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I have a $270 Amtrak eVoucher, am Select Plus and will not take Amtrak again. Is there any lawful way to give the voucher to charity? If not, I’ll just let it expire. Thanks.

How about this for an Amtrak service? Airport shuttles: trains that would run from cities that are a short distance (at most two hours) from major airports. They would stop at areas with lots of free parking and would have TSA security screeners to screen passengers and luggage before they...

How much authority do individual Amtrak employees such as sleeping car attendants and cafe car attendants have to kick passengers off trains and have them arrested, or otherwise have over passengers? On a plane, I believe that if you disobey a flight attendant, you can be arrested. But on...

Out of curiosity, when you board an Amtrak train, why can’t you board a train through any car (in your class of service)? Why do you have to have to board only through the car for which you have a ticket? For example, once I boarded the Acela through the car next to mine. The onboard staff...

This is minor, but some train names aren’t the best for marketing. For example, the names “Silver Meteor” and “Silver Star” don’t indicate Florida at all. Yes, those are famous names to railfans, but wouldn’t some other names be better, such as the “Florida Special”? The worst train name of...

There seems to be some kind of issue this evening with changes from electric to diesel locomotives on southbound trains at Washington Union Staton. I’ve been sitting on my train in the station for over 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it took an hour and 40 minutes for the electric locomotive to get...

Amtrak used to have a map where (if I recall correctly) you could type in your train number and see your train moving, and it would show the speed and other train information. It was handy. Now it’s been replaced with the Track Your Train map. I find it hard to use on a phone; particularly if...

Given Amtrak’s reduction of sleeping car and dining car services, despite having received numerous new sleeping and dining cars in the past few years, I think that another provider of sleeping car services should be found. Perhaps the new provider could provide cars to Amtrak and Via, and...

On a recent Acela Express trip, train staff caught two people who tried to ride without paying. However, Amtrak didn’t seem to take steps to require the fare evaders to pay for tickets. Shouldn’t Amtrak try to collect ticket prices from fare evaders? The first was a passenger who got on in...

Amtrak’s sleeping cars aren’t really made for people who travel solo or who need a more basic room: The smallest room is a roomette, priced and designed for two people; and this expensive and too big for one person. Not everyone needs lounge access and meals. Some private operators of...

A Norfolk Southern-operated line and rail yard are on the Charlotte airport premises, not far from the main Charlotte station and uptown Charlotte. Why not build an Amtrak station at the Charlotte airport and extend Piedmont trains to serve it? Flights to GSO, for example, could be replaced...

I was in a roomette in a Viewliner I sleeping car recently. The room was at the end of the car, above the wheels. A fan or something above the baggage space in the room (by the ceiling) made loud noises. I slept in the upper bunk. I didn’t sleep well. Any tips for getting a good night’s...

While Amtrak (particularly the Acela) markets itself as the best choice for trips between downtowns, the pandemic has surely reduced the number of trips to downtown areas and increased the amount of business done in suburbs. SEPTA in Philadelphia allows Amtrak ticketholders to ride SEPTA trains...

If I am understanding railroad economics correctly (which may not be the case): Railroads have huge overhead, such as expenses for tracks, stations, dispatching, equipment and back-office operations. Once those overhead costs are covered, revenues from operating trains quickly turn into...

Why can’t Amtrak contract with Norfolk Southern to do switching in Atlanta? And if there is more demand than supply for sleeping car space, whatever the reason, why can’t Amtrak reach out to a private operator to add a sleeping car? Surely haulage fees are better than nothing.

Sleeping car fares on the Crescent are back to being really high, and there is limited availability: why, with Viewliner II sleepers to add capacity? A few days before Easter, my approximately 600 mile commute is over $600 one way, and only one room is left, according to the Amtrak app. Why...

Isn't the Amfleet coach in the photo on the middle left side of the Amtrak homepage (Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes) damaged? There is a strip of yellow and brown where it should be stainless steel. How could this type of photo make it through internal clearance and get posted?

As Amfleet I cars are soon headed for the great coach yard in the sky, to be replaced by Siemens equipment, will you miss them? I find them comfortable and they ride well, but the small windows are less than ideal. So I won’t, although I’ll give Amtrak credit for buying what worked out to be a...

By comparison, see an article in a recent Trains magazine about Union Pacific building a new bridge in about a month. If there were a way of getting the private sector to have more involvement in operating passenger rail, there would be fewer instances of slow, overly-priced nonsensical...

Which do you prefer and why? I prefer the upper because it’s easier to set up the bed (compared to pulling out the seats to make the lower bed) and because the ride is perhaps a bit smoother being higher up from the rails. But I’m open to changing my mind.