Fuck amtrak

Death is too good for these people

thats ridiculuous, i got a 90 minute delay and i only had to pay $32!

and then it covered 151 miles in a leisurely 3hours 40 mins. well, it was meant to but it got a bit more delayed along the way giving me a chance to look at the beautiful surroundings

once our train stopped middle of nowhere

they were talking about making people walk to the next station (!)

instead a new engine was sent out and pulled us

so yeah, fuck amtrak

I once had a six hour delay in the middle of connecticut because another train hit and killed a construction worker.

The Amtrak website has a nasty habit of repopulating date fields with wrong info.

I have an appointment to make you mass transit monopolizing fucks!!@&?)@!

write an email to their customer service department.

i do this with jet blue all the time and they send me $100 travel credits.

amtrak rules

A few years ago I took Amtrak back from Chicago to Richmond. It was an all-night trip, so I got on and promptly fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, all excited because I had actually slept through the night and I would be back home soon. It turns out the tracks had gotten frozen and the train had stopped in the middle of nowhere in Ohio overnight, so we hadn't really gone anywhere the whole time I was asleep. A supposed 12-hour trip turned into a 24-hour trip. Fuck Amtrak.

once our train stopped middle of nowhere

they were talking about making people walk to the next station

this happened to me -- on the ny/dc metroliner -- and after several hour wait another train came and we crossed the tracks to reboard.

amtrak is like the old fucked-up NYC subway w/snacks & no grafitti

government subsidized high ticket price havin bitches

uh, what government subsidy?

Err, the profitable lines subsidize the unprofitable. Fuck the flyover states!!!!!

amtrak's been completely abandoned by congress. the only thing they have that's keeping them in business at all are station stops relatively close to downtown in each of the four major eastern seaboard cities they serve - in every other regard except for legroom, they can't compete. the fucking buslines and airlines, which ARE still subsidized heavily by the government, are killing them.

government subsidized high ticket price train delay havin bitches

Acela is a fucking ripoff. Also does Acela even run full speed everywhere yet?

no

i like amtrak

I will admit it's still more convenient than flying to Baltimore altho almost as expensive now

at least you can stroll in 5 minutes before your train's gonna leave and just get on

haha yeah I forgot the other thing keeping amtrak in business is the TSA

I like riding biznasss class because you don't have college dirtbags cramming you in watching shitty movies on their Dells.

the thing i prefer about train travel is that it provides transport to urban centers rather than suburban outposts. but american trains and schedules are third world compared to those in european and asian megapoli.

The NJT is pretty good.

amtrak sucks

but i once rode across the aisle from Larry "Bud" Melman

no wait, it was the black guy from david letterman

last time i was on an amtrak train it was christmas eve (day) 2004. the conductor sang to us. i struggled through a dry, foul & overpriced ham sandwich. the end.

I always am secretly jealous of Boston bros who pick up girls getting drunk on the train

the last time i took amtrak i hid in the bathroom or walked around the train every time the conductor came around because i was too broke to buy a ticket. this was like 6 yrs ago i think. it's usually cheaper to take jet blue anyways.

i went on amtrak a week and a half ago. the 6:05 am train to philly was totally fine, nice, fast, etc. the 3:58 train coming back was delayed 30 min and kept stopping/slowing down and was a miserable trip back. luck of the draw i guess. if work was not paying i would just take njt or bus though.

buses are evil technological dead-ends and an abuse of the interstate system

once my precocious 14 year old self rode amtrak and got spooked by guy next to me scribbling gibberish into a notebook. a little while later i realized he was a composer writing music. he was some jazz dude going to upstate new york to play. i told him i knew nothing about jazz and he implored me to buy kind of blue to get started. and so i did.

it's usually cheaper to take jet blue anyways.

or rent a car -- even at ripoff east coast rates

amtrak sucks

but i once rode across the aisle from Larry "Bud" Melman

-- sanskrit, Tuesday, June 26, 2007 4:03 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no wait, it was the black guy from david letterman

-- sanskrit, Tuesday, June 26, 2007 4:03 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

they all look the same to you huh

once my precocious 14 year old self rode amtrak and got spooked by guy next to me scribbling gibberish into a notebook. a little while later i realized he was a composer writing music. he was some jazz dude going to upstate new york to play. i told him i knew nothing about jazz and he implored me to buy kind of blue to get started. and so i did.

-- sanskrit, Tuesday, June 26, 2007 4:33 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

these are why i like amtrak. you also meet weirdos and talk to random strangers.

last time i met a minor league baseball player who had a shot at the majors

Trains would be awesome if they were a) on time and b) cost less than flying.

Observation car is pretty nice though.

i think abandoning the train system would be terribly but yeah it obv needs a lot of investment

my boss told me the other day that he got stuck on amtrak in the middle of a field for 3 hours. he found the onboard payphone and called amtrak customer service and complained.

i like amtrak though. seattle-portland is a beautiful, if slow, route.

tombot otm re: plane and road subsidies

amtrak is great but NJ transit is just as good for a fraction of the cost; its just that you can only go btw. philly and new york.

let's deregulate it ?

surfliner express for Los Angeles to San diego is a great ride.
better then siting in traffic on the 5 frwy.

