Suggested Long Distance Amtrak Train JourneysAmtrak Train Travel Advisory: before arriving, call Amtrak Railroad Customer Service or the Amtrak railroad station. CALL 1800 USA-RAIL (872-7245) and ask if the train has left the previous stop yet! |
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| UPDATE 9/1/2003 -- I wrote a long letter to Amtrak complaining about some things and making suggestions to improve their service. Their citizen advisory board wrote me a letter back thanking me. Amtrak sent me a $200 travel certificate. I never did take another trip within that year's time, so I think I will frame it. I don't think they have this program in place anymore, and Amtrak's financial situation is still that of a dying patient on life support, where Congress decides every once in a while to continue life support. Suggested Long Distance Amtrak Train Journeys"See the United States the Amtrak Way!"I have good things to say about Amtrak, and I have bad things to say about Amtrak. Having taken numerous overnight long-distance trips on Amtrak, I think Amtrak is great! I love trains, and overall the experience is worth it. Just be sure your expectations are set correctly. Ask Amtrak questions about services you might need. Bring plenty of cash on board.Items in the diner/restaurant and lounge cars are expensive, so if you're not in a sleeper car it will take some cash to get through the trip. This is particularly true for drinkers, as alcohol is very expensive and coach passengers are not allowed to bring on their own alcohol. People in sleepers pay a high price, but that includes all meals in the diner car. If you're in a sleeper you should leave an appropriate tip based on the menu price of what you eat. You meal price was part of the ticket, so don't be shy, have dessert. Because your sleeper cabin is considered a "private area" of the train, first-class/sleeper travelers are allowed to bring their own alcohol aboard, and can mix their own drinks. Technically, you are not supposed to do this in coach. Amtrak is a great way to travel, as long as you know what to expect.and you don't have any schedule to follow. In a country as large and spread out as the United States, Amtrak provides a necessary service to many small towns not serviced by other transportation. For the traveler, you can sleep and still be moving toward your destination. Try that in a car sometime! The biggest problem with Amtrak is that the trains can unexpectedly get behind schedule. Hours behind. Days, in rare cases. What I have to say here applies only to long-distance overnight passenger trains that make 4day/3night journeys. Night trains on shorter journeys can also be very late. It's not all Amtak's fault, but it is all Amtrak's problem. Point to point Amtrak service in the Northeast is usually on schedule. Amtraks problems are forced on it -- Amtrak, also known as National Railroad Passenger Corporation, has the deck stacked against it by congress and also by freight companies like CSX, Union Pacifiic, ConRail, etc. Amtrak is the "illegitamite child" of the freight companies. When Amtrak was created, half of the passenger service was cut and many routes were consolidated. If you want my opinion, Amtrak was never forced to truly perform, and has been kept alive as a political football. Because Amtrak has a government granted monopoly, for the most part it's immune from competition. See my "end Amtrak" page for more detail. Speaking of cons -- another consolidation created Conrail in 1973, when seven bankrupt freight companies were merged into the federally financed Conrail Corp. Conrail was privatized and is now owned by two Class 1 railroads. Amtrak never followed this example and remains (under-)funded by Congress. WHY WAS AMTRAK CREATED IN THE FIRST PLACE? Back in the 1970's, amid a horrible corporate and economic climate, the freight companies decided that people were more of a hassle to haul around, and that people wouldn't pay the full cost for train travel. This trend away from public transporation was in full swing by the 1970's. In part it was true that passenger service was not as lucrative as freight service -- in another part this may have been another accounting trick designed to foist off undesirable operations onto the government. Regardless of original sin, the Congressional charter for Amtrak envisioned the day when Amtrak would pay for itself. Amtrak has a hard time meeting that goal. First, it's effectively a government entity, again, immunity from real competition does not lead to efficiency. With every member of Congress defending the Amtrak service in their area, it took Hurricane Katrina to force Amtrak to reconfigure the horribly late Sunset Limited. My solution to Amtrak would be to give or sell the long distance trains to tour companies. If someone is using Amtrak as "cheap essential transporation" they are not paying for a sleeper. If First Class Amtrak passengers in sleepers can't pay the full cost of their trip, why should we? I have yet to hear any concrete answer to this question, instead people refer to yet-to-be-attained abstractions like efficient passenger service in the US. At the risk of getting in trouble with my fellow railfans, I will say that most support for Amtrak's status quo is nostalgic. If you want real nostalgia, let's force the Class 1's to run passenger service again and pay them for it. That would probably be a more efficient way to subsidize train travel. We could acutally get the City of Los Angeles back in service for anyone! The biggest barrier to ending Amtrak is the cost of shutting down. Many employees would get 5-year severance payouts in the event of a layoff -- it's estimated that it would cost Amtrak billions of dollars just to pay off severance and other benefits. Even highly protected workers in Europe don't get this kind of treatment. You might expect that my suggestions are not popular on the train. I often run up against nostalgic railfans (like me) who want Amtrak long distance service no matter how much it's subsidized by the taxpayers. My page about reforming Amtrak cuts through many pro-Amtrak arguments. One common refrain of the "leave Amtrak alone" group is that the government spends much more money to subsidize auto and plane travel. While this is true in nominal terms, when you look at government subsidies there's more to the story. Much funding for air and auto travel comes from direct taxes. When you count general taxpayer dollars going to a transporation bill and divide it by the number of people it serves, government subsidy to auto and air transporation is much more efficient than train subsidies ENOUGH POLITICS -- WHAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT ON THE TRAIN . Obviously there's a lot to say here. Don't let me dampen your desire to ride the train -- it's a great experience. Just remember that if you're in coach (not sleepers) you will not have access to a shower. How are you going to feel after 4 days on a train with no shower? The only place to wash is in the cramped airline-style bathrooms. Don't ride amtrak more than 2 days straight, don't expect to sleep well, do expect to be about 2-3 hours behind schedule, don't be surprised if a 3-day train gets up to 7 or even 9 hours behind schedule. Don't be surprised if you are "treated" to a surprise bus trip to catch up with the next train. I watched this happen unexpectedly at 5am. I will write more sometime ... but ABOVE ALL ... CALL 1800 USA-RAIL (872-7245) just before leaving for the station to see if your train will arrive or leave on time. Trains can be up to 10 or more hours late. BEHAVIOR ON THE TRAIN... One more thing that just occurred to me, for those of you considering any type of illegal behavior, pay attention! Consider that you are subject to the laws of the state in which you are traveling! Loose California drug laws are not exported east! While no one goes to jail in California for first time drug offenses, in Utah and Texas and other states soft drugs are felonies! This would not be a good way to end your vacation, right? Gambling is quite illegal in Utah, which borders sinful Nevada. You will have to pick up your chips at the state line. Law in Louisiana is based on a different legal system, for those of you traveling to or through New Orleans. Behave well on the train, behave badly elsewhere please! The most common problems begin and end in the smoking rooms on trains that have them. This room is a constant source of entertainment. Once, a fellow traveler who became overly drunk and boisterous began trying to pick a fight with other passengers. He was let off in Lordsburg, New Mexico. Look it up on a map sometime, and decide if you need to get drunk so much that you are willing to be let off the train in the middle of nowhere. The next train wasn't coming for two days, and he wouldn't be allowed on it regardless. There may be a Greyhound stop in Lordsburg, but I didn't see a Hertz or Budget office. |
This page is from the old californianevada.com website. Please be sure to see my other reposted old website, amstourdam.com and newer sites trackandtrain.com and UtahNevada.com