Amtrack Still SUCKS

Or: Let's Put a Rolls-Royce Hood Ornament on a Broken Down Old Pontiac Minivan.

AdPulp reports on Amtrak's new experimentation with luxury rail service. Amtrak partnered with GrandLuxe Rail Journey for the test venture.

Hey, Amtrak! Before you go off and become a paid spokescompany for some high-end luxury travel gurus out of Colorado, why don't you try getting the basics down first? The fluff can come after you've figured out how to run a passenger rail service.

It is common knowledge in this country that Amtrak sucks. Sucks really bad. Adding a butler to my mahogany lined car isn't going to change the fact that the train is still about 15 hours behind schedule. 5-course meals? Great. So, I'm stuffed, tired, hot, sweaty and late, but my butler insists we'll be "making good time straightaway, Sir."

Why don't you all take a little learning vacation to Germany or Japan, study with some of the great train operators of the world and learn how to properly manage a passenger rail service? Why don't you admit your problems and set about fixing them? You need more tracks. Your exisiting tracks are in disrepair. Your stations, your trains and your people reflect a company that stopped caring about 30 years ago. Your habitual tardiness is legendary.

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From the Washington Post story on the subject: "Since it was founded 36 years ago, the government-owned passenger railroad has yet to turn an annual profit, and it has piled up about $3.3 billion in debt."

That's called "Failure" in business. Awesome job, boys and girls. But when your parent corporation, the US government, is already known for legendary inefficiency and inherent corruption, you might be off on a bad foot in this start-up you call Amtrak.

So why don't we take this disaster of a business model and apply a fresh coat of paint and then ask people to pay $789 one way from DC to Miami? Brilliant.

I'd love to travel by train. Used it all the time in Germany, where it was affordable, clean (key word, there, Amtrak) and ALWAYS on time. (Deutsche Bahn, like Amtrak, is state-owned. Hmmmm.) I think train travel is fun and even preferable to flying. If it works.

I've said it before. Maybe it's just the size of this country that makes rail service so impossible, or maybe it's the fact that the automaker lobby (and the airlines) would shit a brick if Americans suddenly took to the rails. Many major US cities have some form of subway, trolley, train, monorail thing that works. We've just never been able to connect them successfully.