Spoiled Rotten

[had8ley]

I doubt I've ridden coach ten times in the last ten years. I took # 1 over to Houston a couple of weeks ago and snagged the family room for $62~ quite a bargain and both OBS and the trainmen questioned how only one person got the room. The return trip was quite the opposite. The cheapest roomette was almost $300 and I wasn't biting. I asked the conductor in Houston for a cross tie counting coach seat and he fixed me up in the last pax seat in the last car. At Beaumont, crews changed and I went to the Trans-Dorm to talk to the conductor who I have known for some time. I was elated to get out of the coach as I heard every hard luck story either nose to nose or on the cell phone. I never knew people could be so far down on their luck. One fella didn't stop talking for two hours and I didn't get a word in edge wise. I love to talk but not on this trip. He had just gotten out of jail and hopped the first train out of Houston without even knowing where he was going!I figured I'd give the guy just enough $ to get something in the lounge car and I could go to the diner and get some relief. Wrong, brake shoe breathe~ he comes into the diner and sits next to me with his hot dog !#$%^ I finally had to tell him that I was going to a restricted area of the train and headed for the sleepers. Just his jail house smell told the OBS crew that he didn't belong ahead of the diner.

I know I tell it like it is like it or not but I actually feel sorry for people who have to endure coach with kids and those that don't have enough funds to get where they're going except on Amtrak.(a bus ticket from Houston to NOL was $104 compared to a train tix for $52 according to my long winded friend.) With the new menu prices I doubt many coach riders will be headed to the diner. So, I think I'll back off on some of my commments~ Amtrak is providing a service that not even Greyhound can match (and sometimes doesn't even service the towns Amtrak stops in.) I'm going to look forward to the new car order and pray that sleeper and dining service stay at present levels. The Pullman days were heaven but those gates have long been closed. Maybe what we have ain't so bad after all...

 

[rrdude]

Jay, I rode 66/67 coach to the Boston Gathering a couple of years ago. It had been thirty years since I had spent a night in a coach seat.

It will be another thirty B4 I do it again! I didn't have as bad a time with fellow pax, but even though I prepped myself with blanket, pillow, headphones, got a good set of seats, (away from end of car) I was still "miserable". Not truly miserable, but outside of my comfort level, or "not in the style I have become accustomed to........"

Hey, ya get older, and you are willing to pay more. I get asked a lot about rail travel by the "kids" (twenty-somethings) in my office. I tell them that I WILL NOT go coach, and my reasons. But I also encourage them to TRY coach.

Some of them have come back from a one night trip and RAVE about how cool it was, how much room they had in their seats, etc., etc.

So I get them signed up for AGR, and tell them to EARN POINTS anyway they can, and when they have enuff, book a sleeper.

I think we all probably traveled coach when we were young. It's cheaper, and far better than the Dog. (Although MegaBus and Bolt are very, very, very, popular, cheap, and growing so fast it's hard to keep track of where they serve)

But unless I win the lottery, (and ya gotta play to win, and I don't.....) I'm gonna have to "enjoy" what Amtrak offers in the sleepers, and remind myself, "It's the best option available, today"