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The Nation's Pulse
On the Rails
Chugging along, on Amtrak’s train of trains — the Auto Train.
I’m writing this somewhere in a swamp in Georgia, chugging northward on the Auto Train, the world’s longest passenger train.
At full capacity, the train carries 650 passengers and 330 vehicles, its 18 passenger cars and 33 vehicle carriers stretching for three-fourths of a mile.
Amtrak runs two Auto Trains, each scheduled to depart at 4 p.m., one from Sanford, Florida, the other from outside D.C. in Lorton, Virginia. With everything on schedule, the trains pass each other at 11:30 p.m. at the half-way point in Florence, South Carolina.
Ticket prices depend on demand, like concert tickets. With the train packed with snow birds on our way down to Florida after Christmas, we paid $782 for a bedroom with a restroom/shower combination and a couch and chair that converted into bunks. The larger one’s on the bottom. Forget feminism and equality — I get the top bunk every time. I feel like a tuna in a can.
Coming back on a less crowded train, leaving most of the snowbirds in Florida, the price for the same room was $406.
The car, additionally, is $152 each way, plus there’s a $70.65 rail fare each way.
Altogether, that’s $1,633.30 — not bad if you’re staying for the winter and saving the cost of a car rental for 15 weeks or so. If a car rental is $200 a week, the train ends up as more than free, plus there’s a complimentary wine tasting party in the lounge car during the first hour (this time with salmon appetizers — usually it’s only carrot sticks and those little cheese crackers), a free dinner at five or seven o’clock, a movie at seven and nine o’clock, and a complimentary continental breakfast (orange juice, coffee, a banana and those little boxes of Special-K and Rice Krispies).
It’s nice, but maybe not as good as Amtrak sells it, i.e. “The journey is every bit as much fun as your destination!” That might be true if you’re jobless and going down to pick oranges or do some guppy scooping before the next frost hits.
They also promote the “panoramic views of America’s southeast through picture windows.” Except it was dark after the first two hours of the 17-hour ride, so what you see are red blinking lights at railroad crossings in five states.
But it’s efficient. Where else can you simultaneously read, drink, smoke, eat, talk, write, e-mail, and meet dozens of new characters, all while going 70 miles per hour? Plus you aren’t blasted out into the air at 35,000 feet if one of the co-passengers ends up as a successful crotch bomber.
For trivia fans, Amtrak provides some details on the towns we pass through. Heading north, the first town is Deland, Florida, home of Stetson University, named after the hat guy. Next is Pierson, “the nation’s fern capital” (all you see are miles of black tarps; the ferns are underneath). Then it’s Palatka, “a haven during the 1850s for invalids escaping northern winters.” The last town before leaving South Carolina is Dillon, the place where financial non-guru Ben Bernanke went to high school and worked as a waiter at South of the Border, a road stop near the North Carolina border.
The last town is Lorton, home of the Lorton Reformatory, a correctional facility that produced fire hydrants and fire call boxes for D.C. “In 1917, it held 170 women arrested and detained in the suffrage movement for marching in Washington.”
The facility closed in 2001, so there’s little chance that Obama will be sending over any tea-baggers to make fire hydrants, unless he decides it’s a good spot for some “shovel-ready” stimulation.
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 1.21.10 @ 7:41AM
I take the one (ONE) New York City bound train per day when I go to visit my Mama. In the three years I have been taking that train, it has been on time exactly twice. (I admit that a lot of this has to do with the number of stupid people on board who cannot seem to figure out that crossing an international border requires papers that are in order and not snarking off to the Border Patrol when yours are not.) By the way, this train has increased in price from $95 to $160. They have various excuses for this, but basically they amount to Because You Have No Choice.
