Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Wednesday the 10th of April. A little bit late in the day but that's because I've been waiting for a railroad train. I'm on board the Ethan Allen Express. This is the train that runs from Burlington, Vermont, down through Albany,

the state capital of New York, to Penn Station in Manhattan, in New York City.

It takes about seven and a half hours to do the whole thing. I'm on a three-hour bit in the

middle from Middlebury, Vermont, where I got on to Saratoga Springs in New York State.

My ticket cost $25, so maybe 18, 19 pounds, and I guess most of the other people on this train which is maybe one third four have paid much the same.

I'm glad I caught the 1101 because if I've missed it there wouldn't have been another train for another 24 hours.

The American Railway is still in a bit of a parlous state it's a question of

what do you do do you increase the frequency on the trains trying to get more

people on board and out of their SUVs do you cut fares evenasing the subsidy, which is already into billions of dollars for the passenger railways.

They were effectively nationalised in the 1970s when if the federal government hadn't stepped in,

it would have been curtains for passenger trains

because of increasing car ownership and the way that the airlines were getting

quite a lot of long distance business the train I'm actually on is a right old mess

it's part of the so-called Am fleet these are kind of

chrome trains which when they were made in the 1970s a few in the 1980s would have really looked great

and special and everything now they just look completely exhausted just looking at the very very

scruffy interior of my carriage and that's I guess because they can't afford to invest more

they are already pumping so much money into this.

And, well, I don't know.

What do you do?

Do you decide, okay, we absolutely have to get more people on board,

in which case you are going to have to increase frequency,

...