Amtrak

Giving the bus another chance

When was the last time you took a bus instead of a plane or train? Until a week ago, it had been 12 years for me. I didn’t have fond memories from back then, so I reluctantly decided to give the bus another chance with a weekend trip to New York, and I’ll happily do it again.

There are at least three reasons why I avoided hopping back on a long-distance bus all those years: It’s slower than a plane, less comfortable than a train, and ground transportation doesn’t really excite me. The only advantage has always been the lower cost, but that wasn’t enough to entice me because if I planned well in advance, I could get a plane or train round-trip ticket from Washington to New York for $120. Even the additional airport-security measures after Sept. 11, 2001, failed to change my mind…

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New hopes for rail travel

Have you heard that trains are “in” again? They have been “out” for so long, it’s almost hard to believe it, but President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to ride the rail into Washington for his inauguration has excited many train lovers.

Since flying became the main form of long-distance transportation in the United States in the past couple of decades, repeated warnings by railroad executives and industry advocates that insufficient funding and out-of-date equipment would lead to the system’s collapse seemed to fall on deaf ears. Finally this fall, Congress more than doubled funding for Amtrak, the semi-public company, in a $13 billion railroad improvement bill sponsored by Reps. James L. Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, and John L. Mica, Florida Republican…

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