As I said yesterday, my parents went to Montana/Canada for a vacation, and rather than fly or drive they took Amtrak. They are really loving it, getting to see the country without the stress of driving, chatting with people in the food car, etc. They definitely recommend the experience.
At any rate, they are going to miss their connecting train out of Chicago because as they were traveling across the midwest, the train had to slow down because of rain. Apparently, trains need to slow down because flash floods wipe out their tracks frequently, and this is especially true in the midwest.
Just thought that was interesting and something I didn’t know.
arguingwithsignposts
They also have to slow down for commercial trains, because they don’t have the right of way. Which is part of the reason why train travel doesn’t succeed in the U.S. When your Amtrak to Chicago is three fucking hours late because of commercial traffic on the same tracks, it doesn’t leave a lot of trust in the system.
Zifnab
If only someone would come through and invest in high speed passenger rail. *le sighe*
I was honestly under the impression that passenger trains were mandated right-of-way, but it was one of those rules that received zero enforcement. Either way, if you’ve got that much rail traffic, why the hell don’t we have more rail? The system is clearly at capacity. Where is the magic fairy hand of the free market to unclog our congested tracks? If traffic was this bad in a suburban neighborhood, you’d see bulldozers and cement mixers laying more pavement by the end of the week.
SteveinSC
We tried AMTRAK a some years ago. Just like your folks, at first a very unstressful trip. Took a compartment from Charlottesville, Virginia to give a paper in New Orleans (way pre Katrina). There were some very good points and some miserable parts. Always spend the money and get a room, not the roomettes. Food great, service good. Roomette sucks: You have to shit in an open portapotty thing just about in view of everyone wandering down the corridor. In Laurel Mississippi, train stopped about 5:00pm. Two hours from NO and a crane had fallen accross the tracks. Busses left for NO in a driving rain 11:00 PM. On the way back, equipment failure. I insisted, so we banged our way back to C’ville. Station masters, support, etc. also near worthless.
Nevertheless, potentially a great way to travel. Shame we are so bereft of quality train service in US. Intend to try again with the room, though.
Walter Friese
Two of my old friends and I make an outing each year, we call it City Slackers. Last year we took Amtrak from Madison, WI to Glacier Park in MT. On our return trip we were delayed in some small town in Eastern MT for 16 hours due to a freight train derailment. Even that did not dampen my enthusiasm for rail travel. I loved the train experience so much I will be taking it to Boston in September to see my son and his wife. I sure wish that the administration would have put a few hundred billion dollars into the stimulus for a modern 2nd millenium mass transit plan.
PeakVT
Most Amtrak long distance trains are a weird combination of federal pork and cruise ship. They can be enjoyable travel experiences, but they aren’t particularly useful as routine transportation.
Punchy
Iowa getting just crushed with flooding now. 2 years ago, U of Iowa got destroyed. Now it’s ISU’s turn. What a fucking mess.
mr. whipple
@Walter Friese:
It’s not hundreds of billions, but…
NickM
I took a train across the country when I was in my 20’s. It was a great experience, particularly in the West, where they have (or had) special “Panorama” cars with huge windows, and where the trains go places it’s otherwise difficult to get through. If I’m remembering correctly, the line I was on ran through Bryce Canyon for a good ways – if not it was some other incredible canyon. Plus, I met new people at every meal, which was great. I still remember I met a guy named John F. Kennedy from Australia, who was traveling the U.S. with his wife (unfortunately not a Jackie) and had a great conversation with them.
dmsilev
I took that trip a few months ago, though I started at the beginning of the line (in Seattle). It was a very pleasant way to spend a weekend. Lovely scenery, some interesting people to chat with, surprisingly decent food, and we were only a half an hour or so late getting into Chicago.
dms
Alice Blue
I lived in Manhattan many years ago, and I would take Amtrak for visits back home to Georgia, on the old “Southern Crescent” route. (Much cheaper than flying). Very enjoyable, even though I was traveling alone. There were always interesting characters in the dining car and club car.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
OT: ZOMG! Stephanie Miller just came out as gay on her radio show this morning.
Citizen_X
Canada, Cole, French Canada, even? Isn’t that a bit insensitive of your parents?
Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck are going to be doing special reports tonight on your parents’ fancy-schmancy trip to a foreign country while the rest of America is cutting back. I’m sure the answer is more tax cuts, somehow.
TampaB
I would love to try out the experience first hand but last time I checked going from Tampa FL to Denver CO for one person cost $189 and 4 hours to fly, $700+ and 3 days to rent a car plus gas, and over $1000! and 3+ days by train. Please explain the economies of that to me.
dmsilev
@SteveinSC: At least on the Empire Builder (the Seattle/Portland to Chicago route that John’s parents are on), the roomettes weren’t bad. The cars have 4 (if memory serves) bathrooms plus one shower room, all of which had locking doors. There’s not a huge amount of space inside each roomette, but you can always get up and wander down to the lounge/observation car if you feel the need to spread out.
dms
Albatrossity
Compared to the peak stresses induced by any visit to any airport for any flight these days, taking the train is a walk in the park, even if it is delayed. And that doesn’t even take the legroom issue into account; I’m 6’4″ tall and am finding myself increasingly cramped by the ever-shrinking inter-seat distances on planes.
