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Well, assuming the trains have the same capacity, five trains serving a much larger market will necessarily be carrying a smaller share of that market.

I would think the online population of each route would be a factor in trains' market share. On population alone, for example, it seems likely that the Downeaster, with five round trips per day, is capturing a bigger share of the total Boston-Portland travel market than a Chicago-St. Louis...

If I am remembering correctly, Windsor Junction is about 12 miles west of Halifax. In the late 1980s, the westbound Atlantic was scheduled to cover the distance in 19 minutes. It stopped there to pick up passengers connecting from the train up from Yarmouth, which rolled through that junction on...

Oh, that must be really disconcerting. In that case, yes, taking the nearest route upstairs is much better than a walk along the length of the platform. If you go up to the old Amtrak concourse on the 8th Avenue side, it's easy to just go out to Eighth Avenue and cross the street to Moynihan.

If you're arriving on Amtrak and want to get up into the Moynihan hall, I do think the easiest way is to follow the yellow to that elevator at the far west end of the platform. If the arriving train pulls east along the platform, it can be a long hike, but it saves having to navigate the maze of...

I would love it if a sleeper on 66/67 ran through to and from Roanoke. But the main market is between Boston and Washington. The sleeper that ran on the Night Owl between those points was always well used, and I rode it quite a few times in the '80s and '90s, especially on 66 from NJ/PA to...

Double track from Westfield to Palmer will be a big improvement and will certainly help to reduce freight-related delays. Of course, I can remember when this line had double track from Boston all the way to Post Road Junction, 187 miles to the west. Between this and the work on the Hartford line...

The highway drive time from Boston to Albany is about three hours now -- a full 2 hours faster than the Lake Shore's current schedule. So shaving off 88 minutes would go a long way toward making the train competitive. A travel time of about 3:30, while still somewhat slower than driving, is...

This, plus the Meteor is much faster from NYP to Jacksonville than the Star, given the latter's roundabout routing via Selma. From New England and Albany, the southbound Star requires a very early morning departure, and the northbound requires a late night -- plus the risk of missing the last...

There are elevators up to the Moynihan hall on all of the platforms used by Amtrak, including tracks 5-6. These elevators are at the far west end of each platform -- so at the rear of the train if you're coming in from Albany. How long a walk it is depends on how far forward they pull the train...

Changing our development pattern is really the key to making rail and transit useful to a much bigger chunk of the population. But in many communities developed since World War II, local zoning laws effectively prohibit the kind of density needed for walkable neighborhoods -- by restricting...

Oh, thanks for fixing it -- and for the site, which I find wonderfully useful.

The Boston Acela trains for some reason have disappeared from the display of Amtrak Status Maps on my phone, though I can find them if I click on one of the regional trains and then click the "map" link.

Just think what he would have to say about "flexible dining."

I assume Amtrak notifies people with reservations on the affected trains, and perhaps they also posted something on the former Twitter, although I don't have access to that. Still, it does seem that if they have an outage affecting multiple days, it would be respectful of potential riders to...

Traffic was very heavy. We had originally planned to head to the Burlington area, but there was a layer of clouds approaching from the south and west, so we changed our destination to northeastern Vermont. We were a bit behind the biggest crowds, arriving at our destination about 2:45, after the...

The Vermonter seems to have been cancelled north of Springfield most of this week. It ran on Monday, but maybe not at all since then, and the southbound is cancelled again today. Does anyone know why? I couldn't find any explanation on Amtrak's website.

We drove with a van full of family/friends and got a great view from the campus of the Vermont State U at Lyndonville. Didn't hear about it in advance, but the Vermont Rail System ran a special train from Rutland to Burlington to deliver eclipse watchers to the Burlington waterfront by 12:30...

It really depends on the particular trip and the transfer point. In general on cross-country trips we plan stopovers at places where we have family, friends or places we want to see. If the train connections are awkward or dicey, though, we will sometimes plan to spend an extra day or night...

Yeah, the fact that it has a plate is a clue that it's not a flex meal, which in my experience would be served in its original plastic or aluminum storage tub. Of course, Amtrak Vacations is not Amtrak.