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One of my favorite photos from my Trans Siberian trips is a very simple one I took from the railcar of the Novosibirsk station sign. It is of course in Cyrillic but it is recognizable even to a clueless Westerner like me. I only got off the train to get smoked fish and Number 9 Baltika Extra...

Cool video by Simply Railway, thanks for the link! Quick takeaway, the seat pitch looks to be ok, not really good. When you recline the seat the front of the seat moves forward taking precious space and legroom with it... That is probably necessary but this is in the Select/First Class section...

I opened the top Dutch Door when the EB was in parts of Glacier Park. I didn't get caught and I kept it open just long enough to take a couple pictures. Which did not turn out at all. Between the dark and the vibration even a fast shutter speed was not fast enough to keep the pictures sharp. And...

I hear you about speeding up the slow parts. I remember being nearly an hour ahead of schedule on the Crescent as we got to Hattiesburg. And then we slooowwweeeedddd dddowwnnn... And I think we actually Y'ed before we got to New Orleans. We were going backwards past concrete grave sites, and I...

Not trying to one up your cold weather tale, but one one of Bald and Bankrupt's videos about the BAM TransSib railroad in the USSR (or Russia now), an ad on the side of a Siberian building boasted that their boots were good down to -60 Celsius which I think is -76 Fahrenheit. Having grown up on...

I hear you about acting differently when wearing a costume. I worked for Phillips By the Sea in OC MD way back in the day and I wore the 8' tall blue crab suit when the dining room was slow. So I would prowl up and down the boardwalk and have fun while advertising the restaurant. In real life I...

Keeping the track at grade may be cheaper to build but it makes traveling from one side of the railway to the other highly problematic since at-grade crossings do not work well with HSR. So it would seem likely that any HSR plan will have sections every mile or two where the tracks are elevated...

I visited the High Line yesterday but was too footsore when I got to the south end to visit Little Island. It looked cool from a distance. I started w the Staten Island Ferry so I could see the Statue of Liberty and that was very cool. I got a hot Pastrami on rye at Katz’s for lunch but couldn’t...

Thanks for the advice! I just booked both the NEC ($176) and Business Class on the Acela ($205). First Class on the Acela was $368 and I am splurging a bit already so I went with Business instead. Ground Zero is a good suggestion. I was on Key Bridge in DC on 9/11 (after the Pentagon was...

I have never taken the Acela and want to do so before it gets retired so I have whipped up a quick trip to New York to kill a few birds with one stone. I figure I will ride the NEC up there, take the Staten Island Ferry, see the Statue of Liberty at a reasonably "short" distance of half a mile...

Which is why a lot of people buy 3 to 5 year old cars with 50k to 60k miles on them and keep them for just 3 years. The worst depreciation is already over with and if you choose a reliable car, your maintenance costs are still fairly low (and your resale value is still fairly decent) if you sell...

Japanese "quality"? I remember in 1977 talking to my high schools Vice-Principal about his new beater car. He was unreasonably proud of a 1974 Japanese Honda Civic, of all things! It seemed so ridiculous, even though everyone knew that US cars had taken a huge dive in quality over the past...

I can not speak for others but for myself, despite my love of Amtrak trains, Amtrak itself does not even make it into the top 5 issues that I consider when I weigh which candidate will get my vote.

It is all fun and games until the rooster comes for you!

Are you sure, Bob? The next thing you will be telling us is that the engineer isn’t the one in charge of the train! 😆 Sorry, I will see myself to the door…

The first train trip I remember is the time my Dad took me from Glasgow MT to Seattle on the Builder in 1973 or 1974. It was an Amtrak train but it still kind of felt like a GN one. I think there were still mountain goats on the inside some of cars. My Dad was a Burlington Northern brakeman and...

I am not sure which part of this could be the worst aspect. That Amtrak is going to spring a large reduction in service prior to the holidays or that they are going to reduce service and are silly enough to try to keep it secret for as long as possible, leaving it to a handful of employees to...

Those are both really impressive! I thought the Two Medicines River one the EB crosses near Browning was pretty cool but it is fairly small comparatively. https://pin.it/7HEWJw7

Since my wish list for new cars built my CAF isn't going to happen, 😄 I will chime in here and say that another wish I have is for a train that would connect Wash DC to Kansas City, via Charleston WV, Cincinnati OH, Louisville KE and St Louis MO. Going from DC to St Louis to LA without going to...

Rats. I was afraid it wasn't possible. Thanks for explaining why my pipe dream will remain unrealized, though!