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I planned a trip from Seattle to New Mexico on Amtrak and it was pretty cool... until they canceled the leg of the trip from LA to New Mexico and I had to take

I planned a trip from Seattle to New Mexico on Amtrak and it was pretty cool... until they canceled the leg of the trip from LA to New Mexico and I had to take a Greyhound for like 19 hours. I was only in business class but that got me access to the dining car. Since I was alone they sat me with different people for each meal and the food was actually really good! Of the 5 or 6 times I've taken Amtrak only once has the trip not been delayed or screwed up in a way that horribly affected the trip. I would love to do more train travel but my experiences have been so bad I can't imagine doing it much more than I have to, especially when it's way more expensive and takes way longer than driving a car.

munificent 4y ago
I was worried about delays and canceled legs too but we got lucky on our trip and everything was exactly on time.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Amtrack has a page on it, with no route performing delivering more than half of riders on-time https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
  - hm-nah 4y ago
    Part of the allure! “We’ll get ya there…sometime.” It’s not their fault. Passenger trains in the US run almost exclusively on freight lines. They are high risk, low revenue…burdens(?) from that perspective.
    - dreamcompiler 4y ago
      Amtrak has also been starved of cash by politicians who want to kill it, so they don't have the funds to properly maintain their rolling stock. Engine breakdowns are frequent.
      - ericmay 4y ago
        Exactly. If we spent as much on rail as we did airline infrastructure we wouldn’t have as many issues. I don’t have a big problem with it like travel, but it’s like a car. Should be used less frequently and walking (riding the train) should be more common.
        philwelch 4y ago
        Airlines are (barely) profitable. Amtrak is not, outside of the Acela corridor.
        ericmay 4y ago
        Sure but please note I said airline infrastructure which would include airports, ATC, Etc. We could built train stations instead of airports, for example.
        philwelch 4y ago
        Airports are also profitable though. And for that matter, rail infrastructure in the US is also profitable for cargo, which is its primary use. Passenger rail (including its privately owned infrastructure, such as the railroads themselves) used to be profitable across the US and still is profitable in the Acela corridor and in densely populated parts of Europe and Asia. It stopped being profitable due to being outcompeted by airlines, which is why the US government nationalized it under Amtrak in the first place.
        ericmay 4y ago
        But the airlines are profitable because we don’t account for negative externalities caused by their operation, and saying that they are profitable is a bit rich given the history of bailouts and bankruptcies. Airports are also usually public-private ventures and their operation is defacto subsidized by the federal government. I don’t have a problem with airlines or anything but I don’t think we have the full competitive picture especially when we take into account the forced suburbanization of America which has all sorts of correlated problems. For example an airport is “profitable” but there isn’t any reason train stations with similar infrastructure investment and overpriced shops couldn’t be profitable too. But also who cares if it’s profitable?
    - Melting_Harps 4y ago
      > “We’ll get ya there…sometime.” That sums it up, I rode the coastliner wen as sot up to +$5 in 2008 and I had to be tere by 6am to et to my destination at 10:30am; if I had nothing to worry about it mit ave been a pleasant experience. As the author indicates, you an meet lots of people on these trips, at first I met lots of travelers/tourists and made plans to meet up later in the week as I was being dropped off in San Diego marina every day so it was a large hub, the problem was I was waking up at 5am and getting home at 11pm most of the week which meant that my trips were usually a way to et a nap before leading into my next location and doing another 7 our stint. Often I set an alarm on my flip phone, but Id sleep right through it and stressed I had miss my stop only to find out we were just delayed yet again for x reason. I also did the trip from Colorado to California several times, and I eve wrote a pilot for a dining car tv show I wanted to pitch. It's pretty stunning to see, but after the 12t hour you start to realize that maybe you really should have just gotten a plane after all if you have something or somewhere to be. I rode te train all over Europe as well, DB/Trenitalia/SBB and had a halb tax for the first year, but after the romanticism wore off I soon realized that cheap flights were a better option wit bus trips in between as my time commitments became more pressing.
hm-nah 4y ago
Hahaha!! Yep! I rode the Coast Starlight north through the Sierra Nevadas(?) 15-20 years ago. It was a 24hour trip, and I was delayed 24hours. We hit a pedestrian then an avalanche had us back up 2-3 hours until a Greyhound picked us up and took us the rest of the way. Adventure: Check I didn’t mind one bit. Great people.
- tomcam 4y ago
  > We hit a pedestrian Uh what?
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    My understanding is this is sadly not as rare as you would hope around level crossings. Likewise with trains hitting cars on the tracks. Some crossings have gates which make this much less likely, others do not and rely on flashing lights and the train horn to warn people of an approaching train.
    - chronotis 4y ago
      A friend of mine works at a law firm that exclusively handles train injury cases. It happens a LOT more than you'd expect, primarily at crossings. Hearing-handicapped or people blasting their speakers who don't hear the horn; faulty crossing gates; distracted drivers; and so on. The cases almost always include a fatality.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      It happens all the time in Vietnam and they constantly have it in the news. The people there don't have the culture to wait for anything... to the point where people try to get onto an elevator before everyone has gotten off already. It is mindless. Railroad crossings are no different and will just go around or ignore the crossing gates... https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/news/commuters-risk-their-lives-to-cross-rail-tracks-in-hanoi-4566361.html https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/news/commuters-risk-their-live... https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/train-collides-with-tractor-trailer-at-hanoi-crossing-4564399.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/train-collides-with-tracto... https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/man-killed-crossing-train-tracks-in-central-vietnam-4514498.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/man-killed-crossing-train-...

