Actually, air service ain't what it is cracked up to be, either. The reality is that only a few American cities are really well served by airlines. The vast majority of Americans, are too far from an airport with any real options.

My family and I used to have to travel from time to time between two such locations. Non-stop flights between the nearest airports were only about 1 1/2 hours - but most flights were (and are) via connections at a third airport, for a total of about 5 hours; or they take off from even more distant airports.

So add up the hour or two drive time to the airport, the hour of security BS time, in route layover times, baggage wait times, car rental times, then the 2 1/2 hour drive time from there to reach our actual destination; you have a minimum of 7-8 hours, to a more typical 10-11 hours travel time. And lately it is in very cramped narrow seats with very little wiggle room - which only those in their prime of life can tolerate for long. Air travel sucks anymore!

Since it only takes 12-13 hours to drive directly, and the already stiff cost of air travel is multiplied by the number of family members; whereas the cost of driving is not; it becomes almost a no brainer very quickly. You drive! The airlines are in fact, almost useless to a vast number of Americans, but they are nevertheless subsidized (to the near exclusion of other public transportation modes) by tens of billions every year by our myopic government.

There has never been any really viable inter-city bus service (none at all now), and what there was took 19 hours, if you could even tolerate the cramped conditions for that long. Travel by bus truly was "Travail" by bus. But now, air travel is also really "Air Travail!"

Direct train service, with a stop only 11 miles from the house, took 15 hours (when it ran as EwePee promised Amtrak), at about 60% of the cost of air. Despite that it took a bit longer than driving, it was the most pleasant and least stressful of all modes. And it took you much closer to where you needed. But with well known longtime Airline-Industry-Whores, such a Norm Minetta, and his successor running the show (both are democrats by the way), there is little hope of change.

And no modern American politician (of any party) is likely to ever spend a public dime to fix that - not when they can instead spend all the money gov't has, and doesn't have (or that can be "printed"), on bribing voters with this or that goodie; as well as on all manor of fraudulent ponzi schemes and so-called "Entitlement" programs; all of which were doomed to bankruptcy from their very first day. Yes - the piper would someday have to be paid, but who the hell cared; once they discovered they can be re-elected that way. Unfortunately, the piper is demanding his pay now - do you suppose we could manage to push it off onto our kids!

Not Likely - Already, my kids are far worse off than I was at their age, And even my generation was somewhat worse off than my parents. It took one wage earner for most families of my father's generation; two for mine; but plainly obvious now is the fact that two wage earners for my kids, won't be nearly enough. We are beginning to pay the piper already; even while many politicians from the whitehouse on down, wallow in their own impotence to stop the slide. My children's standard of living will already be a mere shadow of mine, when I am gone.

But the worst is still yet to come. With our gov't now printing so much funny-money (several trillions now), just as the Germans did before the collapse of their economy (and democracy) prior to WWII; to expect that we will somehow magically escape the same consequence is shear insanity! Perhaps, American educators "forgot" to mention to the latest generations, that little tidbit of history, that we are now dooming ourselves to repeat!

NOPE! No hope at all - as long as too many Americans, rather than voting for the greater good, such as the "GENERAL welfare" or "securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our POSTERITY"; instead just keep on narrowly voting for their own personal pocket books, like little money grubbing whores!

Any chance of that changing soon? --- Hmmm?



Sorry for drifting into a bit of a rant, but even at the age of 64, I am still seemlingly afflicted by a bit of old fashioned American idealism; that keeps on hoping for a real change for the "REAL" better. But at 64, I have also become keenly and sadly aware, that we are indeed fast becoming our own worst enemies, especially as the American education system continues its banana-peel slide into hell. Our circumstances as a nation will not change for the better, until we ourselves personally change for the better - but who's gonna know how to do that?

Meanwhile, Amtrak chugs on the best it can, very inefficiently --- for now.