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Just out of curiosity…what can a landline phone do that a cell phone can’t, with respect to being put on hold?

The simplistic calculation is: Cycle Time (basically, trace one equipment set through a round trip, and its next departure from the same origin terminal…assuming you know the turn times) and divide by the inverse of the frequency. That tells you how many equipment sets you need. Using the...

I don’t specifically recall what they did with the true head-end cars, but much of the freight during the late 90s/early 2000s was attached to the rear (especially roadrailers, which had to be on the rear, as well as any other non-HEP equipment). Those were typically dropped off in the yard...

No. South of DC, bi-level passenger equipment can (and does / did) operate all the way to Miami (considering VRE gallery cars, the Auto Train, and the long-ago Sunset Limited extension to Miami).

WiFi is primarily for business travel? This isn’t 2010 anymore.

Presumably those other railroads do maintenance on their track, which CN evidently doesn’t do on this line. The other thing to consider, though, is that it’s not the high temperatures, per se, but rather the temperature swing that a line is subjected to. 86 degrees Fahrenheit may not be that...

Saw one of the sets passing through New Carrollton northbound yesterday around 1:15 pm.

I said 2-3 hours late. 24 is significantly higher than that.

I realize this is beyond Amtrak’s organizational and operational capability, but it would be nice if, on days when 8 is running 2-3 hours late, they could just run the Borealis equipment in 8’s slot and have 8 take over 1340’s slot, and at least keep the MSP-CHI service somewhat on-time.

When I see the consist, it’s typically two coaches, cafe, sleeper, bag dorm. Quite a small consist.

Since when was Autotrain its own division of Amtrak? A few years ago, the four divisions (or service lines, or business lines, or whatever the name of the day was) were NEC (not Acela specifically), LD, state-supported, and commuter contract operations.

It had a Heritage diner in the early to mid-2000s, shortly after conversion from Superliner. It may have been one of the first trains to lose a diner during the start of the cuts to on-board service, but it had one for a little while at least.

It doesn’t cost Boeing (nor Airbus) $100 million to build a single-aisle airplane. Even if they build things correctly with proper quality controls, I’d be surprised if the marginal cost of manufacturing is more than $20-30 million. There’s really no reason a properly run production line...

The connection will be fine. As long as it is on the same PNR, everything should pass through automatically.

The Lincoln Service is the most recent of the three examples you note. They changed in the mid-2000s, when service on the corridor was expanded to the current service level. The Hiawatha Service has been that way since the 90s at least. The NEC went through a couple of phases. I don’t know...

New cars will be built this way. Meanwhile, the Amfleet Is, which already had rotating seats, will have them set to the new orientation and then, more-or-less permanently set that way. The seats could easily be rotated when the cars are serviced overnight, so it’s not a “one-at-a-time” deal...

Given that the Hiawatha is all-reserved, passengers will simply ride whatever train time and number is on the ticket they book. I doubt there are really that many passengers boarding based on train name.

You stated “it should be no surprise that Amtrak…” So, that implies you are placing the blame on Amtrak.

Note as well that Amtrak is planning to repair additional cars this year and put them into service. But they’re (hopefully) not going to add the capacity to a train for booking until they’re certain the cars are available. They got burned on that a couple years ago where they had to start...

It absolutely takes time to turn the seats. These aren’t modern Japanese trains where the seats can all turn simultaneously at the push of a button. An employee must flip the seats, row by row, across 8 cars. In what world does that not take time?