Recent content by MARC Rider

I notice that even though they are inside the station, all of the men are wearing their hats. As a kid, I distinctly remember being trained to take off my hat when I went indoors. Either things changed between the 1940s and the early 1960s or the inside of a train station wasn't considered...

Fort Worth and San Antonio might want to disagree. :)

They've had this for some months now. The next step is assigned seating in coach.

You've obviously never tried the "breakfast" served in coach by United Air Lines on the Beijing to Washington run. :)

But FECI is still the "parent company" of Brightline (according to Wikipedia), so I'm not sure what the difference is between real estate development done by FECI and that done by Brightline. It is telling, I suppose, that FECI wants to keep the financials of Brightline separate from the...

A good reason to avoid checking luggage in general (applies also to airlines.)

This looks like a job for Miles in Transit. In fact, I think he's done it, but not all in one trip. One of his trips involved Washington to Philly, with a bus connection from MARC to SEPTA, Perryville to Newark. DE. Apparently, it's 2 buses, you have to change in Elkton. But if you ask me...

And once the real estate is sold and the trains aren't making money, or at least enough money to satisfy the desires of the investors, what's going to happen to Brightline? I'm not taking bets, but I think it's even money that it will get dumped back on the public. Either "Brightline by...

Actually, yes, on the basis of the performance of a large number of private companies I do business with.

Yeah, I would be concerned about them selling the assets to some crony at a fire-sale price, then allegedly subsiding operations, but having a lot of that subsidy find its way into the personal pockets of the crony, with a result that the service is even worse than it is now.

There is really no good argument for the taxpayers to subsidize an "experience." The justification for running long distance trains is to provide needed transportation service to rural areas and for people who can't fly or drive. Those wishing the "experience" can ride some of the many...

Yeah, and let's privatize the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, too. Mercenary soldiers worked so well during the Thirty Years War.... As far as Amtrak, who would want to buy it? It doesn't make any money, and I can't see how it can. The best that could be done is to make it...

Yeah, I know, and it's great. But I have a big stack of PRR and Reading timetables from 1965-1970, including the commuter lines that are moldering away in my basement. Also many of the other pre-Amtrak private RRs from that period, and some bus and airline schedules, too.

I think I checked skis on 66 and 67 between Baltimore and Booston in 2020. I also think that 67 was one of the trains cancelled during the Pandemic, and when I took my next ski trip in 2022, there was no baggage service on 67, which was OK by me, because I wasn't skiing anymore, just...

Yeah, but 50 years later, you have a box full of musty old timetables that are taking up space in the basement and while you should just throw them out, they have some sentimental value and you can't bear to do that. I know. I'm in that place right now. I guess I could have a scanning party...