# Route Timetable PDFs returning? (2021-2022)



## lrh442 (Jun 17, 2021)

In response to my correspondence to Amtrak urging them to reinstate timetables, I received an email today from the "Amtrak Center of Excellence" stating that "PDF timetables will return to the website by September of this year." 
I don't know why it will take them 3 months to do this, but I guess our fears that the-end-is-nigh were unfounded (at least for timetables).

What the Center of Excellence is, and why the trains themselves appear to be far from that hallowed center, is another topic...


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## zephyr17 (Jun 17, 2021)

Amtrak appears to use a much different definition of "excellence" than the common one.

It is not a synonym of "mediocre" as they seem to think it is.


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## mitako (Jun 17, 2021)

Wow, when I messaged them about it, I was told that they were returning "soon" once daily routes returned. I wonder why it's going to take months now.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 17, 2021)

mitako said:


> Wow, when I messaged them about it, I was told that they were returning "soon" once daily routes returned. I wonder why it's going to take months now.


They also appear to using the same dictionary to define "soon" that they use for "excellence" .


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## Qapla (Jun 17, 2021)

Since many Disc Jockeys say they will play "new music in moments" and take an hour or more to do so ... it should not surprise us that Amtrak would call 3 months "soon"


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## railiner (Jun 17, 2021)

zephyr17 said:


> They also appear to using the same dictionary to define "soon" that they use for "excellence" .


Like, "shortly"?


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## AmtrakBlue (Jun 17, 2021)

Ask my hungry kitty how long “soon” is.


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## Palmland (Jun 17, 2021)

Wow, we all complained about no timetables, now we complain about how long it takes. I’m just glad it’s going to happen. I hope there will be a consolidated version of all routes as well as each route individually. Those new to Amtrak (as well as us railfans) would make it easier to see what routes are available and plan trips.


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2021)

Palmland said:


> Wow, we all complained about no timetables, now we complain about how long it takes.


Do you think it should take three months for them to take the days of operation off, and maybe change 3 paragraphs?


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## joelkfla (Jun 17, 2021)

Cal said:


> Do you think it should take three months for them to take the days of operation off, and maybe change 3 paragraphs?


They also need to change the food service info and station staffing. Maybe they're waiting until all that shakes out, so they don't have to go in every week as station staff is gradually added. Maybe (hopefully) we'll even have some food service updates in the East by then.


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> They also need to change the food service info and station staffing. Maybe they're waiting until all that shakes out, so they don't have to go in every week as station staff is gradually added. Maybe (hopefully) we'll even have some food service updates in the East by then.


They added/removed agents from stations when trains went daily? 

And the food service is still just a small paragraph..


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## joelkfla (Jun 17, 2021)

Cal said:


> They added/removed agents from stations when trains went daily?


Somebody said one of the bills in Congress would require them to restaff stations that had been destaffed recently. I think the destaffing was pre-COVID.


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> Somebody said one of the bills in Congress would require them to restaff stations that had been destaffed recently. I think the destaffing was pre-COVID.


Still, I don't think it should take three months...


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## joelkfla (Jun 17, 2021)

Cal said:


> Still, I don't think it should take three months...


I don't disagree, but from Amtrak's perspective, maybe they're just waiting for everything to stabilize.


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## AmtrakBlue (Jun 17, 2021)

Maybe they're in talks with the freight RR's regarding OTP and anticipating changes to the times, like they did with the Crescent.


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## railiner (Jun 17, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Maybe they're in talks with the freight RR's regarding OTP and anticipating changes to the times, like they did with the Crescent.


I certainly hope they don't lengthen any more schedules like they did with the Crescent...I think they were wrong to give in to the NS...they should have held them to at least the same running time as they inherited from when the Southern Railway gave the train to Amtrak...JMHO....


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Maybe they're in talks with the freight RR's regarding OTP and anticipating changes to the times, like they did with the Crescent.


I see this being plausible.


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## neroden (Jun 18, 2021)

mitako said:


> Wow, when I messaged them about it, I was told that they were returning "soon" once daily routes returned. I wonder why it's going to take months now.


Suspicions are that it's related to the 25 unfilled job openings in Amtrak's IT department, which is not in good shape right now, and which obviously has to be involved in producing the timetables.


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## west point (Jun 18, 2021)

There may be more schedule changes. Maybe even the northbound Crescent ? If Amtrak should change that train to an earlier time then it would not want the present timetables out there to have persons reading later times. That can apply to any train IMO.


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## Cal (Jun 18, 2021)

west point said:


> There may be more schedule changes. Maybe even the northbound Crescent ? If Amtrak should change that train to an earlier time then it would not want the present timetables out there to have persons reading later times. That can apply to any train IMO.


Northbound Crescent already got a schedule change.


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## west point (Jun 18, 2021)

My point is just because there is one schedule change any route might get another schedule change


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## johnmiller (Jun 18, 2021)

lrh442 said:


> I received an email today from the "Amtrak Center of Excellence."
> 
> What the Center of Excellence is, and why the trains themselves appear to be far from that hallowed center, is another topic...



Definitely Corporate Speak at its finest!  Why not the Center of Insolence? Sounds better, doesn't it?


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## Palmetto (Jun 18, 2021)

deleted


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 18, 2021)

We probably all assume that Amtrak has hundreds of people sitting around to work on things like timetables. I've worked in enough major corporations to know that any given department might have 3 or 4 people available for any given project, and usually they have six emergencies they are already working on. I bet there are about four people at Amtrak who know how to update a PDF, much less print and distribute them. And that's assuming they didn't get laid off and found better office jobs somewhere else. 

I miss the National Timetable, but we're never going to see that again!


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## Trogdor (Jun 18, 2021)

neroden said:


> Suspicions are that it's related to the 25 unfilled job openings in Amtrak's IT department, which is not in good shape right now, and which obviously has to be involved in producing the timetables.



Back in the day, the PDF timetables were a joint project between marketing and a graphic design contractor. IT wasn’t involved at all, other than perhaps uploading them to the website.


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## joelkfla (Jun 18, 2021)

Here's the answer I just got to an inquiry I sent last week. So believe whomever you choose.

Thank you for contacting us.
 
Amtrak is in the process of automating timetables and has discontinued traditional PDF timetables on Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes. We apologize for any inconvenience.

For assistance with reviewing schedules and fares, please call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245). Press '0' to bypass the automated system. A Reservation Sales Agent will be happy to help you; 24 hours a day.

We hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely, 
Brian
Amtrak Center of Excellence


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## jis (Jun 19, 2021)

I guess Brian is yet to be programmed with the latest twists and turns? Afterall it is the same organization that is weeks if not months behind updating everything on their web site  including removing said PDFs.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 19, 2021)

jis said:


> I guess Brian is yet to be programmed with the latest twists and turns? Afterall it is the same organization that is weeks if not months behind updating everything on their web site  including removing said PDFs.


There's the Center of Excellence for you.


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## me_little_me (Jun 19, 2021)

"Center of Excellence" - is that like the eye of the tornado where everything around you is in motion but nothing happens where you are?

Edit: I think I'll copyright it or at least put it in my signature.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 19, 2021)

Well, you have to admit it at least sounds better than a truthful title:

"Brian
Amtrak Pit of Mediocrity"


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## chrsjrcj (Jun 19, 2021)

I received nearly an identical email today:


Thank you for contacting us with your inquiry.

We apologize for the delay in responding. We have had a high volume of email correspondence.

We are in the process of automating timetables and have discontinued traditional PDF timetables. Timetable automation is expected to be completed sometime in September. We apologize for any inconvenience while the new solution is being implemented.

In the meantime, you can view our schedules on Amtrak.com through the “Schedules” tab. Simply enter in your Origin and Destination and click the “Find Schedules” button. Please call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245), 24/7, should you need assistance. Press '0' to speak with an Amtrak reservations agent.

We look forward to serving you aboard Amtrak.

Sincerely,

Pamela C.
Amtrak Center of Excellence


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## jis (Jun 19, 2021)

I wonder how many names are in the list to pick from for automatically including in the signature block of that email. Maybe we should start building a list and see how many we can capture in it


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## toddinde (Jun 20, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> Here's the answer I just got to an inquiry I sent last week. So believe whomever you choose.
> 
> Thank you for contacting us.
> 
> ...


May I ask what an “automated timetable” is?


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## jis (Jun 20, 2021)

toddinde said:


> May I ask what an “automated timetable” is?


By their own statement, whatever you find under the "Schedule" tab on amtrak.com is the "Automated Timetable" being referred to.


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## MARC Rider (Jun 20, 2021)

toddinde said:


> May I ask what an “automated timetable” is?


For most of my life I used the words "timetable" and "schedule" interchangeably, but I think that the use of "schedule" on the Amtrak web site means a selection of the alternatives available that travel between the original and destination point selected on the date selected. Thus, if I ask for a schedule between Baltimore to Chicago on a date that the Cardinal runs, I will get 3 possibilities: the usual NER/Capitol Limited, NER/Lakeshore Limited, and the Through train Cardinal. The "schedule" includes information and calling times for the connections, but no other information about the routes and the available accommodations for each leg of the journey. However, it gives no information about the route traveled, and someone making reservations might wonder why travel times range from 17 hours to 24 hours.

On the other hand, a "timetable" provides information about all of the stations along the route and allows one to compare trains and possible connections without having to constantly be pinging into the Amtrak reservation system. Aside from railfangeekiness, this is certainly helpful to people who are planning trips that involve connections between services that have multiple daily departures. It also helps potential passengers plan the dates of their trips by quickly showing differences in service on different days of the week, and such. 

Sometimes I think that web pages are designed by people who have been taught that the ideal web page should force a user to stay connected and maximize the number of times a user accesses the web site. While I understand why someone might do this for content that sells ads based on the number of views, it's very frustrating for customers who just want to do their business giving their money to a company as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, most websites I've dealt with seem to operate on that design principle. I think someone needs to teach programmers that all the "bells and whistles" aren't necessarily a good thing.


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## jis (Jun 20, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> For most of my life I used the words "timetable" and "schedule" interchangeably, but I think that the use of "schedule" on the Amtrak web site means a selection of the alternatives available that travel between the original and destination point selected on the date selected. Thus, if I ask for a schedule between Baltimore to Chicago on a date that the Cardinal runs, I will get 3 possibilities: the usual NER/Capitol Limited, NER/Lakeshore Limited, and the Through train Cardinal. The "schedule" includes information and calling times for the connections, but no other information about the routes and the available accommodations for each leg of the journey. However, it gives no information about the route traveled, and someone making reservations might wonder why travel times range from 17 hours to 24 hours.


It does provide a lot of information about the train you choose to look at the Details for though. And you do get many more possible connections than just the three you mentioned, since there are many Regionals and Acelas that potentially connect to the Cap and the LSL I suppose.

As you can see, the Details includes all station stops on the way, the accommodation available on the train and basically everything one expects in the timetable footnotes or symbols. I am not sure that bickering over whether it is a timetable or schedule is a good use of time, since it is what it is no matter what you choose to call it. What it is not is a printable timetable that we were familiar with in the pre-Web days. In some sense it is exactly what one would expect when searching for stuff on the web, and someone who has been brought up in the web culture, having never experienced what came before, would be perfectly at home with this.

The Details block actually has live links under many of the items that takes you to further information popups which is kind of neat. Unfortunately they do not have links from the accommodation items to info popup. Those pointing to what each accommodation looks like would be an improvement I think. Would be even neater if it showed the current fare for that combo. But that will require some fancy cross linking between two complex modules. But if done right it should not be hard to achieve.

Now do I miss the PDF stuff. Of course Yes. But for someone casually trying to figure out where to travel and how to get there, this seems to be more or less adequate. For most of my everyday needs I could live with this. OTOH, this is inadequate to satisfy my railfan urges.

All IMHO of course.


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## Barb Stout (Jun 20, 2021)

There are some people who have problems reading a timetable like the pdfs that Amtrak used to have. My sister is one of them. I have to be the person to figure out the schedule when we travel together. I'm not sure what the exact difficulty is, but I'm wondering if this new version might be easier for her.


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## west point (Jun 20, 2021)

different persons read differently. School teachers say this is a big problem getting the various persons to be able to read. Amtrak should not try to put some square pegs in a round hole..
Try to get some persons to read a map is another example. Even persons from the south trying to navigate the cornfields of the Midwest from the air. At times drove me crazy.


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## toddinde (Jun 20, 2021)

jis said:


> By their own statement, whatever you find under the "Schedule" tab on amtrak.com is the "Automated Timetable" being referred to.


Are ya sure?


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## Skeets (Jun 20, 2021)

I will be watching for the new timetables to print out for my upcoming Rail Pass trip. I have copies of the old ones as well as route guides just in case the new ones are not ready by then.


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## toddinde (Jun 20, 2021)

I was a member of the National Association of Timetable Collectors. A great organization!


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## TheTuck (Jun 20, 2021)

Automated timetables might very well be more appealing to the masses.. but they're not being made available for at least 3 months. Meanwhile Amtrak is choosing not to maintain the PDF timetables for the entire summer travel season! Pretty much any white collar worker in 2021 is capable of updating a PDF file. Amtrak is simply choosing not to prioritize this.

Website traffic might be able to find the info they need without consulting a timetable. But what about at stations and on board the trains? How can Amtrak simply not provide such basic information about their business?


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## niemi24s (Jun 20, 2021)

But if everybody on board had a timetable, everybody would be able to tell how late their train was!

Oh, horrors!


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## chrsjrcj (Jun 20, 2021)

What's the difference between an "automated timetable" and the clunky site where Amtrak is directing users to now? It's very overwhelming when you put in an origin and destination and see a dozen choices with only one being a direct train.

Even more useless for the Cardinal and Sunset Limited. Put in NOL-HOU for one of the 4 days the Sunset Limited doesn't run and nothing even comes up. A non-aficionado would eliminate the train option after that.

ETA: I notice the PDF timetables are still available for both triweekly trains. Somehow Amtrak can manage that, but not update the other long distance trains to reflect daily status.


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## jebr (Jun 20, 2021)

jis said:


> Now do I miss the PDF stuff. Of course Yes. But for someone casually trying to figure out where to travel and how to get there, this seems to be more or less adequate. For most of my everyday needs I could live with this. OTOH, this is inadequate to satisfy my railfan urges.



There's too many issues with the experience for me to find it even adequate as a replacement for the PDF timetables. I don't see a way to have a full itinerary if the trip goes through more than 10 stations (there's a tap/click to see next 10 stations, but then the previous 10 disappear,) there's no information about the intermediate station stops beyond scheduled arrival/departure time, and there's no print-friendly option that minimizes white space and makes it look relatively clean when printed.

One other major downfall is that there's no central location to see connecting Thruway schedules along the route, or even little notes to indicate what transfer options might be available. There's quite a few times where it's hard to tell if a connection to a Thruway route doesn't work because of an actual timing issue, or if it's just ARROW being ARROW and not having the route properly built.

I don't mind if Amtrak automates it, or if it's a bit less polished around the edges. But it needs to be usable for most use cases first, and I consider "being able to print out the timetable for a route with a single print job" one of those essential use cases.


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## railiner (Jun 20, 2021)

Historically, in railroad operating rule definition's, the timetable listed all the stations, and all the _regular _trains that ran. The schedule was that part of the timetable that listed the operating times for a particular train. Under timetable and train order rules, the timetable granted the authority of trains to be at a particular place at a particular time, and established meeting points. The timetable's were extensive, and were also often accompanied with timetable special instructions...


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## railiner (Jun 20, 2021)

Barb Stout said:


> There are some people who have problems reading a timetable like the pdfs that Amtrak used to have. My sister is one of them. I have to be the person to figure out the schedule when we travel together. I'm not sure what the exact difficulty is, but I'm wondering if this new version might be easier for her.


All too true. Back in ancient times, when I was in grade school, one of my teacher's, maybe fifth grade?, taught us how to read railroad, bus, and airline timetables, as well as the NYTimes shipping schedules. Now it's a 'lost art', replaced long ago by quick reference type tables...


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## Cal (Jun 20, 2021)

chrsjrcj said:


> ETA: I notice the PDF timetables are still available for both triweekly trains. Somehow Amtrak can manage that, but not update the other long distance trains to reflect daily status.


That's simply because nothing is changing for those schedules with the resumption of daily service, they don't need to change the days of operations to daily, so they kept it.


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## MARC Rider (Jun 20, 2021)

chrsjrcj said:


> Even more useless for the Cardinal and Sunset Limited. Put in NOL-HOU for one of the 4 days the Sunset Limited doesn't run and nothing even comes up. A non-aficionado would eliminate the train option after that.


That should be a pretty easy fix on an automated timetable. Just program to give a message detailing the closest days to the requested date (on both sides of the requested date) that the train runs. I've seen online airline schedules that do that very well for non-daily services.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 20, 2021)

railiner said:


> Historically, in railroad operating rule definition's, the timetable listed all the stations, and all the _regular _trains that ran. The schedule was that part of the timetable that listed the operating times for a particular train. Under timetable and train order rules, the timetable granted the authority of trains to be at a particular place at a particular time, and established meeting points. The timetable's were extensive, and were also often accompanied with timetable special instructions...


But public timetables had no authority at all. They reflected the times in employee timetables, which did confer authority.


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## jis (Jun 20, 2021)

toddinde said:


> Are ya sure?


Yes.


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## drdumont (Jun 21, 2021)

Got this response yesterday (my 2nd inquiry, different email address) on 06-20-2021

Dear DrDuMont,_Thank you for contacting us. 

We are in the process of automating timetables and have discontinued traditional PDF timetables. Timetable automation is expected to be completed sometime in September. We apologize for any inconvenience while the new solution is being implemented. 

In the meantime, you can view our schedules on Amtrak.com through the “Schedules” tab. Simply enter in your Origin and Destination and click the “Find Schedules” button. Please call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245), 24/7, should you need assistance. Press '0' to speak with an Amtrak reservations agent. 

We look forward to serving you aboard Amtrak.

Sincerely,
Alicia M._


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## jis (Jun 21, 2021)

OK, so now we have Brian, Pamela and Alicia


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## mitako (Jun 21, 2021)

It is mind boggling to me that a transportation company with only around 20 routes, the vast majority of which only run once per day, cannot provide a complete schedule of each route showing all stops along the way. Why on earth would they not maintain the PDF, printable schedules? It costs them nothing to do so; the schedules already exist. Their automated schedules are useless while actually on the LD trains in the vast stretches without wifi, and also useless if I don't already know exactly what station I want to board and what station I want to detrain. I swear Amtrak intentionally makes it difficult to plan trips using their service.


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## mitako (Jun 21, 2021)

Another thought: The only place I've ever seen the many Amtrak thruway routes indicated is on the individual schedules. If not for looking at an individual schedule for a specific route, I wouldn't even know the thruway options existed. How will those be handled in an "automated system" if the customer doesn't specifically know to look for them? Is Amtrak still running those thruway buses?


