Between which cities is Flight to Amtrak travel time difference highes

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Texan Eagle

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If I want to travel from San Jose to Seattle, Amtrak's Coast Starlight takes 24 hours, direct flight takes 2 hr 05 min. So, train takes 24/2 = 12 times as much time as a flight.

So, counting this way, between which city pairs is the time taken by Amtrak to time taken by direct flight ratio the highest? Without going into splitting hair and nitpicking, I will leave with very lenient criteria-

1) the city pair selected should have at least one direct Amtrak service and at least one direct flight for comparison. No connections, Thruway buses etc.

2) Select Amtrak station and airport city with same name, or similar names. Los Angeles-LAX, San Jose-SJC, Can't use Maricopa-PHX because the train is not going to Phoenix and flight is not from Maricopa.

3) Just to avoid too much calculation for cities at short distances, let's keep a minimum distance between cities = 100 miles.

PS: Yes I know air travel involves time for check-in security etc etc, please don't pull that into the game here, I am asking this purely for trivia and fun, not to compare or criticize anything.
 
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If I want to travel from San Jose to Seattle, Amtrak's Coast Starlight takes 24 hours, direct flight takes 2 hr 05 min. So, train takes 24/2 = 12 times as much time as a flight.
So, counting this way, between which city pairs is the time taken by Amtrak to time taken by direct flight ratio the highest? Without going into splitting hair and nitpicking, I will leave with very lenient criteria-

1) the city pair selected should have at least one direct Amtrak service and at least one direct flight for comparison. No connections, Thruway buses etc.

2) Select Amtrak station and airport city with same name, or similar names. Los Angeles-LAX, San Jose-SJC, Can't use Maricopa-PHX because the train is not going to Phoenix and flight is not from Maricopa.

3) Just to avoid too much calculation for cities at short distances, let's keep a minimum distance between cities = 100 miles.

PS: Yes I know air travel involves time for check-in security etc etc, please don't pull that into the game here, I am asking this purely for trivia and fun, not to compare or criticize anything.
What is your defination of a "direct flight?" You can have a direct flight between two cities that is not a "non-stop" flight,

which involves an intermediate stop but not a change of flight number or airplane.
 
EDIT: I missed your no connection Amtrak criteria.

My wife and I are returning from San Francisco to Philadelphia on February 13. Our non-stop flight leaves SFO at 11:00am and arrives PHL at 7:17pm: 5hr 17min gate-to-gate. Giving Amtrak the best schedule benefit by excluding the bus ride from SFC, and using #6, #30, and #42 from EMY to CHI to PGH to PHL, our rail option would leave February 13 at 9:10am and would arrive PHL February 16 at 2:55pm: 74hr 45min. That is 14.15 times as much time as the flight.

Of course, it is kind of a moot point. Our train ride home would have ended in DEN with my wife exiting the Zephyr and heading for the airport.

I suspect that if you put together a SEA-MIA trip, the number would be even higher.
 
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NOL/MSY-LAX:

Amtrak: 46h35 (46.58 hours)

Plane: 4h17 (4.28 hours)

Gives a multiple of 10.8

However if you reverse the directions, LAX-NOL/MSY:

Amtrak: 45h40 (45.67 hours)

Plane: 3h34 (3.56 hours)

Gives you a multiple of 12.8.
 
But I think the Cardinal is going to win it. What airport is closest to NYP? LGA?

I couldn't find any flights from Midway to any of the 3 airports (EWR, LGA, JFK). ORD-LGA can be done in 1h56 (1.93).

The Card takes 27h11m (27.18 hours).

That gives a multiple of 14.1. That's going to be tough to beat.
 
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Chicago to Albuquerque is 2 hours, 50 minutes via direct flight.

Chicago to Albuquerque is 26 hours, 55 minutes.

Amtrak is approximately nine times longer if everything is running on-time.

I can't use Kalamazoo in the comparison because there aren't any direct flights from Kalamazoo, and the train requires one transfer as well. If I did use Kalamazoo, we come closer to eleven or twelve times as long, due to the three-ish-hour Amtrak layover in Chicago. Most of the flight layovers are only 30-50 minutes.

Believe me. If Brent weren't so terrified of flying, we'd fly for the majority of our trips. As much as I love Amtrak, I'm getting tired of having to take two or three extra vacation days every single time we travel. Once we're retired, it won't be an issue. (And hey, maybe we'll have HSR between all of the major cities by then!)
 
