Trains

Train Target Market

The present-day passenger train market typically targets people with personal automobiles who commute by rail into the nearby central business district (CBD), either because the journey is too long to drive in an appropriate frame of time, because roads are congested, parking in the CBD is limited, or they have made a choice in favor of a less environmentally damaging transport mode.

In the United States, the average commute time is about 40 minutes. Train commuters help raise this average by their long commute times, often over an hour. The London (United Kingdom) train commuter market stretches from Peterborough in the north to Southampton in the south, from Folkstone in the east to Bristol in the west, up to 120 miles (190 kilometers) distant from the center of London. New York also has a large train commuter catchment, with the Long Island market stretching about 100 miles away as one of the earliest and continuously operational.

Trains also target longer-distance journeys between cities hundreds of miles apart. In the United States, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation/Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and three Canadian provinces. Amtrak's busiest route is the Northeast Corridor that connects Boston, Massachusetts, with Washington, D.C., and New York City with both; it also servesPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, and several smaller cities and regional hubs. Approximately 260 million intercity [Page 1417]and commuter rail passengers rely on Amtrak annually, and more than 2,200 trains operate over some portion of the Washington–Boston route every day.

A passenger train like this one in San Mateo, California, can consist of several locomotives and coaches and may use double-decker cars to carry more passengers per train. In the United States, more than 2,200 trains traverse some portion of Amtrak's busiest route, the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston, Massachusetts, every day. Amtrak's entire network serves 46 states and more than 500 destinations, carrying as many as 260 million intercity and commuter rail passengers per year.

With congested airspace and unpredictable weather affecting short-haul airline flights along this heavily traveled corridor, Amtrak carries triple the number of passengers between Washington, D.C., and New York City as the airline industry, and more riders than all commercial airlines combined between Boston and New York.

Whether passengers are commuters or intercity travelers, the main attraction of trains is their fast operating speed made possible by stations widely spaced and a high maximum running speed. Because the distribution of trip length is primarily short journeys, trains are aiming at a small proportion of all trips, but carry a large percentage of those trips.

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