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## jis (Jun 21, 2021)

mitako said:


> It is mind boggling to me that a transportation company with only around 20 routes, the vast majority of which only run once per day, cannot provide a complete schedule of each route showing all stops along the way. Why on earth would they not maintain the PDF, printable schedules? It costs them nothing to do so; the schedules already exist. Their automated schedules are useless while actually on the LD trains in the vast stretches without wifi, and also useless if I don't already know exactly what station I want to board and what station I want to detrain. I swear Amtrak intentionally makes it difficult to plan trips using their service.


At least so far AFAICT, the "Schedule" tab in the Smartphone App does not lead you to any Schedule at all, so there is that too.

Only on the web interface does the Schedule tab lead to any schedule.

This entire things seems to be an exercise in the customers receiving outputs of each sprint from the development project with random pieces of functionality showing up every so often, instead of the release of a nicely packaged consistently usable App both on the web and in Smartphone Apps.

It is an exercise at showcasing how not to present software projects outcome to customers and how not to treat your customers.


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## mitako (Jun 21, 2021)

jis said:


> Only on the web interface does the Schedule tab lead to any schedule.



When I go to the Amtrak website and click on "schedules," I just get the option to look up a station-to-station trip. I do not get actual schedules anywhere. It is so frustrating, because I use those schedules to plan multi-leg trips, and I don't always know what stations are options on which routes.


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## jis (Jun 21, 2021)

mitako said:


> When I go to the Amtrak website and click on "schedules," I just get the option to look up a station-to-station trip. I do not get actual schedules anywhere. It is so frustrating, because I use those schedules to plan multi-leg trips, and I don't always know what stations are options on which routes.


Click on the "Details" that shows up at each choice. It will show you the schedule for that choice. It is no substitute for getting a full time table, but at least the times at each station on the way is available.


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## railiner (Jun 21, 2021)

zephyr17 said:


> But public timetables had no authority at all. They reflected the times in employee timetables, which did confer authority.


Yes. I was just quoting the way they defined what a “schedule” was.


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## Eric in East County (Jun 21, 2021)

Somebody might already have pointed this out, but if not . . .

We just looked over the timetables/schedules from previous years for the two long-distance trains that we will be taking in a few weeks: *Southwest Chief* (the one effective July 31, 2018), and *Capitol Limited* (the one effective March 4, 2019). The arrival and departure times are identical those that these trains are currently using. 

If you’re like us and *must* have a *printed copy* of the timetable/schedule of the train you’re riding on to see if it is running on schedule, check your old timetables. There just might be something there you can use until the new printed timetables are available.

Eric & Pat


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## joelkfla (Jun 21, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> For most of my life I used the words "timetable" and "schedule" interchangeably, but I think that the use of "schedule" on the Amtrak web site means a selection of the alternatives available that travel between the original and destination point selected on the date selected. Thus, if I ask for a schedule between Baltimore to Chicago on a date that the Cardinal runs, I will get 3 possibilities: the usual NER/Capitol Limited, NER/Lakeshore Limited, and the Through train Cardinal. The "schedule" includes information and calling times for the connections, but no other information about the routes and the available accommodations for each leg of the journey. However, it gives no information about the route traveled, and someone making reservations might wonder why travel times range from 17 hours to 24 hours.
> 
> On the other hand, a "timetable" provides information about all of the stations along the route and allows one to compare trains and possible connections without having to constantly be pinging into the Amtrak reservation system. Aside from railfangeekiness, this is certainly helpful to people who are planning trips that involve connections between services that have multiple daily departures. It also helps potential passengers plan the dates of their trips by quickly showing differences in service on different days of the week, and such.
> 
> Sometimes I think that web pages are designed by people who have been taught that the ideal web page should force a user to stay connected and maximize the number of times a user accesses the web site. While I understand why someone might do this for content that sells ads based on the number of views, it's very frustrating for customers who just want to do their business giving their money to a company as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, most websites I've dealt with seem to operate on that design principle. I think someone needs to teach programmers that all the "bells and whistles" aren't necessarily a good thing.


I sent a reply to the Center of Excellence asking what if someone onboard a train with no wifi or cell service wants to know what time the train is scheduled to arrive at a station further down the line, or if someone wants to compare different routes and amenities. No answer yet.

As to what an "automated timetable" is, who knows? It could be anything from limited info on the website, to a pdf similar to what we're used to but generated by a computer instead of a staffer.


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## jis (Jun 21, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> I sent a reply to the Center of Excellence asking what if someone onboard a train with no wifi or cell service wants to know what time the train is scheduled to arrive at a station further down the line, or if someone wants to compare different routes and amenities. No answer yet.


You just might have crashed the Center of Excellence equivalent of the "WOPR (War Operations Plan Response supercomputer pronounced "whopper"") if you remember the movie "War Games"


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 21, 2021)

Just another plug for Dixieland Software's real time handy dandy schedules in several convenient formats....



Amtrak Status Maps



Lake Shore Limited (PDF Schedule)

*Station**Scheduled**Actual*New York, NY (NYP)Dp 340PDp 340P On time.Croton Harmon, NY (CRT)Dp 426PDp 427P 1 minute late.Poughkeepsie, NY (POU)Dp 510PDp 525P 15 minutes late.Rhinecliff, NY (RHI)Dp 527PDp 544P 17 minutes late.Albany Rensselaer, NY (ALB)Ar 620P
Dp 705PAr 627P 7 minutes late.
Dp 730P 25 minutes late.Schenectady, NY (SDY)Dp 733PDp 817P 44 minutes late.Utica, NY (UCA)Dp 849PDp 942P 53 minutes late.Syracuse, NY (SYR)Dp 952PDp 1045P 53 minutes late.Rochester, NY (ROC)Dp 1112PDpBuffalo Depew, NY (BUF)Ar 1212A
Dp 1220AAr
DpErie, PA (ERI)Dp 154ADpCleveland, OH (CLE)Ar 333A
Dp 345AAr
DpElyria, OH (ELY)Dp 418ADpSandusky, OH (SKY)Dp 455ADpToledo, OH (TOL)Ar 555A
Dp 615AAr
DpBryan, OH (BYN)Dp 705ADpWaterloo, IN (WTI)Dp 733ADpElkhart, IN (EKH)Dp 825ADpSouth Bend, IN (SOB)Dp 849ADpChicago, IL (CHI)Ar 950AAr


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## west point (Jun 21, 2021)

IMO. There are too many persons who want to know where they are. It is not like an airplane flight that makes at most 2 intermediate stops that are announced. The printed schedules really help. If someone wakes in the middle of the night and looks out but cannot see the station sign that can be alarming to near first time riders. There are many persons who want to know.
When traveling in a car how many of you have had your children ask where a are we now. ?


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## Palmland (Jun 22, 2021)

A National timetable might have limited value for many passengers (unlike the individual route ones) but I believe there is marketing value in one - assuming Amtrak cares about marketing. Combine the old vacation guides with the timetable for each route discussed (so would be primarily for LD trains). Include advertising to defray costs or charge a modest fee and offer them in the SSL or cafe as well as stations. An on line one version would be free.


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 22, 2021)

Palmland said:


> A National timetable might have limited value for many passengers (unlike the individual route ones) but I believe there is marketing value in one - assuming Amtrak cares about marketing. Combine the old vacation guides with the timetable for each route discussed (so would be primarily for LD trains). Include advertising to defray costs or charge a modest fee and offer them in the SSL or cafe as well as stations. An on line one version would be free.



Great idea! I would happily pay eight dollars for a nicely done national schedule sold in stations or in the café car. Especially if they threw in some tourist info.


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## jis (Jun 22, 2021)

Maybe there is an opportunity for some enterprising person to pick up many of the free flow of ideas from here and put together a business of doing timetables and selling them for a profit  All the necessary data is apparently available via JSON interfaces, and if not, there is always the well tried and tested screen scraping


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 22, 2021)

I wonder how much trouble we would get in if we started making our own timetable and distributing it. I mean if Amtrak doesn't want to do it themselves and there is a need for it to be done why not let others do it. It wouldn't cost Amtrak anything, but it would provide them a good marketing tool for free. And the sad thing is most of us know the system better than the employees in Philly and DC.


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## enviro5609 (Jun 22, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> I wonder how much trouble we would get in if we started making our own timetable and distributing it. I mean if Amtrak doesn't want to do it themselves and there is a need for it to be done why not let others do it. It wouldn't cost Amtrak anything, but it would provide them a good marketing tool for free. And the sad thing is most of us know the system better than the employees in Philly and DC.



The Rail Passengers Association essentially does this already. Looks like they updated the Crescent timetable. 









Amtrak Timetables | Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC







www.railpassengers.org


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 22, 2021)

Interesting. I didn't know RPA did that. However some of the timetables are *way* out of date, for example Northeast Corridor is January 2nd, 2020. I would sure double check that with the Amtrak app before making any plans.


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## AmtrakBlue (Jun 22, 2021)

Brian Battuello said:


> Interesting. I didn't know RPA did that. However some of the timetables are *way* out of date, for example Northeast Corridor is January 2nd, 2020. I would sure double check that with the Amtrak app before making any plans.


They’re using pre-Covid timetables from Amtrak’s website. They’re not creating their own timetables


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## jis (Jun 22, 2021)

enviro5609 said:


> The Rail Passengers Association essentially does this already. Looks like they updated the Crescent timetable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not really. All that they do is place all the timetables Amtrak has published in PDF and place them in a single easily accessible place. If Amtrak does not pulish a timetable in PDF form RPA won;t have it in their collection either. What @Seaboard92 is talking about is creating the most recent timetables in PDF and distributing them, and that I what I was alluding to too.

The Crescent is a one off so far. As a counter example, look at Northeast Corridor mor any LD train other than the Crescent! RPA does not really have the resources needed to update all timetables by hand. That can realistically be done only by automating the process using a bunch of scripts and web interfaces.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 22, 2021)

Well in theory as often as the schedules changes in the national network which really is not that frequent one person probably could do it with little issue. The bigger part is making the initial graphic. Then the corridors are a bit harder.


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## jis (Jun 22, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> Well in theory as often as the schedules changes in the national network which really is not that frequent one person probably could do it with little issue. The bigger part is making the initial graphic. Then the corridors are a bit harder.


Yeah for 14 LD trains it could be handcrafted. The PDF template is already there to edit using a PDF Editor for all the 14 or so LD trains. But those are also the least interesting since you can print those off of the Schdule tab on amtrak.com. The really interesting ones are the hardest ones to keep updated.


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## chrsjrcj (Jun 22, 2021)

enviro5609 said:


> The Rail Passengers Association essentially does this already. Looks like they updated the Crescent timetable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They are using the Crescent timetable I edited, and was shared by acelafan on juckins.net






Upcoming Amtrak LD Schedule Changes (2021)


Boredom plus too much free time at work led me to edit the previous Crescent pdf schedule with the new times. The font is different so text will look a little odd in some places. This was mostly a project to keep me occupied, but maybe some people will find it useful.




www.amtraktrains.com


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## jis (Jun 22, 2021)

So one possibility is we can create a team of volunteers here at AU where each individual can take on one train and create upto date timetable by editing the standard Amtrak template for that route. Single trains are easy to handle this way. Nultiple trains get more and more complex depending on the number of trains in a table.


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## me_little_me (Jun 22, 2021)

mitako said:


> It is mind boggling to me that a transportation company with only around 20 routes, the vast majority of which only run once per day, cannot provide a complete schedule of each route showing all stops along the way. Why on earth would they not maintain the PDF, printable schedules? It costs them nothing to do so; the schedules already exist. Their automated schedules are useless while actually on the LD trains in the vast stretches without wifi, and also useless if I don't already know exactly what station I want to board and what station I want to detrain. I swear Amtrak intentionally makes it difficult to plan trips using their service.


Of course they intentionally make it difficult. That's because they don't really care about the paying customers. They only care about the paying legislators (Those bodies of government that provide subsidies - either state or federal).


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## Barb Stout (Jun 22, 2021)

Eric in East County said:


> Somebody might already have pointed this out, but if not . . .
> 
> We just looked over the timetables/schedules from previous years for the two long-distance trains that we will be taking in a few weeks: *Southwest Chief* (the one effective July 31, 2018), and *Capitol Limited* (the one effective March 4, 2019). The arrival and departure times are identical those that these trains are currently using.
> 
> ...


There was a minor change on the SWC for the ABQ stop the last time we took the train (2019) compared to 2018, but maybe they switched it back. OTOH, we might have taken our 2018 trip prior to the end of July.


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## Barb Stout (Jun 22, 2021)

west point said:


> When traveling in a car how many of you have had your children ask where a are we now. ?


I thought the child mantra was "Are we there yet?"


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 22, 2021)

Or as the legendary "South of the Border" tourist trap on I-95 says on its billboards, "Keep screaming, kids. They'll stop."


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## SubwayNut (Jun 22, 2021)

What Amtraks doing is mind-boggling to me, will timetables no longer be posted in stations? At least state supported routes from states that have their own websites list timetables. NC By rail has all Atlanic coast services and the crescent Crescent Schedule | North Carolina Amtrak Service Although the crescent is out of date


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## neroden (Jun 22, 2021)

I have had a lot going on in my life (girlfriend's mother died), but I am tempted to produce an entire timetable. I think we should use our own template for design copyright reasons -- you'll notice that each of the states uses a different template from everyone else -- let's just come up with a nice-looking template, but not in Amtrak's old colors.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 22, 2021)

neroden said:


> not in Amtrak's old colors.


No teal? Horrors!


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## HenryK (Jun 23, 2021)

This thread is valuable to me, and I thank in particular the folks who mentioned Dixieland Software. I travel with a service dog, and need to know the best (longer) stops to get off to relieve the dog. Of course conductors will hold a train for a service dog in an emergency, but it's best not to add to their burdens if possible.


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## jiml (Jun 23, 2021)

If someone's actually going to do this, wouldn't a basic black-on-white be the ideal... easy to read, easy to copy and - if it ever got that far - the cheapest to duplicate? A template could be any timetable from the pre-Amtrak era, with high legibility the key. I also wondered if copyrighted names would be an issue? It may have to say New York - New Orleans Service instead of The Crescent, for example.


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## TheTuck (Jun 23, 2021)

neroden said:


> I have had a lot going on in my life (girlfriend's mother died), but I am tempted to produce an entire timetable. I think we should use our own template for design copyright reasons -- you'll notice that each of the states uses a different template from everyone else -- let's just come up with a nice-looking template, but not in Amtrak's old colors.


I agree, no reason for Amtrak to get any false credit. If we make these well enough, they will very well make their way onto the trains and stations themselves.


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 23, 2021)

Glad the Dixieland software is useful. Remember that if the train is late it will leave as quickly as possible. If it is a real refueling or watering stop the conductor or train attendant can give you a rough idea of how long you have. Never get more than 20 feet from a door. Whatever you do, don't go into the station to shop.


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## saxman (Jun 23, 2021)

I know for a fact someone is looking at making their own timetables already. The hard part would be keeping up with thruway bus connections and making sure station services are accurate.

Case is point, why PDF's are useful. I just booked a trip to Roanoke, and I wanted to figure out where to start from. It took lots of digging to figure out the Roanoke train begins in Springfield, MA!

I'm sitting here in Riverside and just wondered how Amtrak might route me to Houston. If I type in RIV to HOS, the Amtrak map and routing software sends me all the way to Galeburg, IL bus to SPI, Eagle to Longview, and bus to Houston. Of course, we all know the Sunset Ltd, serves Ontario, and Ontario is just a few miles from Riverside and can easily be accessed by car. But someone thats knows nothing about Amtrak will assume the only way to get to Houston, or anywhere on the SSL route has to go through Illinois. I see this problem on all the social media groups about Amtrak and it seems to be a common theme on Reddit. "Why can't I get there from here?!"


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## Cal (Jun 23, 2021)

saxman said:


> I'm sitting here in Riverside and just wondered how Amtrak might route me to Houston. If I type in RIV to HOS, the Amtrak map and routing software sends me all the way to Galeburg, IL bus to SPI, Eagle to Longview, and bus to Houston. Of course, we all know the Sunset Ltd, serves Ontario, and Ontario is just a few miles from Riverside and can easily be accessed by car. But someone thats knows nothing about Amtrak will assume the only way to get to Houston, or anywhere on the SSL route has to go through Illinois. I see this problem on all the social media groups about Amtrak and it seems to be a common theme on Reddit. "Why can't I get there from here?!"


THIS!


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## jis (Jun 24, 2021)

The interesting thing though is that someone who is a rail illiterate and knows nothing about Amtrak would not also be able to figure it out give all the printed timetables in the world. Still I don't think that is an argument for discontinuing creating the printable timetables given the relative simplicity of doing so from the online timetable database which must exist for other reasons. It is just another view of that data.


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 24, 2021)

You have a point. I've had some people with real difficulty understanding why some trains read up.


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## acelafan (Jun 24, 2021)

jis said:


> So one possibility is we can create a team of volunteers here at AU where each individual can take on one train and create upto date timetable by editing the standard Amtrak template for that route. Single trains are easy to handle this way. Nultiple trains get more and more complex depending on the number of trains in a table.


Crowd-sourced timetables is an interesting idea, although I'm still aggravated we need to consider such an effort.

I went through my archived timetables and came up with a list of easy, moderate and difficult/impossible level of effort. I also noted which timetables have been updated by Amtrak partners:

Easy
====
Adirondack
Auto Train
California Zephyr
Capitol Limited
Cardinal
City of New Orleans
Coast Starlight
Crescent
Empire Builder
Heartland Flyer
Lake Shore Limited
Maple Leaf
Palmetto
Pennsylvanian
Silver Star
Silver Meteor
Southwest Chief
Sunset Limited
Texas Eagle


Moderate
========
_Amtrak Cascades*
Capitol Corridor*_
Carolinian
_Downeaster*_
Ethan Allen Express
Michigan Services
Missouri Services
Piedmont
_Vermonter / Valley Flyer*_


Difficult
=========
Empire Service
Hiawatha
Illinois Services
Keystone Service
Northeast Corridor (New York - Washington)
Northeast Corridor (Boston - Washington)
Northeast Corridor (Springfield - Washington)
Northeast Corridor (Boston - Virginia)
_Pacific Surfliner*
San Joaquin*

*Has recently been updated by an external agency or association_

So if all else fails, this could be a path forward to retain some semblance of a typical RR timetable. 

Does anyone think RPA could come to the rescue? They have managed to reverse a few of Amtrak's "improvements" in recent years.


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## MARC Rider (Jun 24, 2021)

me_little_me said:


> Of course they intentionally make it difficult. That's because they don't really care about the paying customers. They only care about the paying legislators (Those bodies of government that provide subsidies - either state or federal).


Actually, that's not true. I tried looking up Amtrak's "farebox recovery ratio" and found values that ranged from 70 to 80%. That means that if the paying customers went away, the subsidies certainly wouldn't be able to make up the slack.


