Trains

[Foofoogal]

Saw on the news tonight many people are riding on commuter trains due to gas. So much so they are having problems accommodating everyone.
Tried to find the threads on trains but for some reason could only go back so far and the search will not work for me.
Anyway I sure wish a silver lining would come to all this and trains would come back like in the heyday. Anyone wish the same. I rode Amtrak and I adore train rides.
If more rode them then more money would be put into them and the stations.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage

 

[jayem]

I used to take the Metra to school all throughout high school. To and back, actually. A lot cheaper than driving. I take the el frequently.

 

[CharlesB]

I used the el and subways all the time

 

[sixsexsix]

when bike season is over i usually ride the streetcar. there is absolutely no point in driving in downtown toronot

 

[adamjaskie]

The only train around here is a perpetually late Amtrak deal that goes back and forth between Chicago and the Detroit area.

There are occasionally talks about putting in high-speed commuter rail between Ann Arbor and Detroit, but nothing ever seems to come of it. There are also rumors of talks about putting something along the Woodward corridor, but I'm not sure what is happening with that. The People Mover is pretty much a disaster because it doesn't have a large enough loop to be very useful for anyone. Sure, you can ride around downtown, but you still have to drive TO downtown and find parking.

Someday I'll have to do a cross-country train vacation. Just pick a west coast city, ride the train out there, spend a few days, and ride back. It seems like a very lazy, relaxing way to travel, with none of the hustle and bustle of the airports.

 

[Miss 1929]

I hear rumors...

that they are talking about reviving the Key System (trolleys) in Oakland and Berkeley! I hope they do, as it would run 2 blocks from my house (if it followed the old route).

Here's info on it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_System

 

[dhermann1]

Well, I now live in Da Bronx, and I take the IRT train. Since I'm pretty far uptown, I have a seat every morning, but in the evening the train is pretty packed by the time it gets to my stop, so I stand all the way home. Even tho it gets kind of cozey sometimes, I'm not complaining. I'm 61 years old, and I've never owned a car. Actually I just got my driver's license 5 years ago. My carbon footprint is pretty small compared to a lot of folks, and my car insurance payments have averaged zero for many years.
I've ridden on the 20th Century Limited back in 1953, and on commuter trains quite frequently as well. I am TOTALLY pro train. I have a set of N scale model trains that I pull out for Christmas, and I have a train calendar over my desk.
As Edna St Vincent Millay said "There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going."

 

[KY Gentleman]

As a youngster I recall riding a train from Washington, DC to Cincinnati, OH with my mom and brother. We were on one of the last trains that arrived into Union Terminal in Cincy.
Great memory and I've loved trains since.

 

[Sefton]

I don't think we'll have any return to the days when the train was the main form of public transportation. Too many highways have been built and too many sprawling suburba-tropolis-villes. I'm going to try to take the train to work from my new home even though it means a two hour commute-one way. I hate cars,but it's just no longer possible to avoid using one for me.

 

[Rachael]

I love taking the train. It's the only way I have time to finish the crossword or read three consecutive paragraphs in a book.

With the price of gas, it's cheaper to take Amtrak to visit family than to drive. And it's safer to multi-task when I'm not trying to steer.

 

[Two Gun Bob]

We still use trains a lot in the UK...

... albeit we have a lot less stations than in the Golden Era period, and in fact we need a lot more because ours are often overcrowded - we have less freight but more passengers than during the 30s and 40s. Personally I use trains for many journeys, as well as bus and car.

This is typical of today's commuter trains in the UK:

and this of our long distance express trains (Virgin Pendolino high speed tilting train) on the West Coast main line:

However for fun I prefer to travel by steam:

Like this typical Severn Valley Railway train (Photo taken last week):

Or how about the Orient Express? (Photo taken in 2003):

 

[rikrdo]

http://www.metrolinktrains.com/

Ride trains...............(shameless plug for job security )​

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Hopefully the fare doesn't go up because of it.

 

[Foofoogal]

As Edna St Vincent Millay said "There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going."

