Thursday, June 23, 2011

Try and be Green this Summer

What would be the best way to travel and be green?
With a great deal of momentum towards sustainable living and trying to save our planet a little bit of thinking towards greener travel would be to take the train.
With train travel, you get to spend time together rather than being on the road and stuck in traffic on busy holidays. Once you reach your destination, a lot of car rental companies have specials rentals for only $19/day. Most trains have special rates for seniors and children and they have special rates for adults. A travel agent can provide you further discount.

Some information about Amtrak

Amtrak has carried passengers on journeys across the length and breadth of the United States. People take our trains to visit family and friends, see America, experience the journey and come home again.

National Fact Sheet: FY 2010
The name "Amtrak" is the blending of the words "America" and "track." It is properly used in documents with only the first letter capitalized. The railroad is also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation.
Basic Amtrak Facts
During FY 2010 (Oct. 2009-Sept. 2010), Amtrak® welcomed aboard more than 28.7 million passengers, the largest annual total in Amtrak’s history. An average of more than 78,000 passengers rides more than 300 Amtrak trains per day.

Amtrak operates a nationwide rail network, serving more than 500 destinations in 46 states and three Canadian provinces on more than 21,200 miles of routes, with more than 20,000 employees. It is the nation’s only high speed intercity passenger rail provider, operating nearly 60% of its trains at top speeds in excess of 90 mph/145 kph.

In FY 2010, Amtrak earned approximately $2.51 billion in revenue and incurred approximately $3.74 billion in expense. No country in the world operates a passenger rail system without some form of public support for capital costs and/or operating expenses. In 2009, the most recent year for which data for other railroads is available, Amtrak’s farebox recovery (percentage of operating costs covered by revenues generated by passenger fares) was the highest reported for any U.S. passenger railroad.

In 2009, an average of more than 925,000 people every weekday depended on commuter rail services that used Amtrak-owned infrastructure, dispatching, shared operations, or rode commuter trains operated by Amtrak under contracts with local or regional agencies.

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) is the busiest railroad in North America, with more than 2,200 trains operating over some portion of the Washington-Boston

If included among U.S. airlines in 2008, Amtrak would rank 8th in the number of passengers served. On average, there are nearly twice as many passengers on an Amtrak train than there are on a domestic airline flight.

The Boston-New York-Washington portion of the Northeast Corridor carried 10,375,209 passengers in FY 2010 on Acela Express, Regional Service or other trains. Three other corridors had ridership that topped one million or more: Pacific Surfliner Service (San Diego-Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo, 2,613,604), Capitol Corridor Service (San Jose-Oakland-Sacramento-Auburn, 1,580,619) and the Keystone Corridor Service (Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York City, 1,296,838).


If you would like to book train travel for you or your family call us at 408 828 5550 or email us at travel@mercurytrip.com

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