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Amtrak

US Train Travel Gaining as Amtrak Struggles to Keep Up

June 21, 2008 at 3:00 PM | 0 Comments

We're big fans of American rail travel, even though it breaks our hearts sometimes, so we greet the news of Amtrak's surging ticket revenues and passenger miles with cautious optimism. As the New York Times points out, skyrocketing prices for gasoline and jet fuel are encouraging more people to travel by rail, leaving the beleaguered national train company scrambling to keep up with the record-breaking ridership.

While decades of quasi-socialist neglect, financial constraints and an atrophying infrastructure have made the legacy carrier less nimble than it ought to be, here's hoping that they can hold it together long enough for passengers to appreciate the many sublime pleasures of riding the rails. Spacious seats, plenty of room for luggage, no need to remove shoes or dump liquids before boarding and the ability to be just about as drunk as you feel like just might make riders demand the much-needed improvements necessary to bring Amtrak up to the level of, say, European trains in the 1970's.

Still, travelers on Amtrak's most popular routes are in for crowded conditions this summer. Tickets for the daily New York-to-New Orleans Crescent Train are already sold out from July 5-8, and the Seattle-to-Vancouver line is filling up fast. So make your reservations soon, lest you be forced to stay home, or *gulp* take the bus.

Related Stories:
· Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises [NYT]
· Amtrak Gets More Money, Continues to Suck [Jaunted]
· Buses coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: NYT]