Search results

The display screens for passenger/conductor info sounds like great technological improvements. Not to be Mr. Negative, but the Siemens Venture Midwest cars also have digital display boards in the coaches. I have yet to see them actually in use (in fairness, this is an anecdotal sample).

The premium coach and solo suite options definitely meet gaps in Amtrak's offerings. Excited to see how this proceeds.

I understand the historical reference, but there already is an Amtrak service named "Hiawatha." For folks who are not Amtrak buffs or regular riders, I don't think having multiple services named Hiawatha would be of good use. Although there have been solid improvements, Amtrak's signage and...

Without being too cynical, it would be really interesting to learn where the equipment is coming from for added daily departures (if that ever actually happens).

According to Amtrak's initial ADA-compliant design ideas, only particular parts of a long distance train are proposed to have wheelchair-wide aisles, and those sections have 1x2 seating (which may be coach, "business class" or something else). As always, design renderings are not final.

For the single-level fleet, are there any manufacturers that currently produce oblong, airplane tube-shaped rail cars? For the bi-level fleet, are there any manufacturers that currently produce rail cars with second-level gangways and mid-car staircases, as opposed to end doors and gangways at...

Thank you for saying this. I'm in no way an expert on railcar procurement, but I am baffled by the desire to simply replicate Amfleet, Viewliner and Superliner cars for a future order. The rest of the world has moved on! This reminds me of Metra's (Chicago) RFP for essentially an exact...

I traveled from Chicago to Washington on Southwest Airlines to start my trip for the Christmas/New Years holidays, as booking coach on the Capitol Limited is a fool's errand if you're not drastically far in advance. Tickets were nearly twice the cost of my flight when I booked it (got a good...

Seats are something tangible we can debate, but I don't think that should be a limiting factor to comfort. Having ridden in the Illinois Venture cars, I found the seats to be generally fine - not great, not terrible - but far more important, the smooth and quiet ride of the cars is a huge...

For the Lake Shore Limited, I think part of its decline may be the gradual settling of airfares from post-COVID peaks. My most frequent LSL trip is CHI-ROC. Airfares were frequently $400+ for a while but have settled into the $250-300 range.

I don't know if this happens on the NEC, but a good example of this is on the Lake Shore Limited, especially when it runs with five coach cars. Passengers are informed they can "only exit where a uniformed Amtrak employee is present." It's up to you as a passenger to figure out where this is...

The trains in Norway with specific lie flat cars have 23 seats in a 1:1 configuration. This is about half the capacity of an Amfleet II coach car. With that said, these are very much in the design of a first class airline pod. I would be curious if there's a more simple model of basically a...

I saw this quote from Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/11/21/23971484/amtrak-ridership-thanksgiving-holiday-empire-builder-chip No paywall, but you have to sign up with email to read the article. Not to bash endlessly on Mr. Gardner, but is this claim actually...

If I can offer some thoughts on the seats: I haven't ridden the Venture cars on the Hiawatha, but I have ridden them on other Midwest routes. I think there's a lot of rather large assumptions being bandied about that "because I don't like the seat, therefore others don't like it as well." I...

To offer a few thoughts: - While this is not high speed rail, I think this is a rather monumental step for Amtrak - establishing a new long distance route that doesn't run overnight. For all the talk on this forum of running day long distance trains...this is exactly it. - Regarding a Thruway...

I took the Lincoln Service - Missouri River Runner train on Friday, November 3. We were four hours late into St. Louis due to some random events - a truck stuck under a bridge, a drunk person on the bridge over the Mississippi River. But we also left an hour late due to equipment malfunctions...

Hello, I've done one night in coach a number of times, so here's some tips: - If the Amtrak website shows your train as 80% full, all that means is that for at least one station-to-station segment during the train's entire run, occupancy will be in the range of 80-90%. That doesn't mean the...

I am flying into BWI for the Christmas holidays, but my final destination is in Washington DC. If I book an Amtrak ticket on this route and my flight is delayed, would a same-day change require paying a fare increase? Or can I contact Amtrak to make that same-day change free of charge?

Due to some late-changing family plans, I will find myself in Washington DC for the Christmas holiday. I was supposed to go Rochester, NY on Amtrak (from Chicago) and now have the opportunity to travel from DC to Croton-on-Hudson to spend a night with some friends there before traveling from...

This is a challenging question to answer due to the data that most coach passengers - i.e. most Amtrak long distance passengers - use long distance trains as regional/corridor trains, in lieu of actual regional/corridor trains in this country. On the other hand, sleeper passengers are more...