Fly AmTrak. No extra baggage fees, decent food, tons of leg room.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take Amtrak from San Jose up to
Klamath Falls, for a Boy Scout outing for my son's troop. This was his
first Boy Scout outing, having just finished Cub Scouts. Apparently this
troop uses AmTrak quite a bit.

It was really a pleasure to ride the train. We got on the train Friday
night in San Jose, loaded our packs and tents into the baggage area on
the first floor of the car, sat down, fell asleep, and awoke a couple of
hours before the arrival in Klamath Falls the next morning, in time for
breakfast in the dining car. Breakfast cost around $11, including tip
for a full breakfast with juice, and it was pretty good, definitely
better than Waffle House or Denny's. Prior to breakfast, I went into the
lounge car and used one of the electric outlets to boil water with an
immersion heater, in order to brew coffee (I brought a coffee cone and
coffee in a vacuum container, deciding at the last minute not to bring a
grinder with me).

We had to sit in the lounge car for the stretch from San Jose to Oakland
(one stop) because the train was sold-out, and there were passengers
getting off to go to San Francisco at the Oakland stop.

The trip back was about the same. Boarded the train at 10:00 p.m., got
off in San Jose at about 10:00 a.m.

It probably took about 1.5x more time than driving, but we were sleeping
rather than driving. At the Klamath Falls station, Enterprise delivered
some vans to the station (BTW, Enterprise says they'll pick you up, but
they don't say when!).

In article ,
SMS wrote:

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take Amtrak from San Jose up to
Klamath Falls, for a Boy Scout outing for my son's troop. This was his
first Boy Scout outing, having just finished Cub Scouts. Apparently this
troop uses AmTrak quite a bit.

It was really a pleasure to ride the train.

Based on my own multiple opportunities to use trains to travel in many
parts of Europe during various sabbaticals and business trips, seems to
me you were discovering (or perhaps re-discovering) what hundreds of
millions of Western Europeans already know: train travel on a well
functioning and well run rail infrastructure, in addition to its large
economic and environmental benefits, is just inherently and out of all
comparison more pleasant and efficient than air travel, for any distance
under transcontinental or trans-oceanic.

On Wed, 28 May 2008 17:08:43 -0700, AES
wrote:

In article ,
SMS wrote:

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take Amtrak from San Jose up to
Klamath Falls, for a Boy Scout outing for my son's troop. This was his
first Boy Scout outing, having just finished Cub Scouts. Apparently this
troop uses AmTrak quite a bit.

It was really a pleasure to ride the train.

Based on my own multiple opportunities to use trains to travel in many
parts of Europe during various sabbaticals and business trips, seems to
me you were discovering (or perhaps re-discovering) what hundreds of
millions of Western Europeans already know: train travel on a well
functioning and well run rail infrastructure, in addition to its large
economic and environmental benefits, is just inherently and out of all
comparison more pleasant and efficient than air travel, for any distance
under transcontinental or trans-oceanic.

I ride trains in Europe all the time, but I haven't ridden an
American long distance train since 1960 when the US Army put me
on a train from Cleveland to Louisville for basic training. I
have ridden CalTrain in the Bay Area quite a lot and the Capitols
a few times

I can almost always trust European trains to be on time, but
anyone who trusts Amtrak to be on time is a fool. A personal
anecdote:

Several years ago I was doing some urban hiking in downtown
Tucson and thought I'd take a look at the newly refurbished train
station. It was around 10am on a Friday and I noticed about a
dozen people in the waiting room. But the station is only served
by one train, the Sunset Limited, which only runs each way on
alternate days, and the schedule board showed no trains on
Friday. So I asked the station agent what they were waiting for;
he replied, "Last night's train." I finally saw the train about
three hours later.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Hatunen wrote:

Several years ago I was doing some urban hiking in downtown
Tucson and thought I'd take a look at the newly refurbished train
station. It was around 10am on a Friday and I noticed about a
dozen people in the waiting room. But the station is only served
by one train, the Sunset Limited, which only runs each way on
alternate days, and the schedule board showed no trains on
Friday. So I asked the station agent what they were waiting for;
he replied, "Last night's train." I finally saw the train about
three hours later.

The problem with Amtrak is that other in the Northeast corridor they are
using tracks owned by freight railroads. The freight trains always have
priority.

Now it seems like Amtrak has "solved" the on-time performance problem by
building huge amounts of margin into the schedule. When I took the train
last weekend it was consistently getting into stations early (even
though it left an hour late from SJC). Since they wouldn't leave a
station early, we just sat and waited. BTW, the train was sold-out, both
ways.

I wrote

Hundreds of millions of Western Europeans [that] train travel on a well
functioning and well run rail infrastructure, in addition to its ...
economic and environmental benefits, is just inherently ...
more pleasant and efficient than air travel, for any distance
under transcontinental or trans-oceanic.

and then Hatunen wrote:

I ride trains in Europe all the time ...
I can almost always trust European trains to be on time, but
anyone who trusts Amtrak to be on time is a fool ...

Yes, unfortunately that's true. Amtrak tries, I think, but is hobbled
in many ways, in large part because we in the U.S. just haven't yet been
forced to develop the political will to demand and obtain " a well
functioning and well run rail infrastructure." I hope it may happen some
day.

(AES) wrote in
:

train travel on a well functioning and well run rail infrastructure
...

Well, that leaves Amtrak out, doesn't it?

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN |

"Hatunen" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 28 May 2008 17:08:43 -0700, AES
wrote:

In article ,
SMS wrote:

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take Amtrak from San Jose up to
Klamath Falls, for a Boy Scout outing for my son's troop. This was his
first Boy Scout outing, having just finished Cub Scouts. Apparently this
troop uses AmTrak quite a bit.

It was really a pleasure to ride the train.

Based on my own multiple opportunities to use trains to travel in many
parts of Europe during various sabbaticals and business trips, seems to
me you were discovering (or perhaps re-discovering) what hundreds of
millions of Western Europeans already know: train travel on a well
functioning and well run rail infrastructure, in addition to its large
economic and environmental benefits, is just inherently and out of all
comparison more pleasant and efficient than air travel, for any distance
under transcontinental or trans-oceanic.

I ride trains in Europe all the time, but I haven't ridden an
American long distance train since 1960 when the US Army put me
on a train from Cleveland to Louisville for basic training. I
have ridden CalTrain in the Bay Area quite a lot and the Capitols
a few times

I can almost always trust European trains to be on time, but
anyone who trusts Amtrak to be on time is a fool. A personal
anecdote:

Several years ago I was doing some urban hiking in downtown
Tucson and thought I'd take a look at the newly refurbished train
station. It was around 10am on a Friday and I noticed about a
dozen people in the waiting room. But the station is only served
by one train, the Sunset Limited, which only runs each way on
alternate days, and the schedule board showed no trains on
Friday. So I asked the station agent what they were waiting for;
he replied, "Last night's train." I finally saw the train about
three hours later.


The problem with Amtrak is that they don't control their track - it belongs
to the freight railroads, who frequently block it for freight service.
Nevertheless, the kind of delay you saw some time ago in Tucson is unusual.
Even if a train runs late, it is rarely THAT late.

Jeff