WHY ARE PRICES OVER 2X BUS?

The only choice I have for amtrak is to board it at 3am. I'd rather take the train than drive or fly (short distances) but 3am is just not going to work.

^I live in flyover obv

on my cross-country amtrak trip a few years ago we got stuck in albany for like three hours because they decided it'd be a hoot to send in a cop and a drug-sniffing dog to check out every passenger on the train. which they didn't do at all for the rest of the journey... to chicago. with several more stops to make.

(route was nyc -> chicago and then chicago -> l.a.)

surfliner express for Los Angeles to San diego is a great ride.

8080, orange county even seems tolerable from the safe distance of a fast train

word!

Only reason I even go to Tijuana/San Diego is to visit my parents.

I always am secretly jealous of Boston bros who pick up girls getting drunk on the train

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 26 June 2007 16:21 (2 hours ago) Link

i used to take it from south station to new haven fairly regularly and on fridays especially on the way back to boston a good deal of the train would already be half in the wrapper by the time it hit new haven.

my old boss was afraid to fly so when four of us had to go to dc for work instead of taking a 90 minute flight we took a 13 hour train ride. ride down kind of sucked but the ride back was awesome. we left late enough where we had the bar car to ourselves. at 2 a.m. they tried closing it on us but we slipped the bartender and the waiter an extra hundred and they kept it open until just before we hit nyc. then we had an hour layover at penn station which was enough time for us to sprint upstairs to find a bar for pints of guiness and shots. that job featured lots of train trips and liver abuse.

why does it cost me like 20-30 dollars and an extra hour to go all the way to saratoga when it is only a 25 minute drive from albany?

why does it cost over 100 bucks to go from nyc to albany?

why have i never managed to get on a train that was not delayed?

I did make it eventually. Problem is no commuter train to wilmington. Otherwise i could take regional rail whole way.

me and eisbar tried to come up with an all-regional route up and down the northeast corridor, wilmington is where it always falls apart

Amtrak is hella lame. One time they gave me the chance of a 90 mins trip for about $20 AS LONG AS I ORDERED OFF THE INTERNET TWO WEEKS IN ADVANCE. Or take an almost two-hour trip for $30 plus having to take the SEPTA train into Philly (on the same route), pay at least $6 for that with the very real chance that I might go into Philly and there would be no train tickets. Thanks you lamerz~!

Acela can't travel at its top-possible speed b/c they're using unimproved communter rails, I thought...? Ie too many slow-downs for road crossings and no banked corners etc etc.

laurel, i know that they couldn't run at top speed between nyc & boston when it was introduced for the reasons you stated but it was running at full speed between nyc & dc when i left the east coast 7 years ago. allegedly rail improvements were underway on the northeast corridor but i don't know if that ever came to pass.

Acela isn't much faster between Providence and NYC

Oh hmm I don't know -- don't pay much attention b/c it's incredibly expensive!

not sure i'd want to take the acella from providence to nyc anyway, once you get along the coast along the sound it's actually a very scenic ride. i can remember taking the train to yale once in december with a light snow falling, just enough to start to cover the beach. there were deer in the marshes east of wherever it is the nuclear sub base is (new london? groton?). it was really very pretty.

groton

once you get along the coast along the sound it's actually a very scenic ride

otm

why did i just check prices for july trip to albany thinking they might be more reasonable than last trip?

when i went to philly the other week a chick at seminar said she's taken acela btw dc and ny and it gets stuck behind slower trains a lot.

when i went to philly the other week a chick at seminar said she's taken acela btw dc and ny and it gets stuck behind slower trains a lot.

OTM!!!!

oh wow really fuck amtrak

http://www.kpho.com/news/13592475/detail.html

:-O

jesus christ

what is with az

http://www.kpho.com/news/13592606/detail.html

who knew arizona could actually one-up baltimore on stop snitchin bullshit

every "headline" in the az local news is 5 star fucked

Baby Left In SUV Dies
Police: Suspects Roll Car After Armed Robberies
Serial Rapist Reward Upped To $25K
Autopsy: Slain Teen Stabbed Repeatedly
Inmate: Woman Screamed As 'Snitch' Was Branded On Her Face
Diabetic Man Kicked Off Train Found Alive
6 Dogs Found Dead In Phoenix Heat
CBP: 3 Illegal Immigrants Hide In Truck Engine
Ex-Cardinal's Daughter Found Dead
Vigil Held For Slain Teen
Suspect Arrested In Double Shooting
Senate Blocks Immigration Bill
Phoenix Police Seize $600K In Marijuana
DPS: Driver Hit Patrol Car While Text Messaging
Census: Phoenix Now 5th Largest City

maricopa county has the sheriff who feeds prisoners green baloney, right?

yikessssss

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laurel, i know that they couldn't run at top speed between nyc & boston when it was introduced for the reasons you stated but it was running at full speed between nyc & dc when i left the east coast 7 years ago.

!!!!!!! this isn't true at all? it runs partially on old jersey transit tracks like everything else through part of jersey, besides the whole "gets stuck behind other trains" thing already mentioned. and i mean, it is doing this, today, so i am not sure why it would've been doing this 7 years ago.

also everything about phoenix arizona is completely mind-bogglingly fucked up, guys.