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## me_little_me (Jun 24, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> Actually, that's not true. I tried looking up Amtrak's "farebox recovery ratio" and found values that ranged from 70 to 80%. That means that if the paying customers went away, the subsidies certainly wouldn't be able to make up the slack.


Your statement does not disprove anything. I never said they didn't get much from customers. I said AMTRAK DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THEM! Some of us would continue to take the train if it only ran once a month, served no food and provided wooden bunk beds to sleep on.
Remember, Amtrak doesn't even care enough to fully stock food on trains to SELL to coach customers.


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## neroden (Jun 24, 2021)

Query for those who are more technically up-to-date than I am: I know people have mentioned that the timetable data seems to be extractable from the website in a more machine-readable form than screenscraping. I know there were some discussions of JSON and so forth, but I wasn't following in detail at the time.

I am a computer programmer so I can follow this stuff if I'm paying attention. But I'm not up to date on JSON. Could some people answer a couple of questions:
-- How is the data currently queried and populated on the website (interfaces)? What exactly is this existing JSON interface? What computer-readable data can WE get and how?
-- What more, in terms of interfaces, would we want in order to extract the data to publish our own timetables? (Perhaps a way of getting a list of all the train and Thruway Bus numbers so we knew we hadn't "forgotten" any? Perhaps a way of making sure we were looking at a "typical" day? Perhaps simply a cleaner computer-accessible interface? IDK)


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## neroden (Jun 24, 2021)

acelafan said:


> Does anyone think RPA could come to the rescue? They have managed to reverse a few of Amtrak's "improvements" in recent years.



I cannot say much in public, but I can say that RPA is definitely working on this and wants this fixed.

Unfortunately I don't have any action items from them at this time. I have asked, since I'm not comfortable just waiting and will act on my own if they don't have a coordinated action item.


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## Willbridge (Jun 25, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> Somebody said one of the bills in Congress would require them to restaff stations that had been destaffed recently. I think the destaffing was pre-COVID.


The Senate bill requires stations with 40 or more average daily boardings to be staffed.


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## Willbridge (Jun 25, 2021)

Greyhound has a different solution. They have the airline-style start-point to end-point booking software for the public. For employees and the interested public they have a separate website with old-school timetables.


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## neroden (Jun 25, 2021)

Willbridge said:


> Greyhound has a different solution. They have the airline-style start-point to end-point booking software for the public. For employees and the interested public they have a separate website with old-school timetables.


Greyhound is slowly but surely going bankrupt. Frankly, I'm quite sure that concealing the timetables and hiding the map is part of why, though at least they can be found if you know who to ask.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 25, 2021)

neroden said:


> <snip> ... But I'm not up to date on JSON. Could some people answer a couple of questions:
> -- How is the data currently queried and populated on the website (interfaces)? What exactly is this existing JSON interface?
> <snip>



"The JSON format is often used for serializing and transmitting structured data over a network connection. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, serving as an alternative to XML. JSON is JavaScript Object Notation"

It's a modern way to do screen scraping. in a way, without the scrape... pretty standard way to integrate/pass data between "specific function" programs or components. I'm an old Mainframer and JSON was easy to pick up.... but won't have a chance to practice to perfect as I retire TODAY (After 30 years with Big Blue) Off training next week.


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## RebelRider (Jun 25, 2021)

Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, there was a volunteer effort that put Amtrak's timetables online. It ended about 15 years ago. They just used a simple formatted text version that was very lightweight and loaded quickly. The last copy released is still available here.


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## jebr (Jun 25, 2021)

neroden said:


> Greyhound is slowly but surely going bankrupt. Frankly, I'm quite sure that concealing the timetables and hiding the map is part of why, though at least they can be found if you know who to ask.



At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.) From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.

Having taken Greyhound a few times, I think "not having timetables easily publicly accessible" is quite far down on the list of things that's causing them to fail. Their much larger issues are a poor reputation, worn-out buses, terrible stations, and poor reliability. I've basically sworn off Greyhound because my last two trips on them both had broken and worn seats, were quite late, and the stations are almost universally quite unkept.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 25, 2021)

jebr said:


> At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.) From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.
> 
> Having taken Greyhound a few times, I think "not having timetables easily publicly accessible" is quite far down on the list of things that's causing them to fail. Their much larger issues are a poor reputation, worn-out buses, terrible stations, and poor reliability. I've basically sworn off Greyhound because my last two trips on them both had broken and worn seats, were quite late, and the stations are almost universally quite unkept.


Greyhound will soon just be a memory as it fades away to Nothing.


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## Palmland (Jun 25, 2021)

Bob Dylan said:


> Greyhound will soon just be a memory as it fades away to Nothing.


Perhaps Amtrak should reach out to Greyhound and make a deal to have them as partners and eligible for some of the funding Amtrak will receive. 

In return Greyhound would have all their routes feed into Amtrak’s LD network and eliminate their routes that duplicate Amtrak routes, except perhaps high density areas like NEC. Would complement Amtrak service rather compete with it.


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## WWW (Jun 25, 2021)

Shoulda coulda woulda grabbed more than the one I did when these were available 

"THE AMTRAK *BIBLE* SYSTEM TIMETABLE"
140 pages of color graphics sectioned into areas of the country

Train numbers times stations pretty staying the same - minor tweaks here and there -
Best part is not having to depend on that internet thingy to be up and running to display a timetable.
Could do route planning the old fashion way (if only the darn trains would run on time) !


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## willem (Jun 25, 2021)

Way2Kewl said:


> [...] won't have a chance to practice to perfect as I retire TODAY (After 30 years with Big Blue) Off training next week.


Congratulations on retirement. Enjoy! But how does one retire today and be off training next week?


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 25, 2021)

Giving retirement notice several months ago was easy.
Finding a decent bucket price on Amtrak a bit more effort.


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## joelkfla (Jun 25, 2021)

willem said:


> Congratulations on retirement. Enjoy! But how does one retire today and be off training next week?


I had the same reaction, but upon further reflection, I suspect "training" meant riding trains, not learning how to do a job.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 25, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> I had the same reaction, but upon further reflection, I suspect "training" meant riding trains, not learning how to do a job.


well duh! 
Perhaps "railing" would have been less ambiguous  ... Didn't see it until *joelkfla *pointed it out.

So happy to expect Steak!


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## Willbridge (Jun 26, 2021)

neroden said:


> Greyhound is slowly but surely going bankrupt. Frankly, I'm quite sure that concealing the timetables and hiding the map is part of why, though at least they can be found if you know who to ask.


Actually they were headed in that direction long before they stopped printing paper schedules.


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## neroden (Jun 26, 2021)

jebr said:


> At the same time, there's a fair amount of bus companies that run without published timetables (at least without a point-to-point search.)


I don't think any intercity bus company in the US is doing well.


> From personal experience, both Megabus and Jefferson Lines do not publish timetables, though both do have route maps (and Jefferson Lines also shows "prime connection points" on that map, so someone could use the online booking system to piece together routes fairly easily.



Yeah, Jefferson Lines has extensive and high-quality route maps, which are front and center on their website, which show every station and specify which ones are the transfer points, which makes it relatively easy to assemble a complete timetable from the website.

Megabus has a list of point-to-point routes which they officially offer. They may run other routes, but those other routes effectively don't exist; nobody knows that they exist and nobody takes them. Top bus routes and customer favorites | megabus

Greyhound has that well-hidden employees website, only.

Adirondack Trailways doesn't even have that, with the result that it's impossible to figure out what routes they run. That is definitely not a smart business move, and many people, including me, have confirmed for years that there is no bus from Ithaca to Syracuse (there actually is, but with no evidence of its existence on the web, it might as well not exist).

But, I mean, yeah, if you want to drive your customers into cars, then not publishing a timetable is definitely the way to do it. It's highly effective. Most of the intercity bus companies are pushing people into cars very effectively; if Amtrak management is also interested in making sure people drive, they're going about it the right way.


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## Siegmund (Jun 26, 2021)

I was rather surprised to see that Salt Lake Express - which started out running buses and vans between southeast Idaho and Salt Lake City - has a) expanded so much since I last checked, and b) _quit_ displaying a traditional style timetable sometime in the past two years or so. (Last time I had a reason to go to their website was a previous thread on this forum about why Boise-SLC or Idaho Falls-SLC Amtrak service was not going to succeed.)

Apparently it has not hurt them... but I sure wish they still had a timetable card, rather than making me rely on the trip-finder web tool. In that respect I guess they are right on par with Amtrak (well, at least Amtrak still has individual route timetable cards if you dig deep enough.)


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## jis (Jun 26, 2021)

I thought I'd give it a shot to see how much time it takes to spin out a usable PDF timetable incorporating the times from the Amtrak.com Schedule tab. Here is the Atlantic Coast Service Timetable in all its glory, including all Silver Service Thurways (but not North Carolina ones). The train times for the four trains are upto date. The connecting trains from Boston are not fully verified, and the Thruway times are half verified, and they have not generally changed from a year back either. Have fun. It took me a day or so (6 hours).


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 26, 2021)

Very nice! Are there any important notes missing?


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## jis (Jun 26, 2021)

Brian Battuello said:


> Very nice! Are there any important notes missing?


Of I ignored all the notes for now. There potentially numerous as usual about accommodation and station facilities etc. I was just focusing on the times. Notes can always bee added. An Amtrak Timetable specific Icon Library would possibly need to be put together for common use. I am also not sure that they would be easy to maintain currency of, given how quickly some of those things change these days. It will be hard enough keeping the times upto date.

The graphics is also rough at the edges, which can be improved considerably with relatively little effort.

In integrating the Thruway timetable, even I discovered some itineraries that I was not aware of as possibilities. The intra-Florida service with the Thruways is actually remarkably rich.


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 26, 2021)

Just notes about changes in schedules on certain days. Don't care if dogs are allowed or whatever.


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## jis (Jun 26, 2021)

Brian Battuello said:


> Just notes about changes in schedules on certain days. Don't care if dogs are allowed or whatever.


Someone will have to track schedule changes announced on the fly by Amtrak. Apparently even Amtrak seems to be unable to do that consistently as they do unfortunately change more dynamically than most are willing to admit. I have a little bit of time to get the general schedule, but I don't care to be Amtrak's Time Table Department. Sorry 

Coming to think of it, maybe that is why they don't want to do PDF timetables  The only way to do that and keep it upto date, is by putting together a script in ones favorite scripting language to use the JSON (or other suitable available) interface to pick up relevant chunks of the timetable database and then use it to populate the template for a timetable like this example. Then this script can either be event triggered or run every so often on a regular schedule. I have forsworn doing that sort of stuff in retirement after 40 years of it. So some younger whippersnapper with appropriate experience will have to take that on, until perhaps I am sufficiently bored with life to get back to that. 

My interest is mostly in understanding what presentation makes it more ready to hand, and PDF is not necessarily the best in general my opinion,though it may have a place within a broader scheme of things. But I guess I would be crucified to say so here.

It is really hard to do a timetable that serves all possible purposes for all possible users. As @neroden had pointed out, the most useful thing about a PDF/printable timetable is that it gives a particular view that helps in understanding what routes are possible. To achieve these absolutely precise times are not necessary but the general interlinkages is what matter with a sense of possible connections. Armed with that one can then go and verify the exact times on the specific dates of interest. To aid this, at most non-daily services need to be identified, but one can do without occasional variations in times. Those will get sorted out when verifying a potential itinerary. My interest is in understanding how to present the data for this purpose and so absolute precision in presented times on a daily basis is not part of that agenda.

Because of the dynamic nature of actual schedules these days, a printed time table will never be the last authoritative source of information for finalizing plans. Even the printed employee timetables are routinely over-ridden by date and time window specific orders.


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## joelkfla (Jun 26, 2021)

jis said:


> Coming to think of it, maybe that is why they don't want to do PDF timetables  The only way to do that and keep it upto date, is by putting together a script in ones favorite scripting language to use the JSON (or other suitable available) interface to pick up relevant chunks of the timetable database and then use it to populate the template for a timetable like this example. Then this script can either be event triggered or run every so often on a regular schedule.


It is a possibility that that's what they meant when they said "automated timetables" would be available in September. They've said "traditional PDF timetables" are being abandoned, which doesn't explicitly rule out some form of automatically generated printable timetable, or even automatically generated PDF timetables.

But it also could have meant any number of other things.


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## jis (Jun 26, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> It is a possibility that that's what they meant when they said "automated timetables" would be available in September. They've said "traditional PDF timetables" are being abandoned, which doesn't explicitly rule out some form of automatically generated printable timetable, or even automatically generated PDF timetables.


I am most certainly hoping that that is the case, since it is very much within the realm of technical feasibility. Whatever happens will I am sure be presented through the "Schedule" tab on the web page.


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## TheTuck (Jun 26, 2021)

PDF's can easily be created from Excel spreadsheets. When Amtrak needs to make a minor schedule adjustment to a single train or pair of trains, it could effect multiple timetable pages. IE changing the times of the Palmetto could affect the NEC, Virginia and Silver Service PDF pages. Couldn't a single Excel document house every single route schedule and be automatically corrolated so a single change would automatically update on the related sheets? I'm not very saavy with Excel but I'm sure I could figure it out.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 26, 2021)

There are "industrial strength" commercial applications that can render nicely formatted PDFs from a template and structured data (JSON, XML, database tables, even CSV). The template and process can be developed codelessly with these tools. There does not have to be a lot of IT involvement once the tools are set up aside from marshalling required data, the tools should be in the hands of graphic design folks.

I was part of a team that evaluated and selected such a tool for my former employer before I retired.

The solution is both straightforward and easy.


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## jis (Jun 26, 2021)

TheTuck said:


> PDF's can easily be created from Excel spreadsheets. When Amtrak needs to make a minor schedule adjustment to a single train or pair of trains, it could effect multiple timetable pages. IE changing the times of the Palmetto could affect the NEC, Virginia and Silver Service PDF pages. Couldn't a single Excel document house every single route schedule and be automatically corrolated so a single change would automatically update on the related sheets? I'm not very saavy with Excel but I'm sure I could figure it out.


The example that I posted is an Excel spreadsheet. It is not hard to do those, but to do by hand is tedious. Once the template is done, it ideally should be populated from the database by an appropriate script.


zephyr17 said:


> There are "industrial strength" commercial applications that can render nicely formatted PDFs from a template and structured data (JSON, XML, database tables, even CSV). The template and process can be developed codelessly with these tools.
> 
> I was part of a team that evaluated and selected such a tool for my former employer before I retired.
> 
> The solution is both straightforward and easy.


Which App did you use @zephyr17 ? If it does not cost a zillion dollars, and if I can figure out a clean of of scraping Amtrak notwithstanding their continuing attempts to thwart such effort, I might take a crack at it when I am otherwise bored, as I said earlier.

Meanwhile here is an enhanced "Atlantic Coast Service at a glance" that I built using the previous example that I posted earlier. It really needs to be split into two pages for the printed form. However on a Screen it is actually quite usable. There is an HTML version of it too which looks exactly the same, but distributing it is a pain because of multiple files involved.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 26, 2021)

It's been about 3 years ago and I don't remember the name, and no longer have access to the materials at my former employer. I remember the function points, though.

Like most software intended for commercial clients it was not cheap. It also did a lot more than render PDFs, it was a document management solution. A major appeal was the codeless nature of solution. It put control in directly in the hands of the graphics people, who were both more skilled in pleasing designs and less highly paid than developers.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 26, 2021)

Yes, A PDF template can be created dynamically retrieving field input using JSON or a RESTful API. They may need their Adobe I/O component for PDF Writer.

Adobe Developers — Automate Document Generation | Contract Generation | Adobe 

Maintaining PDF brochures can be done with small project efforts if done correctly. I’ve drawn the conclusion that they have an underfunded IT department.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 26, 2021)

Way2Kewl said:


> I’ve drawn the conclusion that they have an underfunded IT department.


And understaffed, with 25 current openings. With that many openings, it makes me think that they are not offering competitive salaries for the desired skillsets.

Also, you choose to view source on the Schedule page, you can see that the schedule information is already contained in JSON objects, so they are most of the way there as far as the data is concerned.


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## neroden (Jun 26, 2021)

jis said:


> It is really hard to do a timetable that serves all possible purposes for all possible users. As @neroden had pointed out, the most useful thing about a PDF/printable timetable is that it gives a particular view that helps in understanding what routes are possible. To achieve these absolutely precise times are not necessary but the general interlinkages is what matter with a sense of possible connections. Armed with that one can then go and verify the exact times on the specific dates of interest.



Yes! This is why the Jefferson Lines bus map is almost, but not quite, an adequate substitute. (Because it doesn't show which connections work vs. which are overnight, nor does it show where you can go out and back on a day trip, etc.)



> To aid this, at most non-daily services need to be identified, but one can do without occasional variations in times. Those will get sorted out when verifying a potential itinerary. My interest is in understanding how to present the data for this purpose and so absolute precision in presented times on a daily basis is not part of that agenda.



Yep. Honestly, I remember legends like "TIMES MAY VARY DUE TO TRACKWORK -- ALWAYS CHECK WHEN BUYING TICKETS" on commuter rail timetables since the 1980s. Which is fine. The point is to get a sense of what routings are possible, and how & where you have to change trains/buses to do it.

There are rumors that the mythical bus between Ithaca and Syracuse, for which timetables are not published, starts south of Ithaca. I have no idea how I'd find out where it actually starts, because there's no timetable. Effectively, it doesn't exist south of Ithaca even once you've discovered that it runs from Ithaca to Syracuse.

This is anti-marketing: it's driving customers away. The core element of marketing is making people aware that your product is an option, and that's what timetables do. 

Companies pay hundreds of millions for marketing, but brainless idiots who are running bus companies into the ground won't spend a couple of hundred thousand per year to publish the cheapest, most effective piece of marketing possible. I hate to see Amtrak go the same way, and if it does, I will campaign to have Amtrak dismembered and transferred to state governments which may have some degree of basic competence.



> Because of the dynamic nature of actual schedules these days, a printed time table will never be the last authoritative source of information for finalizing plans. Even the printed employee timetables are routinely over-ridden by date and time window specific orders.


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## neroden (Jun 26, 2021)

So I had another thought here, because I just looked at another one of the fly-by-night startup bus companies which is not routinely publishing proper timetables -- OurBus. And despite a crappy website which fails to explain where their buses go and doesn't even have a map, they are publishing a timetable for their one "commuter" route.

I wonder if the intercity bus (and possibly train) companies which, mistakenly, think they're competing with airlines are trying to mimic the marketing laziness of the airlines, which the airlines can get away with largely due to the fact that pretty much no airplane route does anything other than point-to-point. (Even despite this, I always have to check three or four "origin" airports in the vicinity of the actual origin, and three or four "destination" airports in the vicinity of the actual destination -- Google Flights has some "nearby airports" search features for this which help, and it would behoove Amtrak to get all the Amtrak stations into that system.)

