Some years ago, my wife and I were traveling in Europe for three weeks, with most of the time spent in Hungary and France. On one particular day, I was reviewing our itinerary for the coming week and noticed we had to change trains in Dijon on the way back to Paris. The connection time…
Veteran rail travelers know from personal experience that Amtrak’s long-distance trains often run late— sometimes very late—and rather than take a chance on making a connection, we’ll stay overnight and continue on our way the next day. The fact is, it’s risky to take an Amtrak schedule at face value and assume any given long-distance…
I really hate hearing passengers trash Amtrak for being “always late”, because the implication is that late trains are Amtrak’s fault. The truth is, Amtrak long-distance trains operate on track owned by the freight railroads and it’s dispatchers for the freight railroads who decide which trains get priority. Much of the time—probably most of the…
The Japanese high-speed trains are legendary, as well they should be. They’re very fast, of course, and they also run on time. But they are also spotlessly clean. And why shouldn’t they be with cleaning crews that zoom through the cars of an arriving train, removing every tiny bit of trash, running a portable vacuum…