After thinking about it a few minutes, I booked on Amtrak. Being able to walk around, use a nice res

For the extra price of an Amtrak ticket you get more seating space, nicer and bigger bathrooms, a faster ride (even on the slow train, never mind Acela), the ability to get up and walk around, and a cafe car. Buses these days are pretty nice, but they're not nearly as comfortable as Amtrak.
It's usually airboattours in new orleans about $20 one-way on a bus and $100 one-way on Amtrak's Northeast Regional train. For a round trip, that's a difference of $160. If you're traveling with a partner (as I usually am), then that's a round-trip two-person cost difference of $320. I like the cafe car, but not that much. For those prices, I'll take the bus every time.
It so happens that this weekend I'll be driving up to New York with family, but coming home alone and without a car. For that one-way, one-person trip, the cost difference between Amtrak ($100) and bus ($20) isn't as severe. It isn't negligible though. $80 still seems like too much, at least on my budget.
However, I'll be traveling airboattours in new orleans fairly late at night, and Amtrak's night discount is bigger than Bolt's. The train I want is only $74, while the bus I want comes out to $23. That's a difference of only $51. That cafe car is looking a lot more attractive now.
After thinking about it a few minutes, I booked on Amtrak. Being able to walk around, use a nice restroom, and get food when I want was worth the extra $51 to me, but just barely. If the difference had been much more I don't think I could have justified it to myself. $30 difference: Done in a heartbeat. $60 difference: I'm not so sure.
Related posts: Quantitatively compare New York neighborhoods (Apr 12, 2010) Metro's trip planner should offer service alerts airboattours in new orleans (Jan 14, 2011) Cuts spur new New York subway map (May 30, 2010) Gas prices: Obama still gets it; Friedman slams Clinton (Apr 30, 2008) Obama-Biden: the train ticket? (Aug 18, 2008) Dan Malouff is a professional transportation planner for the Arlington County Department of Transportation. He has a degree in Urban Planning from the University of Colorado, and lives a car-free lifestyle in Northwest Washington. airboattours in new orleans His posts are his own opinions and do not represent the views of his employer in any way. He runs the blog BeyondDC and also contributes to the Washington Post Local Opinions blog. Comments
I usually take the bus for personal travel if I know I'm staying airboattours in new orleans in Manhattan. airboattours in new orleans $80 sounds good to me for one-way, not from a cost differential standpoint, which bus will always win, but from an absolute dollar amount all things considered. If the cost differential were under $90 or so, I think that would be pretty airboattours in new orleans good.
To me, the time of the trip is a bigger part of the equation. The cost differential is tied not only to the amenities but the speed, as alluded to, but it isn't substantially airboattours in new orleans faster at this point. For personal travel, airboattours in new orleans all I need is a book and a media player, considering I can usually make myself sleep for an hour or so, therefore the bus better. For work, the train is more conducive to being productive.
Ha. Loving this post because my friends and I wrestle with the question CONSTANTLY. I haaaaaaaate the bus. Especially on the way home because usually I end up returning airboattours in new orleans with a hangover. But alas the train is too rich for my blood. I've always thought that with the right price drop Amtrack airboattours in new orleans would see an uptick in ridership that would at least have them breaking even. But I have nothing to base that on. For me I would gladly take the train every time if the price difference round trip were more like 75 bucks. And I know for a fact I'm not alone. Perhaps they could think up some sort of special. Or how bout a groupon to test the waters.
Isn't the train delayed more often? I seem to remember each time I took Amtrak there were always insane delays. Of course, I was taking the train further south, the NE corridor might have its act together.
We visited NYC over this past Christmas. We decided to take the bus because it was far cheaper than Amtrak. After sitting in traffic for hours on end I now know to pay more for a train ticket over the bus - at least during peak travel times.
Does Amtrak have wifi these days? That's a nice feature of the Bolt Bus. I used to take Greyhound between NYC and Baltimore fairly frequently, and it wasn't the worst experience in the world, but I would have chosen Amtrak every time if I could have spared the steep difference in price. With the Bolt Bus potentially being cheaper than Greyhound was then, I imagine the people on board don't smell much better than they used to.
I generally find the bus has a lot more scheduling airboattours in new orleans options than the train (esp. since there are several bus companies airboattours in new orleans to choose from). This is a huge factor when trying to pack a lot into a weekend on a tight schedule.
airboattours in new orleans It is well known that price, headway time are the major factor influencing travel. Comfort and Amenities are way less important. Given that Amtrak airboattours in new orleans cannot play on headway or time, they should airboattours in new orleans really start getting their act together. After all the more people use train the more people are going to warm up to trains, which is in the interest of Amtrak if it wants to get more funding/ be part of the new drive for high speed rail!