You have to have the extra time to travel, and you have to able to relax a bit, however. So train travel obviously isn’t for everybody.
Dork
Birds do stupid things.
shortstop
We keep wanting to take the City of New Orleans to…New Orleans, but the price for a roomette or whatever is way more than an air ticket. Think we’ll save it for a more scenic route. The California Zephyr, maybe?
Ask your folks if the train is clean, John. I keep hearing complaints about filthy Amtrak trains and crap microwaved pizza and hot dogs for dining options.
Comrade Mary
@Citizen_X: Don’t worry, there’s not much French Canada out west unless you hit certain parts of Manitoba, and that’s east of Montana. Their precious bodily fluids are safe.
cleek
i used to take the train from Rochester NY to Albany, when i was a poor college student. loved it. it’s only 200 miles or so, just a few hours. plus, there are two sets of tracks along that route, so there were very few delays. ideal for weekend trips.
Comrade Mary
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: It’s on Twitter but not Wikipedia yet. Slackers!
Chuck
Took Amtrak from FL to NYC once. Unless the trains are completely non-smoking now, never again.
garage mahal
@Walter Friese:
Interesting. We’re driving from Madison to Billings, then to Bozeman in Sept. I’ve never ridden Amtrak, would even consider that trip with two kids in tow? I feel crazy even asking.
R-Jud
I took Amtrak all over the Midwest, as well as to and from Philly and NYC, while I lived in Chicago. Even when delayed or crowded, the experience was much better than flying. And you actually feel like you’re going somewhere, not just getting on a miserable skybus.
Linda Featheringill
By the way, a story to improve you opinion of the human race, or at least part of it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/newsnet5/newsnet5_ts3412
And yes, that is in my backyard but it will probably make you feel better, too.
Maude
@Dork:
Win.
I tool trains in Europe. They are natural there and not a novelty like here.
We need high speed rail. It would go a long way to saving energy. Back when there was a local train. They took out the tracks for highways. How smart was that?
Amtrack is way underfunded and has problems due to lack of gov’t interent in getting a decent train system.
srv
The Empire Builder and other western trains are at a lower priority to freight. And there will always be someone driving their car or tractor in front of a freight train and delaying the works for 4 or 6 hours. Throw the clock out when travelling west.
Amtrak in NY, runs like the Swiss every time I take it.
Citizen_X
@Comrade Mary:Actually, I read Montreal. Well, it’s still Mont-something, and all foreigny sounding. We should change the name to Mountainland. And Nevada to Snowy, Arizona to Dryland, Colorado to Red-colored, and New Mexico to, uh, New America.
And check Cole’s folks for Canadian soshulist pot when they reenter the country!
Rosalita
My boss travels extensively. Any time we can use the express train between NYC and Washington DC for her, we do. So much less stressful, and she can work while she rides (add wireless to the list of things we wonder how we ever did without). And so far no weather delays, a la it’s raining and your plane has been delayed five hours which happens all the damn time when flying.
shortstop
@shortstop: I feel compelled to add that I’m not a Nancy Neatly or someone who freaks out at a little filth. Have been on very crowded, very dirty trains in many out-of-the-way places around the world and it was all fine. But they were cheap tickets. I will object to paying considerably more to ride an American train than to fly if I’m going to be smelling pee for two or three days.
Nerf
Took a train to Iowa from Central NY in 1984 with my Mom and sister and it rained like crazy. We got to Galesburg Illinois and had to get off the train and get bused to Ft. Madison overnight. That sucked. Every day on the news it was the Eastern Airlines plan crash and tracks getting washed out from the rains. Every day it was beautiful though. Interesting experience. Too bad now it is too expensive to have a family of 5 actually take Amtrak anywhere. It’s cheaper to get plane tickets.
August J. Pollak
Yeah that happened to me a few years back on a train from DC to Newark. We were stuck near Philadelphia for an hour or two because flooding had covered the track.
Oh well, much like with bandwidth I guess we can enjoy as Americans being woefully behind on a major, important piece of infrastructure we won’t ever improve becuase a bunch of private companies don’t want us to.
Alwhite
We took the train between Minneapolis and Chicago a few years back – it was horrid!
Tracks in many places were so bad the train had to travel at 20 MPH and in others the rocking was so bad we wished they were only going 20. People that had been on West said the ride was much better out there.
Food was cheap frozen TV dinners & expensive. Cost was comparable to airfare but it would have been faster to drive by about 2 hours!
