Mike Luckovich for January 13, 2010

This one is great. I hate having to check luggage in the first place but paying extra adds insult to injury, especially when they lose your bags.

Great! And considering my last several flights, watching folks try to stuff steamer trunks in the overhead to avoid paying “luggage fees”- PLEASE AIRLINES stop charging for baggage and just raise ticket prices- them folks won’t ever figure it out!

Prop up AMTRAK? I wish! If we could rebuild the tracks between Boston and NYC, we could run a real high-speed train and go from South Station to Penn Station in an hour.

I’d love to see more rail systems. However, AMTRAK’s been losing money for years.

I’d be thrilled if this was meant to prop up AMTRAK. Go to most any EU country or to Japan and ride the rails. It’s great!! You leave from and arrive in the center of the city, no waiting for security, no checking bags, no ear popping, no air sickness, a restaurant car with real food and not bad prices, decent size toilets, larger seats, six seat cabins with space for the kids to play on the floor, you can even take your dog. I take the train any time it can get me there in under 8 hours.

One of the problems we have is a lack of population density per mile of track. However, I think we could at least do better on parts of the East and West coast.

Unfortunately those idiots that installed those rules want your money, and they’ll probably enforce court charges to get a little extra, only if they are wicked retarded though.

Would love to see the rails back an running. The rights of way were given, along with a lot of land , that has oil under it and the “railroads” kept that when the shut lines down. A big downturn for Amtrak is that freight gets priority, and the “freight” companies have NOT maintained the road beds.

I’d rather get on a train and travel at 150 miles per hour, as in Japan or Europe, than get on a plane at 450. It CAN be done.

Unlike the US, much of Europe is about 2 hour flight from Prague, so, if one considers the time needed for take off and after landing, the train comes out the winner for great many routes.

That said, the trains, while a bit less comfortable than they were a few decades ago - particularly the first class, are very fast and convenient. Cost wise however, they tent to be more expensive than bargain airlines.

Most interestingly though, the rails have to be heavily subsidized by the governments and EU, in-spite of high levels of utilization.

Oh, I use Acela from Boston to NYC as often as I can. It’s great and it’s relaxing. It doesn’t take that much longer than a plane once you count in trips to and from the airport, security, etc. But a TGV like the ones in France or the Chunnel would do the 250 miles in about an hour, whereas the shuttle is in the air about 30 minutes.

I had some interesting adventures on Amtrak when I was a sweet, young, hot thing. Great way to travel.

Canookie, although I still think I’m sweet (sure some would disagree), I am no longer a “sweet, young, hot thing.”

^ not enough flirting in my life at my age, so I’ll appreciate it even if on-line. ;-{}

Hey, I’m a glorious gorilla not a cougar. Sheesh!!

^ Some lines were never meant to be crossed. Inter-species dating and all that! ;-D

Theyre both of the female persuassion though, right?

Canada probably dont have rules about homosexual marriages.

Well Canada is Canada, waving it’s red and white nuetral flag.

^And working in our skyscrapers and flying in our planes without fear.

petergrt is correct on just about all his points about European rail. Although I wouldn’t know about 1st class travel, I have only done so on occasion. After using Ryanair these past few years, with evermore restrictions and loss of personal dignity (meh), I really wish there was a faster, more efficient rail service I could use instead.

Most EU rail ( & the Swiss) is heavily subsidised by their respective countries’ governments. Not so much lately in the UK and it shows. However, this isn’t to say there isn’t private enterprise in European Rail, there is. The UK lost as much as 1/3 of its rail network in the 60s after a report by the now infamous Richard Beeching (they still speak ill of him which is why I know of him). Don’t get me wrong, I think there should be much more rail and if it takes a government subsidy, so be it. I’d say the Swiss & French networks are about the best run in Europe (no comparison with the Japanese…they are awesome!). There is no uniform quality of rail between the EU countries; some are bloody awful to amazingly great. Well, at least about 20 years ago when I inter-Euro-railed from Portugal all the way through to Turkey.

Installing TGV worthy rail is horrendously expensive and for countries like Portugal, probably not going to be very cost effective either. I love the idea of a TGV link between Porto & Lisbon via Coimbra and a link from Madrid, I just don’t think the billions cost vs. benefit ratio makes sense! Especially since the Alpha service already does the journey in fairly quick time. I usually rail while travelling in Portugal, not fabulous but reasonably reliable and generally good. Except that one time in the Algarve in ‘87…we lost a locomotive, ran out of water, food & bar(!) in 40ºC heat, then when we were moving again, run over an old guy just outside Moita. That was one whacky trip. Although there were many, many more!

Well I apologize Canada for likening you to Drcanuck, who clearly is neither canadian nor american.