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I agree with the suggestion to go to the airport--last summer we booked a car at National Airport, took the Metro right from Union Station to the airport, got our rental car easily, and avoided all that confusing DC city traffic. I will never rent at Union Station again, myself. The only...

There are so many competing demands for new Amtrak equipment that prioritizing a first class lounge, with or without a bar, for sleeping car passengers ought to be a low priority. What sells sleepers is inherent in the name--you get a private place to sleep lying down. (For what it's worth, I...

Amen, my friend. A few years back I broke an ankle badly, and ended up using a wheelchair for several months. I discovered that parts of the campus of my university--ostensibly fully accessible--were not accessible at all by someone in a wheelchair. And they didn't have an online map of the...

Soon to come article: "I spent 30 hours on an Amtrak train and survived due to one weird trick"

One of the things I noticed particularly in the letter they sent to the media is that UP claims that the losses for last year were $5 million dollars. That's hardly noticeable for a company the scale of Union Pacific, which might be why they don't feel inclined to take any action to prevent...

The Verde Canyon Railroad in Arizona is open all year round, and is beautifully scenic.

On the Criminal Law professor's listserv, this letter from UP on the situation was reproduced--it has apparently been widely disseminated by UP. Obviously this is from UP's perspective, but given this thread, I thought I would copy it here: December 20, 2021 Honorable George Gascón Los...

On the Amtrak website, it isn't easy to find but they do have the arbitration agreement there (plus a sales pitch for how great arbitration is for consumers). The agreement stipulates that the arbitrations will be done in accordance with the American Arbitration Association's rules for consumer...

I would assume that the cause of action would be breach of contract--you promised me a service that I didn't receive--but that means that the damages would be the difference between the value of the services received and those promised. Probably not very much. Again, arbitration is almost...

I'd join me_little_me in suggesting that you contact Customer Relations--not Customer Service--to ask for compensation for the extreme inconvenience of having unexpectedly to wrangle four bags and a five year old. Point out that you had looked online for baggage information and didn't see any...

In an interesting article by a cognitive psychologist studying people's reactions to lack of cellphone coverage, the researcher looked at through-hikers on the Pacific Coast Trail and their attitudes regarding their ability to use their phones on the trail. First off, she saw that most first...

My daughter lives in Middletown. This will make getting to Philadelphia for flights much nicer. And when we head cross-country to visit by Amtrak, we may be able to get away with not renting a car.

Me, too. I also wear them in hotel showers/tubs. Partly to avoid slipping, partly because I doubt that the cleaning crew disinfect them between guests.

Not random at all, actually. Just after Christmas, Seattle got 9 inches of snow followed by a week of bitter cold where the temperature never got above freezing. (And Seattle generally gets little snow, so they have a minimal number of plows.) So the roads in the metro area were largely...

well, given the fact that the Canadian isn't on time very often, I suspect that the city tour is not given more often than it is. On my sample of one, we did not have time for the tour. But we did have enough time to inspect that very impressive station at Winnipeg, which I commend to anyone...

Anderson seemed to want Amtrak to emulate all the worst aspects of air travel. So, I suppose we should be glad it's only a 20% forfeiture--the airlines have often enforced a 100% forfeiture for cancelled flights! Several years ago I missed a flight due to an accident that snarled traffic...

When did you travel on Amtrak? If it was in the past couple of weeks, keep in mind that all transportation has been, to put it mildly, a mess. A combination of factors has been a perfect storm for travel. My son-in-law had to travel by air for a work training session between Christmas and New...

Fault in auto accidents is frequently complicated--involving some negligence on the part of the driver or drivers, some negligence on the part of non-driver pedestrians and bicyclists, and some unavoidable non-negligent causes, including tire failure, sudden emergencies, animals unexpectedly...

Unless you are a complete newbie to Western LD trains, I suspect you already know enough to make the call--what the conditions in coach are, compared to a roomette; your own personal condition, medical issues if any, and stamina to deal with overnights sitting up rather than lying down; the...

Well, overrated is in the eye of the rater, I suppose. The Frazier River Canyon is a spectacle. When the weather cooperates, the Canadian Rockies are sublime. As for the mid-sections of both the US and Canada, the endless flat prairies are a wash, I think. The ice-blue lakes of Canada through...