Airlines, trains or some other mode?

As I get ready to fly out next week for the annual Catholic Press Association convention, I was not encouraged to see this story about American Airlines (which I'm not flying on this trip). We have barely had a chance to get used to the second-bag charge that airlines are imposing, and now American is charging $15 for the first bag, too. The usual "rising fuel cost" reason is given for this (and seemingly every) new charge.

On another thread about this story, the discussion shifted toward going back to train travel. While that sounds nice, I've found that trains are just as expensive as planes and it takes you 2-3 times as long to get there. I'd love to do more train travel if it was more feasible, but the whole "rising fuel cost" thing does show that the current spectrum of mass transporation as we know it could start shifting to more electric-based modes like trains. Or are we so addicted to air travel that we will pay the price no matter what? Would you consider traveling more by train in the future if air costs continue to rise (and there's no reason to think they won't)?

World Youth Day travel for our diocese went up more than $200 recently due to "rising fuel costs," and we had no choice but to pay the addition since most of our group's tickets are already paid. This leads me to another question... why do rely so much on foreign oil if we a lot of it in our own 50 states? It seems that we could produce our own oil and gas for cheaper than what we're paying. But I'm no economist, so I may be missing a key piece to this puzzle.