Amtrak Residency

http://blog.amtrak.com/amtrakresidency/

by danso • 12 years ago

379 167 12 years ago

blog.amtrak.com

talos• 12 years ago

Maybe they should focus on fixing their website so people can look up train tickets:

http://www.amtrak.com/home

It's the middle of the day on Sunday. WTF.

scw• 12 years ago

Perhaps they can follow up with a "Code for Amtrak" on-train hackathon. Amtrak is part of our civic infrastructure, perhaps Code for America could run it.

noname123• 12 years ago

Their onboard WiFi is horrible. Tried to stream PornHub on a train ride but lagged constantly, instead had to settle for a erotic story podcast. Very unsatisfying.

jpwright• 12 years ago

I love the idea, and since Amtrak started the writers program after a tweet, I sent it to them on Twitter. Please RT or add more...

https://twitter.com/jsnwr/status/442741220851216384

morgante• 12 years ago

That's a great idea. A hackathon on a train would be ridiculously fun, even cooler than the Startup Bus.

duaneb2• 12 years ago

The website is miserable. I recommend using the iOS app if you can.

dublinben• 12 years ago

Their phone support line is actually incredibly useful. I've had to buy a ticket after boarding a train before, and a nice gentleman (in America) was able to get me booked in under two minutes. It would have taken longer to enter my information onto their website.

yaddayadda2• 12 years ago

Sunday at 2:45pm mountain and the follow message is prominently displayed:

We are currently conducting site maintenance.

The Amtrak.com reservation system is temporarily unavailable while we perform site maintenance. To make reservations during this time, use the Amtrak mobile app for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone or call 1-800-USA-RAIL and speak to a customer service representative. We appreciate your patience.

yellowbkpk• 12 years ago

For background, this is in response to someone on Twitter asking suggesting it: https://twitter.com/Amtrak/status/416312147551870976

eli• 12 years ago

If that's indeed how it happened, it should be a case study in "Social Media Marketing."

imjk2• 12 years ago

This is really cool and a great promotional idea for Amtrak. There used to be a universally romantic notion about long-distance travel by trains that I'm sure Amtrak is trying to bring back to the forefront of Americans' minds. Check out this article by a freelance writer about her cross country trip by rail: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/riding-an-amt.... I'm sure that's the type of promotion that they're looking for.

chaz• 12 years ago

Related, wrt to romanticization of long rail journeys -- NPR reporter traveled from Moscow to Vladivostok: http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/143016679/russia-by-rai...

Also, this guy documented his trip from Vienna to Pyongyang, North Korea: http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

mjklin• 12 years ago

I traveled from Beijing to Moscow on the trans-Siberian train. It took five days.

One tip: if you're thinking of making the journey, bring a small hose with you so you can hook it onto the sink and have a little shower. Also, there are companies that will arrange home stays if you want to get off in Yekaterinburg or a few other towns and kick around for a bit.

imjk2• 12 years ago

One of my fondest memories from high school was an overnight train ride we took from somewhere in Italy to Paris during a spring break study abroad program. The majority of the rail workers had gone on strike and the only people left working the trains were the drivers. The rumors were that gypsies had taken over the trains and that they were now unsafe for normal customers. Being a large group of high schoolers in a foreign country trying to stick to a tight schedule, we didn't have much choice than to take the train or else have to deal with a logistical nightmare. When we got on, the train was deserted, and we had free reign to do whatever we wanted. That type of freedom was rare and pretty thrilling to a high school freshman.

stevenwei• 12 years ago

I had a bunch of Amtrak points sitting around that I recently redeemed for a bedroom sleeper trip between Seattle and Chicago.

It was an interesting experience but not one that I would repeat. It is by no means a smooth ride, and even with the bedroom I found it quite difficult to get any sleep. Between the horn constantly going off, the bumpiness of the tracks, and the hourly stops/starts, I basically ended up staying awake for 2 days straight.

While I was initially able to get some work done during the trip, after the first night I was way too sleep deprived to be able to continue programming.