My youngest and I took a first class train from Atlanta to Washington DC when he was 7 years old, because he was and remains afraid to fly. It is an excellent way to travel with a child, and includes the lovely first class lounge. My child, being properly brought up (although tactless), played quietly with the toys he got at the Space Museum; another family of small fry ran riot. (As we walked through the train later on for our dinner, my child spotted this family in a day coach and remarked, *There are those brats who were in the lounge.*)
Bob K.| 1.21.10 @ 9:41AM
Here in Northeast PA we have had a local business man doing this for years and he gets you to Florida on time too. It's called Auto-Bus. Your car is shipped to Florida by train. You ride on a luxury bus down to Florida in comfort, sleeping
over at motels. The owner is a successful Trucking Company Owner and this is just one of his businesses. I don't know why no one else in the state hasn't tried this.
Bob K.
Wilkes Barre, PA
KyMouse| 1.21.10 @ 9:45AM
Thanks for the article, Mr. Reiland; it brought back memories of the trip we took from St. Louis to San Antonio a few years ago on Amtrak's Texas Eagle.
The trip down was fine -- we had a private sleeping compartment with the fold-down bunk (I believe the idea originally came from miners' tiny cabins) and microscopic bathroom. It was an entertaining adventure; there's nothing like being rocked to sleep by the rhythm of a train.
The trip back, however, was a different sort of adventure. A sewage line under our compartment was leaking (so they said), so every few minutes an astonishing scent wafted up toward us. Our little compartment seemed very run-down, with lots of scratches and a broken hook that once helped hold my top bunk to the ceiling. The one hook that was left did double-duty.
Both times, we were nonplussed by the lack of 21st-century security. When we left our berth for meals, only a tiny hook secured the flimsy door behind us. People who didn't have private berths simply left their belongings on their seats while they went to the dining car. Luggage was stored right next to the exit door, where anyone could walk off with it.
We asked a conductor if thefts were common, but he assured us that they never had any trouble. But when we stopped in Dallas, two "urban youths" were taken off our train in handcuffs.
Our meals were, the waiter informed us, simply heated in the microwave -- a far cry from the train trips to Florida (aboard the South Wind) during my childhood. But I'll still ride a train whenever I can.
crookedwren| 1.21.10 @ 10:12AM
I rode the old Silver Meteor twice -- years ago. And then during the early part of this century, at least four years in a row, my husband and I shared one of those mini-sleepers, going from Atlanta to Penn Station in NYC.
It hasn't always been great, but we love it. Love that way to travel.
More importantly, we could use train travel in this country, not just in the NE corridor or around Chicago. There's none to speak of where we live, and I can't help but wonder at it.
Traveling on the rails is an adventure (sometimes unpleasant, most often fun).
I remember wanting to deck an elitist Academe who pronounced quite glibly that four and five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline was only fair (poor Europeans have been paying so much for the stuff). I merely bristled at that, stating with some fire that Europeans -- by and large -- have an alternative to owning a vehicle. But my poorer sons make very little money in cities without great public transportation. They'd be using most of their wages to buy gas to get to and from work. Period. She suggested they move to Manhattan or Chicago.
Brilliant suggestion. Just how poor young people -- with a low-income adjunct mother could afford such a move was something she didn't care to address.
But if we had a strong passenger rail system in these United States, perhaps we could reduce the amount of petroleum we burn. A little, anyway.
Just a thought.
Otis, my man!| 1.21.10 @ 4:38PM
We don't have a strong passenger rail system because the government regulated it out of existence long ago. The railroads were the first American industry to suffer the interference of Liberal Federal government policies, beginning in the late 19th Century. If you want to see what General Motors' eventual fate will be, look no further than Amtrak.
Glen Leinbach| 1.21.10 @ 10:31AM
It's 813 miles from Lorton to Sanford. You have functional car. That's an easy 2-day drive and you can actually see the sights, set your own itinerary, and not be at the mercy of leaking lines, microwaved meals and surly service. The beds are bigger in a Motel 6, and your passenger can "read, drink, smoke, eat, talk, write, e-mail, and meet dozens of new characters, all while going 70 miles per hour." Well, maybe not meet dozens of characters, but at least you can go 75 if the law allows.
hunter| 1.21.10 @ 11:19AM
Amtrak as of all now rail systems in this country are grossly overated and heavily subsidized, and yet still charge an exgagerated price. Amtrak the passengers, while taxpayers foot the remainder. On freight, heavy trucks pay the price thru tax on fuel to keep their competitors in business with again help from taxpayers. Rails should be broken up and melted down, they are truly dinasaurs whose time have long passed. In the meantime our personal vehicles are being torn to bits by rough dangerous rail crosings. Where in the hell has common sense gone?
