New Orleans to Minneapolis

Click the map for route details

To get back to Minneapolis from New Orleans, I decided to take an Amtrak train, whose pace seemed more appropriate to ending a long bike trip than a plane's would have been. After over thirty hours in the Amtrak system, I can really only sum it up with one word: pathetic.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.

Convenience is Amtrak's biggest selling point. You can ride trains without having to bother with the hassles of airline travel: getting to faraway airports, excessive security measures, long waiting times before boarding, slow check-in, etc. Trains dispense with all of these concerns. Or so they should. Let's see how Amtrak stacks up against airlines.

Location
The train station was only a few blocks from my hotel, right inside downtown New Orleans, which is very convenient.

Amtrak vs. Airlines: 1:0

New Orleans Amtrak station

Luggage
If you have ever taken a bike on a plane, you know that you have to box it up and fit it into a pretty small box, and that can take a little while. On a train, one would think, no boxing should be necessary, you can just roll your bike right into the luggage car, which is how it is in Germany, for example. Not here, though. You still have to box up your bike, and even though the box is bigger than on an airplane, you still have to take off the pedals, turn your handlebars, and remove all your luggage. Minus one for Amtrak for eliminating an advantage.

Amtrak vs. Airlines: 0:0

I put my bike in a box for you

Network
Amtrak's network is ridiculous, that's all there is to it. Take a look at their entire network of passenger routes. This for a country of 300 million people. As a result, trains are few and far between.

Amtrak vs. Airlines: 0:1

How many trains for a million people?

Speed
Another great advantage of trains is that while they travel more slowly than airplanes, the travel from city center to city center and dispense with length check-in procedures, so that they often end up being faster overall than airplanes. Not so for Amtrak on any possible routes along the way from New Orleans to Chicago.

First of all, the trains are incredibly slow, and the track congested. To get into the Chicago station, for example, the train went past the station, then turned around to back into the station. This maneuver alone took over half an hour, for a distance anyone could have walked in less than five minutes.

Chicago, only half an hour to go

And even when the tracks are clear, trains cannot exceed a speed of 80 mph because the tracks are so bad. Any train you could possible build would not be able to go faster than 80 mph because it would simply jump of these poorly built tracks. The following picture shows you the main track that leads from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.

Amtrak vs. Airlines: 0:2

Gateway to the West: Empire Builder tracks

Convenience
This category is really part of speed, but trains have always been convenient and fun because you can just walk up to them, get in and go. Well, not with Amtrak, not anymore. Check-in lines are pretty much identical to those seen at airport terminals. Why? I have no idea, and I am not sure that anybody does. It's just ridiculous.

Amtrak successfully eliminating its last remaining competitive advantage

Well, at least you can take your luggage on and just get off after you arrive, right? Wrong. Anything that is not "carry-on" needs to be checked. As a result, you wait at a baggage claim when you arrive, just like you do at an airport. Fun. Minus one for Amtrak on both counts.

Amtrak vs. Airlines: -2:2

Why would Amtrak want to emulate air travel?

You see that this comparison is quickly becoming meaningless. I am not sure what Amtrak stands for, but it must have something to do with Amateur. They have successfully eliminated any competitive advantage over airlines they could have, and they have left every possible downside in place. The only possiblity I see to salvage railroad travel in the United States is to build an entirely new system from the ground up, as has been started with the Acela system on the East Coast. The Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis corridor might be a good place to start.

And so Amtrak is only left with a few upsides that are inherent to train travel, and which are why people still use trains on occasion.

Nostalgia
Train travel still has an air of adventure about it, despite Amtrak's best efforts to eliminate it. Just seeing a train that has not been substantially redesigned for decades triggers something in people that just makes them want to travel. Fernweh.

The City of New Orleans

A hint of busier times

Comfort
In general, trains are more comfortable than airplanes, no doubt. Coach class is not great, but it offers more leg room than business class on airplanes, and overnight trains also offer cabins and "roomettes," along with a dining car, observation deck, and even showers.

Roomy roomette, facing forward

Roomy roomette, facing backward

Sleeping on a train is not easy because the cars are so tall and the tracks so bad that it is a little bit like sleeping on the back of a bull, sometimes it throws you off, but all this is certainly much more comfort than airplanes could ever hope to offer.

Scenery
From a train, you can also watch the countryside crawl by, whereas the view from an airplane is often limited by small windows and clouds. I recognized many areas along the way, we crossed my cycling routes several times, and after crossing the Mississippi River in La Crosse, the train followed the tracks along the Great River, bringing back what are already mere memories.

Highway and rails straddle Lake Pontchartrain

Jackson, capital of Mississippi

Sunrise over Illinois

Beautiful Winona

Conclusion
Train travel in the United States is not meant as a serious means of transportation and cannot become one unless the infrastructure is substantially changed and re-built from the ground up.

Interestingly, railway situations in the United States and Germany are somewhat reversed. In the U.S. it is all about freight trains of enormous length that haul incredible loads over very long distances, but they are slow. This works because so much is hauled that the speed is less important, much as in shipping on the oceans. This does not work well for passengers, though. In Germany, the network is optimized for passenger travel, trains are much shorter, faster, and smoother than here. This means that cargo trains are also smaller and transport is more expensive.

What Amtrak sells, then, is not transportation, but adventure. It is an extremely amateurishly operated organization that somehow manages to maintain some of the flair of exploration. Perhaps the sense of adventure is precisely a result of the lack of routine professionalism. Everything is exciting, nothing makes much sense. Take, for example, the emergency windows.

Is pulling the emergency window towards you a good idea?

So I will only take Amtrak again if I have a lot of time on my hands and happen to be going between two places that are served by Amtrak, which is highly unlikely, considering how limited the network is. Most developing countries have better train systems than the United States, which is sad but true. Maybe I'll go ride the trains there.

And yet, I had a good time.

Mississippi River Crossings
I was hoping to make it to thirty crossings on my trip, and, with the help of the Empire Builder, I did. Here is the last daylight crossing of the trip, the Mississippi by La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Mississippi River Crossing 30