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I work at a restaurant, and am assigned the duty of cleaning the bathroom in the morning and monitoring it through the day. I take pride in a clean bathroom. I recall two notable instances of employees on Amtrak cleaning the bathrooms. One was the Talgo technician on a Cascades train, who...

The one time I had a connection to 48 from 8, I was just going MSP-CHI on 8. I had a $5 Flix Bus (or something) booking in case the Empire Builder was late. I think it's best to avoid stress during travel and book a day between trains.

Bad food was rampant on Amtrak in the '70's. I experienced food poisoning on Amtrak in 1977, and bought a spoiled sandwich in the cafe on the Night Owl in 1974. A quick Google search didn't reveal the details, but I think it was the FDA that came down hard on Amtrak dining cars in the 1980's.

I just saw on Facebook that 306 is leading today's 14.

Tank cars hold about 30,000 gallons. Even at $1 per gallon value, the cost of refitting the tank cars pales in comparison to the value of what they haul.

How much does it cost to equip a tank car with ECP? Trump's administration rescinded the requirement. https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/phmsa-rescinds-ecp-brake-mandate-after-ria-finds-costs-outweigh-benefits

I'm afraid to click on an Apple News link; it takes me to some other weird program... Here's another link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/us-rail-workers-east-palestine-ohio-train-crash One comment: rail lines do not only run through poor neighborhoods. Some of the most...

Amtrak occasionally runs a special offer where a second person in a room does not pay any rail fare (the first person always pays railfare plus the accommodation charge). They refer to this as a "Buy-One-Get-One" offer, but in fact most of the cost of a room is the accommodation charge...

My dominant memory of South Station's lounge was a feeling of being too close to a ceiling that was designed to be viewed from a greater distance. @TimePeace 's third photo above illustrates this.

I've seen people bring all kinds of stuff on trains--a large dog on an overnight trip, mountains of luggage... No wonder Amtrak crews are sometimes surly! The only person who has ever given me trouble with luggage is the lounge dragon in Los Angeles. We were within our limits on number of...

I would not count on being allowed to make multiple trips.

On an Empire Builder trip in 2021, I saw (and had read about) BNSF's coupling two trains together, so there were locomotives in the middle of a very long train.

Thank you for the rational explanation! It appears that the Silver Meteor is lacking some night-time running, too... I submitted the following comment: " The "Long-Distance Network Service and Performance Characteristics Time of Day Analysis: Daytime and Nighttime Service" (p. 58) map is...

Here's a link to the Trains day and night running map: https://www.trains.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/tm1103-amtrak-day-night.pdf

I even question the definition of 11 pm to 5 am as "nighttime." Are we only allowed six hours of sleep now? Average night length globally is twelve hours. 11 pm is about the latest I like to be getting home; I'd really prefer my train got into the station a while before then. With the Empire...

Trains 28 and 8 arrive in Spokane at 12:17 am and 12:37 am respectively. Yes, the last bit should be blue. This is interesting to me because I was specifically searching for point-to-point ridership figures for Seattle to Spokane, which I think are fairly high despite its being a...

I think the Acelas are remarkably un-aerodynamic, with those boxes on the roof at both ends of the cars. The power cars aren't bad; maybe one of them should end up in a museum.

It just bugs the crap out of me when I look at one thing in this report in detail about which I have prior knowledge, and the information in the report is incorrect. Should I believe the rest of what's there? The Empire Builder does not have daytime running from Seattle and Portland to...

I remember a cockpit camera on an American Airlines DC-10, displayed on TV screens in the cabin. Those were such unsafe aircraft! Back on the topic of the 747, at the Museum of Flight, in the prototype 747, there are visible numerous cables running through the ceiling. I'm sorry for not...

One of the Talgo VI Bistro Cars, with the map of the Northwest Coast on the ceiling, has made it to a museum in Washington...