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I'm not sure how these glitches crept in:

A diner or diner-lounge booth was labeled "capitol limited coach class empty row"

A single level train was labeled "capitol limited train from dc to chicago"

Perhaps they have one or two photo editors for all their articles, not connected to the author.

“Here’s a picture of something in a train! Here’s a photo caption! Just toss them together — if they don’t match, who cares! People only look at pictures anyway—they don’t read anything!”

(When I was an editor, I had to deal with some graphics departments that actually had that attitude—and clean up their mess.)
 
Great chuckle this morning—thanks!😁

She doesn’t know anyone who has taken as many Amtrak rides as she has?

(Hey, over here! Check out AU!)

She’s a seasoned Amtrak traveler?

(Give yourself another 30 years or so, sweetie, and take a train somewhere out of the east coast—then you can say you’re a seasoned Amtrak traveler.)
 
for an article released today she must have riden a few years ago..

https://www.yahoo.com/news/spent-8-hours-amtraks-texas-120800249.html

At least this one seems interested in the trip and not bored. And she was willing to talk to other travelers and actually listen to them. So it wasn’t all about her.

You’re right—It has to be an older article, since the lounge isn’t around anymore and neither is the nice traditional food.

Maybe she’s spending time inside in the air conditioning during a heatwave clearing out old files.
 
I wonder how the author of that article is able to get out of bed and make it through the day, given the complete lack of sense, and total obliviousness, that the person has.

I’d be mortified telling family and friends that I had done what the author did. I certainly wouldn’t write an article about my own idiotic mistakes like that.
 
I wonder how the author of that article is able to get out of bed and make it through the day, given the complete lack of sense, and total obliviousness, that the person has.

I’d be mortified telling family and friends that I had done what the author did. I certainly wouldn’t write an article about my own idiotic mistakes like that.

I actually liked her!

That could very easily be me trying to take a plane, having not done it in 30 years and not having any idea of where to start or what the procedures are. And looking completely dumb to everyone around me.

And even the expert Amtrak travelers don’t find the website easy.

I felt really bad for her that she was wearing a lovely outfit but still couldn’t eat in the dining car.

She was much easier for me to take than some of the snarky self-satisfied people who have written similar articles.
 
I actually liked her!

That could very easily be me trying to take a plane, having not done it in 30 years and not having any idea of where to start or what the procedures are. And looking completely dumb to everyone around me.

And even the expert Amtrak travelers don’t find the website easy.

I felt really bad for her that she was wearing a lovely outfit but still couldn’t eat in the dining car.

She was much easier for me to take than some of the snarky self-satisfied people who have written similar articles.
It’s not hard to see that your ticket-which appears online and then is emailed to you- is for a combination of trains and buses instead of the Coast Starlight.

And if I were taking a trip for work (to write an article about it), I’d carefully check everything in advance and research everything to ensure that everything was covered. She didn’t bother to even check her ticket, much less figure anything else out.

And if I screwed up like she did, I certainly wouldn’t write an article about it.
 
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She did say she enjoyed the folks she met on her trip, that tamale was awfully nasty looking lol and she should have done more research, but I kinda enjoyed her article, but she wore heels and a long dress, does anyone remember that one time train ride episode on Sex and the City lol
 
All these articles are fluff but more or less entertaining. It would really be interesting to know why Insider has been continuously running Amtrak articles for a couple years straight now. Especially since they don’t seem have an agenda (for or against) rail travel.

I know we’ve debated it in the past if Amtrak came to them or vice versa. Whatever the case it gets long distance rail travel in the news which is a good thing.
 
Some of the article is confusing and contradictory. For instance she talks about starting with baby steps but books two 10+ hour segments as her very first trip. You can fly clear across an ocean with that much time so it's a long trip in my book. That being said some of her difficulties are completely relatable or at least understandable. For instance long hold times coupled with a barely functioning website is a legitimate complaint. I've also had big problems with temperatures on Amtrak, both too hot and too cold. Blocking coach customers from using the dining car makes sense if you know the intricacies of Amtrak staffing but how are new customers supposed to anticipate that? I also believe that Amtrak can and should do more to warn new and infrequent travelers that they are about to buy a bus ticket. If Americans wanted to ride buses they'd be on the Greyhound or Megabus website. If it's a only a short connecting segment between two longer train segments maybe it's fine as is but a multi-hour slog on one or more buses should come with warnings so obvious that nobody could possibly miss them.

Now, back to some of those contradictions...
I approached my first train ride with a survivalist mindset.
I showed up [...] in a floor-length dress and expensive, impractical shoes.
That is an interesting interpretation of survivalist methodology.

I tend to rank my travel experiences on a scale of "ouch" to "call an ambulance."
In my opinion, the seats were [...] nap-friendly [...] I can sleep almost anywhere.
These can both be true but usually someone with a bad back struggles to sleep easily.

I'm impulsive and, as it pertains to travel, disorganized.
At least she's aware enough to see where the breakdown has occurred.
 
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All these articles are fluff but more or less entertaining. It would really be interesting to know why Insider has been continuously running Amtrak articles for a couple years straight now. Especially since they don’t seem have an agenda (for or against) rail travel.
Business Insider is kind of like huffington post or buzz feed where they don’t have an agenda beyond seeing what articles bring viewers and paying some freelancer embarrassingly little to write the same thing again.
 
She obviously doesn’t have the same clout as Simply Railway—whenever he’s on a train where people share a room, he almost always says “But I was lucky and managed to get a room to myself”!😁
I do have to agree that a couchette/liegewagen berth is not as comfortable as an Amtrak berth. A fairer comparison is with sleeping in North American leg-rest coach seats, which some of us like and others don't. And, I've slept in 6-passenger compartments that made me wish that a 4-passenger compartment was available!
 
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