Recent content by jpakala

The survey came to my regular email and I waited a day or so to do it when using laptop computer. I didn't see anything about reward points but am both an Amtrak credit card user and a longtime Amtrak rewards program member. I always liked the PRR having 6 types of sleeping car rooms although no...

Ranking is tricky for multiple reasons. NY & Chicago have more than one airport. Mainly NYC but also Chicago have much train service whereas Atlanta and Denver each have one! New York (partly by coastal location) lacks the Atlanta, DFW & Denver massive connecting-flight phenomenon. Rankings also...

My first trip was in June 1944 from Pittsburgh to Chicago on the PRR and on to SD on the C&NW. Mom was in a club car in a straight chair with its back against the wall but a man playing cards at a table offered to switch seats so she could have a parlor car seat. What a difference! There was...

A year ago this month we went from Alton, IL to Tucson and I got off & walked around the platform and little station but my wife was already getting ready for bed. Just to clarify perhaps, nobody gets off one train and gets on the other when they are arriving in SAS when the tri-weekly train...

I thought there was a change so there would be less water pressure & splashing, and I think I've experienced that as well, but I'm talking the Saint Louis to KC or Chicago lines and possibly Chicago into Michigan and maybe a bit on the NEC and usually Business Class outside the NEC...

A blanket or long coat or such is important to have for coach travel in my experience, day or night. Decades ago pillows were offered but, just as the airlines have discontinued blankets, pillows long along were discontinued as an amenity. (I think for a while some railroads charged 25 or 50...

This indicates the trains use a tunnel and then bridge whereas highway uses only bridging. The Great Belt Bridge (Danish: Storebæltsbroen) or Great Belt fixed link (Danish: Storebæltsforbindelsen) is a multi-element fixed link crossing the Great Belt strait between the Danish islands of Zealand...

We went to West Palm Beach via Chicago and New York and loved talking at meals (this was several years ago) with people such as a couple that had come from the UK on the QE2 and were returning from an Amtrak roundtrip to L.A. Then there was the couple from Alberta, Canada heading to NYC and the...

Rerouting was so doable decades ago. I remember on IC's 'Land O-Corn' (a Chicago to Waterloo, IA train) when a freight derailment near Jessup, IA caused us to be rerouted via Oelwein, a Chicago Great Western hub. Sadly the only track to Oelwein today is from Waterloo, with nothing in Oelwein...

My wife tolerates shared bathrooms on planes and elsewhere but isn't using them for bedtime and middle-of-the-night purposes. We both don't like having to robe up in the middle of the night or in the morning or at bedtime to navigate public aisles, especially multiple times even on an overnight...

I remember and actually think it went from Boston to L.A. because I knew someone who had a roomette on that sleeping car.

Medical and other conditions, whether permanent or temporary, prevent flying. Someone mentioned fear of heights. Others include certain medications and things like ear problems due to cabin pressure issues. Even obesity can prevent flying unless someone wants to pay for two tickets. After...

When we had Superlinet H room no tape or shims needed, toilet never smelled, but H room in the Viewliner I was much better owing to sizable bathroom (including shower, sink, toilet), wider beds (unlike Superliner H beds), 2 large windows on outer side one above the other & small window on aisle...

This is part of the pre-Katrina route of the Sunset. Towns in MS fought hard for this service to Mobile, AL from New Orleans.

Private companies that could not operate without such taxpayer-provided assets or, like the railroads, would have to pay for their construction and maintenance by themselves, are the direct beneficiaries. Millions of taxpayers never fly, never use locks & dams, etc. and so they do not even...