Someone once told me that the most frequently asked question on an Amtrak train is, “Why are we stopped?” That may or may not be true, but it does point out an aggravating problem that also happens to be my pet peeve: conductors who don’t use the train’s PA system to keep passengers informed about…
Ask a hundred Amtrak passengers what’s the biggest problem with long-distance train travel and I’ll bet you a box of donuts that the most frequent answer will be that trains often run late. I’ll also wager that most of those people don’t know – and probably don’t care – that Amtrak doesn’t actually own the…
In my June 11th post, I wrote about the proposal to increase Amtrak service between Los Angeles and New Orleans from three days a week to a daily train in each direction. (Doing so will involve two trains and probably creating a new one in a complicated arrangement. For details, scroll down to that earlier…
It’s been around a while, but I just came across this recently. It’s a startling bit of video that graphically demonstrates what can happen when a tornado intersects with a moving train. It was taken from a rear-facing camera mounted on a locomotive hauling a Union Pacific freight near Harvard, Illinois, in January of 2008….