStrumf - Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - link
Same here!creathir - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
I've seen this as well. It is due to having more than one connection open at once to the site. (Running theory)If I had to guess, it is something implemented to track the users (and where they navigate to/from) that is probably causing it to crap out on us.
- Creathir
kleinwl - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
One of the biggest issues delaying bullet trains is that the rail system would have to be re-routed. Currently the top speed Amtrack can run is 80mpg. This is not only due to the limiter on the train, but also the design and routing of the track. A bullet train needs as much straight track as possible with large curves to allow high speed movements. Depending on the powersources (Electric ideally) the rail system would also have to be powered. All of this is not only capital intensive but also politically intensive (since you are now knocking down houses ect for the right of ways).Another issue is routing. Currently Amtrack shares track space (leases it to be percise) with commerical (slow) trains. The commerical trains move over onto sidings (when available) to allow Amtrack priority. A bullet train would almost need dedicated rail to make sure that there are no commerical trains to slow it down.
The last issue is cost. Currently the passanger rail costs are high... almost as expensive as air. This is mostly due to low usage rates... but it feeds on itself. High costs breeds less usage, which breeds higher costs. The way around this is to provide more services for the fees... or to provide lower "start-up" fees to incurage ridership. The issue is that without a heavy advertising campagn no one will know that the fees are reduced... which will cost money. The other issue is that Amtrack will need to improve (expand) its passanger terminals to allow more points of entrance/exit.
The one huge advantage that Amtrack has, that the airplanes do not is the ability to ship significant cargo along with the passanger. Why not have the option to ship your car or bike along with you? Drop it off a hour earily, they will load it up, so that during your vacation in LA or NY or wherever, you're driving your own stuff... that alone would be a huge selling point in my book... and it could be done cost effectively (say $300 for a auto). Amtrack would gain ridership and margins.
niknik - Thursday, September 15, 2005 - link
But keep in mind that, with the ever raising cost of fuel, soon everything will start getting a LOT more expensive.I don't find hard to believe that in the next few years (unless they start making electric planes) we'll see a major interest flowing back to train systems and getting it a lot more efficient.
Sure, everything has its place - cars, trains, airplanes - but for short air travels, say up to 2 or 3 hours flight time, train (if available) can be a real alternative.
PerG - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
In UK and Sweden internet access can be bought on high speed trains, that is really practical when travelling. For relevant information see http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/Wi-Fi/">GNER and http://www.sj.se">sJ. The company supplying the service is a swedish based company http://www.icomera.com">Icomerabersl2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
Also, airlines lose money on the shorter flights.