Aboard Amtrak

> Meanwhile, I have friends who work for companies who write the software that control train scheduling throughout the country. After what they've seen, they refuse to ride on trains, and from the stories they've told I don't blame them.

Can you tell us more about this?

I take the train between NYC, Boston and Providence very frequently (dozens to hundreds of times a year), and to DC occasionally (MBTA between Providence and Boston, usually). When I worked in NYC, I could leave Providence on an early train and know I'd make it to Midtown in time for work. Boston and NYC (and DC) both have good public transit, so I can hop on a bus or a train on either end to get around the city. The northeast corridor has decent trains, at least compared to the rest of the country from what I can gather.

tl;dr I live in the Northeast without owning a car and it's OK

Our shitty rail infrastructure might have to do with the interests of the automotive industry [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...

Just ask the Amtrak people and they will give to a realistic expectation.

The issue for east-west trains is that the track usually owned by CSX or another freight railway, and the thousands of tanker cars heading for Albany, NY for transfer to barges to New Jersey oil refineries have priority over everything except the trains that bring in produce from the West Coast.

I frequently ride Northeast corridor trains Amtrak owns 95% of those tracks. The trains to NYC usually run +/- 10 minutes of schedule, depending on the number of people embarking at midpoint stations.

Of all of the transportation providers that I deal with, Amtrak is the lowest hassle and best experience. Consistent pricing, no security theatre, comfortable cars and friendly staff most of the time.

When Amtrak owns the tracks, it's a far better experience. I had similar (horrible) experiences riding the coast starlight between San Luis Obispo and Sacramento, but when I stuck to the commuter lines between Sacramento and the bay area, or LA and San Diego, it was always pleasant.

If Amtrak was not government-funded it would have gone out of business decades ago, and appropriately so. Intercity passenger rail no longer works in the USA. The automobile and air transport infrastructure works so much better for most people. It's time to give it up.

Edit: I'm not saying that commuter and regional rail can't work, it clearly does in the right circumstances.

> Made it to Atlanta station - receive phone call from the people picking us up...they have never used the train and don't know where the station is. We give directions.

I lived in Atlanta for 7 years and didn't even know it had a train station.

I did a D.C. to Miami (and back) voyage many years ago that sounds vaguely similar. It was scheduled as a "mere" 24 hour trip and ended up taking over 30 (flying takes less than 3 and costs about the same and driving takes about 15 hours).

At one point our section of the train was disconnected and transferred to another train, except that train was 2 hours late. All told we waited 4 hours with no electricity or lights and nowhere to get off in the meanwhile.

We weren't in cabins and it was virtually impossible to sleep because of all the kids and drunk people opening and closing the doors to the cars all night.

We had a working dining car for approximately 1 meal going down and 2 meals coming up.

It was an excruciating enough that I've sworn off ever riding trains in the U.S. again. I did briefly consider taking the Accela recently on a D.C. to NYC trip (in theory it takes just about the same amount of time), but decided it's just easier to fly.

I've taken trains in Italy, France, England and South Korea and they're glorious experiences by comparison.

It's a shame too, because the U.S. is a beautiful country to see travelling by land...except at least on the routes I've been on which run mostly through hard neighborhoods or industrial wastelands.

A few years ago, I took Amtrak round trip from Tacoma, WA to Beaumont, TX and back. This trip involves taking the Coast Starlight to Los Angeles, and then the Sunset Limited from Los Angeles to Texas.

The train was supposed to leave Tacoma before lunch, and I had not ate breakfast that day. I was going to have lunch on the train. The train didn't get to Tacoma until well after lunch time, so by the time I got on, lunch was no longer being served.

Somewhere between Tacoma and California, and well before dinner time, we pulled onto a siding to let a freight train pass. As we started to move again to get back on the track, the engine derailed, because the rails on the siding ahead had pulled apart.

We sat there for a few hours while they sent out two engines, one to come up behind us to pull us back onto the main track, and one to hook up in front so we could resume the journey.

After we got going again, they said that because we were without power for much of the time we waited they had lost refrigeration in the kitchen and so out of food safety concerns dinner would be not served.