Companies which have realized that they're actually competing with *driving*, by contrast, seem to publish their timetables. Every single "commuter railroad" does, and every urban or "commuter" bus route does (even when they are routinely late).

I think Amtrak is competing primarily with driving. Not with airplanes. When you're advertising a route as an alternative to the car, it's important to present all the possible stations you could get on and off at and all the possible times and all the possible connections -- if a customer doesn't see *all* the options, they are likely to decide that the car is easier than the options they *do* see, even if there is an option which would have enticed them out of their car.


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## neroden (Jun 26, 2021)

jis said:


> Meanwhile here is an enhanced "Atlantic Coast Service at a glance" that I built using the previous example that I posted earlier. It really needs to be split into two pages for the printed form. However on a Screen it is actually quite usable. There is an HTML version of it too which looks exactly the same, but distributing it is a pain because of multiple files involved.



Thanks for the timetable. I sent it to Jim Matthews in hopes it can be put up on the RPA website next to the other "salvaged" timetables.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 26, 2021)

zephyr17 said:


> And understaffed, with 25 current openings. With that many openings, it makes me think that they are not offering competitive salaries for the desired skillsets. <snip>



25 good developers can modernize a lot of code. Most Systems of Record (data) to Systems of Engagement (Web Apps) projects I see only have 2-4 assigned to a new Web Application component. i.e. Reservations App, Track a train app, schedules, Chat w/AI support, etc. Most of the issue is with their legacy Arrow system. Very Legacy and does not integrate well. It’s possible (with a bit of luck) that these 25 positions are targeted to do a complete modernizing overall giving them the foundation to build upon and keep modern.

An old Solution VP used to ask their Development Solution Managers if you only had xx$’s what do you budget this quarter. It’s a limited budget and we can’t do them all… Maybe Amtrak’s going to have a little more $ to play with. I hope their Development Solution Managers choose wisely.

With these “new” trainsets. I would have liked to seen Amtrak consider building into their consists a way for passengers to log into a local (on train) server that provided services (BYOD phone, ipad, laptop). The server can pick up data metric changes in fairly small packets along the way when within cell tower range for things like route updates. From there they would have a platform to build upon possibly starting with things like a Front and Back Cam view (I’d pay a few $ for this), possibly a build in radio scanner tuned for the route, real time dinner reservations for both staff and self-serve passengers from the app. Maybe even requesting the SCA, Diner Menus, real time track-a-train as well as the dynamic updating schedules (updated when within cell towers in range). *This would also go further to satisfying the removal of the PDF’s* (I do like these) Using their GPS they could provide an automated tour guide that kicks in along the route depending on the level of interest you dial in… (I’d even pay for this). At night they could offer a wide selection of train movies… Efforts like this certainly cost up front budgets but over time show very nice ROI.


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## danasgoodstuff (Jun 26, 2021)

I managed to get a timetable of sorts out of the Amtrak website while pricing hypothetical trips the other day - it gave me some intermediate stop times rather than just beginning and end, but I forget how I did that!


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## willem (Jun 27, 2021)

jis said:


> It does provide a lot of information about the train you choose to look at the Details for though. And you do get many more possible connections than just the three you mentioned, since there are many Regionals and Acelas that potentially connect to the Cap and the LSL I suppose.
> 
> As you can see, the Details includes all station stops on the way, the accommodation available on the train and basically everything one expects in the timetable footnotes or symbols. I am not sure that bickering over whether it is a timetable or schedule is a good use of time, since it is what it is no matter what you choose to call it. What it is not is a printable timetable that we were familiar with in the pre-Web days. In some sense it is exactly what one would expect when searching for stuff on the web, and someone who has been brought up in the web culture, having never experienced what came before, would be perfectly at home with this.
> 
> ...


I cannot find the screen you posted. Has it changed in the days since you posted it or am I not looking in the right place? When I click Details on the screen with my train options, I do not get intermediate stops.


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## AmtrakBlue (Jun 27, 2021)

willem said:


> I cannot find the screen you posted. Has it changed in the days since you posted it or am I not looking in the right place? When I click Details on the screen with my train options, I do not get intermediate stops.
> View attachment 23163


That's the booking screen. You need to select Schedules on the top menu then put in your origin and destination.


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## willem (Jun 27, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> You need to select Schedules on the top menu then put in your origin and destination.


Thanks, Betty, got it. Now if I can just remember how to get it again when I want it...


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## niemi24s (Jun 27, 2021)

For those with a yen for the old-style timetables in the Amtrak System Timetable, the daily pre-Covid ones are still available here... Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes ...if you first click Destinations, then See All Routes, etc, etc.

The only ones I know of that are grossly outdated are the times for the Crescent and sleeper availability for NER 66 & 67.


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## Cal (Jun 27, 2021)

I just use this, it's amazing! 

Thank you @acelafan


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## jis (Jun 27, 2021)

Ok, here is the complete Atlantic Coast Service timetable in three pages including all the Thruway connections that I could find. It includes the service along NS to Charlotte and Roanoke, Cardinal upto CVS and the complete North Carolina and Florida services including all throughways. Have fun!!

Actually I had not realized how richly interconnected the service is until I worked on this. The tendency to do an individual train based timetables rather than system timetables can give you the impression that the service is much sparser than it actually is.


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## acelafan (Jun 27, 2021)

jis said:


> Ok, here is the complete Atlantic Coast Service timetable in three pages including all the Thruway connections that I could find. It includes the service along NS to Charlotte and Roanoke, Cardinal upto CVS and the complete North Carolina and Florida services including all throughways. Have fun!!
> 
> Actually I had not realized how richly interconnected the service is until I worked on this. The tendency to do an individual train based timetables rather than system timetables can give you the impression that the service is much sparser than it actually is.


Wow! Well this is too nice to not post, so I added it to my archive. I have noted timetables on my site not produced by Amtrak with a (*). But 6 hours, that is a considerable amount of time. I think my eyes would glaze over after about an hour. 

This next comment sounds petty, especially as a supporter of Amtrak, but here goes: With the subsidies Amtrak gets each year it seems they could back-fill the *1 position* that was responsible for keeping the PDF TT's up to date. The apparent existence of tools and techniques discussed above should make such work easy or even "automated". Maybe September will bring us a surprise visit from the Amtrak Timetable Fairy.


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## jis (Jun 27, 2021)

acelafan said:


> Wow! Well this is too nice to not post, so I added it to my archive. I have noted timetables on my site not produced by Amtrak with a (*). But 6 hours, that is a considerable amount of time. I think my eyes would glaze over after about an hour.
> 
> This next comment sounds petty, especially as a supporter of Amtrak, but here goes: With the subsidies Amtrak gets each year it seems they could back-fill the *1 position* that was responsible for keeping the PDF TT's up to date. The apparent existence of tools and techniques discussed above should make such work easy or even "automated". Maybe September will bring us a surprise visit from the Amtrak Timetable Fairy.


I will soon produce a new version since I have discovered a few significant changes in the Thruway service around Richmond/Charlottesville and had missed one. I’ll post when I have the fixed one. Thanks for sharing it.


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## danasgoodstuff (Jun 27, 2021)

Cardinal-New York-Chicago-October052020 (amtrak.com) they also have more traditional looking timetables like this under the info for particular routes, IIRC you get there through Destinations. Unfortunately I can't get it to copy and paste properly, probably needs a format change.


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## Cal (Jun 27, 2021)

danasgoodstuff said:


> Cardinal-New York-Chicago-October052020 (amtrak.com) they also have more traditional looking timetables like this under the info for particular routes, IIRC you get there through Destinations.


These don't exist for most LD routes.


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## coalman (Jun 27, 2021)

I saw that schedules aren't available but I have an old CS which looks like accurate times on it. I was going on a trip last February but cancelled at the last minute due to covid. I'm leaving PDX tomorrow to a family reunion in San Juan Capistrano. It will be my first roomette. Thanks for all everyone's previous help on choosing an oceanside roomette.
I don't want to be OCD about this, but I've noticed there can be contingencies to on-time arrival/departures. I thought it might be good to transfer schedule info from Google Amtrak map to a sheet as we go. I could more easily answer anyone's questions about our schedule. I could also track
arrival/departures as a history of my trip in one place. I don't have a lot of space in margin, so will have to rethink this. It would be nice to transfer times to Google sheet to keep better notes, but I'm not about to retype this. The sheet is two-sided with packing tape covering half of it to keep it from disintegrating while on the trip. I would think that something like this might have broad appeal to travellers. Maybe someone could make an app scraping Google info onto specific route information. So coders out there if you have nothing to do, go at it and sell to Amtrak or your own app.


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## Qapla (Jun 27, 2021)

Do you mean something like this?


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## coalman (Jun 27, 2021)

Qapla said:


> Do you mean something like this?
> 
> View attachment 23190


how did you make it?


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## Cal (Jun 27, 2021)

coalman said:


> how did you make it?


NA Intercity Rail Tools Go here


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## danasgoodstuff (Jun 27, 2021)

Cal said:


> These don't exist for most LD routes.


Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC - Amtrak Timetables 3rd path to access.


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## Cal (Jun 27, 2021)

danasgoodstuff said:


> Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC - Amtrak Timetables 3rd path to access.


Many are outdated.


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## Qapla (Jun 27, 2021)

Amtrak 5 (6/26) (transitdocs.com)


*You start here* and click on the train you want on the map and then the train name in the upper left


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## WWW (Jun 27, 2021)

Another application:

Amtrak Status Maps - West (dixielandsoftware.net) 

Click on the RED outlined area to trains in those other areas

Only trains operating this day are shown 

Click on a specific train for more information i.e.:
Formatted and unformatted data with the stations coded in their 3 letter identifier
Click on that little red circle with arrow at the top and get the result of that train as Qapla had posted for train 5 (today)

The color graphic scheduled arrival and departure time and current status chart is at the top - - -
Green - On Time - Yellow - late - Red - later than late - Black - major delay 4 or more hours - may be removed after 8 hours who is keeping track ?
Scroll down to the bottom to see a map and the progress that train is making - - -
Note the small colored balls - gray parked stationary - orange medium speed - red high track speed

Refreshing the screen {bummer} reverts you back to the top of the chart and you have to scroll down again.

Click scroll futz around with this - have some fun !


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## Chazcop (Jun 27, 2021)

I went looking for when the Official Railway Guide stopped printing airline scheds…I got thrown off track by this bloh conversation about collecting airline scheduled. Lots of links for me to checkout.




__





Airline Timetables Disappear, Airline Dorks Die a Little Inside – Cranky Flier






crankyflier.com


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## MARC Rider (Jun 27, 2021)

danasgoodstuff said:


> Cardinal-New York-Chicago-October052020 (amtrak.com) they also have more traditional looking timetables like this under the info for particular routes, IIRC you get there through Destinations. Unfortunately I can't get it to copy and paste properly, probably needs a format change.


That's an out-of-date October 2020 3-day a week timetable. That's the problem. They haven't been updating the timetables. The ones you can find on the web are getting obsolete.


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## neroden (Jun 27, 2021)

jis said:


> I will soon produce a new version since I have discovered a few significant changes in the Thruway service around Richmond/Charlottesville and had missed one. I’ll post when I have the fixed one. Thanks for sharing it.



This is actually my biggest single beef with the lack of timetables -- it's now impossible to discover new Thruway routes. (Or, should they ever happen, new train routes!) This also seems like the hole which is hardest for us to plug. How did you find the changes in the Thruway service?


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## mitako (Jun 28, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> For those with a yen for the old-style timetables in the Amtrak System Timetable, the daily pre-Covid ones are still available here... Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes ...if you first click Destinations, then See All Routes, etc, etc.
> 
> The only ones I know of that are grossly outdated are the times for the Crescent and sleeper availability for NER 66 & 67.


Wow, they must have just restored those, because I checked yesterday or the day before, and the schedules were not there. Maybe all of our complaining actually had an effect!


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## saxman (Jun 28, 2021)

mitako said:


> Wow, they must have just restored those, because I checked yesterday or the day before, and the schedules were not there. Maybe all of our complaining actually had an effect!



Yup, looks like they provided links to PDF's again. But I clicked on the Crescent schedule and it pulls up the old timetable.


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## AmtrakBlue (Jun 28, 2021)

saxman said:


> Yup, looks like they provided links to PDF's again. But I clicked on the Crescent schedule and it pulls up the old timetable.


Someone is always complaining…. Just kidding!


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## jis (Jun 28, 2021)

neroden said:


> This is actually my biggest single beef with the lack of timetables -- it's now impossible to discover new Thruway routes. (Or, should they ever happen, new train routes!) This also seems like the hole which is hardest for us to plug. How did you find the changes in the Thruway service?


By carefully trying to use those Thruways in test bookings. Quite tedious.

I was left wondering if it happens that Amtrak starts a Thruway, the Timetable folks screw up so that no one uses it since the schedule builder does not show any itinerary using it. So then Amtrak discontinues the service as a failure due to lack of ridership. Could happen to new trains too, given how goofy the schedule builder at present is.

Anyhow, two Thruway services from the past seem to have disappeared. One is the Thruway connection from/to the Crescent to/From RVR, and the other is an oddball Thruway that used to exist between Washington DC and Charlottesville. I suspect this one disappeared when the Lynchburg service started but I am not quite sure.

Anyway, here is the cleaned up and fixed up one which highlights the primary connections.


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## TheTuck (Jun 28, 2021)

I'm not seeing all the PDF links returned yet. It seems the routes which have not recently changed day frequency have returned. (Cardinal, Sunset, Auto Train).


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## Cal (Jun 28, 2021)

mitako said:


> Wow, they must have just restored those, because I checked yesterday or the day before, and the schedules were not there. Maybe all of our complaining actually had an effect!


Still no timetables for almost every LD route.


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## jis (Jun 28, 2021)

Cal said:


> Still no timetables for almost every LD route.


At least there are a few more months to go before September.


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## niemi24s (Jun 28, 2021)

I certainly wish folks would specify _which _timetables or schedules from Amtrak they're referring to when saying something like "Still no timetables for almost every LD route."

• Timetables are indeed available for every LD route, but they are the older, some outdated, pre-Covid daily timetables available here: Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes Please note the aemtest in the URL. That must be present in order to access those older timetables - only two of which I know to be grossly out of whack with what's in Arrow (Crescent and NER 66 & 67)

• On the other hand CURRENT, up-to-date timetables (at least in the style we've grown to love and cherish) and that MAY agree with what's in Arrow do exist for three LD trains (AT, Cardinal & SL) are available here: Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes Note the absence of aemtest in the URL. Timetables for the twelve other LD trains are not available there.

All this begs the question of whether any of those older, pre-Covid timetables still show what's currently in Arrow and are therefore the current ones.


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## me_little_me (Jun 28, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> I certainly wish folks would specify _which _timetables or schedules from Amtrak they're referring to when saying something like "Still no timetables for almost every LD route."
> 
> • Timetables are indeed available for every LD route, but they are the older, some outdated, pre-Covid daily timetables available here: Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes Please note the aemtest in the URL. That must be present in order to access those older timetables - only two of which I know to be grossly out of whack with what's in Arrow (Crescent and NER 66 & 67)


When something is "available" only when using the secret decoder ring, it is NOT available.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 28, 2021)

me_little_me said:


> When something is "available" only when using the secret decoder ring, it is NOT available.


Dang-it! I can't find mine. Where do I send my 2 box tops and .25 for S&H? I'd really like to see these continue.


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## Brian Battuello (Jun 28, 2021)

Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.


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## Way2Kewl (Jun 28, 2021)

Brian Battuello said:


> Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.


And we were OK with that back then too... can't count how many repeated days I'd check that mailbox until the day it arrived. Can I barrow yours to decode the Amtrak website?


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## neroden (Jun 28, 2021)

jis said:


> By carefully trying to use those Thruways in test bookings. Quite tedious.
> 
> I was left wondering if it happens that Amtrak starts a Thruway, the Timetable folks screw up so that no one uses it since the schedule builder does not show any itinerary using it. So then Amtrak discontinues the service as a failure due to lack of ridership. Could happen to new trains too, given how goofy the schedule builder at present is.


I fully expect that this is happening and this is why I am completely disgusted with Amtrak management.



> Anyhow, two Thruway services from the past seem to have disappeared. One is the Thruway connection from/to the Crescent to/From RVR, and the other is an oddball Thruway that used to exist between Washington DC and Charlottesville. I suspect this one disappeared when the Lynchburg service started but I am not quite sure.
> 
> Anyway, here is the cleaned up and fixed up one which highlights the primary connections.


It's quite a complicated timetable, isn't it? I am trying to think about how it could be presented better to make the available options clearer. Obviously the map helps. But I think what's making it hard to follow is the combination of the routes on the Atlantic Coast with the routes on the Crescent route -- I realize the Carolinian, Piedmont, and some Thruway services criss-cross.

Can you possibly upload this as an Excel file so I can play with the data presentation? I'd like to try a few things.


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## Willbridge (Jun 28, 2021)

jis said:


> By carefully trying to use those Thruways in test bookings. Quite tedious.
> 
> I was left wondering if it happens that Amtrak starts a Thruway, the Timetable folks screw up so that no one uses it since the schedule builder does not show any itinerary using it. So then Amtrak discontinues the service as a failure due to lack of ridership. Could happen to new trains too, given how goofy the schedule builder at present is.
> 
> ...


You've run across a great Amtrak tradition: not making information on new services available till well after they've started up. I've been going through my old _Rail Travel News _issues to follow development of the _Pioneer. _ For the first year of what was supposed to be a two-year test they were routing people around it, even if it took an overnight layover to avoid the new train.


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## jcoons (Jun 29, 2021)

neroden said:


> [snip]
> 
> There are rumors that the mythical bus between Ithaca and Syracuse, for which timetables are not published, starts south of Ithaca. I have no idea how I'd find out where it actually starts, because there's no timetable. Effectively, it doesn't exist south of Ithaca even once you've discovered that it runs from Ithaca to Syracuse.
> 
> This is anti-marketing: it's driving customers away. The core element of marketing is making people aware that your product is an option, and that's what timetables do.



Timetables, at the end of the day, are addressing an every shrinking percentage of ridership for any mode of transport be it bus, train or (long since gone) airplane. 

Online booking tools via proprietary websites (e.g, Amtrak), or via third party aggregators or OTAs drive the bulk of booking activity along with search and explore visits. Why? Because these tools can provide multiple modes between locations and offer additional services and attributes that may be purchasable. 

As for your “vapor bus” between Ithaca and Syracuse and your assertion that it’s “unfindable”… a 5 second google search for “Ithaca to Syracuse bus” provided a wide range of links to various sources of that information. Let’s look at www.wanderu.com
as the source, for example. Not only does it show the nonstop bus at mid-day, but it also provides multiple connecting itineraries. 

Now, let’s extend this to a rail perspective given this is Amtraktrains.com and not buses.com. For example, NOL-ATL On July 14. Well, wanderu provides a range of options for me - how convenient. It lists:
Amtrak listed first (which tells me they are buying an elevated display from Wanderu)
Greyhound - three buses At 9:15AM, 12:55PM and 9:00PM.