Took trains everywhere through out Europe and can’t recommend them enough.
roshan
Dude, don’t go all Atrios on us.
dmsilev
@shortstop:
The Empire Builder and a couple of other routes still have real dining cars, offering real cooked meals. If you get a roomette or other sleeper option, meals are included in the price (though alcohol and tips are extra). The food won’t win any awards, but it was tasty and filling, and it’s hard to beat sipping on your second cup of coffee while watching the sun come up over Glacier National Park.
dms
arguingwithsignposts
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
See, the effects of the repeal of prop 8 are already beginning!
Frank Chow
Probably one our country’s biggest mistake over the years was abandoning high speed rail while embracing Hummers and super tanks. Pew Pew!
Raenelle
Another plus to Amtrak–the sound of the train on the track is hypnotic; puts you right to sleep.
Cat Lady
Too bad it wasn’t Michael Steele causing the train delay, or any number of other principled conservatives standing athwart the tracks yelling stop.
Having been stuck on a train under an overpass for three hours in the middle of the night with a closed club car and no explanation (they hit and killed a drunk on the tracks, as we learned hours later), I’ll take road trips for $1000 Alex.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Comrade Mary:
I’m kind of depressed. Before, my chances with Stephanie were one in a million. Now? Nil.
Woe is me.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@arguingwithsignposts:
Actually, Miller said that with all the things going on with Prop8 and DADT that it felt like the right time.
60th Street
I don’t suppose there’s any point in offering to meet them for a beer…
Gina
@srv:
Um. Not so much in our experience. The corridor for Amtrak from Albany to NYC has the tracks to share with the freight trains, and they are built right along the east bank of the Hudson. Whenever there are weather events – thunderstorms, flash flooding, snowstorms – things get backed up for hours. All too frequently, when my husband has to take Amtrak, there’s at least an hour delay. This complicates things like, oh, doing business meetings on time, etc.
We’ve also learned that there’s a big bottleneck just west of Albany for trains that come from Western NY, in the Schenectady area, due to traffic switching issues that crop up between freight and passenger trains. The trick when traveling from Albany or Hudson to NYC is to find a train that originates in Albany, they seem to have less problems getting out on time. As it is, if there’s a set time for something, we know to allow at least a 2 hour window for possible delays.
I wish we had Metro North trains (with extra tracks they don’t have to share w/Conrail) all the way up to our station, but MN service ends in Poughkeepsie – about an hour/hour and a half drive, plus over an hour to NYC from there – you can drive all the way there faster.
High speed rail has been on the horizon for decades, I’m not up on the latest news, but my guess is that there’s no concrete plan to change things drastically in this area in any meaningful timeframe.
matt
@srv:
The Adirondack line is regularly a few hours late. Beautiful along Lake Champlain though.
arguingwithsignposts
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Hey, maybe she’s bi. Don’t give up hope, dude! Apparently, there is a whole field of “research” that says you can “turn” teh ghey.
LanceThruster
Sounds like BS to me.
As we all know from what we learn in TV and movies (Speed, Dukes of Hazzard), the proper way to deal with washed out/collapsed/uncompleted bridges is haul f#cking @ss!
Amtrak p#ssies!
Woot-woot!!
Martin
Just imagine how fast those trains could go if Al Gore wasn’t so fat.
Origuy
I took the Coast Starlight from San Jose to Tacoma. It took 24 hours, about 2 over schedule. We had to pull over and wait for freight trains a couple of times. I just had a regular seat, but it was comfortable like a first-class airline seat. The food was good and the train was clean.
One problem with train travel here is that you can arrive in the middle of the night and not be able to get anywhere except by taxi. Buses won’t be running and car rental, if there’s any around, will be closed.
arguingwithsignposts
@Martin:
Where do you want your Internets delivered?
Jim C
I used to take Amtrak regularly to visit my folks when I didn’t have an auto. Chicago to Normal and then back, usually delayed by a freight train or two, but rarely anything too alarming (though I remember one fellow traveler blowing a gasket at the conductor over the delay). It was a three-hour trip, so the standard coach was just fine – I never even visited the club car.
Tokyokie
We took Amtrak from Fort Worth to L.A. a few years ago for a friend’s wedding, and had the flight we were taking up to the Bay Area not been 45 minutes late taking off, we wouldn’t have made it, and its scheduled takeoff was about 8 hours after our scheduled arrival. (The trip was a disaster for other reasons as well; some plumbing issue that the commendable crew managed to fix on the fly meant that the toilets didn’t flush for several hours, the person who ran the lounge car didn’t show up in San Antonio like she was supposed to, and the train ran out of potable water well before we reached L.A.) Anyway, the problem with sharing the tracks with freight trains really comes into play out West. The dearth of sidings in the vast underpopulated areas means that the passenger trains have to pull over well before the freight loaded with cargo containers coming out of the Port of Los Angeles or Long Beach, and even though some downtime is built into the schedules, when I checked the reliability of the train we took afterward, it hadn’t arrived on time even once in the three-month period the website covered.
