My choice is usually between auto and air. After taking a beating with United and American AGAIN! for my trip from PHL to Indy I will reconsider driving. Train only works for me when I run into NYC or DC, otherwise it is an excess expenditure of time and money IME.
That is basically what the article is saying, that train travel depends on where you are traveling as well as personal preference. There are those who like that the flight from NYC to Boston is like 50 minutes or so, and don't really count the time to get from the airport to the city, the security lines, having to be there early part of the trip, but would hate to be on a train for 4 hours or whatever...user preference plays a role as much as the end to end trip time.
My take on it is that we need to look at train travel and figure out what makes sense. While I think that long distance train travel will always have fans, mostly people travelling for leisure and to unwind rather than "getting there", and that intermediate travel on long distance trains has value as well (ie those going from point B to Point E on a trip going from A to Z), it would make sense to put more resources into the lines of let's say under 300 miles that can be competitive with airline travel and also would be beneficial to it in pulling pressure off air traffic control and airports. In theory if we ever had true high speed rail with dedicated tracks and speed like they get in Europe even longer trips >300 miles could be practical, but that obviously is a much bigger ballgame, probably would be better at the moment to focus on the shorter routes that already show their importance in terms of making them better (and improving other <300 mile zones that suffer from crowded and poor track conditions that otherwise might be practical).
