Long Haul Amtrak Trips Still Make No Sense

This meme is misleading (in addition to being inaccurate).

I favor abolishing Amtrak outside the Northeast Corridor and a few other select (locally subsidized) routes for good reason. And, while there can be good public policy reasons for subsidizing transportation routes that otherwise make sense, there isn't a good public policy reason for heavily subsidizing a train trip that makes no sense as transportation and is really just a rolling hotel with pretty scenery along the way.

Long haul travel on low speed Amtrak passenger rail is very slow, unreliable, makes no economic sense, is more polluting than flying, is more dangerous than flying, and also undermines the quality of intercity bus options.

Travel By Commercial Airline

A non-stop flight between the same cities takes 5 hours and 22 minutes (an average of 541 mph) and costs $247 (and you won't spend nearly as much on food en route). Add $40 for a checked bag to make it more comparable to the car or train options. It might cost $60 to get to and from the airport, $20 for food en route, and 3 hours to get to and from the airport. No motel or hotel charges are necessary.

Total cost $367. Total time 8 hours, 22 minutes (an average of 347 mph). Federal airline subsidies for trip $32. Carbon dioxide: 840 pounds.

(All subsidy data in this post is from here).

Travel By Car

This trip takes 42 hours driving time by car traveling 2905 miles at an average of 69 mph (with at least $100 of tolls, motel charges for two nights of at least $60, and the cost of food for three days of at least $90). Gas at an average of 27 mpg (the average for a midsized sedan) at the national average of $31.6 a galloon is about $340, and one oil change for at least $30, so at least $620 before considering the cost of the car (which is at least 5 cents a mile which is $145). Realistically, you'll need at least 20 hours of stops in addition to the driving time.

Total cost $765. Total time 62 hours (an average of 47 mph). Federal highway subsidies for trip $32. Carbon dioxide: 2000 pounds. 

You are 104 times as likely to die on the car trip as the plane trip, and 17 times as likely to die on the car trip as the train trip.

Travel By Train

It take 79 hours and 17 minutes (on average) by train, which is an average of 37 mph (and the cheapest price I could find is $343 for the trip not the $213 quoted). Food would probably run at least $180. It might cost $30 to get to and from the train station and an additional hour of travel time. This ticket price, by the way, is in an upright seat the entire trip, not a sleeper car. If you want a sleeper car on this trip that takes more than three full days, you'll pay about $1600 more. All other options considered here assume that you'll sleep in a bed every night.

Total cost: $553. Total time 80 hours and 17 minutes (an average of 36 mph). Federal Amtrak subsidies for trip: $1,046. Carbon dioxide: 1000 pounds. You are 6 times more likely to die on the train trip as the plane trip.

Biking Or Riding A Horse

The trip by train is about three times faster than traveling by bicycle or horse (which would take about six days).

The bike trip would also cost about $800 (more than a car trip) due to the increased food and motel costs and some bike maintenance, and would have a roughly $32 government subsidy (but would be greener than any of the alternatives) and would probably be at least ten times more dangerous than driving a car and wouldn't afford much opportunity to read or work on the way. This trip would leave you much more fit, however.

The horse trip would cost much more (it would be the most expensive option by far) because stables and food for the horse aren't cheap. This would also be more dangerous than driving a car (although exact statistics on the safety of long haul horse travel as of 2024 are hard to come by) and wouldn't afford much opportunity to read or work on the way.

Comparisons

Low speed passenger rail on Amtrak is at its worst on long haul trips.

A plane is 72 hours faster and $187 cheaper than a train, and the plane is safer. (The plane is still $57 cheaper even if you find a $213 train ticket.) And, this doesn't include the $1,034 greater amount of government subsidies on the train ticket than on the plane ticket. The plane is also about 16% greener than the train.

A plane is 53 hour and 38 minutes faster and $398 cheaper than traveling by car (but you have a car at your destination, although that is as much a minus as a plus in San Francisco and New York City which have good transit systems). The government subsidies for the trip are basically identical for the plane and the car trip. The plane is about 58% greener than the car.

Also, you can't do any work or reading while driving for 42 hours or sleeping for 16 hours (all but 4 hours of your trip, some of which will be spent eating or shower or stretching), while you can do either while flying or during your waking hours on the train.

The Environmental Impact Explained

On a long haul, cross-country trip, the plane is greener than the train (which in turn, is greener than the car).

A nonstop flight from New York to San Francisco emits, on average, about 840 pounds of carbon dioxide per economy class passenger, according to Google Flights, whose data is independently reviewed. That’s equivalent to burning 420 pounds of coal, or more than the annual emissions of someone living in Cameroon. Air travel is wildly polluting.

But what about trains? I tracked down several estimates of carbon emissions per passenger-mile, including Amtrak’s official estimate. What I got back: My cross-country train journey had emitted somewhere from 950 to 1,133 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger.

What!?

There are a few reasons for this result. Amtrak is far cleaner than flying where its tracks are electrified, along the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston. But outside the Northeast, Amtrak trains run on diesel, a highly polluting fuel.

What’s more, Amtrak’s trains are decades old. (Its single-level Amfleet cars were built in the late 1970s.) Add to that generous seat pitches, large old-fashioned private rooms for longer-distance trains, a longer, winding route across the country and “per-passenger-mile emissions go through the roof,” said Justin Roczniak, a co-host of “Well There’s Your Problem,” a podcast about engineering.

Amtrak is still the more climate-friendly option for the vast majority of travelers, who on average travel 300 to 400 miles, said Olivia Irvin, a spokeswoman for the rail company. (That is, not many people are crazy enough to go cross-country by train.) A 2022 Department of Transportation study found that traveling by train from Los Angeles to San Diego generated less than half the emissions, per passenger, of flying, or driving. For Boston to New York, an electrified route, taking the train generated less than a fifth the emissions of flying or driving.

It’s when journeys start getting longer than about 700 miles that planes start to gain an advantage on trains. Planes burn the most fuel when they take off and climb to altitude. That makes short flights very inefficient — you’re burning all that fuel only to travel a short distance. (Some countries, like France and Spain, have tried to ban the shortest flights when rail alternatives are available.)

Longer flights also tend to use larger aircraft, which provide economies of scale. And aircraft have become more fuel-efficient over the years. But choosing flights with several connections, for example, can quickly add to your footprint, because you’re taking off and landing multiple times.

From the New York Times.