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If you are traveling on a weekend... As in depart by 4pm Friday but be back by 5am Monday... you can park overnight for free in any of the spots west of the tracks. If your travels involve an overnight on a weekday night you will need to park in one of about ten designated long term pay parking...

Surge pricing with the Hiawatha's schedule does not make sense IMO. If you have frequent services in the Northeast I could see it... not with the Hiawatha. I mean its 4pm and you want to get home to WI. Who in their right mind is going to skip the 5:08pm departure and sit around Union Station...

In Scott Walkers latest attempt to kill trains... Surge pricing on the Hiawatha started today. $25 for offpeak trains but $27 for peak. Peak is the first two AM trains out of MKE and the 3:15 and 5:08 out of Chicago on weekdays. The Hiawatha is now upto $108 roundtrip for two people. I have...

Wrong. That ended August 1st. No more going to the PD for overnight permits for Amtrak passengers. Everyone must pay $2 now to park from 5am to 4pm Mon to Fri unless you have an annual permit from the city. I am at GLN almost every week.

I ride out of GLN all the time. Between 4pm on Friday and 5am Monday you are fine to park in the commuter spots for free. Between 5am and 4pm weekdays you must pay $2 to park in the numbered spots. Far north end of spaces west of tracks or far south end east of tracks. There are special long...

This weekend we worked a private rail excursion -- up on #7 on Friday (October 7) and back on #8 Sunday (October 9) with Iowa Pacific Prairie View full dome. Minnesota Commercial was responsible for atleast an hour of the delay on #8 on Sunday. They forgot to "wye" out the private car -- even...

Southwest Chief had this going for awhile... Not sure if it still does. Chicago to Galesburg and then Galesburg to La Plata was about $8-10 cheaper than a straight Chicago to La Plata ticket sometimes. I always thought it had to do with IL subsidizing a ticket all in IL.

The plan is to move ticketing into the area that the OP posted photos of... next to the Metropolitan Lounge. When I was down there on Sunday they were using both the new area and the old area. But the plans are to get ride of the old ticketing area soon -- as they will be moving the escalator...

I would nominate Quincy, IL. Good luck getting from the station to the historic riverfront or hell... even a bathroom isnt even walking distance of the station.

As always... Thirdrail7 is right on with what he (or she) says. There is no written rule by Amtrak about how long someone can spend in the Dome Car. However, If it was at capacity and I was up there awhile and more people were coming up who wanted to experience it... I'd move for a bit back to...

Wow, the obnoxious railfan who I was referring to in my post "outs" himself in record time on the Amtrak Unlimited Forum... 2 hours and 8 minutes. Congrats, dude. It was great to run into you. Ok, not really. I am not going to go back and forth about your behavior on Saturday morning on the...

We were on the Coast Starlight last week and saw this. Being a collector of everything Amtrak, I asked about the Moscow Mule souvenir cup. The LSA mentioned that Amtrak's Marketing Dept. was working on a "new logo" for the Coast Starlight and that the souvenir cups would be coming out soon...

Since it's come up for more discussion... the behavior and lack of social skills of some railfans on Saturday morning's trip (9/16/2016) were down right rude and embarrassing. If I were the conductor, I would have been so pissed they way some people were acting I would have kept the darn thing...

We rode up and back yesterday (September 17). I think there were three open seats at one point going north. Very crowded and several obnoxious railfans aboard. Good narration and talk from Fred Smith the car host. Smaller crowds going south and a lot nicer. Hoping for 10031 to come back to the...

Agreed with the meals... I don't see us taking Amtrak long distance EAST or SOUTH out of Chicago ever again. Our May 1 trip on the City of New Orleans was the first trip with these microwaved TV dinners... just horrible. They have spread over to the Cardinal now, too. Cross those two trains off...

I feel bad for the crew --- they had pretty packed trains and worked 2 days on #4(25) and worked 2 days on #3(28) and now will have to head back to Chicago before heading back to LAX again. UGH! Just doing narration on the railroad is enough for me... couldn't handle an on-board position like that.

Not sure why yet, but just heard from my friend who's a crew member on #3(28) they are being turned at ABQ and will be headed back to Chicago now. Wildfires? Freight derailment?

We decided to do a run on 50(27) and 851(28) for my birthday. Since a roomette was slightly more than two coach seats we decided to go that route on 50(27). A complete Am-cluster you-know-what in Chicago. Things started good with a nice relaxing wait in the Met Lounge. We boarded by walking on...

Just got my for Select Plus saying I get double TQPs through September. I only have 400 TQPs so even Select wont happen. The new AGR 2.0 can pound sand. I have been Select Plus for 11 years but am not even trying for Select for 2017. Honestly it was worth it for $800 in short hops to earn Select...

It was mass confusion and the rope was up on the south gates when we went out on #381 on Saturday morning. We and 4 other business class people were in the lounge. Sent out long hallway, past Metra gates 1-21, and to worker with the rope up. She checked we had business class tickets and let us...