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100% not a fan of the Amfleets not getting turned. I get why they're doing it, but I already have a hard enough time finding a forward-facing seat on the Keystone. Riding backwards makes me sick very quickly, less than a minute riding backwards I have to stand up and face the other direction or...

I would call the Budget location at Union Station directly. Likely nobody at corporate has any idea.

Many NER stops, especially south of WAS, have low platforms and only one or two doors open, and passengers have to climb down the narrow, steep steps to the platform, and then boarding passengers have to climb up. It takes a long time to board this way. Even between WAS-PHL, not all doors open...

I wish the Norfolk train had a sleeper car. It's 7 hours to Philly.

High platforms would go a LONG way towards shortening stops as well. This is especially true of the Virginia NER stops. RVR could be a 30-60 second stop instead of the 10+ minutes it often takes to board everybody through one or two doors. FBG and PTB could be much shorter stops as well.

Yeah, "simplifying" always ends up complicating things even more.

By "work with what we have" I mean that rail upgrades don't happen overnight, and those upgrades have to be backward-compatible so today's trains can run on both old and new infrastructure, and that new trains also have to be able to run on yet-to-be-upgraded tracks. That's why we can't just buy...

Seconded. I think there's been too much of a push to "catch up" to European rail service which works very well for Europe but can't necessarily be shoehorned into the reality of the US rail network. We have to work with what we have, and with decisions that were made 200 years ago.

Metro Train Derails near National Airport Apparently part of a brake assembly fell off a 3000-series train, and the next train on that track was a 7000-series that hit the part and derailed. The train was pulling out of the DCA Airport station and was at low speed.

Question for those of you who have used Amtrak intra-Florida. I'm planning a January trip to visit friends in both Tampa and Jacksonville. Flying to TPA, then flying home from JAX. I'm planning on using the Star to get from Tampa to Jacksonville because it costs $22 vs. renting a car which will...

Well, unlike paving roads with solar panels which has been suggested way too many times, at least railroad tracks are vacant for significant amounts of time. Even busy tracks. Definitely wouldn't work everywhere, but maybe Switzerland keeps their trains in better condition than some of us...

They Keystone cars are all half facing one direction and half facing the other.

If you build it, they will come. Something we all keep shouting from the rooftops.

It was less than 1000 feet from the ground and a minute or so from landing, so the pressure differential is close to zero. Still not possible at altitude. But that's not going to stop idiots and the mentally unstable from trying now.

A big reason I won't be renewing my NordVPN subscription when it expires in a few months: I have my server set to one of several US servers (usually Charlotte or Manassas as they're the closest, sometimes Atlanta) and it keeps routing me through Toronto, causing security alerts at work when my...

I ride the Norfolk-Philly segment a few times a year. Norfolk is a good place to get on the train because it's the first station on the route. So the bathrooms (and everything else) will be clean. The train does not overnight at the station but it does arrive several minutes before scheduled...

Welcome, fellow Virginian 👋

The Virginia routes (the NER routes originating/terminating in Roanoke, Newport News, Norfolk, and Richmond; not counting any LD routes) are seeing record ridership, with more than 87,000 passengers in January 2023. That's an increase of 160% over January 2022, and about 28% increase over...

It has not gone unnoticed around these parts that Norfolk Southern has had a lot more high-profile problems since their entirely profit-driven corporate headquarters move from Norfolk to Atlanta. The city of Atlanta (and possibly the state of Georgia) gave NS $Billions in tax incentives and...

It's mostly an opinion piece. A well-researched one, but it does ignore some things. But there's one thing he's absolutely right about: imperfect first steps. If Virginia hadn't taken a very important and very imperfect first step, we wouldn't have Amtrak service in Norfolk. For decades all we...