It’s my understanding that train travel east of the Mississippi is a lot more reliable (as long as the weather holds up), and the trains along the Portland-to-Vancouver corridor are quite reliable. But I sure as hell will never travel Amtrak to L.A. from any point east again. Besides, the spousal unit would kill me if I were to merely suggest it.
jurassicpork
Why Robert Gibbs should kiss our asses, starting with mine.
Cathy W
I recently took the train from Ann Arbor to Chicago. The experience was just absolutely pleasant – it was dramatically cheaper than flying, took about the same amount of time as driving, but I didn’t have to drive! The train was clean and not crowded, and the food was nothing to write home about and a little expensive (but when you consider that on an airplane, you’d pay what Amtrak charged for a sandwich and drink for a couple packets of crackers…)
And I admit it: I’m a sucker for scenery passing by me. Especially when the scenery is the lovely state of Michigan on a beautiful late-spring day…and someone else is driving.
arguingwithsignposts
Also, too, given the amount of time one has to spend going through security theatre at the airport, I would gladly pay airline-level fees if I could depend on the train system to deliver on-time arrival.
PurpleGirl
My experience with Amtrak between NYC and Albany was that it was on time when I was headed to Albany but on the return trip the train was late getting to Albany and therefore late getting to NYC. Also by that late night time that had often shut down the escalator from the track up to the lobby levels of Penn Station. Trains ran better between NYC and Baltimore, in both directions; although again it was likely that the escalators in NYC weren’t running up from the tracks at night. The train trips themselves were pleasant and I’d take the train again if I were going to Baltimore.
Phoebe
I took the train with my family [to and from a wedding] in July and my brother kept saying, with every delay, “Where’s our Joe Biden dividend?” Still waiting.
We all love the train. Everything everyone’s said is true, of course. It’s not efficient. But it is really very lovely. And the parts of the country you see, the parts of cities and towns you see, are MUCH more picturesque than the parts you see from the highway. Especially if you’re fond of decrepitude, as I am.
Violet
I remember taking the high speed train, the TGV, from Paris to Avignon and the whole trip took just a few hours. Fast, quiet, clean. Really great. Only when we were flying by cars that were on the highway did I realize just how fast we were going. Upon arrival, went to the rental car place at the train station, got a car and went on to my destination. Very efficient.
We really should invest in high speed trains here. I know I’m preaching to the choir. But still…
Pangloss
@Jim C: I live in Normal and often work in Chicago, so I’ve taken that trip about 150 times in the past three years. When it’s running on time, it’s cheap, quick, and relaxing. When it’s late, it’s infuriating.
BTW, Normal is now the 4th busiest Amtrak station between California and the Alleghenys, behind only Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis. They just broke ground on a new multimodal station last week.
shortstop
@dmsilev: I am intrigued, dms. We were thinking of going to Glacier next summer and this could be a good way to do it — work most of a day in the Loop, bop over to Union Station and be in West Glacier the next night after taking in some awesome views along the way. We might not even need to rent a car because of the park shuttle system.
Phoebe
@garage mahal: Do it! Even more so if you have kids. They make friends with the other kids on the train and run around having fun but they can’t go anywhere or really get lost.
les
@garage mahal:
I’ve done the Southwest Chief, Kansas City to Santa Fe, with kid. It was absolutely great; being able to move around makes all the difference. Good food, awesome scenery; the only drawback is that the Southwest Chief, running the old Atchison-Topeka-Santa Fe line, doesn’t actually go to Santa Fe. Odd, that.
roshan
@jurassicpork:
An excellent post.
One more thing, next time, DON’T you be ashamed to post the actual title, which was this:
A Scholarly, Politically Scientific Explication and Treatise of Why Robert Gibbs Should Suck my Cock
Sentient Puddle
My experience with trains comes almost exclusively from Japan. Which means I think they fucking rock.
As much as I dislike air travel, I hate driving long distances even more (and buses aren’t much better in my mind). But trains, man, that would be pretty much the only way I’d ever travel. If we had the bloody infrastructure in the country to do it, that is…
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I took the train from London to Paris via the Chunnell back in May. Awesome. Took trains in France and Italy as well. Also too. Not a bad way to travel.
My understanding is that high speed rail would be a net gain time-wise versus air travel as long as the trip is less than 4-5 hours. Therefore, Milwaukee to Minneapolis would be a winner, New York to LA, not so much.
dmsilev
@garage mahal: There were several families on the train that I took, and the kids seemed to be having a pretty good time. Amtrak offers ‘family rooms’ which sleep four or five people, but there are only a couple of those per car, so they tend to sell out quickly.
dms
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus:
I took the Chunnel train several years ago. What was notable was that on the English side the train went really slowly. On the French side it went several times faster. Apparently it was the tracks on the English side that were the problem. I have heard they’ve upgraded them so there’s no difference, but it was really noticeable at the time.
So many trips in the US are less than 4-5 hours. Short hops like Houston-Dallas or Atlanta-Charlotte would really benefit from having a high speed train option. It’s so much more comfortable than a plane because you can get up and walk around.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Think about how much air congestion would be freed up (not to mention safety improvements) if the short-haul air industry got wiped out. Flights of 750 miles or more would be all thats left and suddenly our air infrastructure problems would be solved.
