The steak on the Acela is great!
Want airline food? Take Amtrak
51–60 of 225 posts
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building roads is also a money losing operation. Complain about something else. There's plenty here.
Reconstructing an existing road is even worse. Want to repair a failing street? OK, but only if you make every aspect of the supporting infrastructure ADA compliant with the most current laws. We are legislating ourselves out of modern infrastructure.
Or, just maybe, it’s good to make infrastructure accessible?
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#53Amtrak's current food is far superior to airline food. I'm speaking as a regular Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, and Southwest Chief first class passenger. The only disappointment is that for some reason, I can't get food served in my room on the Sunset Limited. No problems on the other routes. It's kind of sad if Amtrak has to sacrifice freshly-prepared food for airline heat-n-eat fare. But if it means an additional…
Food on the Amtrak line running up the length of Oregon to Seattle is terrible. Not airline terrible, but not far from it.
Oh sorry for the contradicting opinion, I thought we were sharing anecdotes here.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#54Good, good. The sooner Amtrak alienates its remaining customer base, the sooner it can be scrapped. There are only a few parts of the country that are settled densely enough -- and broadly enough -- for passenger trains to make sense. Any moves toward consolidation of service to only those areas should be welcomed.
Why do you want rail to be scrapped?
Why should it be kept?
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#55I've taken the California Zephyr between Chicago and SF a couple times now, it's a wonderful experience. 2 1/2 days of solitude from a world with increasingly few remote corners. If you're at all interested, I recommend riding soon. These admittedly impractical long-distance routes are going to be the first to go when budget cuts necessitate it.
Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?
The timetable is set partly so that you sleep during the boring bits and have daylight in the mountains.
At least it was when I did Chicago -> SF a few years ago. It was great, after the prairies you woke up in Denver & lots more people got on, spent a day going through the Rockies, sleep, and then a day in the Sierras. (I'm pretty sure we spent some of the night parked in a siding.)
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is train travel so much more expensive? Fewer tickets being sold comparatively?
I understand the root issues is Amtrack unions. Amtrack staffing is one employee to four passengers. I dont know what the ratio is for airlines but it must be lower. This video does a pretty good explonation i think: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA
It's certainly a labor issue, but can you explain how it's the union's fault? Staffing a train for 30+ hours is 10x more expensive than staffing an airplane for 3. It's not the number of workers, but the time cost of workers. Don't forget to account for the ground crew when discussing planes.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#57I've only taken Amtrak once, from Portland to San Francisco. One of the best parts was having dinner in the dining car. Two older ladies invited me to join them because I was by myself and we had a nice chat while cruising through the mountains. Sad to see it go, but I guess it was only a matter of time.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#58As a regular rider of Germany's night trains: what's the problem with eating in a roomette (sleeper car cabin)? First of all I already hate it when the cabin mates see me totally groggy - much less a whole fucking dining car. In addition, no dining car can fit as many people as there fit in a single sleeper car, much less a whole train composed of 10-15 sleeper cars.
I'm fairly anti-social, but I actually love meeting people in the dining car. Some of the best socializing experiences I've ever had.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
33 stops.
I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city. Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even. I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should defin…
I'm still surprised that Oklahoma City to Fort Worth route exists. It's 2-3 cars, and stops in such exciting places as Gainesville, TX. (sarcasm definitely intended.)
Yet every day, there it goes. Bypassing a city like Denton, TX where a lot of people live and commute to Dallas or Fort Worth. The opportunity for commuter rail is there... it's just not happening, and I wish that it would.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city. Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even. I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should defin…
Discontinuing Amtrak's long-distance services -- which are clearly not competitive in terms of ticket price or travel time with alternatives -- comes up time and time again, by members of Congress and commentators alike. However, successive directors of Amtrak have always opposed the discontinuation of long-distance routes. Congress could likely force the issue, but it's interesting that Amtrak leadership always lean…
A lot of the issue, I believe, is that those long-distance services cater to a lot of small towns that have no airport or good bus service. So Senators don't want to lose that service in their state. And they fight to keep the service, even if they are conservative.