But then again, I am a light sleeper, and I have trouble falling asleep on planes too.

marquis• 12 years ago

I can sleep on a park bench that is on a non-stop roller-coaster (planes are a breeze) so for me sleeper trains are a delight, but I haven't take one in over 10 years since European flights got cheaper that trains. I do miss those long train rides across Europe, where you would meet people easily in the restaurant car. Amtrak I've never tried as I've never had the time nor inclination for train travel when in the U.S.

waterlesscloud• 12 years ago

I travel on Amtrak when it makes any sort of sense to do so (which isn't often). I just like trains.

Sleeping in a bedroom has never been a problem for me on a train. The swaying sort of lulls me.

Sleeping in a chair in coach is very difficult for me, though I eventually catch naps that way.

davidw• 12 years ago

I'm a light sleeper, but sleep pretty well on trains, all things considered. Planes are another matter, as it takes an iron grip on the armrests to keep the things in the air!

I wrote a lot of the early bits of Hecl ( www.hecl.org ) on trains between Padova and Rome.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

This is really cool and a great promotional idea for Amtrak.

Yes. But what would make traveling by train more attractive for regular people is making trains smell less like a cesspit of urine and vomit.

But sending a bunch of hipster writers on a PR tour is probably a bit cheaper.

Crito3• 12 years ago

Have you ridden on Amtrak trains before? In my experience riding Amtrak trains all around the Northeast Corridor I've never seen their trains smell like urine or vomit. The experience is less like city subways, regional rail, or buses, and more like what you would expect from airplanes (although with more space and without the seatbelts).

The primary problem with Amtrak is that they rarely compete with air travel in terms of price/speed. I prefer them to air travel anyway though because I rarely care about speed and the (effective) absence of the TSA more than makes up for it. (Also last-minute (literally, purchased minutes before departure) Amtrak tickets are more affordable than last minute plane tickets.)

I think that romanticising train travel is a good approach to attacking their speed disadvantage (though I think that working on reducing fares and increasing coverage are also essential).

271828182842• 12 years ago

Are you thinking subway or? The train experience I had was amazing. More legroom than I knew what to do with and when I got bored I could go to the dining car, observation car, and I think there was a bar car, but I was too young to drink at the time. AND THIS WAS IN THE US! I've heard wonderful things about trains elsewhere so I can only imagine.

pivo• 12 years ago

I travel by train (Amtrak) often, at least twice a month, and I've never experienced the conditions you've mentioned.

jmount2• 12 years ago

How about making the paying Amtrak experience nice instead of making a Potemkin ride? (see: http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks )

rayiner3• 12 years ago

Wow, did Amtrak knock up that guy's teenage sister or what?

As someone who has taken train/plane/bus/car between NYC and DC the last couple of years, I can say without a doubt that Amtrak is the most civilized way to get between those two places. If I didn't have family in Oregon I'd never get on a plane again.

jmount2• 12 years ago

I am guessing the NYC/DC train corridor is nicer than what we have on the west coast. I was looking into a holiday ride through silver country here, and the reviews unfortunately came back a big "heck no."

smacktoward• 12 years ago

It's in Reason, a libertarian magazine (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_%28magazine%29), so it's not surprising that it views Amtrak, which is funded by the government, as History's Greatest Monster.

That being said, there is definitely a drop-off in quality of service on Amtrak between the Northeast Corridor (DC to Boston) and the routes covering the rest of the country. Because the Northeast Corridor is by far the most heavily traveled and profitable part of Amtrak's network (see http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/amtrakro...), it gets a level of service that other long-haul routes unfortunately do not.

bodyfour2• 12 years ago

While I don't share the cartoonists political views, I can't blame him for the frustration. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Starlight

In recent years the train acquired the nickname "Coast Starlate" because of its abysmal on-time record. From October 2005 through August 2006 it arrived on time only 2% of the time, often running 5 to 11 hours behind schedule.

I've taken that line... it is beautiful (and provides an amazing view of Vandenberg AFB) but you've got to be in no hurry. The staff were amazed when we were "only" 6 hours behind schedule.

Unfortunately for Amtrak the North-East corridor trains that you've experienced are the exception, not the rule.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

The comic seems a pretty accurate description of an unlucky, delayed train trip. It's how you would see it if you were an unbelievably self-centered whiner who despised people in general.

I have no doubt that his train arrived 6 hours late, and that one of the crew couldn't pronounce Sauvignon Blanc. Not sure that it counts as a major tragedy.