The snack car was still open, so we could at least get snacks. I was pretty pissed off that I had to pay for my snack. My ticket (which was something like $2000 each way...) included three meals a day. I would have expected that if they could not provide a meal that a passenger has already paid for, they could at least provide a complimentary snack from the snack car.

With the lateness leaving Tacoma, the delay form the engine derailment, and other delays to let freight trains pass, I was actually starting to worry that I might miss the connection for the Sunset Limited. That only ran three days a week, and so if I missed it, it would really throw my schedule into disarray. We were supposed to get to Los Angeles at something like 9PM, and we actually got in at around 5AM. I seriously considered just napping in the station instead of walking the two blocks to the hotel that had been reserved for me, since I wasn't going to have time for a good sleep anyway.

There were no more major incidents on the trip to Texas, just some annoyances. There was supposed to be a free newspaper everyday delivered to my room, but that only happened once. Some fittings and fixtures in my room were loose or missing.

The Beaumont train station was a bit of a surprise. It is just a big concrete slab in a field [1]. I found out that at one time there was a building there, but it was torn down after being damaged in Hurricane Rita. (They have since built a new station).

The return trip was largely uneventful. Still didn't get my newspapers. It was a bit scary waiting to leave Beaumont, since there was a lightning storm in the area. I really would have preferred waiting for the train inside a building instead of out in the open getting rained on and hoping the lighting didn't get too close. I should have had the cab wait with me until the train came, so I could have stayed in the cab where it was dry [2].

Everything was late on the return trip, which I gather is pretty much expected, but nothing that endangered the connection in Los Angeles.

I wonder how much more annoying this was back in the days before cell phones? With my cell phone, I was able to send text messages to the friend who was going to pick me up in Tacoma, updating him on our progress so he could do a good job of figuring out when he actually needed to be there.

[1] http://trainweb.org/usarail/beaumont03.jpg

[2] I was in Texas because I was a witness in a patent lawsuit. The lawyers were paying my expenses, and so it wouldn't have cost me anything to keep the cab there. It just didn't occur to me.

I've done Amtrak twice. Central NY to Chicago was actually no problem as far as Amtrak goes, just a couple hours of delays each way.

Central NY to Columbus in November, nightmare. Maybe an hour in, notice a) the car is getting pretty cold b) the car is not very full. Turns out the door to the car is broken, either recently or was the whole time. There are no seats I can find on other cars. Amtrak guy says nothing he can do about it. Make the rest of the trip in the freezing cold, good thing I had warm clothes.

On the way back, get to the train station (in Cleveland, I think - no service to Columbus so they bus you - bus was 100% timely) to find out that the train isn't there and the train is not going to be there. That train is completely cancelled. Get to spend the night on a bench in the shut down, freezing Cleveland station until another train arrives going the same way ~12 hours later. Amtrak refuses to compensate me in any way for either issue. Should have just bussed it the whole way, if I was going to experiment with not flying.

End up a week after with the worst cold in my life, probably difficult to blame on Amtrak but I still do.

If you're thinking of a European trip, do it right now - Deutsche Bahn are withdrawing many of the sleeper trains in December as they're unprofitable.

I went London-Tokyo by train and ferry. Chinese sleepers were probably the best - both luxurious and cheap, particularly in the northwest there is gorgeous desert and canyons out the window. But the train from Moscow to Uzbekistan was fascinating in its own way, red leather and steaming samovars, fresh-caught fish being sold on the platforms of these rural stations alongside enormous kebabs of mysterious meat. Carriage attendants knocking the snow off the steps with pokers at every stop. Looking out the window and seeing a solitary line of telegraph poles across the empty snowfield, the only human thing as far as the eye could see. A bunch of men lining up on one side of the corridor as we passed the steaming silos and metal towers at Baikonur, hoping to see a launch.

I'm curious, what is it that you like about the Oslo-Stockholm trip?