Faffnir| 1.21.10 @ 11:49AM
As a professional driver for twenty years and now a freight broker/dispatcher I can state that rails have a valid place in the logistics industry. While they are no where near as fuel efficient as the CSX ads would have you believe they are very good at hauling bulk cargo like grain, coal and chemicals long distances. They also can consolidate several hundred truckloads into one train, relieving that much long-haul truck traffic. Trucks still must get the freight from the railhead to the customer, but as a driver I could make as much if not more running 300 miles back and forth from an intermodal yard as running 2300 miles long haul. And I was home every night. Rails pay taxes too, and they have to maintain their own right-of-way. The fuel and excise taxes trucks pay are supposed to go to road maintenance/repair/rebuilding, but the politicians only see a pile of money that will buy votes. So rail and trucking provide more synergy than competition, which keeps freight rates down which keeps the price you pay for everything down. For your freedom, thank a soldier. For most everything else in your life, thank a trucker, because he brought it.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque| 1.21.10 @ 2:16PM
In the meantime our personal vehicles are being torn to bits by rough dangerous rail crosings.
Seems to me then, that you need to change your taste in vehicles if the ones you own are so cheap and flimsy that rough railroad crossings carry the potential to cause damage to them.
JimE| 1.21.10 @ 5:04PM
Hunter, as for freight, your business knowledge is that of a liberal, "zero". Truck frieght is not subsidizing rail frieght traffic. You are a moron.
hunter| 1.22.10 @ 11:09AM
Ohhhh Jimeeee, I am no liberal, and you are wrong on everything else too. You must be a fireman on the Gravey Express Rail Road, a real featherbed cushy job. Go play on the tracks untill you learn better!
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Quartermaster| 1.21.10 @ 7:57PM
We are going to regret allowing our passenger rail system to go the way of Amtrak. The car train is a very good idea. Why isn't it repeated on other lines?
If Amtrak gave good service, the airlines, harrased as they are by an ineffectual TSA, could make a good go of it.
Kevin Riley O'Keeffe | 1.22.10 @ 9:24AM
Bingo.
I, for one, refuse to put up with the idiocy of the airlines and the TSA stooges. Sure, it was a little less convenient to take Amtrak from San Jose, California to Omaha, Nebraska (and back) last spring, but I did it, and I'm glad I did it, and in a few months, I'm going to do it again. I'm eschewing the airlines in favour of Amtrack until air travel is re-normalized.
Joseph Snead| 1.21.10 @ 10:36PM
The highway trust fund is a huge subsidy for the automobile and its industry. If GM had to build the highways we would not be able to afford a car. All transportation has had to be subsidized including airlines whose runways are build by governments. So we cannot expect Amtrak to function indepent of tax revenues: we need to give them their fair share and they will provide better service. Rail is the most energy efficient method of transportation. If it is too slow for an individual then maybe they need to reexamine their life style.
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Richard Baker| 1.22.10 @ 8:42AM
I'm from Lorton, VA and for years I'd have people ask me where I was from. If they had any knowledge of the DC area they'd say, "Ah, the Prison" when I told them from where I came. At least that doesn't happen much anymore. We've lost that "honor." The site is being developed for houses, at present just off I-95.
Curtis| 1.23.10 @ 12:37AM
The car-train idea does make sense, and it's something that Amtrak should apply to more long runs. I think it'd be kind of neat to take your car from NY to Seattle, or from Miami to LA.
It'd be nice to zip from one end of the country to the other without having to rent a car once you got there.
I hope that the $152 charge for transporting the car isn't a flat rate. It would suck if the guy driving a mini got charged the same as the guy driving the excursion.
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