There should have been a warning on that link for people who remember Peter Bagge from 90s comics: "Yet another person that you were entertained by when you were young turns out to be a total prick, don't click if you don't want a piece of your childhood spoiled."

thedufer• 12 years ago

Amtrak's NE Corridor is wonderful (I also do the NYC<->DC regularly) but elsewhere its a lot worse. I also did DC<->Norfolk a lot, and that (a 4-5 hour ride) was often delayed 2-4 hours and sometimes as much as 24.

dominotw• 12 years ago

Yes I take amtrak every other weekend, i love it. No horrible and insulting security checks, so much leg room, decent toilets, power outlets, good air conditioning, food pantry that sells alcohol, polite staff. I dont get the hate. I love it.

duaneb2• 12 years ago

Amtrak is by far the best experience. What would you prefer, Greyhound or Plane? Both are even more miserable.

doyoulikeworms• 12 years ago

Plane or (personal) car. The two more expensive options, unfortunately.

I used to take a train from San Diego to Santa Barbara regularly during college. I probably road it 10 to 15 times. The train was often late, and twice EXTREMELY late. Once, I waited at the station over 8 hours. The train had broken down, and another train was sent to push it to the station. That train broke down too.

On one trip, my train ran out of fuel. I didn't think this was even possible. We sat in dim emergency-level lighting in the blackness of night for 4 hours waiting for another train to come push us to the station.

Otherwise, it's a great experience. Low price, smooth ride, electrical outlets, and cell phone signal. It takes longer than other modes of transportation (even when on time), but that's fine by me.

sanoli• 12 years ago

Soviet-Style?? Really? I guess the meaning of calling something "soviet" has been watered down with the years.

I also didn't get the "Potemkin" reference. I thought it meant something made just for show.

pixelmonkey• 12 years ago

The inaugural residency ("beta test") happened in February, when an NYC writer, Jessica Gross, was given a free 39-hour ride between NYC and Chicago (and back) in a sleeper cabin. She wrote about it in The Paris Review:

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/02/19/writing-the-la...

Mithaldu• 12 years ago

Amtrak must go really slow. In Europe, with a considerably higher population density, and thus more stops, 800 miles can be traversed in 10-11 hours. That train apparently takes somewhere close to 20.

davisr• 12 years ago

Amtrak uses freight lines (which aren't very smooth most of the time), and the maximum train speed is 80 mph.

tinco• 12 years ago

I think the area between Chicago and New York has a considerably higher population density than most of Europe.

But yes, Amtrak does go very slow, at least the one time I used it it did :)

bunderbunder• 12 years ago

Amtrak's running on a lot of very old track, which limits the top speed the trains can go on most routes. They don't have the power to upgrade the tracks because they don't own them, and the freight companies who do own the track don't have much incentive to upgrade it.

saalweachter3• 12 years ago

The Lake Shore Limited (NYC <-> Chicago) runs through Albany and Buffalo, so it's closer to 950 miles, instead of the 800 miles you'd expect taking I-80 straight through. So the train does average closer to 50 than 40, which is better but still not great.

_delirium• 12 years ago

Depends on where in Europe... the long-distance trains from Copenhagen (mainly CityNightLine) are closer to Amtrak speeds. For example Copenhagen to Basel is ~700 miles, 16 1/2 hours; Copenhagen to Amsterdam is ~500 miles, 15 hours.

271828182842• 12 years ago

They do go slow, but that's not often the point, and that's what this campaign is trying to help. They are trying to point out a different way of looking at it. They are pointing out the romantic-relax-enjoy side of trains rather than the hurry-up-and-move-move side.

mikeash3• 12 years ago

In addition to the points made by the other comments, I'd also add that "thus more stops" doesn't necessarily follow. Amtrak tends to be the subject of a lot of stupid politics, with the routes and stops determined more by what wins votes than what makes sense. As a result, a lot of Amtrak routes stop extremely frequently in pretty small towns.

As an example, the Amtrak train that runs between Washington DC and Boston (serving NYC along the way, and continuing on to Norfolk, VA) stops not only at DC's main train station, but also at New Carrollton, MD and Alexandria, VA, which are not only quite close to DC, but actually on the DC Metro system, making these stops almost completely redundant.

I count no less than thirty two stops between Boston and DC. The trip is about 9.5 hours long, so that's an average of one stop every 18 minutes.

