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Or the agent said, sure, and then booked him into whatever roomette came up. The guy had a 50% chance of getting what he wanted, and the agent had a zero percent chance of hearing about it if he didn't.

If I were travelng between Chicago and Salt Lake City, I'd check the bag with the gifts. It doesn't cost anything, and I'd feel much more secure with the presents in the baggage car. With 2 people in a Superliner roomette, there's very little room for any luggage.

I did a round trip on the Empire Builder over the Thanksgiving weekend, St. Paul-Minot. Both directions there was water in the roomette and more available. Coffee was available past lunch. The SCA had to fetch ice from the dining car. Both breakfast and lunch had plastic plates and paper...

I am scheduled to take #8 out of Minot tonight. The word from the Minot Depot is that #8 (29) is annulled at Spokane. #7(28) is annulled at Havre, and will turn back east, and will pick us up sometime tonight, though it will be "severely late." I've got a plumber coming at 8:30 Monday morning...

1:30 am, still waiting at St. Paul. Union Depot. Topper's Pizza is doing a good business. They are open til 3. The ping pong. table also getting good use. Looks like we''ll get lunch before. we get to Minot.

Well that went south fast. At 7 pm #7 was 3 minutes late. By 8:30 it was an hour, and just now I got my 5th text from Amtrak- - the train is expected at 12:45 am. We''ll see...

Mrs. Ispolkom and I are traveling from St. Paul to Minot, leaving tonight. Until yesterday, a roomette between St. Paul and Minot was still only $99, lowest bucket. It's snowing in Minnesota today, with ice pellets in North Dakota tomorrow, so we're happy to leave the driving to the engineer...

I'd spend time puting alternate city pairs into amtrak.com and seeing what routings come up. You might be able to book CHI-LAX-SEA on the Southwest Chief and Coast Starlight, and then SEA-CHI, as two separate 2-zone awards. If amtrak.com gives your prefered routing, you should have little...

Was this one of the senior executives whose benign neglect of the Hi Line led to the present situation? BNSF in the past severely underestimated demand, so it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that now they're overestimating it. Of course, I'd be happy if they invest too much, as any...

That's certainly true, and it's probably not accidental that pipeline expansions out of North Dakota have had a hard time getting financing. It seems that the producers who are supposedly so sure that production will be so high aren't willing to put their money where the mouths are. Witness...

Here's an article indicating that planning might be getting past the hand waving. On the other hand, note that Raphael Ortega seems to be the point man. His big accomplishment is St. Paul Union Depot, a train station that sat for 18 months without any trains.

Umm, 100k barrels a day of Keystone XL capacity are supposed to be set aside for Baaken crude. If production expands, eventually shipments will shift to pipelines, just like they do in every other oil field. The different factor here is that no one (producers included) thought that the Baaken...

In Albuquerque there's the Chama Brewing Microbar a block or so from the train station. It's tiny though (maybe room for 8 patrons?) and only sells 1) beer and 2) a limited selection of potato chips. Mrs. Ispolkom did get a glass of tap water (in a beer glass, of course), but they didn't have ice.

That would be true only if the present security theater added any security value to that obtained by the TSA precheck. I doubt that is the case.

Wow, they've clearly cleaned the Tunel station in Istanbul (which is a funicular, actually, not a subway) since I rode it in 1996.

I didn't realize that the equipment Twin Cities emergency vehicles use to preempt traffic lights doesn't work on the Green Line train signals. Apparently neither did one St. Paul police officer. I can't tell you how many times I've followed a speeding police cruiser or fire truck (at the...

If you look up NOL-SEA leaving tomorrow, the second itinerary suggested is NOL-CHI-SEA on #58 and #7. The first suggested itinerary is an epic trip: NOL-WAS-CHI-EMY-SEA, which I think times out to 133 hours. I once had an AGR agent tell me that he could only book the first routing shown...

Via Rail's diners have been rebuilt with head end power. Even into the Amtrak era, heritage diners used presto logs.

I've often found the downstairs baggage area overflowing with luggage. After watching a SCA moving excess baggage from side to side on the Empire Builder (station platforms seemed to be always on alternating sides of the train), I've always checked luggage when possible. After all, if I have...

Umm, wasn't there a driver on that bulldozer? I'm sorry about your delay, but...