Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

I'll be taking the train from Boston to Miami instead of flying.

Amtrak uses about half the energy consumption per passenger as domestic flights (54% to be precise). That's according to government figures:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/...

This is despite the low capacity of the horribly slow cross-country trains, and the high capacity of airplanes. Jets are just inefficient and polluting, pouring out tons of fuel per mile. (I've heard that propeller planes would take 25% longer but use only a fraction of the fuel.)

Even more important, the location of the CO2 emissions dumped by jets, up there in the stratosphere, makes the global warming effect even worse than the same pollution down at ground level.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2006-12-18-jet-pollution-usat_x....

Add to the fact that the train I will ride on would be running regardless of virtually anything that happens, while booking an airline flight could conceivably contribute to another flight being scheduled, and my long, slow, expensive train ride is a lot more environmentally benign (or, rather, less malign) than the short, fast, cheaper flight any sane person would take.

Thirty to forty hour train trips are a better way to see the country anyway! The future of overland transportation must be faster and more efficient rail (or my personal brainchild, underground maglev trains operating in a vacuum). Jet airplanes will never be acceptable from an environmental standpoint, I don't think, though there ought to be room for efficient prop planes and ships in a utopian future.