The NYC->Chicago trip isn't quite as bad, but still has 19 stops in between. Along the way, it stops in such bustling metropolises as Elkhart, IN (population 51,152) and Sandusky, OH (population 25,493).

fnordfnordfnord• 12 years ago

US trains are terribly slow. Much slower than those in Europe or Asia. (I've ridden trains in the US, China, Mongolia, and Europe)

heydenberk2• 12 years ago

The brilliant thing is not the nature of the program, but the timing. Americans are driving less and less, for a lot of reasons, but in my opinion the desire to use mobile devices in idle time is paramount.

recusancy• 12 years ago

Is it true that Americans are driving less and less? Is there data to back that up? Just curious.

pille• 12 years ago

I was curious too, so I tried to look it up. According to the DOT, it looks like driving mileage has trended downward slightly since a peak in 2007, FWIW.

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pub...

reportingsjr• 12 years ago

Yep, it is true! I think currently we are back down to ~ 1992 VMT (vehicle miles traveled) after peaking in 2004.

100k• 12 years ago

Awesome idea. I wish coding counted. :)

lifeformed• 12 years ago

Me too. Well technically, you "write" code. Maybe you can spin it that way.

saosebastiao• 12 years ago

I took Amtrak from Sacramento to Salt Lake City once, and by the end of the trip I certainly felt like I should be establishing residency. I guess this is one way to turn lemons into lemonade.

kudu• 12 years ago

Rather than a free program for a limited number of people, I would be much more interested if they offered a similar program for all sorts of people at an affordable rate.

Theodores2• 12 years ago

I think you are right. The idea that you get a proper cabin seems wrong to me, the best train literature is travelling 'hobo style', not deluxe luxury. Clearly selling cabins is more profit, however, if sat with the riff-raff with just a chair to sleep in you can have a more interesting and unexpected experience.

I was 'fortunate' enough to sit next to a girl that had ideas on me from Grand Junction Colorado all the way to Chicago. I would not have had that random encounter had I travelled deluxe cabin class. Writing about the hundreds of miles of corn fields going by has not a lot going for it whereas an expected girl meets boy experience has broader appeal. Also on the same coach were a couple I had met months before in Yosemite. Having them in proximity cramped my style as far as my new-found lady friend was concerned, this was a constraint that adds to storytelling. A cabin based romantic experience would not be so good and neither would a few moments of passion with an existing partner in a cabin really have the 'Mills & Boon' factor.

Food was a problem on said journey for me, in part due to the train being six hours late at Grand Junction, by which point I had eaten almost all of the luxury ready eats I had bought for the journey. Even the six hour wait was noteworthy - you cannot leave the station as the train could arrive at any moment. So, for me, it was the random happenings and the constraints of money, timetable and what you can do in public that made the journey an adventure.

The thing is that you cannot have an authentic travel experience and write about it at the same time. You have to live life rather than be there to document it.

sanswork3• 12 years ago

I really hate the "authentic travel" term. It reminds me of backpackers trying to one up each other on how horrible of conditions they've stayed in. Or why the travel destination they chose is more real than the one someone else chose. Staying in uncomfortable conditions doesn't make the travel more authentic or real it is just a different experience.

As for being able to experience it and write about it, you just did. My wife does travel writing and you don't have to go around with your face in your notepad ignoring the experience. Just take notes now and then about specifics you might forget(usually costs and package names) and have your pictures.

mrgintl• 12 years ago

read the fine print. It is not a good deal. From my friend Cate:

I would NOT advise applying, as it means essentially signing away the rights to the work you send them as a sample just by APPLYING:

"6. Grant of Rights: In submitting an Application, Applicant hereby grants Sponsor the absolute, worldwide, and irrevocable right to use, modify, publish, publicly display, distribute, and copy Applicant’s Application, in whole or in part, for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and marketing, and to sublicense such rights to any third parties."

"Applicant grants Sponsor the absolute, worldwide, and irrevocable right to use, modify, publish, publicly display, distribute, and copy the name, image, and/or likeness of Applicant and the names of any such persons identified in the Application for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and marketing. For the avoidance of doubt, one’s Application will NOT be kept confidential"

"Upon Sponsor's request and without compensation, Applicant agrees to sign any additional documentation that Sponsor may require so as to effect, perfect or record the preceding grant of rights"

meritt• 12 years ago

This only applies to the sample you submit. A competent writer can submit a few paragraphs of throwaway work.

