Transportation Policy

Jason Russell | From the December 2024 issue

Who can resist the romance of the rails? The glorious train halls of old; the art deco travel posters; the hourslong stoppage between towns while the train has dysfunctional Wi-Fi, the cafe car is closed, and the stink of the bathroom by your seat is inescapable.

Such is often the reality on Amtrak these days. One January 2023 trip from the Washington, D.C., area to the Orlando area, scheduled for 17 hours, turned into a hellish ordeal: "Passengers had been cooped up in their seats or compartments for 37 hours, complaining of stale air, dwindling food supplies, trash piling up in the aisles and a lack of timely information from the crew," read the New York Times report.

Overall, one in four Amtrak trains is delayed, or one in two on routes over 750 miles. Amtrak blames freight train interference for most of its delays, complaining that when Amtrak trains operate on rails owned by other railroads, dispatchers ignore federal laws that require Amtrak get preference. Even so, Amtrak admitted to 21,654 hours of self-caused delays in........

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