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Given how bad domestic plane travel has become in the US, I suspect that many business trips may not be much slower even at Amtrak speeds.


I've certainly found that to be the case when traveling to NYC. From where I live, a plane ride takes about an hour, and Amtrak takes about 6.5 hours...except that really, the total trip time ends up being about five hours for the plane and seven hours for the train. Flying involves driving twenty minutes to the airport, arriving early due to uncertain security wait times, going through security, waiting to board, boarding, taxiing, flying, taxiing, disembarking from the plane, and then even after all that you have to walk a long way through the airport, take the AirTrain to a different station, then get on yet another train to make it into Manhattan.

The train, by contrast, involves leaving from downtown near where I live, sitting on the train, and arriving in Manhattan a few blocks from my office. It's so much simpler and more relaxing, and much easier to actually get work done during the trip, so oftentimes it's worth the extra couple of hours the trip takes. If we could invest in high-speed rail and make the whole train trip even, say, 30% faster, there would be no contest.




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