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Hmm, if fewer people in sleepers are eating in the dining car, perhaps that means that more people in coach can eat there. At $40 or $25 a pop. Cash source for Amtrak.

Back in the old days, although almost all of the railroads outsourced the sleeping car service to Pullman, but only (as far as I know), the Santa Fe outsourced meals to a company like Fred Harvey. It may have been because Pullman was originally a monopoly, both manufacturing the sleeping cars...

They would also need to commit to hiring one extra person in the kitchen per dining car in operation to actually wash the dishes. That's why they went to disposables in the first place -- to be able to reduce staffing.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! If you believe that, I have a nice bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn to sell you. :) I rode the Empire Builder last year (November 2023), we were still served on "fancy" disposable plastic. The only ceramic and glass dinnerware I've seen on Amtrak is found in Acela First...

In Baltimore, I-83 was supposed to continue from downtown though the neighborhoods of Fell's Point and Canton to connect to I-95. That was stopped, and then the neighborhoods gentrified, now pumping millions of dollars of property tax revenue into the city. On the west side, I-70 was supposed...

Now if only they could run the SEPTA trains with decent frequencies that would allow it to be a real useable regional rail system.

Well, I'll have to ride one before I make a judgement, but I spent a night on the Silver Star trying to sleep in an Amfleet 2 coach, and it was like sitting on concrete.

The same situation in Washington. They board from the rear of the train. The first car encountered is business class, then the quiet car. There are always lots of empty seats up in the front of the train.

And even if you have wheels, don't go on a summer weekend (unless you get there early), as the parking lots fill up rapidly.

The Portland Head Light is not within walking distance of the train station. How did you get there? City bus? Uber?

Departing Boston, if you sit on the left side of the train (in the direction of travel), you'll have good coastal views between Westerly, RI and New Haven. A little past New Brunswick, you can see the abandoned Turbotrains rusting away on a siding. You'll also have a good view of the...

Also, if you really want to see the Pacific Ocean, you have to go the San Francisco.

Which is why I always print a copy of my boarding pass/e-ticket when I take one of these long trips. What happens if you lose cell service somewhere? Also, I've had Acela BOS-BAL trips where the e-ticket disappears from my app after the train leaves New York. e-tickets are fine, but I don't...

I did a little digging about the security situation in Emeryville. It apparently has a high crime rate, but that might just be an artefact of the relatively small population of the town and the fact that it's basically a commercial center that draws lots of people from neighboring towns...

I'm a Select Executive and I also only got 2x. On the other hand, they automatically registered me for the promotion. Oh well, I've got plenty of points, as I've been spending on my FNBO card like a drunken sailor (lots of plumbing and electrical work done on the house this year.)

Downtown hotel prices in large cities in North America have basically gone through the roof over the past 10 years. I first noticed this in 2012 when I wanted to stay in Portland, Maine and couldn't find anything over $300 a night in the downtown. I ended up staying in a Super 8 out by the...

I posted a travelogue back in 2022: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/reading-blue-mountain-and-northern-steam-excursion-behind-2102.83629/ Fortunately, for me, this happened a couple of weeks before my trip...

If you are downgraded to coach, you will get free meals in the dining car, plus they will compensate you for the difference between sleeper fare and coach fare. Not sure whether you get an actual refund or just a voucher for future travel.

I've been evacuated from trains a few times, and nobody's never needed specially trained fire and recuse squads to do the job -- the conductors were enough to help people down from the bottom step to the ballast and over to the rescue train. They even took care of people in wheelchairs.

It was a Saturday, surely they could have found school buses and just taken everybody to their final destinations, although I guess finding drivers might have been a problem. It wasn't like the train was stuck in some remote part of the North Woods, it was in the heavily populated area between...