[Cicero]

I know it's politically wrong of me, but I'm a regular user of Amtrak. It's the best way for my particular commute between Vermont and NYC.

Thanksgiving is always a very busy time. Business class seats on the Wednesday train are usually sold out months ahead of time, and all the regular seats are gone by the time the train leaves. Unfortunately they seem to be incapable of adding extra cars, at least on my train.

The problem with the railroads is that they are still trying to make up for a hundred years of resentment and increasing socialist persecution, in reaction to the robber barons of the late 19th century. It's hard to see how that can be dealt with, since the only model left now is unionized government bureaucracy, running trains over tracks which they often don't own and can't control. But we need the trains. I can think of a lot of boondoggles that are much bigger and much less useful.

[discostu]

no the problem with trains is that outside certain rather small sections of the country nobody rides the things and so we gain no benefit from them yet we have to pay for them. In the Eastern corridor where population is dense (and where train ridership is greatest, and the system is probably even selfsustaining) I'm sure it's great. Out here it's just a tax hole that funds empty cars uselessly adding wear and tear to the tracks. The right answer is to kill the national train system and do it regionally, allow the market to decide where the people actually want trains and subsidize those if necessary.