I have been riding Amtrak for years, though mostly heading south. However, for the first time, I headed north, and with that, took the Vermonter.
I have always taken a sleeper car, but with the Vermonter being a "day" train, the best we could do, was Business Class.
Here are some of the noteworthy elements...
I have always taken a sleeper car, but with the Vermonter being a "day" train, the best we could do, was Business Class.
Here are some of the noteworthy elements...
- Beverages With Business Class, you get free soft drinks. Now, paying customers from Coach are served regular 12 oz cans of soda. Business Class, however, gets those 8 oz mini-cans. Now, you might think no big deal. They are free so I could just ask for another. The real problem is that while the 12 oz cans are kept and served cold, the 8 oz cans are kept out and served at room temperature. Sorry, but I paid extra for Business Class, and IMHO, it is not extra service to be served warm soda.
- Food Apparently, the cafe car is only stocked in Washington. So, for the north bound trip there is a pretty good selection. However, that leaves the south bound trip with only what is left over, which in our case, wasn't very much.
- On Time Last year, New England Central started doing some work on their the Vermont tracks. I found an Amtrak notice about this, with a warning to expect a 1 to 2 hour delay, but that notice clearly stated that all such work would be completed by the end of October 2007. I don't know if that work is really completed, or if it was simply a total disaster. In many sections of the New England Central track, our train just lumbered along at, I think, 10 mph. I didn't notice any active work being done anywhere along the route.
- Assisting the Handicapped Sitting near us in the car, was a woman who was blind, complete with a seeing eye dog. Now, with the PA system not working (what's new?), this woman specifically asked the conductor if he would please tell her when we got to her station. Well, her stop came, and the conductor never came. I did have a nice chat with her during the trip, and therefore, I told her when we were approaching her station, and confirmed to her, when we actually did. However, it really got to me that the conductor, nor any other Amtrak employee, cared enough to make it a point to help this woman. Forget about the ADA, it should be just down right plain courtesy, no? This really irked me.