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Come on Ride the Train
Power Trip · November 8, 2002

Reluctant to fly again? If you need to make relatively short business trips, try the train.

I can hear you already. No way, you say — Amtrak, our troubled national rail carrier, is under-funded, inefficient and inconvenient. Besides, if you're traveling on business, the last thing you want to do is sit on a train for hours.

You're hardly alone in that regard. John Madden, the pro football analyst, doesn't mind the longer travel times, because he hates to fly, period. But Amtrak does have its shortcomings. And for most people, taking the train is not a satisfactory alternative for business trips across several time zones.

In a recent BusinessWeek reader survey, only 7% of the travelers polled said they'd switched to the train after Sept. 11, 2001. Maybe that's because many share the same experiences as Walter Ward, who catches an Amtrak train to Okeechobee, Fla., every week. "In the past year, the southbound train has been late every time. Not just 10 or 15 minutes, but sometimes five hours," says Ward, a Miami consultant. "Each trip I hear horror stories from people traveling from New York to Miami. Last week, one car was at approximately 85 degrees [in temperature] all the way; the next car was at about 50 degrees."

No, I wouldn't ever recommend taking the train from New York to Miami on business. But I do recommend taking the train for shorter trips, such as across states and through metropolitan areas.

Here are my qualifiers in urging people to "try the train":

Trains are ideal for trips of four hours or less. Again, it's a big country, and I don't mean to suggest that every business trip is suited to the train. It isn't. Want to try Amtrak's Crescent service from New Orleans to New York? Do yourself a favor and wait until your vacation. But Boston to New York (and New York to Boston), if you're patient, can be a very pleasant trip. So can Los Angeles to San Diego and Seattle to Portland, Ore.

Trains go beyond Amtrak. Don't get caught up in our beleaguered national rail network. There are more mass-transit choices out there. For example, the most efficient way to get around the San Francisco Bay area is on the BART train. Light-rail systems in Southern California, such as Long Beach Transit, can be far more efficient than the car, especially when the freeways are clogged with traffic.

Trains are better outside the United States. Note to those of you traveling on business outside this country: The train is often the best option for getting around. Look into it. Europe's heavily subsidized train systems are faster — and cheaper — than renting a car, for example.

Now that I've set the stage a little bit better, here are five reasons why I prefer the train.

1. It's better for the environment. Studies conducted by the American Public Transport Association, a trade organization for the mass-transit industry, suggest that trains emit almost no carbon monoxide or hydrocarbons and very little nitrogen oxides. If you're even remotely concerned with the impact of your car on the environment, you'll want to seriously consider switching from trails to rails.

2. It's faster than driving. Especially when you're trying to get between cities in the Northeast, the train is almost always quicker. Consider, for instance, the trip between Baltimore and New York, which is just over two hours on Amtrak's Acela versus nearly four hours by car. At times, the train is even quicker than the plane, a fact that drives the airlines crazy.

3. It's more efficient. Again, let me emphasize that I'm not talking so much about cross-country rail treks here. But on short-haul, intra-city trips, I've found that it's much easier to get work done on my laptop computer or catch up on phone calls than if I were driving or flying. One of my favorite rail experiences is the ICE between Frankfurt, Germany and Berlin. But I'm also partial to Eurostar, the high-speed train that links London and Paris.

4. It's fun. Honestly, when is the last time you made a friend on a plane? Between griping about the surly in-flight service and fighting with your seatmate over coveted armrest space, who's got the time to get acquainted? On a train, you've got plenty of time — and space — to get to know the other passengers. When I lived in Annapolis, Md., I used to take the train up to New York regularly and one of the best places to meet people was in the café car. For business travelers, these meetings aren't just a way to pass the time; they can also turn into profitable business leads.

5. It's safe. What's riskier, taking the train or driving? I'll give you one guess. Amtrak's safety record is excellent, as are those of many other rail systems in developed countries. Yes, safer than a road trip. But is it safer than flying? That all depends. Before the latest Amtrak accident in which six people died, there had only been a single fatality in some 200 derailments. When you consider the U.S. air carriers' recent casualties — the Sept. 11 hijackings and the American Airlines crash in Queens, N.Y., a few weeks later — there's an argument to be made that the train is the safest form of mass transit. At least in the recent past.

I'm not oblivious to what's up ahead: With Amtrak's recent funding troubles, our rail system may be shrinking instead of expanding.

For travelers like Jane Sellman, who relies on Baltimore's light rail and Amtrak to get to her business meetings, that's bad news. "I have no car," she says. "I am living in mortal terror of our losing train service. I don't understand how the government can continue to bail out the airline industry without blinking and then treat the train industry like a nuisance."

Neither do I, Jane.

Christopher Elliott is a travel writer based in Key Largo, Fla. This column also appeared on Microsoft's bCentral site.