# Bon voyage!



## Twin Star Rocket (Jul 15, 2018)

It's been 25 years since I've travelled on Canadian trains. One of the moments I enjoyed was listening to the bilingual announcements at major station stops like Capreol and Sudbury.


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## NS VIA Fan (Jul 16, 2018)

If you enjoyed the announcements in 'major' stations like Capreol and Sudbury....then you'll really enjoy them in Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto! Just part of our heritage and culture.

In stations and on trains in Quebec.....announcements will be in French first followed by English and in the rest of the country.....English followed by French. You will also notice the predominantly French speaking areas along the route of the Ocean as it heads north from Moncton through Bathurst, Petit Rocher (Little Rock) and Campbellton, New Brunswick. But these are Acadians ('Cajun' ancestry) not Quebecois. Moncton with a bilingual population is the location of a VIA call centre.

I was on the Maple Leaf from Niagara Falls, ON to Toronto last month and the couple sitting across from me were quite surprised at the bilingual announcements......not realizing we now had a VIA Crew......not Amtrak.

Does Amtrak make bilingual announcements in Spanish speaking areas of the US? Do they print timetables in Spanish (guess it would just be a PDF now!) like they have always provided in French for the Adirondack (and going way back: the Montrealer) Scroll to page 3 here and also note that the Adirondack uses 'gare' Grand Central Term in NYC!

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/timetables/Adirondack-Schedule-052618.pdf

But someone has made a mistake here in their translation: In the top right corner of page 3 they show an effective date of '26 mayo 2018' That's Spanish!. May is 'mai' in French.


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## Palmetto (Jul 16, 2018)

There are no bilingual announcements on Amtrak trains that I'm aware of. That would stand to reason, given that there's only one official language in the USA. Switzerland, with its four, is quite a different story!


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## Twin Star Rocket (Jul 16, 2018)

Never heard a bilingual announcement aboard an Amtrak train or at an Amtrak station!

I have seen a bilingual schedule for the SUNSET LIMITED/TEXAS EAGLE.


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## JRR (Jul 16, 2018)

Twin Star Rocket said:


> Never heard a bilingual announcement aboard an Amtrak train or at an Amtrak station!
> 
> I have seen a bilingual schedule for the SUNSET LIMITED/TEXAS EAGLE.


The Tri-Rail in South Florida does bi-lingual announcements -English/ Spanish.


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## NS VIA Fan (Jul 16, 2018)

JRR said:


> The Tri-Rail in South Florida does bi-lingual announcements -English/ Spanish.


Thats encouraging.....and I also noticed that times Ive been on some Transit Systems in the US....announcements might not be bilingual but a lot of signage is English-Spanish.


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## AlamoWye (Jul 16, 2018)

The USA as a country does not have an official language of any kind. Some states have declared English as their official language.


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## jis (Jul 16, 2018)

NS VIA Fan said:


> JRR said:
> 
> 
> > The Tri-Rail in South Florida does bi-lingual announcements -English/ Spanish.
> ...


Most signage on Brightline is bilingual.
Indian Railways has a minimally trilingual policy - Hindi (National Language), English (International Language) and at least one (sometimes more than one) local language (e.g. Bengali in Kolkata, Urdu in Delhi, Tamil in Chennai, Marathi in Mumbai). Admittedly India is a much more complicated melting pot than the US, although most Americans have no idea.


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## railiner (Jul 16, 2018)

I have never heard any bi-lingual announcements at any Amtrak location. Even in the days of the 'Inter-American' going to the border city of Laredo.

Greyhound Lines bus terminal's across the country used to have a professional announcer make pre-recorded announcements. In the southwestern states, he made announcements in English and Spanish.

In Chicago and Detroit, the thru interline schedules that ran all the way to Montreal were announced by him in English, followed by a female announcer in French...


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## Bob Dylan (Jul 16, 2018)

Twin Star Rocket said:


> Never heard a bilingual announcement aboard an Amtrak train or at an Amtrak station!
> 
> I have seen a bilingual schedule for the SUNSET LIMITED/TEXAS EAGLE.


Yep,and several Cities along the border and in the South and SW have bi-lingual signage on Commuter Vehicles.( Rail and Bus)


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## Palmetto (Jul 16, 2018)

AlamoWye said:


> The USA as a country does not have an official language of any kind. Some states have declared English as their official language.



Thank you for that. My misconception seems to be a common one from what I've read.


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## cpotisch (Jul 16, 2018)

Palmetto said:


> There are no bilingual announcements on Amtrak trains that I'm aware of. That would stand to reason, given that there's only one official language in the USA.


We don't have an official language.


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## cpotisch (Jul 16, 2018)

AlamoWye said:


> The USA as a country does not have an official language of any kind. Some states have declared English as their official language.


Darn. You beat me to it.


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## Blackwolf (Jul 16, 2018)

Palmetto said:


> There are no bilingual announcements on Amtrak trains that I'm aware of. That would stand to reason, given that there's only one official language in the USA. Switzerland, with its four, is quite a different story!


The United States of America does not have an official language. There was a push I believe in the '80s to legislate English as such, but it was killed off pretty solidly in Congress.
However, there are indeed States with language laws for official business purposes. Interestingly enough, California's official first language is Spanish!! English takes a second seat. A very facinating bit of trivia is that the California State Constitution and the Articles of Statehood were drafted and written in Spanish first. They were then translated into English. This was done September 9th, 1850!


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## AlamoWye (Jul 16, 2018)

It seems that only two states actually have an official language other than English: Hawai'i and Alaska. Alaska in fact has 20 other co-official languages. Of course the territories have Spanish, Chamorro, Samoan as official languages.


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