Two things: as a Conductor, if I see you´ve brought your own alcohol on board, I´ll give you two choices: put it in the trash immediately, or get off the train at the next stop. Those are the rules, and they are unambiguous.
Can you
quote the rule that says you can’t
bring your own alcohol on board without being forced to throw it away by some conductor with a chip on their shoulder? I’ve never found such a rule on Amtrak’s own website. All I’ve been able to find so far is that you can’t
consume it in "public" spaces like coach cars.
Also, I´m no teetotaler, but why are there so many people who apparently can´t survive 2 or 3 or ever 4 hours without alcohol?
This isn’t a domestic flight we’re talking about. It takes Amtrak a full twelve hours just to reach the next state from where I live. It can take Amtrak
three days to reach my final destination, assuming everything is running on time. Don’t get me wrong, I can and do go months without a drop, but when I’m on a trip I’m probably celebrating a rare vacation opportunity. Or I might simply be on my way to visit with my family. In either situation I may wish to imbibe. :lol:
So get a room, right? Most of the time I do, but sometimes there are no rooms available, at any cost. So buy your liquor from Amtrak, right? Unfortunately Amtrak simply doesn’t sell most of the brands I prefer and even when they do they can run out. So simply go without right? Yep, that’s generally what I would do in that situation. I just find it curious that a company which overtly advertises and sells liquor to its passengers just so happens to be super suspicious of the intention of anyone who brings their own liquor aboard. As if one bottle of liquor is substantially less disruptive than another identical bottle based entirely on where it came from.
Re: the TSA, it's not illegal to bring booze aboard, otherwise duty free would really be hurting. You bring whatever in your baggie through screening, and any amount you purchase after security. It's just illegal to consume it unless it's served by the flight attendant. (And yes, this is a loophole if you can sweet-talk the FA into pouring it for you.)
That used to be the rule many years ago and it made perfect sense as it focused entirely on preventing intoxication rather than just on preventing people from choosing their own brands and sources. However, to my knowledge there is no US airline that still allows their flight attendants to serve alcohol you brought on board yourself. In the case of alcohol consumption the FAA has a reciprocal rule system that allows the most restrictive rule to trump all others, even when that rule originates with the airline itself. So long as the rule is
more restrictive than the FAA rule it
becomes the FAA's active rule on that airline by prior arrangement. Thus, there is no "loophole" or any other way to legally consume liquor on a plane besides buying it from the airline's own tiny little selection of overpriced liquor, either at the time of serving or through the purchase of a premium cabin ticket. On the other hand, the one positive side to America's care-not and do-nothing flight attendant pools is that they have a heck of a time ever seeing any infractions while hiding out in the galley.