My kind of person. When I went to Scotland one of the main things I was excited about was getting to ride the train. I have wrote this somewhere on FL but I am like a 5 year old little girl with a lollipop on a train. It is like my no.3 funnest thing to do in the world. I rode Amtrak from St.Louis to Longview Texas a few years back. They almost had to make me get off.
Nice large seats, nice snack car, and most of all a car that was almost all glass to watch the world go by. I was in heaven.
I tell my honey if anything ever happens to him I am going to be the lady working in the snack bar on a train. lol
My dream job.

 

[David Conwill]

Grand Rapids recently began talking about replacing most of their bus system with lightweight rail (i.e. streetcars). It seems it wouldn't be hard, as many of the brick streets in GR have a broad strip of asphalt down the middle covering up where the tracks used to be, so we're all used to driving around them already. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Interestingly, I've heard that using refurbished PCC streetcars (the classic kind from the 1940s) is frequently cheaper than using new European-style ones. That would be a nice classic touch to some cities.

I do think long-distance rail could make a comeback. First the government needs to make things less easy on interstate trucking so that the railroads freight revenues come back up. I think the interstate corridors would make an excellent place to route high-speed passenger lines. As far as I'm concerned, they could just rip the freeways right out, but more realistically they could go down the medians in a lot of places.

-Dave

 

[sixsexsix]

i am taking a 4.5 hour train ride this weekend, yip yip! i love taking the train to other cities, so much nicer & more pleasant than busing. not to mention a lot cheaper than driving the suv!

 

[dhermann1]

Edna St Vincent Millay

Here's the whole thing:

Travel

THE railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

[sixsexsix]

the only frustrating thing about streetcars is that they really muck up traffic. because they run in the middle, every time there is a stop everyone behind the car has to stop and wait (whereas in a bus you could just go around). another frustrating thing is if anything happens on the tracks - accident, car stalls, streetcar problems, etc - every single streetcar behind the incident is stuck. as someone who commutes for 6 months of the year strictly on the streetcar, it can be very annoying. the best way to solve this problem is designated streetcar-only lanes (we have a couple here, and i have seen them a lot in new orleans), but that requires wide roads, something a lot of older cities don't really have

i have heard about buses that run on streetcar cables, i would like to see them in action. seems it would be a lot better for traffic flow while still keeping things electric and "green"

Grand Rapids recently began talking about replacing most of their bus system with lightweight rail (i.e. streetcars). It seems it wouldn't be hard, as many of the brick streets in GR have a broad strip of asphalt down the middle covering up where the tracks used to be, so we're all used to driving around them already. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Interestingly, I've heard that using refurbished PCC streetcars (the classic kind from the 1940s) is frequently cheaper than using new European-style ones. That would be a nice classic touch to some cities.

I do think long-distance rail could make a comeback. First the government needs to make things less easy on interstate trucking so that the railroads freight revenues come back up. I think the interstate corridors would make an excellent place to route high-speed passenger lines. As far as I'm concerned, they could just rip the freeways right out, but more realistically they could go down the medians in a lot of places.

-Dave

 

[dhermann1]

In Chicago the suburban highways were built with a rail line down the middle. In New York Robert Moses (may his soul burn in hell!) designed some of the Expressways specifically so that this would be impossible. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had an obsession with ripping out the trolley system. They some how represented old-fashionedness to him.
There was a time when you could take the TROLLEY, aka the InterUrban systems, from Maine to Kansas City, and from Toronto to Florida. Almost entirely ripped out. What folly! Only a few cities, like Boston and Pittsburg, have preserved their original systems. Buffalo built a system that didn't connect the areas that needed connecting, so it remains a train to nowhere, to a large degree. There's a huge investment needed, and a lot of the areas involved have little or no place to put in new systems. It's a big problem we've stupidly created fopr ourselves. And still there is great prejudice against rail in much of the country. Just as the truck and rail freight systems reached a balance point of what was practial and economical, passenger trains and passenger cars should be able to work out a similar balance.

 

[Warden]

Looks like we may be able to take steam trains again as the first new steam engine to be built in the UK for almost 50 years is ready for service after successfully completing all its trial runs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7737382.stm

Harry