LocalPCGuy• 12 years ago

That seems like pretty standard language for a this kind of thing. Not a lawyer, but I've read very similar things in many other contracts covering submissions for contests, etc.

biot• 12 years ago

And with an approximate retail value of $900 or less, I'd rather pay than have to beg for the privilege of them exploiting my work.

FLUX-YOU• 12 years ago

Not only your work, but your "extensive social media connections".

The ideal candidate will possess strong writing skills as well as extensive social media connections.
http://blog.amtrak.com/officialterms/

It would be interesting to see if an author gets the exposure necessary for publishing solely through this program.

SapphireSun• 12 years ago

Doesn't seem like that big of a problem, just don't give them anything you can't afford to lose control of. It's pretty fair that you compensate them with free advertising since they're giving you something cool for (otherwise) free. The deal might not be for everyone, but I wouldn't say it's a bad deal. If I was running a contest like this, I would have used similar language to make sure the program created a virtuous circle of coolness rather than applicants clamping down and keeping the experience private.

sanswork3• 12 years ago

From what I've heard(my wife is a travel writer and lawyer/writes a law column for writers) there are a lot of other questionable clauses in the contract as well though I don't have specifics. One she mentioned was pretty harsh content limitations too. She was actually just telling me about it a few hours ago while we were having a walk so it was random to get back here and find it at the top of HN.

namenotrequired• 12 years ago

So it's clearly not aimed at professionals, but why should it be?

Zigurd2• 12 years ago

You should check out what typical remuneration, even from big publishers to well-known writers, amounts to these days.

Being able to give up your day job has always been a dicey decision for writers, and that situation has not improved.

jrockway• 12 years ago

Well, you don't lose your rights to the work. And it's an application, not what you produce on the train.

Doesn't every writer have some sample article for this sort of thing? Nobody uses their unpublished masterpiece as the application material.

j2kun• 12 years ago

As a millennial, I recently discovered the sleeper-car Amtrak experience. It's by far my favorite way to travel.

nether• 12 years ago

Stunning photo of the California Zephyr line, Chicago - San Francisco: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Amtrak_Ca...

batbomb• 12 years ago

pretty sure that's around Green River, Utah.

mdturnerphys• 12 years ago

It's really fun for me, being from Utah, to have it pointed out that this is a stunning scene. I was pretty disappointed when I clicked through—it honestly just reminds me of boring car rides. Thanks for helping me continue to realize how much I've taken the scenery of my home state for granted.

conorh• 12 years ago

This is a great idea! I traveled on Amtrak a few years ago from NYC to New Orleans (30 hours) with my wife and young daughter and had a great time - it just a pleasant way spend some time, talking, reading, thinking. During the day we set up a little play area for my daughter in our sleeper car and she loved watching everything go by. We were by far the youngest in that section and we often sat with retired folks at meal times (and had some great conversations).

tomphoolery• 12 years ago

Although it was impossible to get important work done over a VPN over Amtrak's Wi-Fi (I really need VPN access for my job), it was still a fun journey from Charlotte to Philadelphia on my way home from a new years party. I worked from home that day, and while I was mostly incommunicado I could still get a lot of code work done on my own machine that I'd been putting off.

I would definitely do this.

lisper• 12 years ago

it was impossible to get important work done over a VPN

Why?

jadeddrag• 12 years ago

In my experience, having reliable network access was required to maintain a working VPN connection.

fulafel2• 12 years ago

Many Windows-based corporate VPN clients like to tear down the connection on every little net hiccup, forcing you to do redo your SecurID or whatever login. And Windows IP stack likes to tear down your TCP connections on any brief loss of link, so eg. your SSH session cannot survive this type of event.

superuser2• 12 years ago

This is also marketed towards writers, meaning the lack of usable WiFi may be a feature rather than a bug as far as productivity.

unreal373• 12 years ago

Unable to have reliable VPN access over Wifi as you travel across several states? That's hardly a complaint. There's no way to travel that would give you that.

wtbob• 12 years ago

Works pretty well with on-plane WiFi...

ataggart• 12 years ago

Why is this a good thing?

eLobato• 12 years ago

I had to travel by Amtrak (forced, I lost my passport and I couldn't board a plane) from LA to NYC via Chicago once. ($230)

Not only I got to see a lot of places, but I truly accomplished more quality work than I normally do in a similar time-frame. Nearly zero distractions other than the occasional beautiful sight and the rest breaks I took, I had the chance to visit the surroundings of the major stations the train stopped at.