Let’s look at another example quickly - Atlanta to WAS on 7/14. The result is dozens of options - multiple bus lines of various flavors from Greyhound through to ”Chinatown bus” operators. Wanderu also develops connections that maximize connectivity. How so? Well, it provides a connecting itinerary of Southeastern Stages Atlanta-Florence SC, connecting to The Palmetto. Now, is this a guaranteed connection like a Thruway service? No. But the point to be illustrated here is that OTAs like Wanderu are how surface transit is being booked today and will continue in the future.


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## MARC Rider (Jun 30, 2021)

jcoons said:


> Timetables, at the end of the day, are addressing an every shrinking percentage of ridership for any mode of transport be it bus, train or (long since gone) airplane.
> 
> Online booking tools via proprietary websites (e.g, Amtrak), or via third party aggregators or OTAs drive the bulk of booking activity along with search and explore visits. Why? Because these tools can provide multiple modes between locations and offer additional services and attributes that may be purchasable.
> 
> ...


I checked out this website and wasn't very impressed.

What I did was look up travel between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The first screen returned is sorted by "recommended," which lists departures all out of temporal order and is useless for determining the most practical choice for this trip. It was easy enough to change the sort to "earliest," but then they started including weird stuff, like a routing form the BWI Rail station to Pennsauken, or one that involves taking the train (which stops in Philadelphia) to New York Penn, then walk across Manhattan to a bus stop and take a bus back to Philadelphia. It really needs to be cleaned up.

I had a similar issue when I tried a Google maps routing between Boston and Albany for "transit." It recommended that I take an MBTA train from South Station to Worcester and then connect to 449, the Lakeshore Limited. Of course 449 starts in South Station, too, and Google's recommended routing takes over an hour longer than just catching 449 in South Station. But no matter how much I tweaked my input, I couldn't get Google Maps to admit that the Boston section of the Lakeshore Limited serves Boston.


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## railiner (Jun 30, 2021)

Willbridge said:


> You've run across a great Amtrak tradition: not making information on new services available till well after they've started up. I've been going through my old _Rail Travel News _issues to follow development of the _Pioneer. _ For the first year of what was supposed to be a two-year test they were routing people around it, even if it took an overnight layover to avoid the new train.
> 
> View attachment 23254


Thanks for that snippet from "RTN"! I had forgotten that when I first started with Amtrak, we were still using ARTS for reservations and ticketing...


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## jis (Jun 30, 2021)

A well presented GUI on a search engine with advanced search specification features will quite often beat a printed timetable. Unfortunately, most of the current search engines lack in the versatility of their human interface, and this makes them clunky but usable in most cases. The 80-20 principle tends to limit the natural forces towards further innovation, but I am confident it will happen eventually. Heck I don't think it is that hard to produce a human interface that has a mode for presenting the information with a printable timetable look and feel. The question is how does one go about specifying which outcomes of a search to include and which not.

The current search engines often comes up with absurd routing and has no clue that it is absurd. Example routing from Washington DC to Charlottesville, for example includes Washington DC - bus -> New York - Amtrak Regional -> Charlottesville. Until the search engines become knowledgeable enough to realize that that choice is silly, they will remain clunky. The current ones do a simple graph traversal and present it without intelligently trimming the subgraph based on well known heuristics. There is quite an opportunity to simply work the subgraph trimming problem, even leaving the actual presentation aside for the time being.


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## railiner (Jun 30, 2021)

jis said:


> The current search engines often comes up with absurd routing and has no clue that it is absurd. Example routing from Washington DC to Charlottesville, for example includes Washington DC - bus -> New York - Amtrak Regional -> Charlottesville


That is how Greyhound's "TRIPS" system is programmed...make a sale, regardless of how ridiculous the routing. For example, if one searched for service from say, New York to Richmond, the first choice would be whether from the Penn Station stop on 34th street, or the Port Authority Bus Terminal (alphabetic order). If someone thought "Penn Station sounds convenient", instead of being told no direct service, choose another (Port Authority), they would be routed on a once-a-day trip that stopped at Penn Station to Binghamton (enroute to Buffalo), and change there for a trip back to the Port Authority terminal, thence a connection on to Richmond. Yes. True. Travel an unnecessary 360 some odd miles instead of going 6 blocks away.


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## jis (Jun 30, 2021)

Beware, that the route timetable displayed on the Schedule page on amtrak.com when you click on the "Details" button for a train is not always correct. For example, the Crescent Details on weekdays displays the weekend timetable!

That website still continues to baffle me as to the level of incompetence involved in putting it together such as it is.


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## railiner (Jun 30, 2021)

jis said:


> Beware, that the route timetable displayed on the Schedule page on amtrak.com when you click on the "Details" button for a train is not always correct. For example, the Crescent Details on weekdays displays the weekend timetable!
> 
> That website still continues to baffle me as to the level of incompetence involved in putting it together such as it is.


It makes me wonder if someone not dedicated to the job, is handed the assignment by their boss as an 'extra' duty, and they just do a sloppy and quick job of it...


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## neroden (Jul 6, 2021)

railiner said:


> It makes me wonder if someone not dedicated to the job, is handed the assignment by their boss as an 'extra' duty, and they just do a sloppy and quick job of it...


Bet on it. Amtrak's IT department is known to have lots of vacancies. They are clearly not offering appropriate salaries for the jobs.


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## neroden (Jul 6, 2021)

jcoons said:


> As for your “vapor bus” between Ithaca and Syracuse and your assertion that it’s “unfindable”… a 5 second google search for “Ithaca to Syracuse bus” provided a wide range of links to various sources of that information. Let’s look at www.wanderu.com
> as the source, for example. Not only does it show the nonstop bus at mid-day,



WHOOPS! You found the OurBus bus. That's not the one I'm talking about; that one was introduced in the last couple of years, partly in response to frustration with Trailways. OurBus has a published timetable, by the way.

I was talking about the unfindable, "vapour bus" Trailways Bus which runs from Ithaca to Syracuse via Cortland (with no change of bus). Which was around long before OurBus was formed as a company -- but for the last decade or so, has had no published timetable. You didn't find it, which proves my point. It's unfindable even with that search engine. (And it starts south of Ithaca, according to rumor. Where does it start from? Who knows?)

Thanks for proving my point. Apologies will be accepted.


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## Willbridge (Jul 6, 2021)

neroden said:


> WHOOPS! You found the OurBus bus. That's not the one I'm talking about; that one was introduced in the last couple of years, partly in response to frustration with Trailways. OurBus has a published timetable, by the way.
> 
> I was talking about the unfindable, "vapour bus" Trailways Bus which runs from Ithaca to Syracuse via Cortland (with no change of bus). Which was around long before OurBus was formed as a company -- but for the last decade or so, has had no published timetable. You didn't find it, which proves my point. It's unfindable even with that search engine. (And it starts south of Ithaca, according to rumor. Where does it start from? Who knows?)
> 
> Thanks for proving my point. Apologies will be accepted.


I checked my handy August 1974 55mph Official Bus Guide and it shows Greyhound 3x daily between Ithaca and Syracuse. Two trips from Corning through Elmira and one trip from Elmira. In December 1987 the same GL service was in place PLUS a Friday Only Syracuse<>Ithaca turn. In November 1997 the route was run by New York Trailways with one round-trip plus that Friday Only turn. 

Sorry I can't pin down when GL passed the route on to NYT but in that decade there were a lot of systemic effects on the intercity bus network and on Amtrak, too. Greyhound absorbed the Continental Trailways network and handed out various routes to smaller Trailways members who had lost CTS connections. They had a 38-month long strike. They went into bankruptcy.

Note that this analysis is made possible by a technology called "printed timetables". In the future we'll be able to make up any facts that suit us because so much is lost in the airline style web information.


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## jcoons (Jul 8, 2021)

neroden said:


> WHOOPS! You found the OurBus bus. That's not the one I'm talking about; that one was introduced in the last couple of years, partly in response to frustration with Trailways. OurBus has a published timetable, by the way.
> 
> I was talking about the unfindable, "vapour bus" Trailways Bus which runs from Ithaca to Syracuse via Cortland (with no change of bus). Which was around long before OurBus was formed as a company -- but for the last decade or so, has had no published timetable. You didn't find it, which proves my point. It's unfindable even with that search engine. (And it starts south of Ithaca, according to rumor. Where does it start from? Who knows?)
> 
> Thanks for proving my point. Apologies will be accepted.



You are clearly referring to the 9:45PM Trailways northbound and it's corollary southbound of which there are several operated by Trailways partners. So, yes, it's very findable.


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## neroden (Jul 9, 2021)

jcoons said:


> You are clearly referring to the 9:45PM Trailways northbound and it's corollary southbound of which there are several operated by Trailways partners. So, yes, it's very findable.



Nope. Try again! It ran during the daytime.

It looks like the "ghost bus" has actually been suspended, perhaps due to Covid -- without notice!


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## neroden (Jul 9, 2021)

Willbridge said:


> I checked my handy August 1974 55mph Official Bus Guide and it shows Greyhound 3x daily between Ithaca and Syracuse. Two trips from Corning through Elmira and one trip from Elmira. In December 1987 the same GL service was in place PLUS a Friday Only Syracuse<>Ithaca turn. In November 1997 the route was run by New York Trailways with one round-trip plus that Friday Only turn.



And that's the route, yep, you found it. Using the printed timetable. Was still in place in 2018, but no timetable, so nobody could find it if they didn't have an old timetable.


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## west point (Jul 10, 2021)

How did the Greyhound take over Trailways proceed. Seems like not all companies were absorbed ?


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## railiner (Jul 10, 2021)

west point said:


> How did the Greyhound take over Trailways proceed. Seems like not all companies were absorbed ?


Greyhound bought Continental Trailways in 1987, the largest member of the National Trailways Bus System (an association of independent bus lines formed in 1936 to compete with Greyhound, and briefly Greyhound became a member of that system. Later, they withdrew, but as part of them getting government permission to make that purchase, they had to continue cooperating with the remaining independent Trailways member companies. Some of these companies went into a revenue sharing pool with Greyhound, and ran joint schedules, in some, but not all cases including pooling of their buses for thru services. Some of these independent bus lines later parted ways with Greyhound, some failed and went under, and a few hung on. One of these is 'Trailways of New York', consisting of three companies owned by the same family (Adirondack, Pine Hill, and NY Trailways).

Today, the Trailways association has tried to re-invent themselves into another trade association of independent bus owners (there are several different ones), and recruit many small "mom & pop" charter companies. Trailways as a line run alternative, has mostly become irrelevant, and other entities have entered the fray...


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## Willbridge (Jul 10, 2021)

railiner said:


> Greyhound bought Continental Trailways in 1987, the largest member of the National Trailways Bus System (an association of independent bus lines formed in 1936 to compete with Greyhound, and briefly Greyhound became a member of that system. Later, they withdrew, but as part of them getting government permission to make that purchase, they had to continue cooperating with the remaining independent Trailways member companies. Some of these companies went into a revenue sharing pool with Greyhound, and ran joint schedules, in some, but not all cases including pooling of their buses for thru services. Some of these independent bus lines later parted ways with Greyhound, some failed and went under, and a few hung on. One of these is 'Trailways of New York', consisting of three companies owned by the same family (Adirondack, Pine Hill, and NY Trailways).
> 
> Today, the Trailways association has tried to re-invent themselves into another trade association of independent bus owners (there are several different ones), and recruit many small "mom & pop" charter companies. Trailways as a line run alternative, has mostly become irrelevant, and other entities have entered the fray...


A great summary of a sad ending. The only thing I would add is that Greyhound sometimes played philanthropist and turned routes over to independent operators. This was tricky in the regulated days but from what I saw, regulators would go along with it if the service level was maintained. It was easier to do under deregulation but less of a sure thing for the newcomer. One way or another, in the Ithaca case that seems to have happened.


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## Michigan Mom (Aug 7, 2021)

Has there been any news of the timetables return? It is really frustrating being limited to the point to point option on the app. I don't think it's asking too much to see the complete route of a given train, with every station stop and times.


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## AmtrakBlue (Aug 7, 2021)

Michigan Mom said:


> Has there been any news of the timetables return? It is really frustrating being limited to the point to point option on the app. I don't think it's asking too much to see the complete route of a given train, with every station stop and times.


If you type in the end points, you'll see all the stops and their times. Though you may have to click on the xx+ to see "more".


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## neroden (Aug 8, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> If you type in the end points, you'll see all the stops and their times. Though you may have to click on the xx+ to see "more".


Of course, this requires that you know the endpoints for every route in advance. (This is why it's impossible to find some of the Trailways and Greyhound routes.)


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## denmarks (Aug 30, 2021)

I know that printed timetables are long gone but do complete timetables appear somewhere on the Amtrak Site? I only see schedules by train and date.


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## zephyr17 (Aug 30, 2021)

denmarks said:


> I know that printed timetables are long gone but do complete timetables appear somewhere on the Amtrak Site? I only see schedules by train and date.


That's it.


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## neroden (Aug 30, 2021)

Rail Passengers Association continues to work to convince Amtrak to bring back the PDF timetables, because people need them. Right now, however, Amtrak is not producing them.


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## PaTrainFan (Aug 30, 2021)

neroden said:


> Rail Passengers Association continues to work to convince Amtrak to bring back the PDF timetables, because people need them. Right now, however, Amtrak is not producing them.



Are they making any headway at all, or simply running into a brick wall?


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## neroden (Aug 30, 2021)

PaTrainFan said:


> Are they making any headway at all, or simply running into a brick wall?


There are now definitely members of management within Amtrak advocating for the return of complete timetables. They may be making progress at convincing others. I cannot say more, but it doesn't look like a brick wall.


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## zephyr17 (Aug 30, 2021)

Brick wall or brick heads?


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## niemi24s (Aug 31, 2021)

While not on the official Amtrak website, this will get you to the last known pdfs of the timetables: Amtrak Routes & Stations

These may or may not be the _current _timetables, however.


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## acelafan (Sep 1, 2021)

To the best of my ability, I have compiled a list of Amtrak timetables and have included those timetables produced by outside entities (like state partners):






Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


Amtrak Timetables Archive



juckins.net


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## NS VIA Fan (Sep 1, 2021)

What a resource! Thanks for that


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Sep 24, 2021)

Why did Amtrak remove the printable schedules from the website? For my recent trip I was lucky I had downloaded the PDFs when they were still available. The alternative of just showing departure and arrival times for your trip is unsatisfactory and makes planning stopover etc that much harder. It also misses the info of what stops handle checked baggage, Thruway connections, etc.


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## denmarks (Sep 24, 2021)

You can get a schedule with each station stop for a route here:
schedules > enter from/to/date > find schedules > select the train> your route appears
They are in segments so you have to click "see next x stations". You can only print a segment at a time.


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## joelkfla (Sep 24, 2021)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Why did Amtrak remove the printable schedules from the website? For my recent trip I was lucky I had downloaded the PDFs when they were still available. The alternative of just showing departure and arrival times for your trip is unsatisfactory and makes planning stopover etc that much harder. It also misses the info of what stops handle checked baggage, Thruway connections, etc.


If you hadn't downloaded it, the last published versions are available on several fan websites.

Here's one: Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


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## neroden (Sep 24, 2021)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Why did Amtrak remove the printable schedules from the website?


Because Amtrak management is a disorganized, incompetent mess right now. The person (yes, ONE PERSON) who prepared the timetables retired and they didn't preemptively hire someone else to replace her, because bad management. I can't put it any more plainly.


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## John from RI (Oct 7, 2021)

Thanks to those who are working on getting Amtrak to re-issue time tables. 
Even in the worst days of the New Haven Railroad there was always a printed timetable at the station. Always. That worked best for me. That they don't even have a timetable on their website is incredible. 
However, I'm not going to get on the blame management train. In recent years there has been so much hostility in Congress that I think we are lucky to even have trains.


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## Bonser (Oct 7, 2021)

John from RI said:


> Thanks to those who are working on getting Amtrak to re-issue time tables.
> Even in the worst days of the New Haven Railroad there was always a printed timetable at the station. Always. That worked best for me. That they don't even have a timetable on their website is incredible.
> However, I'm not going to get on the blame management train. In recent years there has been so much hostility in Congress that I think we are lucky to even have trains.


I beg to differ. I don't think Congress is to blame for the lack of a PDF schedule. That falls on Amtrak management.


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## alpha3 (Oct 8, 2021)

I guess the infamous (miserable) Amtrak IT team has struck yet again, or maybe it's been gone a long time and didn't notice -? But, at any rate, I was looking online for the old familiar top-to-bottom PDF of the California Zephyr. I'm thinking of taking it again soon, but the PDF is gone - at least, I can't find it. Before, you could click on 'destinations' or 'routes' and then then train name comes up, and clicking on the train name, one of the selections was the schedule, PDF, reading top to bottom for one direction, bottom to top for the reverse direction. I can only find one (sort of) schedule if you go to book, then it is only a bare-bones thing for the direction you have chosen. And even then, you have to keep clicking over and over to 'see more.' VERY annoying, and NOT what I want. If I search the internet, it does come up with the Zephyr's PDF for 2020. But that shows 3 days a week service, which has since changed and I'm sure the times are different. Anyone find a way to see the PDF for 2021? Or is Amtrak IT just enjoying making everything impossible?


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## Cal (Oct 8, 2021)

Amtrak discontinued all LD timetables when they went back to daily service, and many corridor ones are outdated. 

Go here for old timetables, dating back to 2005. It is very helpful. Since the Zephyr schedule has not changed (AFAIK, anyway), you can use the one on there. Don't trust the bus connections, or staffed stations though.


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## TinCan782 (Oct 8, 2021)

Here's how I create my own "custom" timetables.
Got to _transitdocs_ and open the map. 
Click on the train of choice on the map which will populate the column on the left of the screen -


Now, click on the train name/number at the top of the column and a new window will open - 


I then copy and paste the whole thing into an Excel spreadsheet and delete the unneeded columns (Actual, Status, Links) leaving you with Miles, Code, Station, Scheduled time.
Now, you have a pretty up-to-date timetable for one direction of the route which you can save, print, further manipulate, etc.
Repeat as needed!
You can also do the same thing at _dixielandsoftware_ -


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## Cal (Oct 8, 2021)

FrensicPic said:


> Here's how I create my own "custom" timetables.
> Got to _transitdocs_ and open the map.
> Click on the train of choice on the map which will populate the column on the left of the screen -
> View attachment 24809
> ...


Gotta love transitdocs (although I know many on here who prefer dixieland)


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## joelkfla (Oct 8, 2021)

FrensicPic said:


> Here's how I create my own "custom" timetables.
> Got to _transitdocs_ and open the map.
> Click on the train of choice on the map which will populate the column on the left of the screen -
> View attachment 24809
> ...


Or open the latest pdf timetable, and use transitdocs as above to confirm that the schedule hasn't changed.


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## dlagrua (Oct 9, 2021)

Timetables should always be considered a vital part of the Amtrak business model.


