Allen Dee,
The reason for that is largely due to what’s been ingrained in people’s minds. We want the freedom to go where we want, when we want. The car offers this luxury. It’s only starting to turn now that the road have reached and moved beyond capacity for the number of cars. Unfortunately old habits die-hard.
I can also think of a few other reasons that continue to hold up people converting to trains. One is the fact that, especially with long distance, too many times trains are late. Another factor is that people tend to equate trains in two different ways. The first way being the subway/commuter type of train, which is typically not very comfortable and often over crowded. People don’t realize that many of the California Intercity service offer’s very nice seating. The second way that too many people think of trains is as tourist attractions. Yes I think that it’s wonderful that we have preserved so much of our train history through museums and tourist RR’s. The problem is this put people into the mind set that today’s trains aren’t really intended to be useful in getting somewhere.
One shining example of this mentality can be seen in the Monorails of Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Walt conceived these trains as the nice, quiet, sleek, modern, and environmentally safe transportation of the future. He was right, the monorail was all of those things. Unfortunately it was a little ahead of its time when he first built it. Then over the years people began to see it as an amusement park ride and not a viable transportation system. Only now years later is Las Vegas installing a real full-scale system. Yes we’ve had a few monorails here and there, mostly in airports. But so far no cities, until Vegas, have adopted it to solve their transportation woes.
Yet it’s far easier to construct than any light or heavy rail system, it’s easier on the environment in so many ways, and it’s quieter than rail. Plus it’s safer than rail, since it’s elevated and there are no grade crossings. You can’t find any pictures of a monorail hitting a truck or a car. The Disney Monorails also have an attractive record for durability. The original 10 Marc IV monorails at Disney World before they were retired several years ago, had logged enough miles to go to the moon and back. These trains saw service 365 days a year and they needed 9 in service at all times to handle the crowds. That left room for only 1 train to be bad ordered on any given day, or they would have to run short. Most of the Disney Monorails ran with a 99.9% reliability rating.
Now Disney has 12 new Marc VI trains, and they are doing equally well. In Florida they currently move during the busy season over 200,000 people per day. Yet sadly despite all of those impressive numbers, many people still think and refer to the monorail as “Walt’s Toy Trains.”
All of that was just a long-winded way of saying that people’s expectations and ideas about rail travel need to be altered and improved, before we can get them out of their cars. We have finally started doing that out here in the east, thanks to the Acela Express trains. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people on board for the first time remark, “Why did I ever take the shuttles?” “This is so much nicer and more comfortable.”
Yet we still have a long way to go out here. Amtrak only owns 53% to 54% of the market between NY and DC. It should own 100% of that market. Plus we’ve got a long ways to go on the NY to Boston market. But at least revolution has started, even if it’s still on the quiet side.
