Granted, it would be going further out of your way, but would you have any luck with rental cars if you took train 48 to New York and transferred to a regional train to New Haven? I'm not sure if NH would have a better rental car situation.
basically, outside of airport locations and large cities, all rental agencies in new haven, springfield, hartford, etc., all close at 6PM. the bradley international location is open until midnight. so it looks like i'll need to cancel my springfield reservation and find a shuttle to BDL. what is intensely frustrating about this is that amtrak insists the train should arrive around 4PM.
and here's the thing (and i don't want to start a flame war here). every forum that caters to fans or customers of amtrak always says the same thing: "it's not amtrak's fault the trains run late; it's the host roads' fault." and yes, that is a true statement. but i've heard that excuse for decades now. amtrak has contracts with NS, CSXT, BNSF, UP, and others. if the roads are acting in bad faith, then amtrak should seek relief in the courts. period. real people need to use amtrak for real travel purposes other than railfanning. we need to know when we're going to arrive. and saying, "just plan on being a few hours late" isn't good enough.
yes, airlines and bus lines have delays. and in those cases customers are inconvenienced as well. but just because other modes of transport experience delays of their own does not abrogate amtrak's responsibility to at least try and actively alleviate the most significant problem with long-distance rail travel. for most people, it isn't SDS -- it's OTP. i can't even expect the train to get there less than 2.5hrs late. with padding. and i think that speaks volumes.
combine that with dilapidated equipment, surly employees, and rising fares, and i'm not terribly impressed. and before anybody starts demanding more dollars from congress, i'd like to see amtrak show more concern for their customers before more outlays are given for operational expenses. i have no problem, by the way, with federal grants for capital investment (new equipment, rebuilding track, etc.), but covering operational expenses should be doable.
so should using the courts and the ICC to force host roads to help run the trains on time.
for goodness sakes, with a little lobbying, amtrak could encourage congress to force the roads to run the trains on their rails on reasonable schedules on a statutory basis, as existed prior to 1996. these types of active efforts are the least they could do for their customers. after using the same excuse for thirty years, maybe they should try doing something about it.
-- eliyahu
austin, tx
