Trains.
Yes, Trains.
Yes, Trains.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2026 --
And now for something completely different: trains. Specifically trains that can replace planes or, at least, make airports more accessible and easier to use.
TAKING A FLYER ON O'HARE
Compared to great global airports--Changi in Singapore, Munich, Hong Kong, Vancouver--American airports stink. And their worst failing? No direct rail connection to their respective downtowns. Some U.S. airports may have pokey commuter or local train service, but they are no patch on fast, dedicated rail links like the Arlanda Express in Stockholm, the Leonardo Express in Rome, the Airport Express in Hong Kong or London's Heathrow Express.
Which is why I'm irrationally exuberant about the proposed O'Hare Flyer, a one-seat, zero-stop service that would link O'Hare with the Loop in the heart of Chicago in as little as 15 minutes.
Fifteen minutes from O'Hare to the city? Sounds like a pipe dream. I mean, this is America and these kinds of projects, if they can be done at all, cost tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, take tens of years to complete and end up with all sorts of political, economic, practical and social compromises.
But the O'Hare Flyer, introduced this week, already seems to have many of its ducks in a row. The city's top pols are for it. Unions are over the moon. The airport wants it. The city's local media--including the Chicago Tribune and Crain's Chicago Business--are enthralled. The project's leaders are a savvy mix of travel experts, train pros and superbly connected lobbyists. The construction will be privately funded and the trainsets will be modern electric models. And, oh yeah, the tracks are mostly already built and the freight lines that own them seem to be on board, too.
"I know high-speed rail in this country is tainted by the difficulty they've had in California," says Mark Walbrun, one of the O'Hare Flyer's founders, the chief engineering officer and the all-things-railroad wizard. "But they've spent years just getting the right-of-way. We've got the right-of-way and are already on tracks."
As conceived, the O'Hare Flyer would connect the airport's new Global Terminal--the replacement for Terminal 2--with a purpose-built station on W. Van Buren Street adjacent to the city's Old Post Office development. (Coincidentally, that's just two blocks from United Airlines' corporate headquarters.) Because so much of the infrastructure already exists, Walbrun stands behind the O'Hare Flyer pitch: a privately funded and operated system that can be running in five years and only cost about $2.5 billion.
You can question a few of the project's assumptions, but here is the good news: Walbrun is one of us, a frequent traveler who deals with the lack of fast, simple, affordable and dedicated downtown-to-airport transfers. He gets what travelers want.
"We've already spent millions on this," he told me earlier this week. "It's rational and feasible--and it will work."
TUNNELING TO COMPETITION
If there has been a great advance in rail travel in the modern era, it's the Channel Tunnel that made airlines largely superfluous on short runs between London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. I mean, why fly those ridiculously brief hops when the airports are so distant from the downtowns and the train stations are so centrally located?
The one problem? One supplier. Now a division of the French national railroad, Eurostar has been the sole passenger rail through the Chunnel since its 1994 launch. Over these 30+ years, Eurostar has been good and bad, expensive and cheap, arrogant and humbled, but always ripe for competition.
And, now, finally, it's coming. At least a half-dozen railroads are close to getting a piece of the action. Trenitalia, which made intra-Italy flights almost an afterthought, may be ready to go by 2029. And Trenitalia and its brilliant Frecciarossa trains, would be a great addition. Earlier this month, Virgin Trains got a preliminary nod to offer Chunnel runs, too. Its best-case launch would be 2030. At least three more companies, start-up operations mostly, want to take a crack, too.
NO MIRAGE
Remember the Holy Roman Empire, that odd entity that sprawled across much of Europe from the time of Charlemagne until around 1800? It was Voltaire, that noted 18th-century stand-up comic, who quipped that it was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." I often wonder what Voltaire would say about the United Arab Emirates, a loose confederation of seven semi-constitutional monarchies. After all, these guys scratch-built two super-airports (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) within about 70 miles of each other, but no practical mass transit between the two and, in fact, virtually no intra-UAE flights.
There are a million reasons for that strange situation and the less said about them--and the competing ruling houses--the better. But there is hope. Etihad Rail (no relation to Etihad Airways) is building a 750-mile network to stitch together the emirates and connect the country from one border (Saudi Arabia) to another (Oman). And this is no desert mirage. The first two stations have opened and you can now train it between Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, the country's easternmost emirate. Two more stations (connecting Dubai and Sharjah, the UAE's third most populous city) are due next month.
WHOSE TRAINS REIGN SUPREME?
Japan does rail right, of course, offering speed, timeliness, ubiquity and lots of inter-modal connectivity. So what does it do for an encore? Build more luxury, of course.
Private suites debut on two Japanese rail services--JR Central and JR West--on October 1. In either one- or two-person configurations, the so-called Supreme Class suites offer deeply reclining seats, built-in sound systems and floor-to-ceiling privacy doors. Prices aren't cheap, but hardly outrageous, either. Between Tokyo and Osaka--an approximately 2.5-hour ride on a 320-mile route--the one-way trip in a two-person suite will cost 60,790 yen or about $190 a person. For comparison, the Amtrak Acela from New York/Penn Station to Washington/Union Station is a shorter run (about 225 miles), but requires at least 2 hours and 45 minutes. The cost? In first class, which is trash compared to Supreme Class, the price is at least $339 a person.
