Sorry I should have been more clear in my previous post. What I meant is, if you want to see some movies, can't you just pick them up from your local Redbox kiosk, bring it on the train and deposit it at a kiosk at your destination? I was just trying to understand the importance of having the Redbox on Amtrak property vis-a-vis where they are currently. No doubt it would be little more convenient to have them at the station, but I don't think the absence of them is a big deal.
No need to be sorry. ^_^
The main benefit I can see to having this sort of option on board is that it would allow people to find something else to do when Amtrak has one of their trademark shoulder shrugging delays. Or you could use it to occupy your kids if things didn't turn out quite the way you expected. For instance, lets say you thought your kids would be glued to the window the whole trip, but after several hours of staring at a desert they're ready for something else. Or maybe they normally love to watch the scenery but today they're sick or just not feeling well and need something a little more flashy to get their mind off their aches and pains. Maybe you normally bring plenty of things to do but today you boarded a train that was supposed to be a short trip before suddenly turning into a much longer excursion because your train is severely delayed due to any number of impossible to solve problems. Well, now you have another option to pass the time while Amtrak tries to find yet another short term solution to an impossible equation in an era of dwindling solutions.
Even if the kiosks are limited to major stations they're still a useful benefit in my view. Let's say you're connecting through Chicago and your next train is late. Now you have something better to stare at than a bunch of grouchy passengers or self-important platform police or third rung junk food venders. Let's say you're connecting in San Antonio but you didn't know about the Amtrak Unlimited forum and so you're just now finding out at the last minute that you wont be able to stay on the train because your ticket doesn't have the right car number on it. Normally you might be stuck watching a bunch of cheesy infomercials but now you can pick whatever you want and watch it on your own player. Or lets say that your train is super early into LAX because Amtrak changed the schedules on you. You arrive at 4:00AM and nearly everything is closed. Oh, but there's a video rental kiosk to give you something to do until the rest of the city wakes up.
Those are the sort of benefits I would envision anyway. Ideally I would rather full speed internet capable of providing streamed movies and instant downloads, but we all know that's not going to happen anytime soon. Just because MegaBus can do it for a fraction of the cost doesn't mean that Amtrak can do it at any cost. I don't know what Amtrak's problem is, but I doubt most customers will see uninterrupted movie-streaming speed on Amtrak before we're all dead. It's just not going to happen. Another option would be to provide movies on memory cards. A kiosk that provides options for USB sticks and SD cards might be even more useful than DVD's or BD's at this point.
Never. I have never been on Coast Starlight, but have heard and seen photos that PPC used to show movies. What happened to it? The tradition died?
My issue with showing movies to groups as done on the PPC is four fold. First, the PPC setup is only possible to maintain on a single route. It does not appear to be a setup that can be deployed anywhere else. Second, the PPC is just as likely to be an SSL at this point. Keep in mind that originally Amtrak wanted to be rid of their PPC's by now with no chance of ever having to pull them again. That decision has changed, apparently due to customer feedback, but before that Amtrak wanted them gone. Third, the system they use for playing movies in the PPC is just not that robust. According to the staff and passengers I spoke with it's just as likely to be broken as working. Fourth, even when you're on the one and only route that can support a PPC
and your specific train has the PPC car available for use
and the movie system is actually working, you are still at the mercy of whatever movie has already been preselected for you and everyone else. Maybe you'll like or maybe you won't. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that you will not be able to change the selection at any time for any reason.
Now don't get me wrong, like many folks I'd love to see a large number of PPCs spread all over Amtrak's network and maybe the system could be modified to allow for more than one option that was more robust that whatever they're using now. In the case of the PPC what they're showing is not even that big of a deal because it'd done on the lower level where it isn't going to disturb anyone. However, since purchasing several new lounges is not possible with today's funding levels all we're going to be doing is changing how the current SSL is used on most routes. Unfortunately there is no way you're going to get Amtrak to shut down their junk food operation while the movie is playing. That means you're probably going to see and hear a lot of traffic as people make their way toward the snack bar. That being the case, I'd much prefer that they simply turn down the lights and let folks sight see as the night rolls by like they do on VIA's
Canadian. That made for a far more curious and interesting night than anything I've ever experienced on any Amtrak train.
