Many years ago I took a trip via VIA (Canadian Rail) from Ottawa to Montreal. Very relaxing two hours. Clean and comfortable.
Second leg of that trip was Montreal to NYC via Amtrak. Dirtiest, slowest, most uncomfortable 24 hours of my life. Raise the price, get rid of the riff-raff!
I rode from Boston to Chicago once, taking a “Red eye” train that was supposed to leave Boston at 10pm. Instead it left 2 hours late because there was a dining car in the middle of the train that had to be swapped out, and because it was in the middle it was a two hour process. I had Cubs tickets for the next day and had a friend meeting me at the station. I asked about the schedule and they said the train would make up the time during the night. Ha ha.
We had to stop about five times to let passenger trains through. It seems that scAmtrak *leases* the rails from freight companies and does not have right of way. Every time we stopped they said not to worry, we’d be on time. Ha ha.
We arrived in Chicago very late of course. I got to the Cubs game in the bottom of the third inning. Then that night I had a train from Chicago to Memphis. Same deal. We stopped several times for freight to go by, and arrived in Memphis six hours behind schedule. Weeeeeeee.
There has to be a better way to do things. I know we have much more land to cover here than in Europe, but I still have to think that there is someone who can do some math and figure out how to make Amtrak profitable and effective.
London-Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa-Quebec City and Calgary-Edmonton are the only VIA routes that make sense as an alternative to air travel. The service on the other routes is abysmal.