I think the challenges to American train travel are less cultural and more geographic. Train systems seem to work in small countries with dense populations, and in fact we see in the northeast that trains are effective and widely used. I live in Boston, and people use the subway in the city, commuter rail near the city, and Amtrak to get to places like New York. But flying just seems so much more practical around most parts of the US.

That's interesting, why would you put it along the track and not on the train itself? In the 60's it made sense but today wouldn't it be cheap to put digital temperature sensors on the trains like cars have?

Are journal bearings still common on American rolling stock?

I would love to read that, you should definitely do it. Where in the UK did you travel?

Awesome idea. But it looks like the hackathon in behind schedule. When do you think it'll leave the station?

That sounds amazing. Any idea how much it would cost to attend, though?

> and the 45 day Amtrak pass was cheaper than rent.

I'd assume not.

"As a society, we literally force some of the most life-changing decisions on the people who are almost universally unprepared to evaluate their full set of options correctly."

Well said, but maybe part of the solution here is to stop treating teenagers the same way we treat infants and acknowledge they have an active and capable mind which we too often fail to encourage.

> My point here is, if you're in the military now, you're volunteering for war. If you're an injured soldier, I'm sorry you got hurt. You didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves war and mayhem. But you volunteered for it. We need to stop saying "support the troops". We need to start saying "prevent kids from joining unjust war".

A thousand times yes! About a year ago I was flying in the US for a conference and I noticed a soldier in uniform getting bumped to business class. Apparently this is standard AA policy.

This led me to ask some questions about the military to some coworkers which turned into some sort of a fight. My position is exactly the same as yours: American society forces its most vulnerable to join unjust wars and then rather than provide them with welfare, social and medical services relies on this kind of obscene corporate brandwashing and cheap respect and support from the public.

I refuse to support the troops, we have to stop kids from being duped into joining the military altogether. But apparently this is a rather unpopular position, especially with those who have family members in the military.

> My point here is, if you're in the military now, you're volunteering for war. If you're an injured soldier, I'm sorry you got hurt. You didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves war and mayhem. But you volunteered for it. We need to stop saying "support the troops". We need to start saying "prevent kids from joining unjust war".

I'm currently serving, and I agree. It gets tiring having complete strangers walk up to me, while I'm in uniform, and saying things like "thank you, for all that you do.", as if I should bask in the glory of their appreciation. Perhaps they really are thankful, but the whole encounter is always awkward. At first I wasn't sure how to respond, but I've settled on saying "you're welcome", even though it sounds arrogant to me. Then you have individuals and corporations who profit on this whole notion that we should donate to "support the troops" at every opportunity we get. Many of us don't deserve support. Some of us may make sacrifices at times, but that doesn't mean we deserve everyone's affection or undue favoritism. We have the same issues as any one else. I'd much rather people pressure their congressmen and women to provide the benefits our service members were guaranteed. For those that feel compelled to give, I'd urge them to do so locally by contacting their local VFW post.

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful. There have been instances where I felt I experienced actual appreciation. Once I was out enjoying sushi with some family and friends and a stranger paid the bill. They left without us ever having known who they were. I'm grateful for what they did.

I think you could make your point much more clearly by starting with "support our troops". And then start with some uncontroversial points about the disgraceful way the veterans are supported, then make some jabs about the military-industrial complex, dying for oil, et cetera as you feel them out and find out what their sore spots are as you move the conversation towards more controversial topics. I bet you could have a lot of people agreeing with you that the system should be dismantled using this approach. The point is that you actually do support the troops, the troops as individuals, but not as a system.

As for what you're advocating for, how about raising the minimum enlistment age to 21? I think that would have a huge impact, and I bet you would be able to get support from both sides for that one, with arguments like "today's military requires not cannon fodder but highly skilled individuals capable of making sound moral judgements quickly".

We need to start saying "Dude, not everyone has the all-encompassing power to know everything that you know and it's wrong to judge people, their opinions or their life experiences."

You haven't walked a mile in his moccasins.

My wife volunteered at a live-in home for emotionally disturbed boys in Pasadena (i.e., suburban context). They treated the kids decently, but there is only so much low paid help can do to remedy not having parents who care, or, having evil or disturbed parents.