Jim C
@Pangloss:
4th busiest? That’s surprising even if it shouldn’t be.
I’m glad, and not surprised they are getting a new station. I only waited in the station once, and that was in bad weather. It was akin to a cattle car. Usually, everyone waiting for the train (esp. the Sunday afternoon train which may no longer exist) just filled the lawn and platform between the station and the rails. It would be nice for them to have a larger indoor area.
garage mahal
Thanks for the encouragement, but my problem is the lines run on the northern half of the state it looks like, and I’m headed to Billings, then to Bozeman. My sis would have to drive 4 1/2 hours to pick us up, and another 4 1/2 to drop us off. If I get a bedroom my cost appears to be close to $1700, am I looking at this right?
Shalimar
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Your chances that a straight Stephanie Miller will meet you and fall in love probably aren’t that much different than your chances that a gay Stephanie Miller will meet you and decide you’re the one guy in the world that she is attracted to. Not nil, but also nowhere near worth trying to meet her and propose your undying affection either.
Tokyokie
Another advantage of an efficient passenger train system is that the rail terminals are usually in or near downtown. So, counting the the time it take to get out to the airport and back on both ends (and the security theater), high-speed rail might save you time on trips up to about 1,000 miles.
Zuzu's Petals
I took an Amtrak trip cross country last year and loved it.
Bought a 15 day pass and (after visiting the Grand Canyon), caught the Southwest Chief in Flagstaff. Stopped in Santa Fe for an overnight. The route follows Route 66, so it was way scenic and fun.
Then changing trains in Chicago (a great afternoon walking around the lake area) to upstate NY for a family graduation, then down to visit a friend in NYC, then down to DC to visit another friend in Maryland. Then back to Chicago, where I caught the California Zephyr, which took me over the Rockies and the Sierras before depositing me in my hometown.
Sprang for a roomette, which was plenty comfy for one person…and no, I didn’t find any privacy problems with having a toilet in my room. If so I would have just gone down the hall to the bigger shared bathroom.
The downside? It’s a little like camping out in a tube shared with 100 other people, but there’s a sense of shared adventure. The dining car food was not bad, but the vegetarian selection limited…I had more Boca burgers than I care to count.
Whoever asked about cleanliness, it was fine on the sleeping cars. Coach had pretty clean passenger areas but bathrooms that could be on the ripe side by the time you pulled in.
We were never late either, even though we had to pull over and let commercial trains pass from time to time. My understanding is that Amtrak does not have the right of way because the private companies own the tracks.
NobodySpecial
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Fall back to plan B: Woo a cute bi-chick and get her in proximity of Miss Miller. Sharing is caring.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet:
@Martin:
Agreed.
Albatrossity
In my experience the long-haul trains west of Chicago are clean, roomy, and the food is good. The old Santa Fe Super Chief route from Chicago to LA is typical. Worth every nickel, and fabulous scenery along the route. Trains east of Chicago, not so great. Older cars, older tracks, iffy food.
Haven’t been on the Canadian trains, but I hear that they are excellent.
arguingwithsignposts
@NobodySpecial:
Should we ask for pics?
Zuzu's Petals
@les:
It’s actually not too bad. I got off at the little middle-of-nowhere stop and took the van shuttle into Santa Fe. Easy peasy and scenic.
russell
“I’ve never ridden Amtrak, would even consider that trip with two kids in tow?”
Get a family room and Bob’s your uncle. You can probably even make do with a full room, but the family room will be better.
It’s expensive, but you just pay a single charge for the room, no matter how many people are staying in it. You’ll be spreading that over four fares, so it will probably not be so bad.
But book early.
Amtrak in the northeast, and around Chicago, is pretty good. Long-haul, it gets kind of funky, because the rolling stock is really old (like, the bathrooms sometimes don’t work), and freights have priority because freight companies own the rails.
Food quality depends on whether you eat in the dining car or the club car. The dining car meals are included in the price of a room, but you can eat in the dining car on a pay-as-you-go basis even if you’re in coach. Club car is basically microwave automat food. Don’t get the turkey sandwich.
Net/net, you can have a good trip or a bad trip, but you will probably have a not-too-bad to pretty-good trip. And the scenery is spectacular.
The cars are a little grubby, although not really filthy, so if you’re a really, really, really neat person (like my wife) you might want to carry on some wipes and maybe some lavender spray.
If you’re on a long-haul ride, coach bathrooms will get funky by the end of the ride. Just saying.
p.a.
I’ve done Amtrak providence to N.O. twice (via Penn Station), 1991 and 1995, and could tell the effect of budget cuts between the 2 trips. (Food far superior on 1st trip). Still like it though. prov-washington and prov-baltimore close to a half dozen times. MBTA prov-Boston lots. It’s the only way to travel in the Northeast Corridor if at all possible.
