Yes that's possible but if the incoming administration, congress and state politicians along the route are all behind restoring service as the article reports, then I believe that it can and will happen but it won't be short term. There is little equipment available to start new routes. Amtrak must buy new Superliners, restore the necessary signaling on the route, the stations restored by the states, and its a go in 3-5 years
Well and good, provided that your objective is to visit New Orleans. If your objective is to get to Houston or Biloxi or Hattiesburg, not so much. Imagine if you wanted to get from Baltimore to Richmond but you'd have to stay overnight in DC. Would you take the train or find some other way?
If you are driving from upstate NY to Chicago, you have to stay overnight somewhere, unless you're crazy. If you're driving from upstate New York to Minneapolis, you have to stay overnight *twice*.
I did Google Maps between Ithaca and New York and got 16 hr, 40 min. I believe you would only need one overnight if driving.
When is it not your dime. Even a AGR reward has value.
Didn't you mean between Ithica and Minneapolis? And if you agree with the Wikipedia definition of "upstate NY", you could have countered with Ripley NY to Minneapolis being only 13 ± ½ hours - an easy 1 day trip for a young person with a lead foot..
Speaking for myself, I could do 16:40 in about 15h (maybe less- I rarely go under 75 or 10 over, whichevers faster) of on the road time with 4 1-hour meal/coffee/bathroom/Red Bull breaks. I tend to think that most people who actually like driving and live in the middle of nowhere (and are this used to driving marathons) could do the same.
One of the reasons we opted to take the train from Hattiesburg to Washington is because my wife simply can't do those marathon drives, even as a passenger. We're limited to about 500 miles (say, 8 hours) per day with frequent get-out-and-walk-around breaks. The advantage of the train is that she could get up and walk around while the train was still moving. The rest of my family regularly make marathon drives with only minimal breaks to refuel, eat and pee. (e.g. S. Ala to SE Okla in one shot. Neb-Fla in two days) I figured that for us to drive from S. MS to DC would take us three days. That's ~$500 (round trip) for food and lodging on top of the fuel and wear on the car. If you figure the car at 40¢/mile, that's ~$1600 round trip. Of course, most people value their car mileage at a much lower amount, unless someone else is paying.
Some of the above is false. It depends on your stamina, I suppose. I once drove from Boston to Blue Island, IL in one day, and have done New York City-Chicago more than once, in a single day. Wouldn't do it any more though!!
Other than hard-core rail fans, I don't know anyone who would ride a train for something like 72 hours to get from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. That's the equivalent to riding a train from Madrid to Moscow.
The transcontinental SL did last about 12 years (1993-2005) and probably would still exist today if it weren't for Katrina. I know I've done East Coast to LAX or vice versa with just the same day transfer in CHI. If there was a northern transcontinental say LAX-NYP or LAX-WAS (we all know LAX-PHL will never happen) I'd do it.
There are people who can't fly (for medical reasons), won't fly (for any number of reasons) and people who like to see the country on their travels.
As already and correctly pointed out, it really wouldn't matter even if absolutely no one rides a long-distance train endpoint-to-endpoint. The real business is to and from intermediate points. Potentially, a train could be sold out along several segments of the route, nearly empty near the final destination, and again with nobody traveling the entire distance. However, at least a handful of people do travel the whole route, sometimes connecting to yet another train to complete their journey. They aren't all hardcore railfans. People travel everyday across the nation by bus or private automobile, and nobody questions it. Why then, do some people find it so incomprehensible that passengers would take a train to make the same journey?
Yes. The Sunset Limited ran right through my town until Katrina. Very few riders and even fewer rode from Fla to Cal. I once looked at riding Gulfport-DeFuniak Springs but when I realized that it took something like 8 hours and someone would have to pick me up at oh-dark-thirty, I opted to drive the 3.5 hours.
I believe that Pierre Salinger refused to fly and would only take ships between the US and Europe. He was in a very small minority. My brother-in-law is one who will no longer fly. He's made mostly of metal replacement parts, usually in pain and somewhat claustrophobic to-boot. What he goes through in security screening was enough by itself for him to swear off flying. The people who "like to see the country" are either "drivers" or "rail fans".