Yeah, me too, but I don't want to waste six vacation days for a round-trip train to Florida when we can fly there in two hours. :p
 
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Id have to Venture a Guess that the MIA-VAC Comparo would take the Prize (but No Non-Stop Flights) but limiting it to the US , AUS-SEA via the TE/CZ/CS versus Flying givess a ratio of 17.2 (86 Hours vs. 5) I'm from Texas so Math isnt my Long Suit! :giggle:
 
MIA-VAC and AUS-SEA both break the "no connections" rule.

You did do well to bring up the Eagle though.

LAX-CHI on 422 is a whopping 61.87 hours. You can do it in 3.75 in a plane giving you a 16.5.
 
Highest or lowest? For lowest you'd want a short trip where taxing time eats up a good chunk of time. It use to be possible to book SFO-OAK although there isn't any Amtrak service that doesn't involve buses.

Now SJC-OAK used to have jet flights (DC-9) serviced by Air Cal up to the 80s. I think flight time gate to gate was a scheduled 25 minutes. The closest Amtrak route is SCC-OAC which is 52 minutes. I say those because both stations are close to airport connectors. AirBART is close to OAC and the free VTA route 10 is right there at SCC.
 
MIA-VAC and AUS-SEA both break the "no connections" rule.
You did do well to bring up the Eagle though.

LAX-CHI on 422 is a whopping 61.87 hours. You can do it in 3.75 in a plane giving you a 16.5.
You are Correct Sir! ;) As many times as Ive been on this Route How Could I Forget? :giggle:
 
This isn't Amtrak, but the top North America marks belong to VIA:

Vancouver - Toronto = 82 hours by train, or 4 hrs 20 minutes non-stop flight for a multiple of 19.1

Toronto - Vancouver = 87 hours by train, or 5 hours non-stop flight for a multiple of 20.

Now you might say that's not a fair comparison, since with the demise of the Sunset East, Amtrak doesn't

really have a coast-to-coast through train. But in fact, VIA's record for slowness (using this measuring stick)

is a train with endpoints in the same province:

Winnipeg <-> Churchill = 45 hours by train, or 1 hr 45 minutes non-stop flight for a multiple of 25.7
 
This isn't Amtrak, but the top North America marks belong to VIA:
Vancouver - Toronto = 82 hours by train, or 4 hrs 20 minutes non-stop flight for a multiple of 19.1

Toronto - Vancouver = 87 hours by train, or 5 hours non-stop flight for a multiple of 20.

Now you might say that's not a fair comparison, since with the demise of the Sunset East, Amtrak doesn't

really have a coast-to-coast through train. But in fact, VIA's record for slowness (using this measuring stick)

is a train with endpoints in the same province:
But then Vancouver to Toronto is not exactly Coast to Coast either. The Atlantic Coast is a bit further on from Toronto!
 
But then Vancouver to Toronto is not exactly Coast to Coast either. The Atlantic Coast is a bit further on from Toronto!
Who said anything about the Atlantic Coast...I was referring to the coast of Lake Ontario! :giggle:

But yes, you're right, the Canadian is not a "Coast to Coast" train. Still, there is no

equivalent train in the Amtrak system.
 
Wow, that's amazing.
For smallest, I would guess WAS/DCA - PHL. 1h28 (1.46) by train, 54m (0.9) by plane for a 1.6.
PHL-EWR is 47 min by flight, 1hr 1 min by train, giving 1.3 times, but it misses my self-imposed 100 mile minimum rule, being only 80 miles.
 
Wow, that's amazing.
For smallest, I would guess WAS/DCA - PHL. 1h28 (1.46) by train, 54m (0.9) by plane for a 1.6.
EWR-PHL clocks in at 59 minutes by train and 47 minutes by plane. That's a 1.25 (and that's the shortest flight - one of them takes 57 minutes, for a ratio of 1.04).
 
This isn't Amtrak, but the top North America marks belong to VIA:
Vancouver - Toronto = 82 hours by train, or 4 hrs 20 minutes non-stop flight for a multiple of 19.1

Toronto - Vancouver = 87 hours by train, or 5 hours non-stop flight for a multiple of 20.

Now you might say that's not a fair comparison, since with the demise of the Sunset East, Amtrak doesn't

really have a coast-to-coast through train. But in fact, VIA's record for slowness (using this measuring stick)

is a train with endpoints in the same province:
But then Vancouver to Toronto is not exactly Coast to Coast either. The Atlantic Coast is a bit further on from Toronto!

But then Vancouver to Toronto is not exactly Coast to Coast either. The Atlantic Coast is a bit further on from Toronto!
Who said anything about the Atlantic Coast...I was referring to the coast of Lake Ontario! :giggle:

But yes, you're right, the Canadian is not a "Coast to Coast" train. Still, there is no

equivalent train in the Amtrak system.
New Orleans is on the Gulf Coast....
 
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