Most of them were decent kids, but not educated and with impulse control problems. After years in the system, they were so far off the path that they were just being babysat until they turned 18, at which point they were set loose. When you've lived in an institution like that for so long, where do you go?

Right, the military. That was one of the main destinations for these kids. My wife began to see the whole juvenile system as a pipeline for future grunts. There was a reason why the place was underfunded, and no serious plan was in place to place these kids in society at 18. Society seemed ok with having an assured supply of young men for the war machine.

I feel the same way. Unfortunately, my employer wouldn't take kindly to me taking a multi-month vacation. Maybe someday...

I assume this would be exclusively for people going to Chicago and returning home, as there's little reason to travel in the other direction.

> Amtrak is great when you aren't on a schedule.

Not on a schedule - or - for shorter trips the overhead of flying is just too much. Airports are far away from a city center, and there's always lines for security.

I rode Amtrak Cascades[1] from Seattle to Portland a few weeks back and the train station is only a few blocks from the city center. Leg room resembles first class on a plane, and being able to walk around and sit in an observation/dining car is better than anything. Four hours, $50. I'd have spent more on gas just by itself if I drove.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak_Cascades

> Sometimes I wish I could go effectively homeless and work on personal programming projects for months at a time.

or remote on full salary :D

I once did a weekend trip from the Bay Area to Reno (on Saturday and back on Sunday), which was my first Amtrak experience. The schedule works out so you can take the California Zephyr both ways in the daylight. I figured I didn't want to ride for more than a day at a time, didn't want to deal with sleeping on the train, and I still got to see some of the most scenic train routes in the US. It was really cool, some of the highlights include: leaving the Bay Area right along the shore of the bay, including the lesser known "upper bay" (Carquinez straits), a huge (miles long) switching yard in Roseville, passing the Donner summit and the spectacular curves to come down from it, and the canyon of the Truckee river from along the river. On board, you get to meet and chat with a lot of interesting travelers, including lots of foreign rail buffs.

You get a seat assigned in the seating car, but you really want to make your way to the observation car and claim a seat with a better view. One disappointment was the lack of grandiose views of the Sierra Nevada. I'm used to driving and hiking there, and the train doesn't go through the most scenic parts (thankfully, I guess). There are some views of the American river valley, and the mountains a bit higher up, but not much of the high peaks around the Donner summit. Frankly, you get better views and get there faster on the highway (I-80), but I've done that so many times, it was neat to get different views for once. Except for one hour of 70mph on the way to Sacramento, he train felt lumbering and slow, and we did have delays here and there. The return train was 2 hours late, but I guess that is fairly good on a route all the way from Chicago (by American rail standards).

Reservations were easy online, I think it was about $60-70 each way. You can take AC transit from the transbay terminal across to Emeryville and a short walk to the Amtrak station (amtrak also runs their own busses from various locations, but you have to leave an hour earlier). In Reno, it was real easy to get a room within walking distance of the station downtown (at a casino or motel). I even had time to enjoy their river walk. All in all, it was a fun weekend, I'm glad I did it and I recommend it if you want to try the train in the US west.

It is great riding it cross-country, I just finished up my second trip from Los Angeles to New York City in August (Southwest Chief + Lake Shore Limited). I enjoy being able to finish books and get some coding work in, and the amazing views like riding through the midwest at night and having a far off lightning storm in the background. All the people I've met on the trains are really nice, and interesting. When I tell my friends here that it is actually quite a nice trip they think it is ridiculous to take a train for 72 hours, but it really isn't about the destination for me -- just the trip. I also prefer it to airplane travel.

Once all the nice trains going west have gone west, how do they get back?

It is worth noting that 18 trips != 18 segments.

If your trip is from Seattle to LA to Dallas, that's actually 2 segments for 1 trip.

In case anyone was wondering, that wasn't intended as a snide remark about Javascript. The way the "Gallery requires javascript" message appeared in the middle of the text like it was part of the essay just touched my funny bone in the right way.