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I noticed in the pictures that most or all the seats in the American View face backwards. Is this why the Amtrak execs aren't stressed about ceasing to flip the seats on the NERs and other regional trains?

Is that the result of the ongoing work on NEC between NYP and Connecticut (the Hell Gate project)? Which I think they only did in one direction during the overnight shutdowns last summer (which was why 65/66/67 were suspended north of NYP)? Work continued without a complete overnight shutdown...

If you Google "borealis", you get, almost exclusively, hits on "aurora borealis", but "borealis' does not mean the Northern Lights. "Borealis" is an adjective meaning "northern". There also exist the "Borealis Basin", a very large, very ancient depression or crater on Mars which includes its...

Interesting. I did not know that! On my last two Acela trips (November), I had backwards-facing seats both times. I guess I was unlucky. The return trip was a bulkhead seat (Car 5, Seat 17F - #2250 - STM->BOS) with a table and the opposite seat faced forward, of course. I don't remember...

I strongly recommend against trying to photograph your first (or even second or third!) total eclipse. You will be too distracted and frantic and might miss the best parts, the few minutes before and after totality and all of totality itself. There are interesting things to observe during the...

Most of the seats are in parallel rows, but there are lots of seats facing each other with tables in between. One half of each such pair is necessarily facing backwards. The rest of the seats would be facing backwards unless they physically turn the train around in Washington and in either...

On the NTP->BOS leg, you definitely want to sit on the right (east) side of the train for the ocean views through CT and RI. The left side gives you better views of Manhattan across the East River, but that only lasts for 10-15 minutes. Since Acela has reserved seating, you can't just switch...

The trip was actually from the Las Vegas airport to Kingman, with a fairly long (1/2 hour?) stop in Laughlin Nevada. I got the impression the van arrived at the airport from somewhere in downtown Las Vegas, but maybe the airport stop was its origination.

In addition to the overhead racks (similar to but much larger than the overhead bins on an airplane), there is a small luggage rack near the door on the Acelas, which I used for my medium-sized wheeled duffel bag between Boston and Stamford in November. I'm pretty sure similar space exists in...

In my lifetime, only the Green Line collected fares onboard and only the Green Line had the "pay when you get off" scheme in effect. Charlie was stuck on a Green Line train (which wasn't called the Green Line at the time, but the same old PCC cars with a farebox next to the driver.) Charlies...

I took the Thruway bus from Las Vegas to Kingman in early September, 2019 (to catch the SWC east bound.) It was a van, about 12 seats and was completely full.

Is that the description of one class of rooms, or is one of the "Compartment"s supposed to be something else, like "Drawing Room", which isn't listed in your comment?

It used to just sit at NYP for about an hour, arriving at 2 AM and leaving about 3 and they let you board as soon as the passengers going to New York got off the train. It would get to Boston about 8 AM. It let you leave NYC in the late evening and not to have to spring for an additional night...

The first time I made this connection, the LSL was very late and the connecting passengers had to basically sprint past the station to board the EB.. I think they held it for a few minutes for us. Some people rode the golf carts driven by the Red Caps (mostly people with lots of luggage and...

FYI for the people who don't already know this... I think Amtrak attempts to make the coaches face forward, but they make no such attempt for sleepers. There might not even be a "forward" for sleepers. Furthermore, in Superliners. the pairs of rooms that can be combined to make a double room...

I have never seen this map before. Is is a new idea or something that has been kicking around for decades? Central and Harvard are swapped on the map. I have no idea where Taylor Sq is, despite having lived for the last 25 years about 3 blocks from Fresh Pond. When the Harvard station opened...

According to the video posted by @crescent2 in Comment #30 above, the undisclosed issue was that the cockpit door slams open in the event of a sudden cabin depress. This is what caused the pilots to lose their checklists and other important documents (which is probably why they forgot to pull...

It isn't directly for Amtrak's benefit, it would be for their customers' benefit, which would increase demand. Selling more tickets would benefit Amtrak. The customer's benefit would be saving half a day or more driving and probably an overnight hotel bill for all customers from New Jersey...

I don't think anyone proposes or wants Amfleet style single level coaches with their tiny windows. Lots of companies make Viewliner-style cars (with essential flat sides and much larger windows as coaches, diners and cafe cars. Just fit out the Airo cars (or cars from another manufacturer)...

Interesting document, but I don't see anywhere that it answers the questions Andrew posed. The linked PDF, in the intro mentions the total number of train moves every day, but not what the peaks are (I'm sure it would be much easier to add more New Jersey trains at 3 AM, but that wouldn't be...