Recent content by DonNewcomb

French Quarter Festival.

I'd like to go to FQF without having to pay the outrageous parking rates they charge in The Quarter and CBD but it doesn't look like it will happen this year.

This thread has been awful quite. I'm told that Amtrak is still running occasional training trains but otherwise, crickets.

Wish the train was available. Currently, the US-90 bridge over the Pearl River is closed and one side of the I-10 bridge is closed. To avoid a two-hour backup between LA & MS, drivers are taking a 20 mile detour via Picayune but that route has become backed up as well. Fortunately, I have no...

When you look at this crossing on Google Maps, it's absolutely astounding that this could occur. Drivers can see the train for at least a mile in either direction. I wonder if they will find something in the victim's blood that shouldn't have been there?

Dining car seating has to be arranged before the meal. Don't walk in and seat yourself.

Remember that Mobile was against resuming passenger service. Unlike the Mississippi Coast, they are a destination for a lot of CSX freight. They are in lockstep with CSX.

"Mobile is the only city along the route to New Orleans without infrastructure built to accommodate an Amtrak train. Other cities that are stops along the Gulf Coast route – Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, and Bay St. Louis – have train stops or depots ready to go in preparation for Amtrak’s...

As I recall, some 30-ish years ago there was a much more spectacular accident at that crossing that involved a low-boy semi-trailer loaded with 10' diameter concrete culvert sections. One of the few cases of a train-truck accident where the truck won. Speaking of Gulfport: I was checking out...

Local news: Amtrak train crews begin training on Gulf Coast route through Mobile

That's Alabama for you.

The old story that everything connects in Chicago, nothing connects in NOLA.

But you need to buy it before initially boarding the train because at intermediate stops the doors are only open for 90 seconds.

Airline meals and snacks are crazy expensive, which is why budget airlines don't offer them and mainline airlines try to scrimp on them at every opportunity. Don't get me started on just how awful the food was on Delta when I flew from Atlanta to Athens in Oct '21.

Many years ago I rode the Nozomi Shinkansen from Tokyo to Fukuoka. I don't recall any more than a snack cart for food service. Like you say, even going half the length of Japan the trip was only a few hours. I think if the cost of meals was broken out as a separate line item many people would...