I have a job interview/test this Saturday for Amtrak Railroad. I have a question, I was looking at their routes and saw one for Cincy how far from the Park is it? Anyone know? This may belong in another one of the forums, if so feel free to move it.
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I have a job interview/test this Saturday for Amtrak Railroad. I have a question, I was looking at their routes and saw one for Cincy how far from the Park is it? Anyone know? This may belong in another one of the forums, if so feel free to move it.
The stop is at Union Terminal. It's a few miles. Too far to walk, but just fine by bike. I believe it is on the bus line.
According to Google maps, it's a 2.5 mile walk which is not bad, but even for a city lover like me, I have to acknowledge that it depends the time of day and all that you're making the trek to measure what risk, if any, there might be (of course, that's true of many urban areas, no matter the city). It would be a simple bike ride and there's multiple directions you could go easily. Sadly, and not intending to take this thread off on a tangent, there was talk of adding a spur for the streetcar to Union Terminal (as well as across to the casino on the opposite side of downtown), particularly when the high speed rail was still on the table with Union Terminal being the ultimate terminus in Cincinnati.
Good luck with Amtrak. The service for Cincinnati is pathetic, to say the least. I think it's two trains a week, maybe three and it arrives and departs at an ungodly hour and unfortunately because it shares tracks with freight trains, the delays are too often. But our daughter has regularly taken Amtrak back and forth to DC. But she's now looking at Megabus since there make Pittsburgh a transfer point between the two systems. I'd love to be able to take a train to various places. I remember some German visitors being shocked at a city the size of Cincinnati having such limited train service and then, such a tiny train station (then on River Road, smaller than a convenience store).
You'll love Union Terminal which is a beautiful structure, one we almost lost in the 80's.
My sister took an Amtrak train to DC with some friends -- she enjoyed the experience tremendously, but I think she had to be at Union Terminal by 4am to catch it.
I used to ride Amtrak a lot when I lived out East. Great service, but I think it makes more sense between places like DC / NY / Boston than it does elsewhere. Cincinnati - Chicago would be good, but that's about the only train I ever find myself wishing existed as a convenience.
I wouldn't mind being able to hop a train and take a trip to:Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
a) Chicago
b) Memphis
c) Nashville
d) St. Louis
The train to Chicago leaves at about 1am. The schedules in Cincinnati are horrible
Yup -- rail travel is all about hitting the sweet spot of travel of "annoying to drive, expensive to fly." If I could pay ~$100 round trip to take a train to Chicago that left at reasonable times (early - mid morning), I'd do it every time instead of driving.Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Leader
To me its about cost, convenience, and time. I would love to be able to hop the train to Chicago. I have friends who live right off the blue line and that would mean I wouldn't have to deal with a car in Chicago. But if the train is too expensive, doesn't at least equal my drive time, or leaves at 1 in the morning I am not going to take it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
If you are on a schedule, DO NOT take Amtrak.
Amtrak service between Portland and Seattle is very popular. (it's about a 3 hour drive)
Back in college I took Amtrack from Seattle to Indy. Think it was 2-1/2 days sitting in a chair. Had a pretty good time.
...you're a legend, dude. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Raisor
It takes almost 10 hours from Cincy to Chicago on Amtrak, thats just crazy when leaving that early.
One of the main downfalls of the current Amtrak setup: for a lot of the non-Northeast routes, you get stuck riding trains doing the milk-run on tracks that are shared freight-passenger lines. Freight always has priority, so you end up sidetracked waiting for cargo to pass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph
If you want to make rail travel work, you need dedicated passenger rail lines and more non-stop trains.
You need dedicated high speed rail lines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor
I have traveled several times through Europe on their rail system. It is amazingly efficient, not exactly cheap, but a very easy way to traverse through Europe. I don't necessarily mind the commuter rail which makes several local stops. One day my wife and I went from Rome to Napoli in the hopes of going to Pompeii. The local rail was closed so we were forced to spend the day in Napoli. One word of advice, never go to Napoli. Anyway we took a high speed rail down that was a little over an hour. The commuter rail back took about double the time, was a little less expensive, but wasn't all that bad.
