What follows are some of the highs and lows of my trip to Washington, DC, for the annual meeting of the Rail Passengers Association. Suffice to say, things are a long way from normal. The Southwest Chief (L.A. to Chicago) was on time, start to finish. There was a full-service dining car on board and…
At last we come to the point of this narrative, which is that for many reasons, Amtrak can be a better choice for long-distance travel than flying. At the airport, we are required to hand over our personal belongings to be inspected and even searched. We are squeezed into narrow seats that won’t recline and…
Note: What follows is an extended comment from a regular reader from Belgium. His observations are so interesting, I am using them in full below . . . with many thanks. European, here. We don’t use trains to travel the width of the continent, either (well, some exceptions exist, I’m one of them, but we…
Amtrak has announced that starting on October 1st they are going to run their long-distance trains on three-days-a-week schedules. Jim Mathews, president and CEO of Rail Passengers Association, harshly condemned Amtrak’s action, and put his finger on another issue that, in many ways, is likely to prove even more damaging in the long term: the…