And universal internet access is killing the social aspects of train travel, especially short hall. It’s almost as bad as being on a plane now; no one seems to talk.
My last trip to Baltimore the woman
I was about to sit next tonext to whom I was about to sit looked up at me and said “Just so you know, I’m going to be talking the whole trip.” I (jokingly) scowled at her and said, “to me!!?? “NO! With work.”She had 2 cell phones and a wifi’d laptop. Barely said 2 words to each other. sad.
Amanda in the South Bay
HSR really isn’t an option for trans continental travel; I think people are forgetting just how huge and geographically diverse the US is compared to Europe. HSR makes sense for regional travel, like the Bay Area to So Cal, Eugene to Vancouver, LA to Las Vegas, etc. Those are the routes that make it very, very competitive with flying and driving. Trans con, not so much.
LanceThruster
When I took the train to visit an East Bay area GF, I was less than thrilled. First I had to take a bus from the Pasadena Station to Bakersfield (I was towards the back of the bus and the smell of the restroom was pretty rank). For a coach bus, the seats were pretty uncomfortable and I was glad when the ride was over. Found a nice seat in the passenger car without a lot of tears in the vinyl, though there was a dank odor I couldn’t shake (didn’t notice till almost to Richmond that a half-eaten moldy sandwich was tossed to the back of the overhead luggage rack). Went down to the baggage compartment at almost every stop as it didn’t appear to be any security in place to prevent someone from just grabbing a bag and walking off (that was rather tiresome). Took me about 2-4 hours longer than driving it. Trip back along the coast was much more pleasant. After I stopped dating her, air fares had dropped to next to nothing.
fronobulax
Amtrak has its own tracks in a limited number of places – most notably, the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, at at least part of the Chicago-Detroit line.
Everywhere else, they run on tracks belonging the the freight railroads and are at their mercy for dispatching. While the freight railroads are *supposed* to give Amtrak trains priority (they agreed to this when Amtrak was formed so they could ditch passenger service), they know that the freight business pays their bills and act accordingly.
Amtrak runs their long distance trains more or less like cruise ships, and you need to adopt that attitude if you’re going to travel and stay sane.
It’s also worth pointing out that their equipment is often streatched to or beyond the breaking point, as the 8 years of Bushdom were not kind to them – in fact, the republicans did their best to kill Amtrak and it’s lucky they survived.
If you want European or Japanese level of train service, you’ve got to pay for it – and so far we seem reluctant to do this.
stuckinred
@dmsilev: Can you take dogs?
never mind, I looked it up.
NO!
georgia pig
@garage mahal: Did a great “car-free” vacation last year with my boys. Flew to St. Louis, stayed overnight in the city. Walked to the Amtrak station in the morning to board the Missouri Mule to Jefferson City to visit my sister. Jumped back on the Mule a few days later and went to KC. Had to kill time to catch the Southwest Chief, got a chance to hang around all day in KC, a town I had bypassed on the freeway a dozen or more times on car trips out west, but never spent any time in. It was a blast, I didn’t know there was that much to do in KC.
Went to Union Station around 9 after a great dinner. What a fantastic old building. We hung out at the station playing cards with a gaggle of Boy Scouts that were heading to Philmont Ranch in northern New Mexico. Got on the train at 11pm, bedded down in our two roomettes, which were cozy but comfortable. Gigantic midwestern thunderstorm kicks up, stayed up a good part of the night watching the lightning. Driving hail, sounded like the train was being buried in gravel. Wake up in somewhere near Dodge City, watch the plains give way to the Rockies. We were three hours behind schedule because of the storm knocking out the signals along the route. Pull into Lamy (Santa Fe) that afternoon. A truly wonderful experience.
The thing about the train is that it connects you to people and places in a way that a plane never can.
Erik T
I’ve done Amtrak from Portland (via Chicago) to Boston, Salem OR to Seattle, and from Chicago to NOLA. Uniformly good trips, although Chi-NOLA was FULL. I think “grubby” is maybe the right word for the cleanliness, although it has depended on my trip. Chicago-Boston was the dirtiest, but not too bad. In those four trips combined, I might have suffered five hours of delays.
To whoever mentioned smoking upthread, trains are 100% nonsmoking, although occasionally some stops will be lengthened to 10-15min for people to leave the car, stretch their legs and smoke if they wish.
Kerry Reid
I moved to San Francisco via Amtrak, which was actually quite lovely — the first full day was mostly in the Rockies, the second in the Sierras. For the latter, a nice gentleman from the California Historic Railroading Association or some-such joined us to call our attention to points of interest.
He had just said “And to your right is the Donner Pass, where the Donner Party met their infamous end” when my traveling companion turned to me and said “Wouldn’t this be a great time to announce lunch in the dining car?” And lo — they did!