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## acelafan (Oct 9, 2021)

Amtrak...what a unique business. Why make easy-to-read customer timetables, that have been in existence for basically forever, when you can make your riders go to 3 different websites and cut/paste/modify their own excel spreadsheets?? Ugh. 

I hope that someday the updated PDF timetables come back. RPA? Where are you?


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## me_little_me (Oct 9, 2021)

Easier fix. Amtrak contracts out the creation and maintenance of timetables and the executives and board members personally pay for the initial and ongoing costs.


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## Rasputin (Oct 9, 2021)

Timetables in September. The joke lives on.


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## neroden (Oct 9, 2021)

Amtrak IT are extraordinarily incompetent. Do two things. (1) Complain to Amtrak, preferably by written letter to the Board of Directors. (2) For now, the timetables have been put up at railpassengers.org/timetables.


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## neroden (Oct 9, 2021)

acelafan said:


> Amtrak...what a unique business. Why make easy-to-read customer timetables, that have been in existence for basically forever, when you can make your riders go to 3 different websites and cut/paste/modify their own excel spreadsheets?? Ugh.
> 
> I hope that someday the updated PDF timetables come back. RPA? Where are you?


RPA has been working on this. Amtrak top management are really showing off their incompetence and asking to be fired at this point -- I have lost all sympathy for them. If they can't do the basics, they need to be fired and replaced with someone who can. Write to Flynn, the Board of Directors, DOT, Biden, your Congressmen about it -- eventually these incompetent overpaid clowns *will* be fired.


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## zephyr17 (Oct 9, 2021)

neroden said:


> RPA has been working on this. Amtrak top management are really showing off their incompetence and asking to be fired at this point -- I have lost all sympathy for them. If they can't do the basics, they need to be fired and replaced with someone who can. Write to Flynn, the Board of Directors, DOT, Biden, your Congressmen about it -- eventually these incompetent overpaid clowns *will* be fired.


First, the Board needs to go. Then clean up from the top down.


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## alpha3 (Oct 11, 2021)

What a bunch of clowns, upper Amtrak management; hello, Board - are you listening?? Do you give a rats ass? I mean, how bloody hard can this be, having a website that actually functions. They have a bunch of nitwits attending to this; sometimes the site works, sometimes it doesn't. And it's VERY unfriendly to use, not intuitive at all.


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## alpha3 (Oct 11, 2021)

neroden said:


> For now, the timetables have been put up at railpassengers.org/timetables.



THANKS neroden.


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## me_little_me (Oct 12, 2021)

alpha3 said:


> What a bunch of clowns, upper Amtrak management; hello, Board - are you listening?? Do you give a rats ass? I mean, how bloody hard can this be, having a website that actually functions. They have a bunch of nitwits attending to this; sometimes the site works, sometimes it doesn't. And it's VERY unfriendly to use, not intuitive at all.


Clowns look sad but make you laugh. These people look happy but make customers mad. They should be called snwolc because they got it backwards.


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## Barb Stout (Oct 12, 2021)

neroden said:


> Amtrak IT are extraordinarily incompetent. Do two things. (1) Complain to Amtrak, preferably by written letter to the Board of Directors. (2) For now, the timetables have been put up at railpassengers.org/timetables.


One correction that should be made is under the Sunset Limited's link where it says "(running daily, times are the same)", but it's not running daily, is it?


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## TinCan782 (Oct 12, 2021)

Barb Stout said:


> One correction that should be made is under the Sunset Limited's link where it says "(running daily, times are the same)", but it's not running daily, is it?


That is correct. The SL (and Cardinal) are still three-day-a-week trains.


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## basketmaker (Oct 12, 2021)

FrensicPic said:


> Here's how I create my own "custom" timetables.
> Got to _transitdocs_ and open the map.
> Click on the train of choice on the map which will populate the column on the left of the screen -
> View attachment 24809
> ...


Been doing the same thing for a few years. Great for building your itineraries with a spot for (your) actual times and notes along the way. Here's a sample I did for a DEN(or FMG)-EMY-SEA-EMY-DEN(or FMG) trip back in August, 2016. Sadly I didn't get to do it due to health issues. But I keep dreaming and planning! The copy/paste from Transitdocs utilizing Excel is great. You can add/subtract columns & rows to fit your needs.


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## neroden (Oct 13, 2021)

Preparing your own timetable is not so bad if you already know the origination point, termination point, and train/bus number of every route. Unfortunately, most people don't, especially for Thruway buses.


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## JoshP (Oct 13, 2021)

Hello, I am new to this forum but lurking for long time. I've been riding Amtrak for 20 years and I had known lot of people who worked for them and met great new friends when I was travelling. I am aware about the PDF timetables vanished because of "cost savings" but you can call BS on that. It's the upper execs who are lazy and they know they want to kill Amtrak because they say they aren't making any money at all for years.

However, few months ago I had managed to collect all current up to date PDF timetables and created easy to remember website so everyone can see it without going through the hassle trying to find the PDF schedules.

The website: Amtrak Time Tables

I hope this will help people out there who need find PDF schedules in a simple way.

Enjoy.


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## dwebarts (Oct 13, 2021)

JoshP said:


> The website: Amtrak Time Tables
> 
> I hope this will help people out there who need find PDF schedules in a simple way.
> 
> Enjoy.


Looks good, thanks!


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## PaTrainFan (Oct 13, 2021)

JoshP said:


> Hello, I am new to this forum but lurking for long time. I've been riding Amtrak for 20 years and I had known lot of people who worked for them and met great new friends when I was travelling. I am aware about the PDF timetables vanished because of "cost savings" but you can call BS on that. It's the upper execs who are lazy and they know they want to kill Amtrak because they say they aren't making any money at all for years.
> 
> However, few months ago I had managed to collect all current up to date PDF timetables and created easy to remember website so everyone can see it without going through the hassle trying to find the PDF schedules.
> 
> ...



This is a great resource. It is bookmarked. Thanks for your efforts!


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## Chatter163 (Oct 13, 2021)

Amtrak called, texted, and emailed me the other day to inform me that my northbound _Crescent_ will arrive at Penn Station at 5:57PM on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.


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## JoshP (Oct 13, 2021)

Chatter163 said:


> Amtrak called, texted, and emailed me the other day to inform me that my northbound _Crescent_ will arrive at Penn Station at 5:57PM on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.



Possible few things: Track work cause time change or holiday new temporary changes or else.


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## Cal (Oct 13, 2021)

Chatter163 said:


> Amtrak called, texted, and emailed me the other day to inform me that my northbound _Crescent_ will arrive at Penn Station at 5:57PM on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.


Seems odd, barely 20 minutes before it's schedule arrival time.


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## me_little_me (Oct 14, 2021)

Chatter163 said:


> Amtrak called, texted, and emailed me the other day to inform me that my northbound _Crescent_ will arrive at Penn Station at 5:57PM on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.


Were you scheduled to arrive next Tuesday? If so, that's a real problem. Almost as bad as my order for masks with Amazon which is "delayed".


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## Chatter163 (Oct 14, 2021)

me_little_me said:


> Were you scheduled to arrive next Tuesday? If so, that's a real problem. Almost as bad as my order for masks with Amazon which is "delayed".


No, as indicated, I'm scheduled to arrive on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.


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## cocojacoby (Oct 18, 2021)

If RPA has a timetable site, and it's probably very accurate and up to date, could they offer that link to Amtrak so people could at least see it? No cost to Amtrak and a little "Presented by RPA" promotion for RPA.


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## John819 (Oct 18, 2021)

When Amtrak promised timetables by September, did they say September of 2021? Or was the year left open.


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## joelkfla (Oct 18, 2021)

cocojacoby said:


> If RPA has a timetable site, and it's probably very accurate and up to date, could they offer that link to Amtrak so people could at least see it? No cost to Amtrak and a little "Presented by RPA" promotion for RPA.


RPA just has the most recent timetables published by Amtrak. There's no reason for Amtrak to link to it; they already have them. But most of them are for 3 day a week service, so technically they're out of date, and Amtrak doesn't want to show out of date timetables.


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## me_little_me (Oct 19, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> RPA just has the most recent timetables published by Amtrak. There's no reason for Amtrak to link to it; they already have them. But most of them are for 3 day a week service, so technically they're out of date, and Amtrak doesn't want to show out of date timetables.


Reminds me of a comparison between a clock that is broken and one that is off by a minute a day. which is better? 

The broken clock is right twice a day. The one that is off a minute a day is only right once every 180 days.

Amtrak has the clock that is broken (i.e. no timetables). RPA has the clock that is off a minute a month. Amtrak's clock (i.e. no timetables) is so much better.


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## me_little_me (Oct 21, 2021)

Are they that stupid or just bad liars?

I found an old link in my browser to go to the timetables ro see what I'd find. Here is what it now said:


> *Create your personalized timetable*
> 
> When you’re looking for the most up-to-date schedule information for the origin and destination of your choice, create a customized timetable.
> Just select a date (or date range) and two stations, and you'll get a personalized timetable showing you all the available travel options, whether it be train, connecting bus or a combination of the two.
> ...


So I tried it. Hinton, WV to Chicago on the 24th. It shows Hinton and Chicago (that's customized?) and no intermediate cities. So I click on the details and it shows me 12 cities but not all. I have to click on "6+Stations Tap to see next 6 stations"to see them. Guess what? The first 10 intermediate cities disappear. Click on the "10+Stations Tap to see the 10 previous station" and the 6 are gone. So there is no way to see all he cities at one time with their times nor is there any way to print all the cities. This may work on a bigger screen but my laptop at full screen will only show some of them, not all. 
Printing with the Firefox print selection or with the hidden (all you see is a small box with nine little blocks) on-page print button which brings up an option to print), still does not print all the stations.
I hope their trains have better testing than their web page or my heirs will be very happy.


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## west point (Oct 22, 2021)

OK just print this link for your trip.
Amtrak 50 (10/21) (transitdocs.com)

Sorry 51 not operating so cannot give other direction.


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## TinCan782 (Oct 22, 2021)

west point said:


> OK just print this link for your trip.
> Amtrak 50 (10/21) (transitdocs.com)
> 
> Sorry 51 not operating so cannot give other direction.


That's what I do now for the routes I'm interested in.


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 22, 2021)

west point said:


> OK just print this link for your trip.
> Amtrak 50 (10/21) (transitdocs.com)
> 
> Sorry 51 not operating so cannot give other direction.


Just change the date and train number to get 51's I changed the date to the 20th.


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## west point (Oct 22, 2021)

Here is the link for 51/
Amtrak 51 (10/22) (transitdocs.com)


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## neroden (Oct 22, 2021)

-- deleted as pointless --


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## me_little_me (Oct 22, 2021)

west point said:


> OK just print this link for your trip.
> Amtrak 50 (10/21) (transitdocs.com)
> 
> Sorry 51 not operating so cannot give other direction.


Thanks, but that wasn't my point. I can get that information but it is yet another example of how poor Amtrak has become and it's still an open question as to whether it is incompetence (failure to check how their site looks on different size monitors and failure to see that what is displayed and printed differs from what they claim) or whether their intentions are "less than enthusiastic" about supporting long distance as has been claimed by many.

In either case, the way the page works belies their claims on that page.

Thanks for providing that information.


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## neroden (Oct 23, 2021)

Unverified rumors are that the problematic IT department is... not on the same page as the marketing department. 

Remember, a large organization never acts with one mind -- it's a good thing to remember whenever you're wondering what "Amtrak's intentions" are -- the question is not entirely coherent.


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## John from RI (Oct 31, 2021)

I've been riding Northeast Corridor Trains between Providence and New York or Washington since the 1950's. Even in the days of the New Haven Railroad there were always paper timetables available. Now I can't even find an on line time table giving me the information for Amtrak trains. Does anyone know if they are still published and if so how to get one?


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## denmarks (Oct 31, 2021)

There are no printed timetables. Detailed times are online and only for a single route at a time.
Click "schedules" on first page. You must put in a from and to and date. Pick train on left. Schedule is on the right. There is no easy way to compare train side by side.


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## Cal (Oct 31, 2021)

They are gone.


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## Rasputin (Oct 31, 2021)

Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow, 
so slow in fact that timetables promised by Amtrak to be here in September haven't quite made it yet and business is mellowing.


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## me_little_me (Oct 31, 2021)

Rasputin said:


> Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow,
> so slow in fact that timetables promised by Amtrak to be here in September haven't quite made it yet and business is mellowing.


September is coming in 11 months.


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## John from RI (Oct 31, 2021)

denmarks said:


> There are no printed timetables. Detailed times are online and only for a single route at a time.
> Click "schedules" on first page. You must put in a from and to and date. Pick train on left. Schedule is on the right. There is no easy way to compare train side by side.


Thanks for the information. Your suggestion between NYP and PVD (Providence) worked exactly as you said it would. Never ever did I think I would feel nostalgic about the New Haven Railroad until now.


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## John from RI (Oct 31, 2021)

Cal said:


> They are gone.


Yes, like the Phoebe Snow, they are gone.


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## neroden (Nov 1, 2021)

The PDF or HTML timetables are going to come back, but I don't know if it'll require federal legislation. So don't hold your breath.


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## ZiaReba (Nov 5, 2021)

I am trying to find the schedules for my trains (they used to have paper copies in the cars) but I can’t seem to find the route schedules on the Amtrak site. Can anyone help?


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## slasher-fun (Nov 5, 2021)

If you're looking for the original Amtrak PDF timetables, they're gone.
If you're looking for any sort of timetable, to see where and when your train is scheduled to stop, you can use NA Intercity Rail Tools for example


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## ZiaReba (Nov 5, 2021)

I was looking for the original timetables - bummer.


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## Rasputin (Nov 5, 2021)

ZiaReba said:


> I was looking for the original timetables - bummer.


Much the same way that some parks have limits on attendance in order to prevent overcrowding, Amtrak keeps the times of their train services secret as a way of crowd control.

Remember the scene in Dr. Zhivago where there is a crowd of people waiting around a station platform. Then suddenly and without warning a train arrives and pandemonium breaks out. That is Amtrak's train services only the locomotives are now diesel or electric (or diesel-electric, I guess to be correct).


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## niemi24s (Nov 5, 2021)

Those original timetables can be found here... Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home ...but the most current one is, IIRC, the last paper one put out by Amtrak, is about 3 years old and is a bit outdated. Outdated ones can also be found here: Amtrak Routes & Stations


Convoluted current timetables can be found on the Amtrak website, but this dummy has never figured out how access them.


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## JoshP (Nov 5, 2021)

Other one: www.amtraktimetables.com


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## Eric S (Nov 6, 2021)

The latest issue of TRAINS magazine (December 2021) has a short blurb about Amtrak timetables. In it, Amtrak Marketing Vice President Kerry McKelvey says that the "timetable automation project" will have some sort of results before the end of the 2021. So does that mean that September has been pushed back to, perhaps, December? I'm certainly not holding breath waiting to see what happens.


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## neroden (Nov 6, 2021)

The "timetable automation project" is a piece of incompetent overpromising by overeager young CS graduates which isn't doing its job. We have to keep advocating for normal timetables, because Amtrak is buying into gee-whiz nonsense.


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## enviro5609 (Nov 7, 2021)

neroden said:


> The "timetable automation project" is a piece of incompetent overpromising by overeager young CS graduates which isn't doing its job. We have to keep advocating for normal timetables, because Amtrak is buying into gee-whiz nonsense.


Or… its just that the timetables used to be manually updated by a single employee who used to do them by hand (and now has left). And the CS majors you are condescending about are trying to design a system where the timetables can just be automatically generated as a report instead of needing to be redone in Adobe Illustrater manually every time there is a schedule change.

Seriously, the negativity around here (mixed in with the ageism) is a little much.


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## joelkfla (Nov 7, 2021)

enviro5609 said:


> Or… its just that the timetables used to be manually updated by a single employee who used to do them by hand (and now has left). And the CS majors you are condescending about are trying to design a system where the timetables can just be automatically generated as a report instead of needing to be redone in Adobe Illustrater manually every time there is a schedule change.
> 
> Seriously, the negativity around here (mixed in with the ageism) is a little much.


Ageism?! Why, you young whippersnapper ...


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## MARC Rider (Nov 7, 2021)

enviro5609 said:


> Or… its just that the timetables used to be manually updated by a single employee who used to do them by hand (and now has left). And the CS majors you are condescending about are trying to design a system where the timetables can just be automatically generated as a report instead of needing to be redone in Adobe Illustrater manually every time there is a schedule change.
> 
> Seriously, the negativity around here (mixed in with the ageism) is a little much.


It might help the credibility of the "timetable automation project" if they could do a push on timetables for one route and show the public what the new system will look like.

That said, it's a management failure that they were relying on one person to manually update timetables with apparently no plan to deal with what would happen if that person left. The other thing is that people who are tasked with automating or upgrading a system really should have a good idea about how the existing system worked, as this will help them build the new system more quickly. The other thing you need to do is when you upgrade a system is to keep the old system running in parallel for a while until the bugs in the new system are worked out. It drove me nuts in my job when they switched systems and didn't keep the old one working as backup.


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## dwebarts (Nov 7, 2021)

In theory, it should be reasonable to have auto-generated PDF files from timetable data. There have been server-side libraries to do this for at least ten years.

In practice, there are likely other considerations. It would require the visual designers to work with the back-end programmers to ensure the result is visually pleasing.

In some respects, that was easier when the two were always separate roles. The emphasis on full-stack development can often result in noticeable compromises in the resulting product.


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## joelkfla (Nov 7, 2021)

dwebarts said:


> In theory, it should be reasonable to have auto-generated PDF files from timetable data. There have been server-side libraries to do this for at least ten years.
> 
> In practice, there are likely other considerations. It would require the visual designers to work with the back-end programmers to ensure the result is visually pleasing.
> 
> In some respects, that was easier when the two were always separate roles. The emphasis on full-stack development can often result in noticeable compromises in the resulting product.


Don't forget all the other info that was on traditional timetables: Thruway connections, Receive or Discharge passengers only notations, checked baggage, handicap accessibility, bicycle check availability, etc.

IMHO, it would be a lot easier to just build a schedule for each route in something like Word and manually update as needed, rather than attempt to fully automate it. The initial setup would be a chore, but changes to times and station services don't happen that often, and it would probably take less than an hour to update a route once the timetable has been built.


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## MARC Rider (Nov 7, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> Don't forget all the other info that was on traditional timetables: Thruway connections, Receive or Discharge passengers only notations, checked baggage, handicap accessibility, bicycle check availability, etc.
> 
> IMHO, it would be a lot easier to just build a schedule for each route in something like Word and manually update as needed, rather than attempt to fully automate it. The initial setup would be a chore, but changes to times and station services don't happen that often, and it would probably take less than an hour to update a route once the timetable has been built.


