It has been a while. I remember taking the South Shore into the city from northern Indiana, then using the L and streetcars to get around the city and surrounding 'burbs. It was easier and faster than my much later trips through bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Dan Ryan. My decision to leave the area was significantly affected by that twice-daily ordeal.
|| Do you remember being able to travel from Chicago to any other || city by rail in comfort? I remember traveling from Chicago to NYC || in a clean, well-furnished private room. | | Well, you can do that now with Amtrak. But it's a) extremely | expensive and b) slow.
It took full day the last such trip I made. It was cheaper than flying, and provided an opportunity to unwind, relax, catch up on some correspondence, and to arrive refreshed.
||| The east and to a lesser ||| extent the west coast are good places to have passenger rail. || || Ok... || ||| Other than that, there isn't much point right now to have it ||| anywhere else besides a few places. || || What "few places" are you talking about? | | Houston and Dallas come to mind. Two population centers of several | million people within relatively close proximity. Unlike Europe | and Japan, that covers a very small part of the US. | || And what "many places" are you excluding? | | Most of the rest of the US. Say, between Topeka, KS and Idaho | Falls, ID. | || I think I might want to disagree with you, but I'm not quite clear || on what you're saying ;-)
Now I don't think I do - we were each thinking of a different type of service. I /would/ like to see more complete long-distance service (a la Amtrak), but my primary interest is in local commuter service from which even relatively small cities like Des Moines could benefit.
| Perhaps answering this question will help. Does the Chicago-area | Metra have a line to Rockford?
Darned if I know - I haven't needed to get around in Chicago for a long time.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
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