Whether that is a benefit or not depends on your specific travel needs.
For me, a train going from “city center to city center” would be a big turn-off. I’d have to drive my car from the suburbs to the city, park it at outrageous rates, take the train, rent a car in the center of Chicago, then drive to the Holiday Inn Express in Rolling Meadows. As opposed to driving directly from my house to the hotel and then having my car sitting outside in the parking lot waiting for me in the morning.
Do enough people want to go from their downtown condo in Minneapolis to a hyper-expensive hotel in downtown Chicago without having a car available in Chicago to make HSR worthwhile? I don’t know.
City centers are where the bulk of business is in a city.
It can change from city to city but usually the city center is a hub of mass transit.
Sure you can generate a worse case scenario but the vast majority of citizens will see it as a benefit.
If you want to live in a remote suburb fine. You still have to drive to an airport and still have to pay crazy parking fees. Not sure how that is “better”.
If you can get to downtown Chicago you have loads of transit options. Walk, boat, cab, Uhber/Lyft, bus, and Elevated (aka above ground subway).
On the railroad line for trains headed south from Boston, there are two stops near the center of downtown, and also a stop at Route 128, which is the ring highway that goes around the city. If you live in the suburbs of Boston, it’s pretty easy to get on 128, drive to the station, park (there’s a large, covered garage) and board the train there.
There’s something similar at Newark with a stop at Metropark in Iselin and a stop at BWI between Baltimore and DC. Wilmington’s sort of close to Philadelphia. Same principle in those cases - a stop outside the city center with easy access and cheap, plentiful parking.
The very same thing that is the reason people love their cars over planes - stress free convenience. Also trains are a natural mode of travel for city dwellers and that keeps them off the roads.
And yes planes will play a part of the equation however there are some practical limitations that planes have not succeeded in overcoming where trains have, (though planes had ample opportunity, and did attempt this at times and failed). Namely getting city folk to the destination they want easily. In some cases the train stop became a popular destination simply because it’s a train stop.
Let’s face it airports are a time consuming hassle, and one still has to get to the airport and then from the airport to their destination. No one really wants right an airport at their destination either, nor is their room for both the attraction and the airport together. However a train station is a lot more accepted near or even at a destination. Also baggage checks and claims, all that wastes time and can be stress inducing. All this wasted time that HSR could use to get you to your destination pretty much stress free.
I’ll give an example that I have experienced:
NYC travelers to Upstate NY and Vermont. Decades ago when i traveled the roads of upstate NY and VT, in the range of 2-5 hours away from the city, the roads were a joy to travel. This is no longer the case at times, and it’s getting worse each year. Also given COVID and people looking for natural outdoors activities it’s gotten a lot worse this past year alone. I used to drive for miles before seeing another car, now it can be a continuous stream of cars, mostly moving, but sometimes conditions conspire to cause some jams and slowdowns. Left turns and crossing a major roadway which were never a problem are fast becoming problems. Though I personally complain about it, this is considered ‘good’ traffic conditions to those from the city.
We also have several Amtrak stations which sat underused and nearly abandoned for as long as I remember back then. Many city folk started finding their way up here, and after traffic reached a certain level Amtrak took off. People were selecting their weekend getaways partly if they could take the train, and in some cases cities like Rhinebeck & Hudson NY prospered due to the train.
I would say that it is a benefit to you regardless of your specific travel needs as it keeps more people off the roads, so more room for you and whoever is on the roads.
Or you can take the existing northwest commuter train from downtown Chicago, get off in Arlington Heights or Palatine, then it’s a short Uber over to the RM hotel.
And then for the rest of the weekend figuring out ground transportation from the hotel to Six Flags and the Museum of Science and Industry and my friend in Oak Brook or a pizzeria in the city. Assume a three hour train ride, and close to an hour each way to transfer to and get settled in and out of the train from my house and to my hotel, you’re getting close to the 6 hour driving time, and driving I’d have my own in Chicago.
Granted driving sucks, especially Wisconsin Dells to the Illinois border and then near Chicagoland, but by the time we have high speed rail we might have self driving cars.
I’d be willing to bet it would be even better if the trains and staff were better.
I have not been on a lot of Amtrak trains lately but I remember the last one I took from Chicago to Milwaukee. The cars were clean but clearly old with worn out seats and the whole vibe was decidedly 1980s commuter. It had that weird, musty old smell to them (like 1980s cigarette smoke smell still blowing through the vents). There was nothing nice about them at all really. A worn-out seat on a train…that was it. No amenities like a bar/food car. No vista dome for sightseeing. Terrible, terrible, terrible bathrooms.
And the staff were mostly unpleasant. They stayed just the right-side of professional but unfriendly, seemed bugged if you asked questions or had them do anything out of the routine. And they are very well paid (union workers).
I lost my Kindle on the train (100% my fault) but trying to get ahold of anyone for lost & found was near impossible. I tried and I tried pretty hard. I got absolutely nowhere with Amtrak (as in…I never even got to anything like a lost & found office for them).
Make the trains more pleasant to use and people will be more likely to use them. Not rocket science.
Most of the people who push transit as a religion rather than try to understand people’s motives take a perverse pride in being confrontational. The “all motorists are looking to murder bicyclists for fun” conversation keeps happening. Personally, I had a “wonderful” experience once in which I explained that, rather than driving and parking downtown, I would love to drive 1.5 miles to the nearest suburban bus stop and take the bus into the city when I need to, but there is no public parking near the bus stop so this is completely impractical, and was told that I’m an idiot who is destroying the planet by choosing to live somewhere not on the bus line, so why should anyone cater to me?
So, getting anyone to admit that the amenities on trains really suck and that’s one reason people disprefer them will be an uphill battle.
Both are better than what you described. The trains are comfortable and in good condition, have WiFi and outlets at the seats and tray tables that can fit a full sized laptop and hold a drink at the same time.
They also use their ‘turbo trains’ which was their flagship model used as their main trains for their main run Boston>NYC.Wash DC before the high speed Accella trains took that crown. So yes it’s a hand me down, but a very nice train set for that run.
As for staff, on my last time on it I didn’t really seen them except for boarding, they didn’t even check my ticket, but never had any issue with them, they always seemed helpful. Though that may be a regional difference.
Mass transit needs to be taken as a holistic whole.
Just plopping down a train line does not solve anything. You need services at either end (like parking and other forms of mass transit like busses at either end).
I always confuse my New York City airports but one has mass transit to it (trains) and the other doesn’t. The one without suffers for it.
A complete transit plan is what makes the whole thing work. High speed rail between big city hubs. Light rail and busses to move people to and from the city center.
I’m willing to bet the Boston>NYC.>Wash DC run gets a lot of love. They literally move congresscritters who determine their fate. It is a line worth giving a lot of love to for them. Also, I would guess, their most profitable line.
Try Chicago to St. Louis or Chicago to Detroit. (Also, weirdly, they are not faster than a car…or only a little faster).
My experiences of riding the Chicago-Milwaukee ‘Hiawatha’ service trains ( I took the train from Chicago to the Milwaukee airport and back a few times ) were the mirror opposite of yours. Service was frequent, the cars were nice…pretty spiffy I thought, the seats had power ports, and the staff was friendly…jovial at times even. The best part was whizzing by the road traffic congestion where it could be seen from the train.
One thing gets lost here: my ticket costs around $200, depending on the day. And then the sleeper costs another $800, again, depending on the day (sleeper includes, as you say, meals, coffee all the time, privacy and access to a shower). So I decide to bring my wife along, that is another thousand – oh, wait, no, it is another $200, because you only pay once for that roomette (and it still includes her food as well).