Oh no, no! This is the 21st century! We can't have some lowly, but experienced clerical administrative human do something manually when we can have futuristic automated systems do it. So what if the automated result is of lower quality and requires twice as many person-hours of overpaid IT programmers who are ignorant of the actual process as the lowly clerk who used to do it manually? This is the Future. This is Progress.


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## fixj (Nov 8, 2021)

In the December issue of Trains Magazine, there is mention of a location on the web for copies of archived Amtrak schedules, many of which are still accurate. Called Juckins.net they have a huge number of schedules. Just in case you missed it.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 8, 2021)

Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


Amtrak Timetables Archive



juckins.net


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## acelafan (Nov 9, 2021)

I didn't even know Bob Johnston mentioned my TT archives - thanks for the mention here.


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## John819 (Nov 9, 2021)

I suspect that Amtrak is going to hold off on timetables until after (a) it reduces train service in December to three trips a week (on some routes) and (b) restores service in the late spring.


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## Rasputin (Nov 9, 2021)

I think it must be a miracle of modern life that the supermarket where I shop can produce a printed 10-12 page sale flyer every week and also put that sale flyer online a couple days before it becomes effective so one can plan ahead. 

I assume that my supermarket does this because it wishes to sell its products, it wishes to encourage repeat business, and that it wishes to make a profit and to appear as a desirable company for its employees and shareholders. 

None of this seems to apply to Amtrak.


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## denmarks (Nov 9, 2021)

There are many sites that show the scheduled and actual arrival times. Does anyone know how they get their scheduled times. If they are able to abstract them from Amtrak you would think they could generate their own full train schedules.
For example: Train 5 of 11/05/2021


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## west point (Nov 9, 2021)

Here is link of train %5 /07.
Amtrak 5 (11/9) (transitdocs.com)


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## Cal (Nov 9, 2021)

acelafan said:


> I didn't even know Bob Johnston mentioned my TT archives - thanks for the mention here.


Well your site is pretty handy, I’ve used it many times.


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## neroden (Nov 9, 2021)

dwebarts said:


> In theory, it should be reasonable to have auto-generated PDF files from timetable data. There have been server-side libraries to do this for at least ten years.
> 
> In practice, there are likely other considerations. It would require the visual designers to work with the back-end programmers to ensure the result is visually pleasing.



There are a lot of other considerations. Figuring out which services should be presented on a single table, and arranging timetables like the Florida services to be most positively comprehensible, and attaching Thruway bus schedules to the right timetables, is not trivial and probably honestly can't be automated.

It can be done by one person in a few hours though.


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## neroden (Nov 9, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> Oh no, no! This is the 21st century! We can't have some lowly, but experienced clerical administrative human do something manually when we can have futuristic automated systems do it. So what if the automated result is of lower quality and requires twice as many person-hours of overpaid IT programmers who are ignorant of the actual process as the lowly clerk who used to do it manually? This is the Future. This is Progress.



This. When I insult Amtrak's IT department I do so as someone who's been programming since the age of 4. I also have a math bachelor's. And my father founded the second CS department in the US.

I know what computers are good for and I know what they're *bad at*.

They should be able to pump out raw spreadsheet material which a human can massage into a readable timetable in a few hours.

They will suck at actually producing good complete timetables, which we now know *one employee* was capable of doing. Humans are good at some things.


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## neroden (Nov 9, 2021)

enviro5609 said:


> Or… its just that the timetables used to be manually updated by a single employee who used to do them by hand (and now has left). And the CS majors you are condescending about are trying to design a system where the timetables can just be automatically generated as a report instead of needing to be redone in Adobe Illustrater manually every time there is a schedule change.


Well, let's put it this way. These incompetents FAILED AT THEIR JOB. Their job was to get good timetables produced by the new system *before* the previous manually produced timetables stopped being made.

Grade: F.

Amtrak could have hired *one person* to replace the person who retired. One employee. Is that cheaper than a large IT project which didn't even work? Almost certainly.


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## neroden (Nov 10, 2021)

John819 said:


> I suspect that Amtrak is going to hold off on timetables until after (a) it reduces train service in December to three trips a week (on some routes) and (b) restores service in the late spring.


They've said as much. 

When they had ONE EMPLOYEE devoted to timetables, that employee conscientiously made timetables for every temporary schedule change. So apparently it only takes one employee. But with zero employees, they're trying to avoid making timetables because it would have to add to the workload of someone whose primary job is something else.

It's asinine and one of the most embarassing pieces of mismanagement I've ever seen, honestly.


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## Willbridge (Nov 10, 2021)

Rasputin said:


> Much the same way that some parks have limits on attendance in order to prevent overcrowding, Amtrak keeps the times of their train services secret as a way of crowd control.
> 
> Remember the scene in Dr. Zhivago where there is a crowd of people waiting around a station platform. Then suddenly and without warning a train arrives and pandemonium breaks out. That is Amtrak's train services only the locomotives are now diesel or electric (or diesel-electric, I guess to be correct).


And that scene is in color! I thought they were relying on the script for the black+white last train from Paris in _Casablanca!_


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## MARC Rider (Nov 10, 2021)

neroden said:


> Amtrak could have hired *one person* to replace the person who retired. One employee. Is that cheaper than a large IT project which didn't even work? Almost certainly.



Well, I might hire two people, mainly for redundancy, so that if one person leaves, there's still someone who knows what to do. Also, there's going to be a learning curve, so maybe at the beginning 2 people might be helpful. Also, Amtrak might want to re-think it's apparent policy of not hiring railfans, as there are nerdy railfan geeks who are **right now** producing timetables the best they can.


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## west point (Nov 10, 2021)

Am a big supporter of timetables. Amtrak is anticipating that it may have to reduce frequency of some of its trains due to shortage of train crew. Why not print effective date and say this schedule may change after XXX date.


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## johnmiller (Nov 14, 2021)

Here is an archive of Amtrak Timetables I found. I am guessing a lot of you are aware, but just in case:






Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


Amtrak Timetables Archive



juckins.net


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## jis (Nov 14, 2021)

neroden said:


> There are a lot of other considerations. Figuring out which services should be presented on a single table, and arranging timetables like the Florida services to be most positively comprehensible, and attaching Thruway bus schedules to the right timetables, is not trivial and probably honestly can't be automated.
> 
> It can be done by one person in a few hours though.


Indeed! It is generating the templates for each page that requires manual intervention. Once the templates are done, if done right, then they can be auto populated from the timetable database, again if done right.

It can actually be a very significant effort to create human friendly templates showing things like Thruway connections, in a user friendly way. Doing just a mindless route dump is much easier, specially when the route has precisely one train


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## PRR 60 (Nov 14, 2021)

According to a report in the latest issue of Trains Magazine (December 2021), timetables will be returning with a target date of the end of 2021. The work is part of the "timetable automation project" that will produce downloadable and printable documents that will "replicate legacy route timetables" but will be populated with the stations, trains and times in that are in the Arrow CRS at the time of the request. The timetables will be dynamically generated and will include up-to-date connecting Thruway services.


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## jis (Nov 14, 2021)

I doubt that the templates will be dynamically generated though. But populating from CRS is definitely the way to go. Someone has to create those stylesheets, or at least write a data driven stylesheet generator of some sort, for the thing to work and especially be user friendly though.


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## me_little_me (Nov 14, 2021)

PRR 60 said:


> According to a report in the latest issue of Trains Magazine (December 2021), timetables will be returning with a target date of the end of 2021. The work is part of the "timetable automation project" that will produce downloadable and printable documents that will "replicate legacy route timetables" but will be populated with the stations, trains and times in that are in the Arrow CRS at the time of the request. The timetables will be dynamically generated and will include up-to-date connecting Thruway services.


But is this being done by Amtrak or by volunteers on this site? And, if by Amtrak, it's unfortunate that someone here didn't copyright it first!


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## Tommydawg (Nov 23, 2021)

I also contacted Amtrak via email about 2 weeks ago and questioned them about the return of the printed Timetables. Personally I poured over them for planning purposes for connections to other trains, dining cars, car rentals, hotels, station facilities & parking, etc. They seem to have the mistaken belief that *everyone* knows exactly where they are boarding and where their destination ends, and have no need to know anything else whatsoever.

Here is the reply they sent me 2 weeks ago:


Dear [me], 

Thank you for contacting us. 

We are in the process of automating timetables and have discontinued traditional PDF timetables. We apologize for any inconvenience while the new solution is being implemented. 

In the meantime, you can view our schedules on Amtrak.com through the “Schedules” tab. Simply enter in your Origin and Destination and click the “Find Schedules” button. Please call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245), 24/7, should you need assistance. Press '0' to speak with an Amtrak reservations agent. 

We look forward to serving you aboard Amtrak.

Sincerely,

Amtrak


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## neroden (Nov 23, 2021)

Again, keep complaining, preferably to the Board and CEO of Amtrak, whose paper-mail addresses are on the website. We have people inside Amtrak who agree with us; it's a matter of getting enough advocates yelling at top management to get the problem fixed.


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## AmtrakBlue (Feb 14, 2022)

They have "fixed" the Print Selected Train. It will now print out all stops and information. Unfortunately, it still requires you to select a start and end point and date.


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## John from RI (Feb 14, 2022)

It is February 14, 2022 and there are no time tables. Railroads have offered time tables since early in the 19th century. The New Haven Railroad in its worst days still had time tables. It is hard to believe Amtrak is so incompetent. I wish it were not so.


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## joelkfla (Feb 14, 2022)

AmtrakBlue said:


> They have "fixed" the Print Selected Train. It will now print out all stops and information. Unfortunately, it still requires you to select a start and end point and date.


Hah! I didn't even know this existed.

First, I've never seen that weird window pane icon for the menu anywhere else; it's usually the hamburger icon for menus. And they stick it next to the date --- why?

So after I realized it was there, I click it and all I see is "Selected Train". The word "Print" is cut off on MS Edge on my Windows laptop! If I hadn't seen your post, I would never have thought to click on it.

Nice web design, Amtrak! 

ETA: BTW, for the Silver Star, the printout says "Freq: Sa" instead of Daily or listing all 7 days. It doesn't matter which date you select, it always says "Freq: Sa".


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## neroden (Feb 16, 2022)

John from RI said:


> It is February 14, 2022 and there are no time tables. Railroads have offered time tables since early in the 19th century. The New Haven Railroad in its worst days still had time tables. It is hard to believe Amtrak is so incompetent. I wish it were not so.



Amtrak definitely has the least competent railroad mangement in history. I could do better, working half-time. I have never seen anything this incompetent before. I don't blame middle management: this lies directly at the feet of notorious incompetent Stephen Gardner. I think he actually does support passenger trains -- but he's just manifestly unqualified to make ANY management decisions about them. This proves it.


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## lrh442 (Feb 16, 2022)

Eight months after my original post the probability of the return of Amtrak-produced printable pdf-style timetables is growing ever more remote. So, I ask the IT-savvy members here: As jis mused, do you think some kind of crowd-sourced creation and maintenance of timetables is feasible or not-so-much? 



jis said:


> So one possibility is we can create a team of volunteers here at AU where each individual can take on one train and create upto date timetable by editing the standard Amtrak template for that route. Single trains are easy to handle this way. Nultiple trains get more and more complex depending on the number of trains in a table.


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## jis (Feb 16, 2022)

lrh442 said:


> Eight months after my original post the probability of the return of Amtrak-produced printable pdf-style timetables is growing ever more remote. So, I ask the IT-savvy members here: As jis mused, do you think some kind of crowd-sourced creation and maintenance of timetables is feasible or not-so-much?



AFAIK @neroden I think has a back burner project that he has been working on "as and when he canly" Maybe he can give an update when something significant has happened.


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## neroden (Feb 16, 2022)

That is correct. Lot of other stuff going on so I haven't made progress in a couple of weeks. (More medical problems to deal with for my partner, and that's not easy with the pandemic still raging, since she *got infected at a medical office* in December, so we're being ultra-paranoid -- getting the fourth dose, going off the immune suppressants, scheduling the appointments about 2 weeks after dose #4, wearing even better-fitting N95s than she wore last time...)

I'd say I'm three to five full days' work away from having a program which produces a pretty nice HTML timetable from GTFS data (looking similar to the ones from the classic timetable); it uses a little manual intervention in the form of templates (which can be prepped in a spreadsheet program as CSV) for the more complicated timetables ( while the templates can be autogenerated for the simple cases). I am quite sure I've got the architecture right so that I can generate nearly all the different styles of timetables which were used in prior Amtrak timetables. A few persnickety items will take longer.

The same program should be able to put it out in a raw CSV format if people want to present it differently, and the HTML should be suitable to feed through an HTML-to-PDF translater. If I get it finished I'll put it at the service of Rail Passengers Assocation and we should be able to pump out a full set of timetables with a script.

Manual work updating the applicable template would be required when train service actually changes significantly (new train numbers, cancelled train numbers, stations added or removed), but should be on the order of one minute's work -- and we all know that sort of change doesn't happen that often. 

Changes in exactly when trains arrive should just be a matter of running "make new timetable", push a button, get a timetable. The heavy manual effort which was error-prone was copying the times into the spreadsheet, and I have it from inside Amtrak that they did not like the fact that occasionally copying errors crept in. So I figured I'd solve that problem.

I still need Amtrak to release up-to-date GTFS data to one of the standard sites like openmobilitydata, but I'm hearing that that is likely soon.

The program's in a "pieces lying on the floor" state at the moment, because I've gone through three rounds of prototypes in order to get the architecture right, and now I have to port the detail code from the first two prototypes to the third architecture, but that's pretty cut-and-dried work. The first prototype was producing a pretty nice timetable for the Cardinal but I needed to re-architect to do some of the other timetables.


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## TinCan782 (Feb 16, 2022)

OK, gave it a shot for the Coast Starlight...just the basic timetable info. No connection, services info.
The foundation data is here:
Train #11: Train Details
and here Train #14 Train Details
This can be done for any train.

Copied and pasted all of this into an Excel spreadsheet, deleted unwanted data and massaged away! I've been doing this for myself for upcoming trips for a while now. I just print the spreadsheet and keep it with my travel stuff for the trip.

For this example, I saved it as a PDF to upload here.
I'm not ready to make an Amtrak-looking timetable!


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## neroden (Feb 16, 2022)

That's pretty elegant. Not sure I could make one quite as pretty (the "Day 1"/"Day 2" thing is not something I'm implementing) but I should be able to replicate most of the rest of that with my program and a suitable template.

I don't have a machine-readable source of milepost numbers though, not so far anyway.


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## neroden (Feb 16, 2022)

So one of the things I heard from inside Amtrak after applying a lot of pressure was that they didn't like the problems related to manual copying of timetable data or data going stale (apparently small errors in publication had created some large problems in the past). Of course, Amtrak management has made that problem ten times worse now that there are dozens of fan timetables which may have copying errors, which is not very bright of them.

So I figured, "This, I can fix." Timetable design is an art (hence the need for templates), but plugging in the times should be mechanical and automated. My template format for a simple timetable like the Coast Starlight one would be a one-line file looking something like this:

stations of 11, 11, station names, 14

You also have to specify a key date to extract the times from GTFS which are valid on that date; and then the whole timetable would print out.

A more complex timetable like Carolinas Service would require that the list of all the stations to be included in the timetable be specified in the template, including the order; there's no way to autogenerate it, as it is an artistic decision, it turns out.

The template for the old Cascades southbound weekday schedule without buses might look like this:

,station names,503,501,11,513,507,509,517
vac,,,,,,,
bel,,,,,,,
mvw,,,,,,,
stw,,,,,,,
evr,,,,,,,
sea,,,,,,,
tac,,,,,,,
olw,,,,,,,
ctl,,,,,,,
kel,,,,,,,
van,,,,,,,
pdx,,,,,,,
slm,,,,,,,
aly,,,,,,,
eug,,,,,,,
,,,,To Los Angeles,,,

So basically, column IDs and row IDs, plus special legends like "To Los Angeles", and the program fills in the rest. I think I've got a pretty flexible design now.

Oh, and although I'm setting it up to produce a styled HTML table, it can also just produce CSV for people who want to restyle it themselves to add extra cool bits like that "Day 1 Day 2" thing.


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## denmarks (Feb 16, 2022)

Years ago I did the reverse of creating a timetable. I manually took all of the data from the current timetables and created an HTML table that was loaded from a data file. I had the ability to enter a route number and see all the stops in forward or reverse order. I also had the ability to enter a station to see all the trains stopping there. It was over 10 years ago and I no longer have a website or the actual code. If I could do it I am sure a single programmer could maintain timetables. All the data is currently available online and just needs to be extracted and formatted.

There are currently websites that show train status and the complete schedule for each one. Has any of them tried to extract and combine all the data into a schedule format?
Example: Amtrak Status Maps


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## Cal (Feb 16, 2022)

denmarks said:


> There are currently websites that show train status and the complete schedule for each one. Has any of them tried to extract and combine all the data into a schedule format?


Amtrak/VIA Live Map Already does that, if you click a train and then click at the top left the train name and the date it left (Example below, top left is where you would click)


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## TinCan782 (Feb 16, 2022)

Cal said:


> Amtrak/VIA Live Map Already does that, if you click a train and then click at the top left the train name and the date it left (Example below, top left is where you would click) View attachment 27218


See my post #290 above and the attachment which was derived from this site.


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## Willbridge (Feb 16, 2022)

TinCan782 said:


> OK, gave it a shot for the Coast Starlight...just the basic timetable info. No connection, services info.
> The foundation data is here:
> Train #11: Train Details
> and here Train #14 Train Details
> ...


Handsome looking (the output, I mean)! I like having the city codes presented. There is one quirk northbound at SJC for the arrive and depart.


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## TinCan782 (Feb 16, 2022)

Willbridge said:


> Handsome looking (the output, I mean)! I like having the city codes presented. There is one quirk northbound at SJC for the arrive and depart.


Thanks Missed that when I was inverting the columns for northbound (the original read top to bottom like southbound).
Easy fix.


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## Willbridge (Feb 17, 2022)

Wow! I remember all this effort in the 1990's with hobbyists developing timetables and search software. I believe that was the origin of HAFAS (now owned by Siemens as HACON). Somewhere I probably have a CD of the DB _Amtliches Kursbuch._

DB Netz - strecken.info (hafas.de)


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## Joe from PA (Feb 17, 2022)

Timetables are handy for reasons not yet mentioned. Since we are "senior citizens", probably not important to many of you. One, in coach on the way to Boston: "Dear, would you like to have lunch at 11:45 or 12:20?". This to give me and easier time walking while trying to carry stuff trough 2 cars from the cafe car. Or, guys, "Next stand-up pee stop coming up in 12 minutes".


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## neroden (Feb 17, 2022)

I don't really want to be insulting, but I will be -- Amtrak's current IT department is not currently competent to prepare timetable generating software. 

I'm basically doing it because I'm competent, it's a fun project, and they're unlikely to get it done either promptly or well -- they were supposed to get it done *before* retiring the person who prepared the timetables manually, they didn't, which shows that they weren't competent. :sigh: I hope they get better people employed at some point.


