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You'd be in Columbus, for example, in one hour and 38 minutes.

I travel back and forth between Cleveland and Columbus once or twice a month. It takes about 2 hours, although granted I only go to the northernmost edge of the city (coming from cleveland).

My question is, what do you do when you get there? Columbus (and Cleveland, for that matter) are hardly composed of dense urban areas - most of the businesses are located in the outskirts and, at least in Cleveland, are often not serviced by public transportation.

That means you end up renting a car at your destination (which is probably going to be the city center - so you have to fight traffic out and then back in to get back to the terminal), which, for me, would eat up all the time savings, and increase the expense.

True, you could get a couple of hours' work done on the train, if your job lends itself to that, but frankly, the commute between Cleveland and Columbus isn't all that bad - if ODOT would ever finish construction on I-71, it would be even better.

Even at today's gas prices, the $50/each way is significantly higher than the gas cost driving my FS 4wd pickup truck.

Thanks, I was about to make much the same point. I'm a great fan of rail travel, having done a lot of it in Europe and elsewhere (the "elsewhere" including Egypt - better, faster, and cleaner than Amtrak).

But the problem with the passenger train in the US is: what do you do when you get there? You need the car that you left in the parking lot. Assuming the train station has one, and that you don't mind paying a parking fee bigger than the train fare.

So you hire a car? Quick - how many train stations have a rental counter, and how many have a parking lot big enough to hold the rental cars. And now you're paying a car rental fee that again is more than the train fare.

That's the issue: public transport has to be a continuous web, otherwise the incentive is gone. And intercity passenger rail is the last piece that should be built, after the intra-city buses, jitneys, light rail, whatever.

If you want to make a start on fixing the US's absurd transit system, start by getting freight off the roads.