If you're going to travel via Amtrak, take your kits with you.

A large snow plow fell through a trestle and landed on some railroad tracks in the Sierras, stranding about 400 passengers on two trains.

Amtrak, true to the American way of management, didn't tell the passengers what happened, just that the snow was falling too fast and heavy to keep the tracks cleared. I guess they thought the idea of a few tons of metal sitting quietly on the tracks was too much information to provide.

The people whined and complained. The smokers tried to rip the doors and windows open when they were refused permission to go outside to smoke. Kids ran and screamed through the cars. Some teenagers got to the PA system and were making announcements like they were Amtrak officials. The wedding party crawled through the snow to the highway where wedding guests had gathered to collect them.

Not exactly a survival situation, more of a Whiner's Convention. Toss a few paperbacks into your kits for entertainment, and some duct tape to gag the kids. And their parents.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/03/BAM5UR81M.DTL

Sue

Which is why I get my own room if I take a train like that, except who wants to spend $500+ for a two hour train ride, when you can fly as far in less than half the time for less than 1/4th the cost?

Amtrak was obsolete twenty years ago. Like the postal service, our government sees some reason to keep pumping precious funds into a corpse of a business just so the northeast can continue to have crappy commuter service.

It should just as well be called Federal Train Service as most of it's use is paid for from federal tax dollars.

Gotta love them lobbyists.

A few years back I let the older daughter take the train with her aunts and cousins back to South Dakota from Washington state. They got a room, but they said even then it was pretty rough, as the kids on the train were running rampant.

My family took the Amtrak train from Milwaukee to Glacier National Park last spring. We had the Family room in a sleeper car. Overall it was a very positive experience, though on the way out the AC was not working too well. The food was great. The bathrooms on the lower sleeper car were clean, though the bathroom in the non-sleeper cars were horrible by the time we got farther out west.

We enjoyed the "smoke breaks" even though we don't smoke since this gave us an opportunity to step outside and see a bit of the towns - usually the back allies though.

We had all of our gear with us - in the hallway, and we brought plenty of drinks/snacks, so a delay wouldn't have been too much of a bother.

...Always pack a picnic.

Huh???

Amtrak is obsolete, but it's only money-making route is, I think, on the trains between Boston and Wash. D.C., where the fares are as much as air fare. It was cheaper for me a few years ago to go to Pittsburgh via train, than it is to go to D.C.

Every east coast Amtrak is heavily subsidized, including the trains between Boston and DC. They may not cost the taxpayer as much as other runs, but none of them are making a profit.

Depends on how you do the accounting - for instance, the count the line off to Harrisburg in the NE Corridor's accounting, and there are a few other things in there. I've also heard that if you don't play the bookkeepping games, the NE corridor, particularly between DC and NYC makes money

This link doesn't exactly evaluate just the east coast performance, but does give a pretty good overall view of how Amtrak is doing.

Interestingly, it does seem that the NE corridor does make money, depending on what part of Amtrak's accounting reports you read.

Amtrak Report

I commute daily (on S.E. Pennsylvania's SEPTA, not Amtrak) and I find three items in my pack to be invaluable to my sanity:

1. Bose headphones (the full over-the-ear kind)
2. My iPod
3. Earplugs

Put in the earplugs, set iPod to play "Rain on a Tin Roof" (the 'white noise' version - http://www.amazon.com/Rain-On-a-Tin-Roof/dp/B0012A0KH0 , not the Julie Roberts song of the same name). Plug headphones into iPod, turn volume to max. You can just hear the rain through the earplugs.

Yesterday I looked up from my book and saw the woman next to me yakking into a cell phone. I couldn't hear a thing she was saying.

The NJ commuter train was my daily sojourn into/out of Manhattan for a couple years. When I could find a seat, I usually read one of my numerous hunting/gun magazines while listening to music on my non-IPOD mp3 player. Sometimes I would just sit and meditate, sometimes I would sleep, sometimes I would talk to the wife, who was still living in Denver at the time. Can't say as I miss that 2 hour a day commute.

Sue,

Duct-taping the kids is a start...

But if you've got your kit with you, how about some leg trap snares, deadfalls, spring traps, neck snares, etc?

I'd point out the victims to my children and say "That's what happens when you don't listen to your Mommy and Daddy..."

Teach a lesson and bleach the gene-pool at the same time...

You must have gotten some good looks reading gun magazines on your way into Manhattan. I walked down the stret in NYC recently in an NRA hat and felt like I was looked at as if I were an elephant man.

Is there ANYTHING that is operated or heavily subsidized by the U.S. government that is properly run? Name even ONE.

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." --Milton Friedman

Sue

Can't wait for government's control of our healthcare and the coersion/ loss of freedom/ rationing that goes with it.

My usual comment is that "Government does not do anything really well, so I like it to do as little as possible."

My view is that the two essential parts of government, the governing per se, is making the laws and rules by which we are to live and enforcing them. The fewer and simpler the better.