[az_gila]

When I rode the bullet train in Japan it was 3 times the price of a Southwest Airline ticket for a comparable distance and ran at one third the speed. The bullet trains operate at a loss with huge government subsidies. Southwest Airlines runs at a profit with no subsidies.

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Ahh... but the environmental do-gooders are always telling us that trains are a more efficient method of transportation... </sarc>

[cicero2k]

Per the replies I did some research on discount airline’s costs and came up with this example:

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2005/04/27/0001193125-05-086404/Section7.asp

It seems in the quarter they burned 58 million gallons of fuel to produce 3.5 billion seat miles of travel. My calculation yields 60 seat miles per gallon. Even at their load factor of 70% it’s 42 seat MPG. Much higher than I thought.

Yes the bullet trains are expensive. In France the Paris to Strasburg run would have been 480 euros for two. So we rented a car.

C2K