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Out west, that was the original intention of the coach-baggage car: they had higher density seating upstairs (still better than Amfleet I, but no leg rests and less recline than regular Superliner coach seats - 4 extra rows per car I want to say?) and you could expect to be steered toward them...

If the eastbound Empire Builder is late, you can see into Canada for a few minutes as you make a big sweeping curve to the right, just after exiting the Flathead Tunnel. You are still more than 20 miles from the border. But you a) are on the shoulder of a ridge, about 500 feet higher than the...

I had had the impression the load indicator was always wrong anyway and was only sowing confusion, so haven't missed it. If it actually worked, I'm sure people would like to have it back. (Though if it were me, I would use it to find the least-busy days, not to 'hurry and book because it's...

This is one of those areas where I expect the riders are close to evenly divided. I, personally, place much more value on consistency. If I walk into a Denny's or Applebee's today, there's a 90% chance I will order one of the same three or so things that I would have ordered in 1990. I want and...

Yes. The Superliner trains without baggage cars and transdorms (Portland Builder, Texas Eagle, Capitol; in happier times the Pioneer and Desert Wind) need a coach-baggage for checked bags and a coach for handicapped seats. On one particularly slow winter day five years ago I counted 14...

Remember too that 27 and 28 must always operate with two coaches -- so 7/8 are only short of coach space west of Spokane; over the rest of the route there are guaranteed to always be at least 3 coaches and 2½ sleepers year round whether they are needed or not. (That one coach DOES sometimes sell...

That already happened: the LaSalle, Marquette, Nicollet, and Radisson (maybe one or two more names I can't remember?) lost their names in favor of generic Hiawatha Service. And the Abraham Lincoln, State House, and Ann Rutledge lost their names in favor of generic Lincoln Service. I don't...

Boreas was the god of the north wind. It's about time he got a train named after him. His brother Zephyrus got much luckier, in that respect. And it's been almost 100 years now since you could ride a train over Boreas Pass in Colorado, though you can still drive the old roadbed.

Marias Pass was ugly, but didn't close, on Thursday, when the worst of the wind and snow came through. US-2 has been open all week. So has most of I-90, though there have been times when chains were required at the Montana-Idaho border (I-90 crosses the mountains into Idaho, like the Milwaukee...

Yes, it's a serious cold snap, and I have a lot more patience for them cancelling the Builder today and tomorrow than I do for them cancelling it anticipation of the tiny little snowstorm that mostly-didn't-happen earlier in the week. Yesterday was seriously windy with lots of blowing and...

You can put me down for derision, at least for 27/7 and for cancelling it several days in advance. I would have a lot more sympathy if they decided not to send out 27/9 or 27/10. So far we've had a little bit of snow, but not a ton of wind or cold, in Montana. I would be MUCH more worried about...

I think what you're seeing is some serious displeasure with what the rest of the world has moved on to. The 50s designs were focused on passenger comfort. The Amfleet I -> Amfleet II -> Superliner -> Viewliner sequence felt like steady improvement. Superliner coaches are the most comfortable...

The Alaska ferry service used to be much better --- 2 sailings a week each from Bellingham and Prince Rupert, plus extra short distance trips. But they never had enough ships to run daily long distance service. (And the schedules were always driven by tides, so a reliable same-day train...

Bear in mind that the designers of Venture aren't taking long-distance designs of 50 years ago as their starting point. It's a huge leap backwards compared to classic American streamliner design. If you're a modern designer and you see your competition as airline cabins, or even European high...

It has been constraining ridership on all the long distance trains, since before Covid. It's most obvious on the Capitol and Texas Eagle... but the Starlight used to sell out in California when it ran with 3 sleepers and 5 coaches (and the best long distance trains managed 50,000+ per month.)...

Expanding a little on the comments already shared about the European high speed experience: For the most part, *nobody's* old right-of-way is good for 200mph. If you want those speeds, you build custom new track. But what Europe is really good at, and we are really terrible at, is achieving...

I would settle for them ordering a dozen of those to use as axle count cars.

Rio Grande Station itself was a very rough part of town until quite recently, though it has been gentrified as downtown skyscrapers slowly crept southward, and they made a big push to kick the homeless out of Rio Grande Park (it used to be their favorite spot in the whole area.) It's really a...

20 years ago, I would have agreed with you. Entering Canada I was often questioned quite extensively, especially on the "are you SURE you don't have any guns in the back of your truck?" type of question. (And I got the full search treatment once, as a young long-haired man who claimed he was...

And Amtrak kept the NYC-Detroit train until 1978, 14 hours each way (and then dropped it in favor of Niagara Falls and Toronto.) Does anyone happen to know whether it did a good business or not?