From: Patrick@envo.demon.co.uk To: steveg@sc.liberty.com Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:58:04 +0000 Subject: your request for help
Steve.
I checked out your Amtrak page and would like to helpif I can. I have no html skills of any worth-but I can type. I came upon your page after searching around for information regarding a proposed trip to Savannah Georgia. I thought I'd be able to fly into Atlanta and get a train down to Savannah-seems not. Can you advice me further?
Anaheim city looks like a cool place. I am in an equally cool place -inner city London. Should you require British train information I can provide general details. Our rail network has recently been privatised and as a consequence fares have increased and service standards have declined. Although if you shop around you can get some real bargins.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Victor Saunders.
Victor,
Your research is correct. Unless you are interested in taking a train trip of about 1000 miles around a big loop through several southern states, there is no way to get from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia by train, even though both are served by Amtrak! There are two ways to get between those 2 cities via Amtrak, but both require you to take 3 different trains with most of the travel going away from or parallel to where you are trying to reach. If you are still interested, I can show you the routes ... but it will take a few days to cover it. A bus or rental car would probably make it in just a few hours.
Unfortunately, your frustration is not uncommon. When I actually have to go somewhere, I seldom find a practical way to do that via Amtrak, no matter how hard I try and how many sacrifices I'm willing to make to go by train. I've mostly given up on using Amtrak for that purpose. When I want to take a vacation, I now pull out the Amtrak Travel Planner, pick a place that Amtrak goes, and go there. Since the most enjoyment for me is just the train ride itself, I usually don't care if I'm going anywhere at all, but the rest of my family wants to actually be going to somewhere, so I work it out that way.
The U.S. is totally committed to making sure that everywhere is reachable by superhighway and by plane. To accomplish this, the U.S. government subsidizes both the highway and air transportation systems to the tune of billions of dollars each year. This money not only comes from taxes that we are forced to pay at the gas pump and on plane tickets, but also from general revenues. Thus, the U.S. government has made sure that just about every town has a highway and airport of some size near it. The cost of a plane ticket only covers 50% of the cost of travel from major airports and only 20% of the cost from smaller airports. Taxes pay for the rest of the cost of the trip. The situation with highways is even worse. Since there are so few toll roads in the U.S., using the highways seems totally free and is thus the #1 method of travel. Highways take the biggest chunk of our money through both taxes at the pump and general revenues. There are only a few small feeder segments of the Interstate Highway system remaining to be completed. Some of these short feeders, many under 10 miles in length, cost more to build than it would cost to run the entire Amtrak system for many years!
The reason that you cannot find a train to cover the short distance from Atlanta to Savannah is that this nation has no committment to the revival or even survival of a national passenger rail system. The total outlay for 1997 is only slightly more than 500 million dollars for Amtrak. That compares to over 15 billion dollars per year for the Highways system. A ticket on Amtrak now covers 80% of operating expenses and is expected to cover 100% of operating expenses by 2002 or the Amtrak system will vanish. Meanwhile, plane tickets only cover 20% to 50% of the cost of a flight.
The cost to use a highway is 100% covered by taxes that we have to pay whether we wish to use the highways or not. To diverge but make my point, my wife NEVER uses the highways but does drive much of the day. From my own research I have found that there are many people in California that cannot handle navigating the highways and just plain refuse to use them, yet they are forced to pay for them in their gas taxes and income taxes. There was even a controversy last year whether California should allow people taking their driving test to optionally not be tested on highway driving. They would then get a restricted license that did not allow them on the highway. That idea was defeated. Fortunately, you don't need to take the driving part of the test when renewing a driver license.
Sorry about getting up on my soap box. I usually end up rambling or rumbling in this direction every time I or someone else is trying to get between two rather large cities and there is no reasonable way to do it by Amtrak. My guess would be that there is probably even frequent commuter flights between Atlanta and Savannah (80% subsidized by tax dollars) and that may be your best bet.
As far as volunteering, my interests are confined to U.S. and Canadian rail systems at this time. The only areas that I need volunteer effort pertain to those rail systems. I don't know if you would be interested in helping in that area. It would be an interesting way of learning about what cities and sights you will find along those rails if you plan future travel here! I've got lots of Amtrak Route Guide information that I would like placed on-line and no HTML knowledge is needed for that. Let me know if you are interested!
Steve / steveg@sc.liberty.com / http://www.aho.com/amtrak.html