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In the Moynihan train hall, the red cap station is in the ticketed passenger waiting area on the east side of the hall. There's a counter there where you can tell them you need assistance getting down to the train. Alternatively, if you have access to the first-class lounge (such as through AGR...

My advice at NYP would be to get a red cap to take you and your luggage to the train. They normally get the track number in advance and can take you down to the train before the general boarding announcement. Then you have your choice of seats, whether in coach or business, for at least a few...

The seats in Empire BC are definitely nicer than regular coach seats. But the BC section is limited to the back half of the cafe car, so the overall number of seats is five or six rows. It's a 2-and-1 seating pattern, so there's only one pair of double seats per row. The chances of getting seats...

I remember that era well. At one point in the mid-90s, in a story about the supposed need for widening the Maine Turnpike, the head of the Legislature's transportation committee told the Portland Press Herald that, as far as the proposed Portland-Boston train service was concerned, "we need less...

Not good, but better if you act quickly at Philadelphia, where a lot of people are likely to get off. Of course, lots more will board there too.

The Official Railway Guide, as it was called in latter years, continued to publish at least into the 1990s. Sometime after Amtrak's creation, it was divided into passenger and freight editions. The passenger edition was geared toward travel agents; the few copies I have from the late '70s and...

Just out of curiosity, do you by chance have any recollection of roughly the time of day/night you left Chicago and/or arrived into Albany?

Yes, I have a few of those SPV atlases, and they are impressive -- particularly for their detail in showing long-gone ghost lines.

It really depends on how you define "original." It's fairly easy to find an Official Guide from the last few years before Amtrak and figure out that the Crescent follows the Southern from New Orleans to Washington and the Penn Central from there to New York. But if you want to go back to the...

Interesting that the southbound schedule is pretty similar to today's, while the northbound schedule is a two-night run -- with afternoon departure from Atlanta to achieve 9 a.m. arrival into New York. Of course, the routing via Mobile and Montgomery is different too.

Just to clarify, the titles "Engineer," "OBS Chief," etc. under our screen names in this forum are honorary and don't actually mean we are employed by Amtrak or any other railroad, although there probably are a few employees or ex-employees here.

As to which side is the best for scenery heading westbound on the Zephyr, I think Steve4031's recent post about this subject in another thread is very useful: As others have said, the bedrooms in the Superliner cars on the Zephyr are all oriented in the same direction, so they will all be...

Saw the eastbound Boston leg of the LSL yesterday (March 13) approaching State Line, Mass., with three locomotives pulling a typical consist: VLII sleeper "Rapidan River," Amfleet lounge and two coaches. The entire consist was quite noticeably covered in dust and dirt. If there were people...

I had thought separate accounting was the reason that cafe car items were not offered as an alternative to sleeper passengers. But on the westbound Lake Shore the past two summers, we had the H room to Albany and were offered our choice of cafe items for lunch after departing Boston. No flex...

The extra fare of $12 for Business Class between Portland and Boston also seems a bargain compared with the BC surcharge on most other Amtrak regional routes (the base fare is quite low too). And the last time I took it, the Downeaster cafe attendant took drink orders at our seats, which is a...

You can also easily put the two lower seats down into bed mode without bringing down all of the bedding if you just want to have a midday nap or rest. Then it's easy to go back to chair mode for the rest of the day. On long trips I have sometimes gone back and forth this way while leaving the...

Bottom line, you do have to put the bed up to use the toilet in the old standard roomette, what VIA now calls the "cabin for one." You can also go down to the hall to the public restroom, which is at the opposite end of the car near the sections. If the next car is a sleeper, you can also go to...

If the choice is late fall or early spring, I think I would prefer November or early December to April, if only because the landscape seems somehow more attractive when it's waiting for snow than when it's rather muddy as the snow is receding. January and February can be nice too, with lots of...

I don't think I received any email notification, but it does appear I was upgraded to Select Plus this year despite being about 1,000 points short. I used to qualify for Select Plus regularly but I only received Select status the past few years after I swore off the eastern overnight trains over...

That ad from 1946 appears to be the work of Robert R. Young, the C&O chairman who was often tweaking the rest of the railroad industry in that era (most famously with an ad that proclaimed, "A hog can cross the country without changing trains -- but you can't.") He was a big advocate for...