Supreme Class should be on dozens of the country's bullet trains by next spring. Here's JR Central's promotional page. At least one social-media influencer has already gotten a ride and it looks pretty suite and sweet.
TAKING A FLYER ON O'HARE
Compared to great global airports--Changi in Singapore, Munich, Hong Kong, Vancouver--American airports stink. And their worst failing? No direct rail connection to their respective downtowns. Some U.S. airports may have pokey commuter or local train service, but they are no patch on fast, dedicated rail links like the Arlanda Express in Stockholm, the Leonardo Express in Rome, the Airport Express in Hong Kong or London's Heathrow Express.
Which is why I'm irrationally exuberant about the proposed O'Hare Flyer, a one-seat, zero-stop service that would link O'Hare with the Loop in the heart of Chicago in as little as 15 minutes.
Fifteen minutes from O'Hare to the city? Sounds like a pipe dream. I mean, this is America and these kinds of projects, if they can be done at all, cost tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, take tens of years to complete and end up with all sorts of political, economic, practical and social compromises.
But the O'Hare Flyer, introduced this week, already seems to have many of its ducks in a row. The city's top pols are for it. Unions are over the moon. The airport wants it. The city's local media--including the Chicago Tribune and Crain's Chicago Business--are enthralled. The project's leaders are a savvy mix of travel experts, train pros and superbly connected lobbyists. The construction will be privately funded and the trainsets will be modern electric models. And, oh yeah, the tracks are mostly already built and the freight lines that own them seem to be on board, too.
"I know high-speed rail in this country is tainted by the difficulty they've had in California," says Mark Walbrun, one of the O'Hare Flyer's founders, the chief engineering officer and the all-things-railroad wizard. "But they've spent years just getting the right-of-way. We've got the right-of-way and are already on tracks."
As conceived, the O'Hare Flyer would connect the airport's new Global Terminal--the replacement for Terminal 2--with a purpose-built station on W. Van Buren Street adjacent to the city's Old Post Office development. (Coincidentally, that's just two blocks from United Airlines' corporate headquarters.) Because so much of the infrastructure already exists, Walbrun stands behind the O'Hare Flyer pitch: a privately funded and operated system that can be running in five years and only cost about $2.5 billion.
You can question a few of the project's assumptions, but here is the good news: Walbrun is one of us, a frequent traveler who deals with the lack of fast, simple, affordable and dedicated downtown-to-airport transfers. He gets what travelers want.
"We've already spent millions on this," he told me earlier this week. "It's rational and feasible--and it will work."
TUNNELING TO COMPETITION
If there has been a great advance in rail travel in the modern era, it's the Channel Tunnel that made airlines largely superfluous on short runs between London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. I mean, why fly those ridiculously brief hops when the airports are so distant from the downtowns and the train stations are so centrally located?
The one problem? One supplier. Now a division of the French national railroad, Eurostar has been the sole passenger rail through the Chunnel since its 1994 launch. Over these 30+ years, Eurostar has been good and bad, expensive and cheap, arrogant and humbled, but always ripe for competition.
And, now, finally, it's coming. At least a half-dozen railroads are close to getting a piece of the action. Trenitalia, which made intra-Italy flights almost an afterthought, may be ready to go by 2029. And Trenitalia and its brilliant Frecciarossa trains, would be a great addition. Earlier this month, Virgin Trains got a preliminary nod to offer Chunnel runs, too. Its best-case launch would be 2030. At least three more companies, start-up operations mostly, want to take a crack, too.
NO MIRAGE
Remember the Holy Roman Empire, that odd entity that sprawled across much of Europe from the time of Charlemagne until around 1800? It was Voltaire, that noted 18th-century stand-up comic, who quipped that it was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." I often wonder what Voltaire would say about the United Arab Emirates, a loose confederation of seven semi-constitutional monarchies. After all, these guys scratch-built two super-airports (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) within about 70 miles of each other, but no practical mass transit between the two and, in fact, virtually no intra-UAE flights.
There are a million reasons for that strange situation and the less said about them--and the competing ruling houses--the better. But there is hope. Etihad Rail (no relation to Etihad Airways) is building a 750-mile network to stitch together the emirates and connect the country from one border (Saudi Arabia) to another (Oman). And this is no desert mirage. The first two stations have opened and you can now train it between Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, the country's easternmost emirate. Two more stations (connecting Dubai and Sharjah, the UAE's third most populous city) are due next month.
WHOSE TRAINS REIGN SUPREME?
Japan does rail right, of course, offering speed, timeliness, ubiquity and lots of inter-modal connectivity. So what does it do for an encore? Build more luxury, of course.
Private suites debut on two Japanese rail services--JR Central and JR West--on October 1. In either one- or two-person configurations, the so-called Supreme Class suites offer deeply reclining seats, built-in sound systems and floor-to-ceiling privacy doors. Prices aren't cheap, but hardly outrageous, either. Between Tokyo and Osaka--an approximately 2.5-hour ride on a 320-mile route--the one-way trip in a two-person suite will cost 60,790 yen or about $190 a person. For comparison, the Amtrak Acela from New York/Penn Station to Washington/Union Station is a shorter run (about 225 miles), but requires at least 2 hours and 45 minutes. The cost? In first class, which is trash compared to Supreme Class, the price is at least $339 a person.
Supreme Class should be on dozens of the country's bullet trains by next spring. Here's JR Central's promotional page. At least one social-media influencer has already gotten a ride and it looks pretty suite and sweet.