Perhaps it's my ability to sleep in the weirdest places, but I found the sightseer lounge car couches very comfortable. I went to bed 1hr or so after dusk, and I woke up with the morning lights. That's about 8h of sleep or so every night.

PS: Make sure to download a metric shitton of music before you do this. The sightseer car (the only place where one can truly work comfortably in the train) is usually a noisy place.

Nicholas_C• 12 years ago

Wow. I went from Austin to NYC via Chicago and it was 50 something hours on a train. LA to NYC would be an incredible amount of time on a train.

I definitely downloaded a ton of movies and music and brought a few books.

suyash• 12 years ago

no need for passport for domestic flights.

mst• 12 years ago

But you do need some sort of ID; I'd presume the passport was all he had.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

This is a cool idea, my wife and I did the cross country ride (Oakland to Washington DC) in sleeper cars and it was a lot of fun. Some great scenery and a lot of time to think. Weird things at the time were the plastic utensils in the dining car seemed a bit jarring, and of course train stations in the USA can be fairly tawdry compared to European stations.

There are lots of things that challenge rail in the US, perhaps the most obvious is private ownership of the rails themselves, as opposed to freeways which are state owned and maintained. That shifts a lot of costs on to fewer payers. It also means the rail owner's trains get priority (in this case freight) so scheduling is quite difficult to maintain. There is also a tremendous amount of bureaucracy and complexity built into the system which I've found resists even modestly determined prodding. As part of an exercise in home schooling we tried to find out what it actually cost to put in the San Jose light rail in order to compare that to what we had learned about the Northern Pacific Railroad at a wonderful museum in Sacramento. All of our efforts to get what I had assumed was just boring public data were met with suspicion and resistance. That was pretty weird.

nostromo• 12 years ago

I think the biggest challenge to rail in the US is just how huge the US is.

Take a common train ride in Europe: Paris to Berlin. You've actually traveled less distance than from New York to Chicago, and it took 8 hours to do so.

In fact from Paris all the way to Moscow is much shorter than from LA to NYC.

Without some amazing new tech in rail, I doubt it'll ever be a popular alternative in the US to flying (other than intra-regional trips).

mikeash3• 12 years ago

I doubt rail will replace cross-country flights, but there is a ton of air traffic on shorter routes.

As one example where it's already done, the DC-NYC Amtrak route is quite popular, despite being just as expensive, if not more so, as the plane ride. It takes a similar amount of time, factoring in travel to and from airports, waiting, etc. and is much nicer. There are still a ton of airline flights between these two cities as well, of course, and those could probably be supplanted to a large degree with additional improvements.

That's with current American trains, which are painfully slow. Imagine modern high-speed rail between, for example, DC and Miami. It's a bit over 1,000 miles which would take about five hours. That would be an excellent substitute for the plane trip, which is about two hours in the air, but tons of time and hassle at the airports. I have family in South Florida and if such a train existed at something like a reasonable price, I'd definitely go for it. As it is, Amtrak on that route takes nearly 24 hours and costs way more than an airline ticket. I don't see why they get any passengers at all, given that.

Seems like 1,000 miles is about the limit for high-speed trains. How many pairs of large American cities are less than 1,000 miles apart and have lots of travel between them? I would bet there are quite a number. Rail doesn't have to solve everything to solve a bunch of things.

mcot2• 12 years ago

Yes, the U.S. is big. BUT if you implement high speed rail in specific corridors it would be quite a bit better than flying.

The DC, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston route covers millions of people. It is absolutely criminal that we cannot get trains on this route which have average speeds greater than ~90mph (amtrack acela express). DC to Boston is only ~450 miles. Even if we get to only 150-200mph (which is already occurring in China over long distances) we are looking at only 2-3 hours from DC to Boston.

wdr1• 12 years ago

Yet, we still lack rail on routes that would likely prove to be popular in West. E.g., between LA & SF or LA & Vegas.

m_mueller3• 12 years ago

Don't use Europe as an example for an efficient train system. Learn from the best: Japan. New York - Washington? Sure, no problem, takes about 2h 15min[1][2][3]. New York - Chicago? 8 hours [4]. Looking at the American timetable - holy crap, 19 hours for the same distance by train, 12 hours by car.

