“Tracks 4 & 5”
Amtrak’s museum train (led by loco #822) at Baltimore Penn Station. A parked MARC commuter train is at left, and a Northeast Regional serves the platform at far right.
Happy 42nd birthday, Amtrak!
“Lavender Sky”
A 20 second exposure of Downtown Los Angeles, viewed from the Griffith Observatory at dusk.
“Vanishing Point”
An HDR shot of the train room at the WMATA U Street subway station in Washington, DC.
“Crossing the Meridian”
A northbound LA Metro Gold Line train crosses Meridian Avenue in South Pasadena.
“Transportation should not simply be the random movement of people. At it’s best, it can bring people together, spiritually, as well as physically, as it speeds them toward their destination. A good transit center should, therefore, celebrate the place where they have arrived, and inspire them as they continue their journey.”
—Nick Patsouras
Who recognizes, as did his Greek forebears, that the quality with which we build our civic buildings and public spaces is a reflection of the value we place in our democratic institutions.
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| — | PLAQUE AT THE PATSOURAS TRANSIT PLAZA AT LOS ANGELES UNION STATION |
“Bike Stencil”
A bike stenciled on the platform tells riders where to board the Salt Lake City light rail with a cycle. Caught here in the rays of the setting sun.
“Trestle”
A southbound Sounder commuter train crosses a long wooden trestle as it approaches the station in Tacoma, Washington.
My Amtrak Mileage:
As you can tell from many of the photos here, I travel by train a lot. I keep track of my travels, and I decided to look at some descriptive statistics about my trips.
The chart at top shows the number of miles I’ve ridden on Amtrak in each year. My first trip on Amtrak was in 2005, and since then, I’ve ridden 18,606 miles. I have 2 more journeys on the horizon, which should add a little over 5,000 miles to my 2012 numbers.
As you can see, the vast majority of the miles I’ve accrued on Amtrak have come within the last 3 years, with over a third of my total miles coming in 2011.
With my expected travels in the remainder of 2012, fully 60% of my miles will have come in 2011 and 2012, with another 15% in 2010.
But miles don’t tell the whole story.
The chart above shows the number of “trips” I’ve taken on Amtrak since 2005. In this case, a “trip” is defined as one boarding of a train. So a journey from Minneapolis to Washington requires taking 2 trains, and is counted as 2 “trips”.
We can also see what percentage of my 55 trips to date happened in each year:
If we compare the two pie charts, we can see a few differences. For example, 19% of my miles happened in 2010, but only 9% of my trips happened then. That’s because I took a few long trips, rather than a bunch of short trips. The journeys I expect to take in the remainder of 2012 also change the numbers.
We can also look at the types of trips I’ve been taking in another way, by dividing them into categories:
I’ll define these terms later. But for now, note that 60% of my miles come from Long-Distance trains, whereas only 27% of my trips were taken on Long-Distance trains.
In the two above charts, the train types are:
Northeast Corridor - The Northeast Regional or Acela trains.
Corridor Services - Other corridor trains, like the Pacific Surfliner.
Short-Haul - These are day trains, like the Carolinian or Adirondack.
Long-Distance - These are overnight trains like the Crescent.
Without including any charts, we can also talk about averages.
I’ve taken Amtrak 18,606 miles on 55 trips. Overall, the average trip length is 338 miles. My yearly averages range from a low of 84 miles in 2005 to a high of 704 miles in 2010.
My longest Amtrak trip was a trip on the Empire Builderof 1,976 miles in 2010. My shortest was a mere 21 miles from New Carrollton to BWI Airport on theNortheast Regionalin 2011.
If we look beyond Amtrak to inter-city rail in general, I’ve put a few more miles under my belt.
In 2005, during a study abroad in Germany, I rode over 2,700 miles. And in 2008, I took a trip from coast to coast across Canada, adding over 4,000 miles.
I keep track of my Amtrak miles for my own knowledge. But it’s definitely fun to look at how those numbers break down over time.
