Replies

Good point (about the relative distances).

I would love to see it done, however, even if only for very short hauls. I live about an hour and a half by car from a fairly large city, but the roads are narrow, the parking and traffic are horrible once you get there, and I would never dream of commuting to work there. The distance is only about 75 miles, and a nice speedy train could make it in no time at all. It would be faster than a car over these indirect, truck-clogged roads.

Traveling by train (which I do all the time in Europe) is wonderful, restful, scenic, and all the other things the ads tell you. However, because it was a government controlled industry, European train travel had also gotten pretty crummy. Many European states are now in the process of privatizing, so there's been a new emphasis on service and efficiency, although unfortunately they have such hostile unions that it's very hard to make any changes.

We should observe and learn...

I haven't travelled on European trains since the 1970s, when I had a Eurailpass and went everywhere by train. It was fast, convenient, and pretty cheap. But just about everything about their system is different from ours.

Another thing that occurs to me is that almost all the downtown rail terminals have been wrecked out, and there's no place for new ones because the sites have been built over. Atlanta's Union Station is long gone, wrecked out, the only bit left is a piece of sculpture that they stuck on the wall in the subway station . . . the only surviving station is Brookwood, a little siding well north of downtown, they have to back the two passenger trains a day in from the main line. Richmond's old main passenger station is a museum, if you take Amtrak to Richmond you wind up at a little suburban siding station WAY out of town. And so it goes.

Atlanta parking is not too bad if you know where to look. I do not use the bus lines or the subway because they don't go where I need to go. I would have to walk for blocks or use three transfers. Neither is acceptable, especially if your job (like mine) requires you to carry "stuff" around with you like (paper) files or a laptop.