Training through Europe is quite amazing, especially when you can get some high-speed stretches. We did Basel to Paris in about 3 1/2 hours and its not all high-speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by bucksfan2
Also did Napoli-Rome. Agreed that Napoli is a dump, but Pompeii and the Vesuvius are fine places to see.
Its not always that great. I left Venace, Italy in the morning, travelled all day and night up to London, spend 4 hours in London before hoping on another train up to Whales, hopped on an evening fairy across the Irish Sea to arive in Dublin around 8:00 am. 48 hours of travel (minus the 4 hours in London) definently wears on you. A train from Chicago to Cincy sounds great, until you hear its going to take you 10 hours to get there.Quote:
Originally Posted by oneupper
Of course it could be worse, when leaving Prague, coming back to Germany, we had to get off the train mid-track b/c of work being done on the line, hop on a bus w/ a broken back window and broken plexi-glass shards all over the floor, to hop back on a train on the other side of the work. Meanwhile, nobody spoke English nor German and most of the people weren't exactly sure what they were suppose to do, we just kind of followed the crowd and hoped for the best.
the biggest challenge, is that people don't generally ride it enough to make it profittable. Even in Europe, the train system is heavily subsidized, as it is here in America. I'd love to hope a train and take a quick ride up to the heart of C-Bus, Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta, etc... But if its going to take me 10 hours to get to Chicago, or 14+ hours to get to Atlanta, I'll just hop in my car and do the trip in half the time. And I don't really want the government to go about spending the money needed to make those trips more time managable.
I've never been to Europe so I don't know how easy it is to go from Point A to Point B. I do know that if I want to go back to Iowa and see my family, I can hop in my car, get on the interstate and be there in 10 hours if I don't make too many stops. About the only thing I have to worry about is road construction and weather. If I want to go to Indy or Columbus or Cleveland or Louisville I can get in my car and go there. I can drive to where I want to go and leave when I want. If there were some high speed rail that took me to those places, when I got there, I'd have to worry about going where I want to go. If I don't know anyone there, I have to either rent a car or get a taxi. I don't want to get political but I think that is an issue that the Ohio high speed train advocates either really never considered or omitted in their advertising.Quote:
Originally Posted by medford
For better or for worse, after WWII this country committed to the automobile and planes. I'm not sure if Europe could commit to autos and planes like the U.S.did. Germany did have the Autobahn but what about the other countries? Perhaps, for them, the train was just fine and it was too costly to make roads like the Autobahn and the interstate.
Now it's starting to become an issue of economics to me as well. I drive a small SUV that gets about 24 MPG on the highway (if I drive it for economy and not speed). If I'm going to Chicago (roughly 600 miles, round trip) with gas at 3.89 a gallon, that's $98 in just gas alone that I'm burning to get there and back. The Atlanta trip you're speaking of, for me, would be a $150 gas roundtrip.Quote:
Originally Posted by medford
I don't know where the "tip" point is regarding gas costs -- but it's getting to the point where I'd be willing to take a little longer if it meant I could save some money getting someplace and have the added bonus of being able to sit with a laptop or sleep on the ride down.
This goes beyond distance travel too -- I commute 30 miles round trip every day to work. Over the course of a working month, that's a little over $110 in gas that I'm spending to drive in. I also pay $85 a month to park. When I figure out what I'm paying for rent at my current apartment, I functionally add $200 a month because I don't live within walking distance of my work or within a short drive of mass transit with free parking.
I hear this a lot as a negative, but is it really that big a deal to rent a car? You can rent a car most places for like $30 a day if you're not getting something big or buying their insurance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chip R
Ideally of course you'd be going somewhere with good mass transit, but in the cases you're not I don't know that renting a car is that big of a hassle. I see it as more of a mental roadblock people have about rail.
Where are you going to rent it at? From what I understood the Cincinnati stop of the 3C high speed rail was to be in Sharonville. I'm not aware of many rent-a-car places there. And why would you want to rent a car anyway if you are trying to save money? You are spending $X on a train ticket then you are spending at least $30 extra on a rental.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redsfaithful
Basically, right now, if you are taking a passenger train that's not running on the east coast, you are going to be delayed either for mechanical trouble or because you are sharing the rails with freight trains. If you have the time to waste that's great. If you are on a schedule, not so much.