munificent 4y ago

I was worried about delays and canceled legs too but we got lucky on our trip and everything was exactly on time.

judge2020 4y ago
Amtrack has a page on it, with no route performing delivering more than half of riders on-time https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
- hm-nah 4y ago
  Part of the allure! “We’ll get ya there…sometime.” It’s not their fault. Passenger trains in the US run almost exclusively on freight lines. They are high risk, low revenue…burdens(?) from that perspective.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    Amtrak has also been starved of cash by politicians who want to kill it, so they don't have the funds to properly maintain their rolling stock. Engine breakdowns are frequent.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      Exactly. If we spent as much on rail as we did airline infrastructure we wouldn’t have as many issues. I don’t have a big problem with it like travel, but it’s like a car. Should be used less frequently and walking (riding the train) should be more common.
      - philwelch 4y ago
        Airlines are (barely) profitable. Amtrak is not, outside of the Acela corridor.
        ericmay 4y ago
        Sure but please note I said airline infrastructure which would include airports, ATC, Etc. We could built train stations instead of airports, for example.
        philwelch 4y ago
        Airports are also profitable though. And for that matter, rail infrastructure in the US is also profitable for cargo, which is its primary use. Passenger rail (including its privately owned infrastructure, such as the railroads themselves) used to be profitable across the US and still is profitable in the Acela corridor and in densely populated parts of Europe and Asia. It stopped being profitable due to being outcompeted by airlines, which is why the US government nationalized it under Amtrak in the first place.
        ericmay 4y ago
        But the airlines are profitable because we don’t account for negative externalities caused by their operation, and saying that they are profitable is a bit rich given the history of bailouts and bankruptcies. Airports are also usually public-private ventures and their operation is defacto subsidized by the federal government. I don’t have a problem with airlines or anything but I don’t think we have the full competitive picture especially when we take into account the forced suburbanization of America which has all sorts of correlated problems. For example an airport is “profitable” but there isn’t any reason train stations with similar infrastructure investment and overpriced shops couldn’t be profitable too. But also who cares if it’s profitable?
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > “We’ll get ya there…sometime.” That sums it up, I rode the coastliner wen as sot up to +$5 in 2008 and I had to be tere by 6am to et to my destination at 10:30am; if I had nothing to worry about it mit ave been a pleasant experience. As the author indicates, you an meet lots of people on these trips, at first I met lots of travelers/tourists and made plans to meet up later in the week as I was being dropped off in San Diego marina every day so it was a large hub, the problem was I was waking up at 5am and getting home at 11pm most of the week which meant that my trips were usually a way to et a nap before leading into my next location and doing another 7 our stint. Often I set an alarm on my flip phone, but Id sleep right through it and stressed I had miss my stop only to find out we were just delayed yet again for x reason. I also did the trip from Colorado to California several times, and I eve wrote a pilot for a dining car tv show I wanted to pitch. It's pretty stunning to see, but after the 12t hour you start to realize that maybe you really should have just gotten a plane after all if you have something or somewhere to be. I rode te train all over Europe as well, DB/Trenitalia/SBB and had a halb tax for the first year, but after the romanticism wore off I soon realized that cheap flights were a better option wit bus trips in between as my time commitments became more pressing.

hm-nah 4y ago

Hahaha!! Yep! I rode the Coast Starlight north through the Sierra Nevadas(?) 15-20 years ago. It was a 24hour trip, and I was delayed 24hours. We hit a pedestrian then an avalanche had us back up 2-3 hours until a Greyhound picked us up and took us the rest of the way. Adventure: Check I didn’t mind one bit. Great people.

tomcam 4y ago
> We hit a pedestrian Uh what?
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  My understanding is this is sadly not as rare as you would hope around level crossings. Likewise with trains hitting cars on the tracks. Some crossings have gates which make this much less likely, others do not and rely on flashing lights and the train horn to warn people of an approaching train.
  - chronotis 4y ago
    A friend of mine works at a law firm that exclusively handles train injury cases. It happens a LOT more than you'd expect, primarily at crossings. Hearing-handicapped or people blasting their speakers who don't hear the horn; faulty crossing gates; distracted drivers; and so on. The cases almost always include a fatality.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    It happens all the time in Vietnam and they constantly have it in the news. The people there don't have the culture to wait for anything... to the point where people try to get onto an elevator before everyone has gotten off already. It is mindless. Railroad crossings are no different and will just go around or ignore the crossing gates... https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/news/commuters-risk-their-lives-to-cross-rail-tracks-in-hanoi-4566361.html https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/news/commuters-risk-their-live... https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/train-collides-with-tractor-trailer-at-hanoi-crossing-4564399.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/train-collides-with-tracto... https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/man-killed-crossing-train-tracks-in-central-vietnam-4514498.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/man-killed-crossing-train-...