[1]https://maps.google.co.jp/maps?saddr=Tokyo+Station,+Tokio&da...

[2]https://www.google.com/maps/dir/New+York,+NY,+USA/Washington...

[3]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=230mi+in+km

[4]https://maps.google.co.jp/maps?saddr=aomori&daddr=okayama&hl...

leoc• 12 years ago

But no-one in a hurry takes the train from Paris to Moscow either. Conversely, look at the distances between, say, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, and Detroit. The distance from Chicago to Detroit is only slightly greater than that from London to Paris, minimum time 2h 15m by train.

syncsynchalt• 12 years ago

To address one point I saw: US passenger rail has signaling priority over freight, by law [http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/V/C/243/24308]. The law is just not enforced.

The US has arguably the best freight rail system in the world, and it seems like a lot of the problems with US passenger rail stem from that.

saalweachter3• 12 years ago

I was actually just looking this up. Judging by the numbers on Wikipedia, US rail freight is about 10x per capita the EU's, while US passenger rail is about 1/10th per capita compared to the EU.

Crito3• 12 years ago

I don't know if this is true or not, but I have heard that most of the US's rail is unsuitable for passenger travel because it is unsuitable for speeds that would make passenger travel reasonable. With freight it doesn't matter so much since the name of the game is moving lots of things cheap, not moving things fast.

m_mueller3• 12 years ago

See, there's a simple solution to that as the Japanese show: Build more rails. Their bullet train system has a separate rail covering the whole main island of Honshu.

eru2• 12 years ago

All of our efforts to get what I had assumed was just boring public data were met with suspicion and resistance. That was pretty weird.

I guess your children learned something. I am just not sure whether you want them to become so cynical so soon.

nayefc• 12 years ago

The one thing Amtrak needs to be focusing on now is fixing their terrible ancient, expensive trains.

chetanahuja• 12 years ago

"Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis" Hah... Good one.

nnnnni• 12 years ago

Yeah, I saw that and had a good chuckle. It's nice to see that humor isn't completely dead!

yanatan16• 12 years ago

Why is it restricted to writers? Is it less expensive than two one-way tickets?

shagie• 12 years ago

Its based on the idea of an artist in residence (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist-in-residence ). Another odd travel related residency is Heathrow's writer-in-residence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14371775 .

The idea of the artist in residence is to get away from one's daily routines and environment into a new and enriching environment for the artist. Its not a "get from point A to point B" that they're giving away its a "experience riding around the US on the railway and talk with the people who are on the train or see the scenery so that you can become a better writer." The start and end of the trip are purely coincidental.

As to if its less expensive than tickets: section 10 of the official terms shows what will be given: a travel voucher for 1 person on a sleeper train for between 2 to 5 days that would be worth about $900. The key here is given - free is much less than the cost of tickets.

Zigurd2• 12 years ago

I applied. I'll let you know how it goes.

audiosampling• 12 years ago

Or just try the virtual alternative : http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/railroadNoiseGenerator.php

MichaelTieso• 12 years ago

I for one am super excited for Amtrak and what this will mean for the travel industry. As a travel blogger that has been in the industry for a long time, I've worked with several brands that have no idea what to do with "new media". This is setting a fantastic example for other brands that will hopefully catch on.

zomgbbq• 12 years ago

This promotion is of course targeted toward writers but how amazing would it be to have 2-5 focused days to hack while on the train? Perhaps mobile connectivity would be an issue in some locations but the upside of the focus-time would probably be greatly productive. A train hack-a-thon.

rtfeldman• 12 years ago

I'd love to do this for coding, except the onboard wifi is unusable. I tend to prefer Amtrak to any airline in basically every area except wifi, which is bizarre considering how recent a development in-flight wifi is.

danielsiders• 12 years ago

There are apparently serious strings attached[1]

[1]http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/79161065289/the-amtrak-residen...

Amtrak Residency

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