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## Amtrak25 (Feb 17, 2022)

I am an IT person for 40 years, an application programmer with older IBM mainframe and SAS technology, but I don't know a thing about HTML or Java. But I do know they can probably hire a college IT student intern for $25/hour and get it done very quickly. Most schedules are pretty static, unlike say the LIRR's. They simply don't care. Their mentality is the airlines don't do it, most intercity buses, whether legacy or internet don't do it (like they are a success story), so why should we when they are for just dinosaurs and railfans.


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## neroden (Feb 17, 2022)

Every railroad in the world provides timetables, which means their attitude amounts to "we are morons".


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## Amtrak25 (Feb 17, 2022)

Well not VIA Rail anymore either, not even pdf. Monkey see-monkey do. They also love being paperless.


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## John Bredin (Feb 17, 2022)

Amtrak25 said:


> Well not VIA Rail anymore either, not even pdf. Monkey see-monkey do. They also love being paperless.


Via's website has timetables, though as you say not pdf ones. They're still timetables in that they show all the trains on a given route or service in columns where you can see at a glance which trains stop where and when.


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## acelafan (Feb 17, 2022)

neroden said:


> That is correct. Lot of other stuff going on so I haven't made progress in a couple of weeks. (More medical problems to deal with for my partner, and that's not easy with the pandemic still raging, since she *got infected at a medical office* in December, so we're being ultra-paranoid -- getting the fourth dose, going off the immune suppressants, scheduling the appointments about 2 weeks after dose #4, wearing even better-fitting N95s than she wore last time...)
> 
> I'd say I'm three to five full days' work away from having a program which produces a pretty nice HTML timetable from GTFS data (looking similar to the ones from the classic timetable); it uses a little manual intervention in the form of templates (which can be prepped in a spreadsheet program as CSV) for the more complicated timetables ( while the templates can be autogenerated for the simple cases). I am quite sure I've got the architecture right so that I can generate nearly all the different styles of timetables which were used in prior Amtrak timetables. A few persnickety items will take longer.
> 
> ...


@neroden Regarding the GTFS data, several of the hobby programmers that run Amtrak Status Maps, ASM Transit Docs, and ASMAD have wanted reliable GTFS data for a long time. Do I understand correctly that the backend data that runs Amtrak/VIA Live Map today is in fact using Amtrak's own Track-A-Train data (that is really GTFS)? But that we would like Amtrak to provide that GTFS data on a public, supported, reliable website like OpenMobility?


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## neroden (Feb 17, 2022)

acelafan said:


> @neroden Regarding the GTFS data, several of the hobby programmers that run Amtrak Status Maps, ASM Transit Docs, and ASMAD have wanted reliable GTFS data for a long time. Do I understand correctly that the backend data that runs Amtrak/VIA Live Map today is in fact using Amtrak's own Track-A-Train data (that is really GTFS)? But that we would like Amtrak to provide that GTFS data on a public, supported, reliable website like OpenMobility?



Yes, I think. I don't know exactly what those various hobby sites are using, but I know Amtrak isn't providing a clean static GTFS feed; they're getting the data from some other format...


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## trimetbusfan (Aug 7, 2022)

I noticed a few weeks ago that _route-specific_ schedules have appeared to have returned to the schedules page (Train Schedules & Timetables | Amtrak). It will let you print them if you click the print icon although there still appear to be some errors. On some routes, it shows trains that do not run (such as on the Crescent where it shows BOTH the old and the new schedule).


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## AmtrakBlue (Aug 7, 2022)

Here’s a screenshot via the app on my phone.


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## Amtrak25 (Aug 7, 2022)

That does not fit my definition of a timetable.


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## tricia (Aug 7, 2022)

An aside: Title of this thread refers to timetables returning in September .... 2021.


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## slasher-fun (Aug 7, 2022)

neroden said:


> Every railroad in the world provides timetables, which means their attitude amounts to "we are morons".


Do they? I know that in Europe SNCF doesn't, Deutsche Bahn doesn't, NS doesn't, Renfe doesn't, .Italo doesn't, Trenitalia doesn't, CFF/SBB doesn't... and I'm definitely missing some others.


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## Rasputin (Aug 7, 2022)

tricia said:


> An aside: Title of this thread refers to timetables returning in September .... 2021.


This former thread title served as a reminder of where this stood in Amtrak's priorities.


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## jis (Aug 7, 2022)

slasher-fun said:


> Do they? I know that in Europe SNCF doesn't, Deutsche Bahn doesn't, NS doesn't, Renfe doesn't, .Italo doesn't, Trenitalia doesn't, CFF/SBB doesn't... and I'm definitely missing some others.


Indeed in general most railroads themselves have stopped publishing printed books.

Europe has been lucky in having the Thomas Cook timetables. The US used to have a consolidated timetable like the European Timetable from Thomas Cook, but it went under sometime in the '70s AFAIR. It would be really nice if some outfit were to take it on to create a consolidated PDF timetable of all passenger service in the US, sort of like the Overseas Edition of Thomas Cook used to have.

Amtrak is pretty much doing what most major railways have been doing, which is to move stuff more on line and publish timetables using the web standard for it for anyone to publish them in whatever form suites them.

I understand the British Bradshaw has started publishing again with the blessing of Network Rail. Unfortunately the Indian Bradshaw shut down around 2016/17 and the Indian Timetable information is now available in abstract form mostly on line, but in addition a remarkably detailed online timetable integrated very well with train status, which surprisingly includes real time information of diverted service is quite impressive. This proved to be very useful during the highly dynamic situation of train cancellations and arbitrary service re-introduction and withdrawal during the COVID period.

Unfortunately as in the US there is no consensus on the future of passenger rail and possibly due to that there is no momentum to do anything about such multiple company spanning activities as a national timetable project.


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## trimetbusfan (Aug 7, 2022)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Here’s a screenshot via the app on my phone.
> 
> View attachment 29078
> 
> View attachment 29077


It looks a little better if you hit the ‘print’ option.


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## slasher-fun (Aug 7, 2022)

jis said:


> Europe has been lucky in having the Thomas Cook timetables. The US used to have a consolidated timetable like the European Timetable from Thomas Cook, but it went under sometime in the '70s AFAIR. It would be really nice if some outfit were to take it on to create a consolidated PDF timetable of all passenger service in the US, sort of like the Overseas Edition of Thomas Cook used to have.


It's still part of the European Rail Timetable, in the "Beyond Europe" section, project that started when Thomas Cook stopped their publication. European Rail Timetable

Excerpt from July 2022 newslines:


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## Amtrak25 (Aug 7, 2022)

Since all the US commuter railroads produce timetables, that leaves Amtrak as the odd man out. It hardly behooves a Thomas Cook equivalent to do it, something Amtrak is perfectly capable of doing themselves, as several talented rail advocates have volunteered to do, which probably irritates Amtrak (good).

While Greyhound has not produced public timetable brochures since the 1980's, there is this Greyhound System Timetable

l have no idea who produces it monthly.



slasher-fun said:


> It's still part of the European Rail Timetable, in the "Beyond Europe" section, project that started when Thomas Cook stopped their publication. European Rail Timetable
> 
> Excerpt from July 2022 newslines:
> View attachment 29086



So an "Amtrak journey planner seems to indicate a change in trains is required at the border".

Uhm, no, though Customs makes you get off and get back on. Two railroads happen to run a through train with enroute change in train number.

These timetable substitutes can be misleading.

Internally to the CN, numbers change again between odd and even at Bayview, ON between railroad east and west.


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## joelkfla (Aug 9, 2022)

A deficiency I just discovered on Amtrak's "Print all trains" feature:

If you search for schedules by origin & destination cities, the website shows (supposedly) all of the trains between those cities on the date specified. Then you can select the Print option, followed by Print all trains.

Here's the catch: It does print timetables for all the trains on a PDF, but only the stations for the first train are printed.

For example, searching for trains between ORL & PHL in October shows the Silver Meteor and the Silver Star. When I "Print all", the Meteor schedule is shown in full. The Star shows a dash at stations it does not serve. But none of the stations served by the Star but not the Meteor are shown.

As it stands now, there is no way to print a timetable with multiple trains showing all of the stations served by them.


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## Amtrak25 (Aug 9, 2022)

Amtrak does not want anyone to have a paper trail of their complete schedules.


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## jis (Aug 9, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> A deficiency I just discovered on Amtrak's "Print all trains" feature:
> 
> If you search for schedules by origin & destination cities, the website shows (supposedly) all of the trains between those cities on the date specified. Then you can select the Print option, followed by Print all trains.
> 
> ...


It boggles my mind that the crack IT team at Amtrak cannot complete what I would consider a Sophomore Year Computer Programming project adequately in many months.


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## WWW (Aug 9, 2022)

Oh to have more of the phonebook size printed bible of Amtrak trains and routes circa 2016.

I have one dogeared copy and wish I had grabbed more - although dated the track mileage
and timing albeit a few minutes off is valid for guess-a-mating for figuring things out DIY !

At least Amtrak could make digital copies of it available with current correct data.
That is current correct up to date digital copies that can be updated frequently without the
need of going a paper printed copy route.

Amtrak needs to get out of the pony express mode and adopt the airline reservations system.
When booking a sleeper accommodation one should be able to see and select from the
available empty rooms - not be given an arbitrary random assignment - which although it
can be changed - only by calling an Amtrak agent or visiting an Amtrak ticket office. 
Such a simple nuisance that shouldn't have to be.


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## Amtrak25 (Aug 9, 2022)

I have my Jan 2016 National timetable on the shelf over my computer. It is more like the thickness of Model Railroader, though bound. They vanished around when Boardman was cutting office expenses by getting rid of color tonor in his copiers.

Does Russell's still print their bus Guide, Map, and Timetable ? I have old copies of those too.


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## 20th Century Rider (Aug 9, 2022)

Aaah... remembering the days of the big large system wide timetables... the stuff dreams were made of... spend hours and hours perusing and dreaming of places to go with creative ways of taking the longest route between two points.

...So long ago


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## tricia (Aug 9, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> A deficiency I just discovered on Amtrak's "Print all trains" feature:
> 
> If you search for schedules by origin & destination cities, the website shows (supposedly) all of the trains between those cities on the date specified. Then you can select the Print option, followed by Print all trains.
> 
> ...



We need an eye-roll emoji on the "like" bar.


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## leccy (Aug 9, 2022)

Let's not get all nostalgic for printed timetables. PDFs or even nicely formatted HTML files are fine. I really hate the habit of forcing everyone onto airline style journey planners that lock you into one option. I don't know where the idea came from that everyone loves them.

PS. Someone about suggested DB doesn't produce line PDFs. They do, they are just a bit hard to find. Elektronisches Kursbuch der Deutschen Bahn


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## joelkfla (Aug 9, 2022)

leccy said:


> Let's not get all nostalgic for printed timetables. PDFs or even nicely formatted HTML files are fine. I really hate the habit of forcing everyone onto airline style journey planners that lock you into one option. I don't know where the idea came from that everyone loves them.
> 
> PS. Someone about suggested DB doesn't produce line PDFs. They do, they are just a bit hard to find. Elektronisches Kursbuch der Deutschen Bahn


It's nice to have a timetable that you can fold up and stick in your pocket, but I think just about everyone here would be satisfied with PDF timetables that include everything useful that was on the old timetables for each station:

All trains serving a line on the same page
Arrival & departure times for extended stops & connection points
Station staffing status
Checked baggage service status
Handicapped accessibility
Bus connections
Restrictions on boarding or deboarding
Most of this is not available on what Amtrak is passing off as it's printable schedules.


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## Brian Battuello (Aug 10, 2022)

I don't have time to type out all the disadvantages of point to point reservation information. You can't see that the previous or next day might have a much better schedule. You can't see what towns you might pass through. You can't see if there is a nearby town that might be a better pickup point. You can't see if an odd connection might get you home faster or closer. 

Point to point reservations make more sense for airlines which almost never make enroute stops on the same equipment, just connections. In an attempt to look more modern, AMTRAK is denying a whole new generation of the chance to see what Amtrak really looks like and all the strange and interesting places it serves.


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## 20th Century Rider (Aug 10, 2022)

Brian Battuello said:


> I don't have time to type out all the disadvantages of point to point reservation information. You can't see that the previous or next day might have a much better schedule. You can't see what towns you might pass through. You can't see if there is a nearby town that might be a better pickup point. You can't see if an odd connection might get you home faster or closer.
> 
> Point to point reservations make more sense for airlines which almost never make enroute stops on the same equipment, just connections. In an attempt to look more modern, AMTRAK is denying a whole new generation of the chance to see what Amtrak really looks like and all the strange and interesting places it serves.


Agreed! I wouldn't think of train travel without a complete time table... it lets you know if the train's on time and what towns you are stopping at... and for how long. I have been running off somewhat outdated timetables knowing the actual times are off... such a hassle to have to keep pulling up everything on the Amtrak ap... which isn't even available when out of signal range. There are some up to date timetables available for Amtrak Cascades, Maine service, and others. Miss the consistency and completeness before things started getting downgraded.


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## freejak (Aug 10, 2022)

To me this has the same ring to it as when airlines stopped providing paper luggage tags. Some clueless beancounter suggested this could save zillions! No millions! No thousands! Well actually $584.19 a year, but still $500 is $500.

The price to create the printed schedule cards and system timetable couldn't have added up to more than a minuscule rounding error in the Amtrak budget.

I don't want to get all conspiracy theory here, but this reeks of just another way to cut ridership, cut customer enjoyment and clear the way for ending LD service as we know it.


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## Paul CHI (Aug 10, 2022)

It's hard to print a schedule when the arrival times vary by 6 hours.


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## 20th Century Rider (Aug 10, 2022)

freejak said:


> To me this has the same ring to it as when airlines stopped providing paper luggage tags. Some clueless beancounter suggested this could save zillions! No millions! No thousands! Well actually $584.19 a year, but still $500 is $500.
> 
> The price to create the printed schedule cards and system timetable couldn't have added up to more than a minuscule rounding error in the Amtrak budget.
> 
> I don't want to get all conspiracy theory here, but this reeks of just another way to cut ridership, cut customer enjoyment and clear the way for ending LD service as we know it.


Gosh! Remembering the Amtrak 'early days' when every sleeping car passenger received, in addition to the timetable, a packet of travel information on routing and scheduling, a toilet kit, a packet of snacks for along the way, and coupons for each meal. Unfortunately we now have smart phones where, except for physical amenities that have been discontinued... it's all there virtually... when there is cell service, and providing one knows how to navigate the every increasing complexity and 'menu options' to actually get information on that horrendous Amtrak app!


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## joelkfla (Aug 10, 2022)

20th Century Rider said:


> Agreed! I wouldn't think of train travel without a complete time table... it lets you know if the train's on time and what towns you are stopping at... and for how long.


You _can _generate a PDF schedule of all stops' scheduled arrival and departure time for an individual train on the website. Unfortunately, that's all the info it shows. So it's not of much use for planning, but it makes a nice travel companion on the train.


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## dlagrua (Aug 10, 2022)

If you wish a timetable the NARP (RPA) has them on their website. Apparently someone there revised them and made them available.


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## Willbridge (Aug 10, 2022)

leccy said:


> Let's not get all nostalgic for printed timetables. PDFs or even nicely formatted HTML files are fine. I really hate the habit of forcing everyone onto airline style journey planners that lock you into one option. I don't know where the idea came from that everyone loves them.
> 
> PS. Someone about suggested DB doesn't produce line PDFs. They do, they are just a bit hard to find. Elektronisches Kursbuch der Deutschen Bahn


Here's a sample. My stop in 2010 was Augustfehn. The only information that I miss in this is the km distances.


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## 20th Century Rider (Aug 11, 2022)

dlagrua said:


> If you wish a timetable the NARP (RPA) has them on their website. Apparently someone there revised them and made them available.


Yes! And here it is...









Amtrak Timetables | Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC







www.railpassengers.org


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## freejak (Aug 11, 2022)

20th Century Rider said:


> Yes! And here it is...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow! Thanks for providing the link.


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## hello (Aug 12, 2022)

Thank you ... a great and useful resource!


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## River Runner (Sep 6, 2022)

I am a new member here but I'd stumbled upon this thread a few months ago while trying to book some trips on Amtrak this summer...with difficulty because, as others have mentioned, there are no longer printed timetables.

As others may have also experienced, I noticed this summer that there were some stations and routes with printed timetables being distributed. The Texas Eagle (Chicago-San Antonio) had them onboard and a few different stations along the SW Chief and Missouri River Runner seemed to have them stocked at stations. After reading through all the posts and comments from the past year, I figured I should take some photos and post it here in the hopes that it might bring some good news. Photos attached from my trip on the Texas Eagle a few weeks ago (St. Louis station and a stack of them in the Texas Eagle "diner").

Cheers and thanks for letting me join this community.


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## MARC Rider (Sep 7, 2022)

River Runner said:


> I am a new member here but I'd stumbled upon this thread a few months ago while trying to book some trips on Amtrak this summer...with difficulty because, as others have mentioned, there are no longer printed timetables.
> 
> As others may have also experienced, I noticed this summer that there were some stations and routes with printed timetables being distributed. The Texas Eagle (Chicago-San Antonio) had them onboard and a few different stations along the SW Chief and Missouri River Runner seemed to have them stocked at stations. After reading through all the posts and comments from the past year, I figured I should take some photos and post it here in the hopes that it might bring some good news. Photos attached from my trip on the Texas Eagle a few weeks ago (St. Louis station and a stack of them in the Texas Eagle "diner").
> 
> Cheers and thanks for letting me join this community.


The new schedules are also on the Amtrak website:



https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/timetables/Missouri-River-Runner-Schedule-071822.pdf



They seem to only have them for the Missouri River Runner, and not for anything else. Perhaps the Missouri River Runner timetable is the prototype for the new timetables, and the others will be appearing shortly.


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## PaTrainFan (Sep 7, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> The new schedules are also on the Amtrak website:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh my goodness....say it ain't so!?


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## Amtrak25 (Sep 7, 2022)

I wonder if Missouri paid to have it published, or did it themselves.

Notice the 2nd page, which is route advertisements, the schedule is not on the same table as all Lincoln service as before, and there is no mention of connections to the SW Chief.


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## Rasputin (Sep 7, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Perhaps the Missouri River Runner timetable is the prototype for the new timetables, and the others will be appearing shortly.


I wonder what year or decade?


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## TinCan782 (Sep 7, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> The new schedules are also on the Amtrak website:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yesterday on the Facebook group Amtrak West somone posted a photo os a similiar timetable for the SWC.
He stated he got it at Flagstaff Station and more were available at Kansas City.


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## joelkfla (Sep 7, 2022)

I think it was provided by Missouri. The only other PDF timetables on the site are the trains supported by California.


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## Amtrak25 (Sep 7, 2022)

Probably had Amtrak's blessing. There is no disclaimers such as on those produced by private indiviudals for the whole system and for Vermont.


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