When I visited Germany in 1998, it charged a flat per-kilometer rate for all trains, and a percent surcharge for faster trains. The basic rate is the S-bahn (stops everywhere) and Stadt-Express (skips most rural stops); these are like regular Amtrak and have no surcharge. The InterCity trains (in the 125 mph range) have a small surcharge, maybe 5%. The InterCity Express trains (in the 250 mph range) have a larger surcharge. There is also a separate surcharge for very short trips (metropolitan). So you can choose between speed vs price.

Amtrack could get more money on eatch train by adding two to three more rail cars to it.

And Woody, Amtrak’s share of national intercity travel is about 1%.

But I share your concern that the excitement of HSSR could lead some to back projects that end up serving only the fast-moving elite. We should not forget Amtrak’s current customers, however un-elite they may be.

Just eyeballing some trains south of D.C., it looked to me like black folks are a MUCH larger share of Amtrak’s riders than of any airlines. Obese folks too can fit into Amtrak seats while airline seats are embarrassing or downright painful for them. Retirees simply enjoying the journey and in no hurry. Young people seeing the Continental scale of the USA on an Amtrak-backpack-crash pad tour. (Crash pad. Do I date myself? Rough translation: Sleep on a friend’s couch.)

Today ordinary people fill Amtrak’s slow and crummy trains for their own reasons. They shouldn’t be priced out and pushed aside — “Make way!” — to prove once again the verity that “The poor must go slower so the rich may go faster”.

Acela was paid for by billions of dollars from taxpayers. Riding it is too expensive for the vast majority of those taxpayers, therefore those who paid for it do not benefit from it (even indirectly, as it doesn’t have enough capacity to diminish congestion on the more egalitarian-priced highways). The same cannot be said about the air or highway system. Fare pricing for Acela based on supply and demand ignores this basic unfairness – the fact that Acela is only “business class” and first class is a giant slap in the face to American taxpayers. Limousines on rails, indeed – and limos paid for by people who couldn’t even afford a bicycle.

This discussion should be about more than just what to price fares in order for the system to attract the most riders; it should be about what to price fares after considering that taxpayers _already_ paid for these trains and are paying for them in operating subsidies also.

Another way to think about it is this: taxes pay for roads, but not the cars on the road, or their fuel; therefore rich people drive nicer cars, but the roads can be used by anyone with a functioning car (or a bus). On rails, everything is paid for by taxes – the rails, the cars, the crew, and the farebox recovers a certain portion of the operating costs. Premium pricing on rail should reflect only the level of luxury in the car you’re riding in, not the mere fact that you’re using the rails at all, since all taxpayers should have the same right to use the rails as the roads, as we have paid for them both.

Make it possible to put in more trains, and the prices will drop. Currently the NEC is at capacity in the morning peak, and some of the long-distance lines are over capacity due to freight and commuter interference (build Englewood Flyover now….)

I strongly supported Bloomberg’s plan for congestion pricing and the later plan to toll the free East River bridges to subsidize the subway and bus system.

But we have a Fifth Column of car-crazed politicians, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens but some even in Uptown Manhattan, who stab us transit riders in the back every time we try to make cars pay their fair share.