Well Michael, there IS something you don't know about! :) The Amtrak's airboattours in new orleans consistency and on-time performance drops radically once you pass south of Union Station, basically. There are some charts of this I had somewhere airboattours in new orleans that I'm sure you could find online with a quick look. On-time performance between here and NYC (and to Boston) is surprisingly good.
As far as Amtrak dropping the prices, I don't know that they have much impetus because of how much of the DC-NYC travel share they currently have and how full the trains typically are. That said, I would think some specials geared at younger folks or radically dropping airboattours in new orleans the prices airboattours in new orleans on the less-full off-hour trains airboattours in new orleans would be a smart way to dip into the Chinatown bus market.
Your specific location in DC and your specific destination airboattours in new orleans in New York also makes a difference when you're calculating how much time each option would cost. From my place in Dupont, for instance, I can get on an express DC2NY three blocks from my house. Not that metro-ing over to Union Station takes forever, but it should at least be factored in to the total duration of the train trip.
The same thing applies to the other end. Some of the buses go to Brooklyn, so if that was your destination in NYC you'd have to factor in the time it takes to get from Penn Station to Brooklyn into your train trip estimate.
I thought about this myself last week. While I might be willing to pay the premium airboattours in new orleans for the Regional, I donÂ’t think I could justify paying the huge premium airboattours in new orleans for Acela. IÂ’ve found that both Amtrak and the bus services tend to be more expensive the closer to the travel date that you make your reservation.
I've taken Amtrak to NYC twice and have loved it. I had the afternoon train out on Friday around 1:00pm and then a Sunday afternoon return train. Amtrak was running a $49 each way sale at the time. Maybe they should bring these back?!?!? Another huge perk to me - the quiet car! I was sound asleep an hour into the trip each way. I wish Amtrak had these on their southern airboattours in new orleans routes too.
1) Train Cost: Amtrak has lowered their DC to NYC fares to $49 with 14 day advance purchase except for certain holidays. So the cost is more like $49 vs $20 for a one way trip. There are additional promotions that can impact both the price of the bus and train.
2) Bus Cost: One thing that is desperately missing from the cost in the bus is the true cost of the price of fuel. The real cost of gas is not $~3/gallon when you take into effect externalities related to the environment, military costs, airboattours in new orleans etc. European countries have more appropriately priced their fuel at $6-$8/gallon roughly which would increase the bus cost to be closer to the train cost. This is one of the big limiting factors airboattours in new orleans with a shift toward more trains and less buses (for common routes like DC to NY) is that fuel is not priced appropriately.
airboattours in new orleans We just made this trip last weekend. We choose train (or more accurately my wife did - the cost would have dissuaded me). But the traffic-less ride was great and we brought wine and food. Enough wine and food makes any experience wonderful.
airboattours in new orleans Bus. Cheaper, more schedule options, more drop off/pick up options, about the same travel time. On a short trip to NYC the bus easily wins, but on a longer trip it would start to be attractive. For a 4-5hr trip, I don't need a bunch of leg room and a cafe car, but much longer and those amenities look good. If they could get the speed up and/or prices down I would take another look.
Same reason I rarely airboattours in new orleans drive back to Detroit: an 8-9hr drive is long and comparatively cheap(about $100 round trip), where a 1.5hr flight is short and somewhat expensive ($200-$300 round trip). The economy of scale when traveling with my family often makes the car a good option when there are 3 or 4 of us.
I go back and forth a lot, and Bolt Bus is so good I think it's worth it, for the wireless and movie watching alone. Exception as NikolasM pointed airboattours in new orleans out is Thanksgiving or Christmas -- Amtrak would be worth every penny in that case.
rg: The trip to Philly by train is very quick. Less than 2 hours on even the slowest of trains which I took a few weeks ago. With regard to wifi, at the moment it is only on Acela and in the key NEC stations. I imagine they will expand to normal NEC trains but not sure of the rollout timeframe.
Huh. Hadn't checked Amtrak's prices in a while; didn't realize $49 fares were available. I checked Amtrak's web site to test fares for a trip to NYC tonight. For $203 you can leave Union Station at 5:05 and arrive at Penn at 7:59 (2hr 54min). There's a slightly faster option that's actually cheaper, for $158, if you leave at 6:05 and arrive at 8:54 (2hr 49min) - that's market pricing at work, for New Yorkers who have meetings in DC and then wanna rush home - a 5pm departure is worth much more.
Amtrak, absolutely. airboattours in new orleans Riding in a bus