(Also, Mark Twain’s “Cannibalism in the Cars” is one of my favorite short pieces.)
jl
@LanceThruster: The Central Valley Amtrak route used to be a reasonable way to get from SF Bay / Central Valley to Los Angeles years ago. The bus ride between Bakersfield and LA was a drag, but it was relatively short and had efficient routes to various parts of LA. If you had work to do and were not on a strict schedule, I think it beat the hassle of flying (but I dislike both SF and LA airports, so that may account for my opinion).
But not anymore. The bus route over the Tehachapi Mountains into LA is now a long drawn out mess and it takes forever. Not sure what happened. whether it was because of budget cuts or someone just wanted to wreck the service on principle.
Train travel between N. California and LA has never been a convenient option. Old timers tell me that there never was a good route because the Tehachapis are just too steep. I was told the freight route has a big loop in the Tehachapis where a person can watch the train go in a huge spiral, and it was considered an engineering breakthrough when it was built. I stopped by there once and watched a freight go through and it is pretty cool to see. Even in the heyday of private passenger service you had to either bus it over the mountains, or take a transcontinental out to Barstow and then transfer back to LA.
Or you go down the coast, which is a spectacular ride for the beautiful scenery, but takes a whole day.
Won’t be really good passenger service between So Cal and Nor Cal until there is a dedicated line with high speed rail, which is supposed to be underway. I hope it happens. I would take it over flying every time.
The freeways are such a mess in places between SF Bay and through Central Valley, the train is the best way to go down all the way to Bakersfield or to Sacramento, I think, unless you need a car locally. There are nice bus links from Amtrak to Sierra national parks.
geg6
I’ve taken Amtrak from here in Pittsburgh to DC several times. Takes the same amount of time as driving with none of the stress of the Beltway or navigating through the crazy traffic. I would say it was mostly clean but also a bit well worn in coach (bathrooms about like any public restroom). A few short delays but none long enough to make much difference in arrival time. And I just cannot say enough about the spectacular views and the benefits of legroom and being able to move around. I’d love, love, love to take a long, leisurely train vacation west. Some day.
NobodySpecial
@arguingwithsignposts: You can ask, but there’s a reason I’ve been caught on film exactly six times in ten years.
Turbulence
@jl: I recently spent some time backpacking in Yosemite — gorgeous place. I flew to Fresno and took Amtrak to the park. Well, I booked on Amtrak. They have a deal with YARTS, the local bus system such that you ride the train from Fresno to Merced and then transfer to a YARTS bus into the park. Very convenient and loads more fun than joining all those people stuck in huge traffic jams trying to get into or out of Yosemite (buses have dedicated lanes in the park).
matoko_chan
@Cole
what do you suppose is in Wikileaks crypted Insurance file?
do you think its a bluff?
strong, but not unbreakable.
because the gov’t crypto hackers are pretty l33t and the gov owns the supercomputers to do codebreaking……
is Assange boasting not only a smoking gun on the gov’t’s head but also that his hackers are better than gov’t hackers?
mebbe Assange used quantum encryption….that is the only ‘unbreakable’ encoding i know of.
:)
LanceThruster
@jl:
Thank you kindly for all the detailed feedback. It was my 1st and only (so far) long haul train excursion (Metro Rail doesn’t count). Someday, I hope to do the Canadian one across the Continental Divide (coast to coast if I can swing it). The Discovery Channel pictures of the loops and switchbacks were fascinating. I do remember that I enjoyed immensely those times where there was a long curve (they usually announced them too) and I could look back and/or forward at the rest of the cars in the train, particularly where the shift in direction reminds you of watching toys trains proceed along the toy track.
LanceThruster
Quick question to those in the know. Train toilets used to dump right onto the tracks, no? I think it was even that way in ’88 when I traveled it. Is that accurate and has that changed?
shortstop
@Kerry Reid:
Occasionally the third baseman, feeling sophomoric, will give the last name “Donner” to a restaurant host for a waiting list. The looks on people’s faces when we’re called are mildly amusing.
jl
@Turbulence: YARTS is pretty reliable and quick. I know that some people who work in Yosemite use them to commute if they live in Mariposa or around El Portel. And driving around Yosemite or Sequoia parks can be a true hassle, especially in the summer. The buses start early and go late into evening, which is good.
Only problem I see with the Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon buses is that they don’t have convenient integration between big tourist attractions (Yosemite Valley and Big Trees) and routes to high country, if you want to do some hiking there.
Lance Thruster: I cannot believe that the train potties dump onto the tracks, but do not know for sure.
Munira
@Chuck: They are completely non-smoking now. I took amtrak from Montreal to Seattle and back with a roomette and loved it. I plan to do it again next winter. I didn’t even care if it was late. I had plenty of time between connections so never missed one.
MaryRC
@Citizen_X: I think you’d like the Atlas of True Names.
Turbulence
@matoko_chan: strong, but not unbreakable.
No, actually, it pretty much is unbreakable in practice.
because the gov’t crypto hackers are pretty l33t and the gov owns the supercomputers to do codebreaking……
For modern cryptography, supercomputers are irrelevant. Unless you have one supercomputer for every atom in the universe and you have been running them 24/7 for the last billion years. To crack a single document.
