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Welcome, and you can certainly find lots of good advice here. What stations are near you, and where would you like to travel to?

Well, when NYC got 6-plus inches of rain last Friday, the Lake Shore did run in both directions, though it was delayed when the Hudson Line was shut down for about 2.5 hours by high water. The westbound wound up departing NYP about three hours late but didn't lose significantly more time after...

Say it isn't so. I mean, I have had many great pleasures in life, but one of them definitely was sitting in the darkened VIA Rail dome at night and watching the lights of the engine illuminating the tracks ahead and the signals changing from green to red as we passed each one.

I never did see details on exactly where the issues were on Metro North, but I'm assuming Mott Haven had high water, given that the Hudson Line was affected, and apparently some stretches north of there to at least Fordham, because they set the turnaround locations for both Harlem and New Haven...

There is no observation car on the Lake Shore Limited, and I believe the dining car still is open only to sleeper passengers. But there is a lounge car with tables where coach passengers can seek refuge, although the crew usually occupies several of the tables.

The downsides compared with a bedroom are that you lose the private toilet and shower. And while I like being able to see out both sides, the windows definitely are smaller than those in a bedroom or roomette. I don't have the specs readily available, but they seem like about half the width. I...

Amtrak miscommunication department: A friend wrote to me about his experience trying to get home from New York last night after the high-water events. He had been booked on 237, the 4:40 p.m. train to Albany, due there at 7:05. He received a text message from Amtrak saying the train was...

As of 3 p.m., Metro North suspended Hudson Line service south of Croton-Harmon. Also, the Metro North Harlem Line was suspended between North White Plains and Southeast, and NJT North Jersey Coast Line was blocked by high water near Little Silver. Edit to update: As of about 5:30 p.m., Metro...

Metro North has halted service into Grand Central, apparently because of flooding in the south Bronx. Hudson Line trains are running down as far as Yankee Stadium and then reversing direction. Harlem and New Haven lines are suspended south of Wakefield and Williams Bridge stations in the Bronx...

There shouldn't be any effect on operations unless the shutdown drags on for months. Normally Amtrak has enough reserves plus revenue from day-to-day operations to keep going for quite awhile. Capital/infrastructure improvement projects would likely be affected first before any trains would stop...

Yeah, certainly between Springfield and Boston, only two round-trips plus the Lake Shore seems like a rather poor level of corridor service -- especially given the Lake Shore's reliability issues going east. Having one or two more frequencies at the outset would allow the service to show its...

Yes. If and when we do get to adding trains to Albany, connecting to and from the Adirondack would mean a pretty early westbound departure from Boston, probably before 7 a.m., and an eastbound arrival close to midnight. So far I haven't seen a draft schedule of any kind. But I'd think if you...

Yeah, the assumption among American planners -- and Canadian ones too, given how the new Montreal REM is set up -- seems to be that almost everyone will continue to travel by car in perpetuity beyond the dense urban cores of major cities. So you wind up with transit and commuter rail systems...

I had many great rides on the Crescent over 30-plus years, but you couldn't pay me to ride it now. This weekend it will be four years since Amtrak killed the dining service, and the current single food-service car is just an abomination for a 30-hour run. Supposedly the diner might return with...

My yardstick for success is the Downeaster, which covers the 114 miles from Portland to Boston in 2 hours 30 minutes. Supposedly one can drive or take a bus in two hours flat, but tons of people ride the train because it's more comfortable, more fun, has a cafe on board, and the view out the...

If this can shorten the travel time from Boston to Springfield to a reliable 2 hours, I think that would be a huge improvement. The Lake Shore now is carded at 2:36 for the 98-mile run, and when I rode it earlier this week, I'm not sure it ever topped 50 mph; most of the time it was chugging...

Yesterday (Tuesday 9/19) we went from Freeport, Maine, to Boston on the Downeaster, and then to Albany on 449, a trip we had booked several weeks in advance. The weather in Maine was awful on Monday, with up to four inches of rain predicted in some areas Monday night. So sometime late Monday I...

Rode 449 today from Boston to Albany. We had tried to book Room H but found the sleeper completely sold out more than a month ago. So went in coach, which was fine and not particularly crowded. The sleeper appeared to be a Viewliner 1. Also, when the New York section pulled into Rensselaer a few...

Yes, the switch off the New London and Willimantic route happened when the Montrealer was replaced by the Vermonter in April 1995. After that, the train ran via Hartford and Springfield, reversing direction at Springfield and again at Palmer and then proceeding up the CV route through Amherst...

If I'm remembering correctly, the line from Yarmouth Junction north is what NNEPRA has been discussing as a way to extend the Downeaster up to Auburn, apparently to avoid conflicts on the CSX line. So if they get some money from the federal infrastructure law to do this, that route might become...