And there are crypto experts who think the government’s top crypto guys are weak sauce these days. Declassified documents indicate that the government was never very far ahead of non-government cryptographers back in the day. Cryptography as a field moves ahead as people build on the work of others; progress seems proportional to the square of the number of people in your community. The government crypto community is a lot smaller than the non-government crypto community. They can’t just bounce ideas with the non-gov cryptographers or have wild parties or interesting collaborations. That really limits them.
I knew a lot of hard core math and crypto geeks in school; none of them went to work for the NSA although several interviewed with them. Once you end up doing classified work it can be difficult to get jobs in the non-classified world. The pay is often worse and the opportunities are fewer and less interesting.
is Assange boasting not only a smoking gun on the gov’t’s head but also that his hackers are better than gov’t hackers?
How ignorant are you? Seriously, do you know anything about cryptography at all?
SteveinSC
@roshan: @jurassicpork: Gibbs can kiss my ass as well, unless it gives him a boner, and then no deal. I’m really beginning to see things the Potterville-way: Bush-Redux. And by the way, fuck Rahm Emmanuel.
Munira
@Albatrossity: I’ve also taken Canadian via rail all across Canada and they’re no better than amtrak but much more expensive. They have the same problem with freight trains owning the tracks and lots of lateness. Also, they don’t run every day west of Toronto and if you’re coming from the east, you have to spend the night in Toronto because you can’t catch the train out west the same day. Great scenery though.
dmsilev
@Munira: When I was a kid, my family tried to do the Canadian transcontinental, going from Vancouver to Toronto, stopping at a couple of places in the mountains to do some hiking. I say ‘tried’ because we made it as far as Banff before CN went on strike for some reason or another. Ended up taking a bus to the nearest airport (Edmonton, if memory serves) and flying to Toronto.
dms
Nylund
Longest train ride I ever took was 12 hours and I remember being quite ready to get off of the train when it was over. I like trains for a couple hours, but eventually, I just want to actually be at my destination.
My best friend took Amtrak from SF to NYC (via the south as U remember stories of Louisiana, etc.). He loved it for the first two or three days, but was in hell by the end. He said he’d never do it again.
Zuzu's Petals
@dmsilev:
My train aficionado friend tells me that, since I’m often in Portland, I should take the Empire Builder out of Portland to Glacier National Park. Says it only stops in East Glacier from spring to fall months, but the stop is close to a nice hotel, and the scenery is fantastic.
Zuzu's Petals
@Rosalita:
The Capitol Corridor between Sacramento and the Bay Area is also a fast, comfy trip geared toward commuters…wifi is in the works if not already on board. Not much longer than driving and no traffic or parking to hassle with. Plus you get to really enjoy the wonderful scenery.
Zuzu's Petals
@R-Jud:
The first class lounge at Chicago’s Union Station (for sleeper car passengers) is a thing of beauty.
EJ
Don’t think the Europeans necessarily have it all figured out.
I was in the UK last fall and train schedules got all fankled up because of “leaves on the line.” Apparently heavy autumn leaf fall forms itself into a wet, greasy slick on the tracks and screws up braking distances, so they have to leave much more spacing between trains. (their trains are considerably smaller and lighter than ours, so I think that’s a contributing factor).
The other thing I never figured out was the constant announcements of cancelled services due to “signal failures.” I mean, modern railway signals are all solid-state, right? The way they fail over there you’d think it was still a man carrying a lamp.
jl
@EJ: Your stories seem to be from the UK, which is different from Yurrp. The UK has had problems with their rail service since their half baked rail privatization experiments commenced, though I have no idea whether that is the cause of your examples.
Rosalita: Capital Corridor is very good, and I prefer it to the lottery of driving the I80 between SF Bay and Sacramento. I quit driving that route after many trips snarled in traffic jams and when walking seemed like a better bet for being on time.
Zuzu's Petals
@jl:
Re Capitol Corridor, I agree. And even getting into SF is not a big hassle…just take the shuttle bus across the bay. I haven’t driven down to the Bay Area in years.
John D.
@matoko_chan: Um, what?
AES256 is, effectively, unbreakable by current standards. It’s unbreakable by brute-force, period. The best non-side-channel attacks reduce the complexity all the way to 2^131 time. Or, you can have a lucky 1 in 2 to the 35 shot that drops it to 2 to the 120 time. (Dunno why it refused to render the caret between 2 and 35 and 2 and 120)
When cryptographers say things like “AES256 cannot model an ideal cipher”, they mean than it has a vulnerability. They do NOT mean that the vulnerability can be exploited in anything like the lifetime of the universe.
LanceThruster
Turns out the toilet in question is called a “hopper toilet” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_train_toilets#Hopper_toilet ) and tend to be seen only on older rolling stock.
Signs commemorating this heritage are readily available.
(see: http://www.historicrail.com/product_info.po?ID=3762&product=Home++D%C3%A9cor&category=trains&subcategory=Passenger%20Cars )