Recent content by Amtrak25

In the last few days, 63 broke down on the Mohawk Division, 281 brought it a new engine, and 63 proceded to Toronto 5 hours late. I was on a nearly 2 hour late 69 to Albany last summer, the one day of the year I used the service.

Run to Plattsburgh and then what ? Train cannot sit there or in the yard several miles south of Plattsburgh overnight. It is 4pm by the time the northbound gets there, too late to come back. There's plenty of Greyhound, Trailways, and Flix bus service between NYC, Albany, and Montreal. 75% of...

This seems to be about cutting out East River tunnel moves, such as by deadheads out and back to Sunnyside. Maybe fewer Keystone trains will go to SSY and back, or top and tail some Empire Albany trains. I am surprised they didn't go after the Cardinal for Washington truncation, but swapping...

There's an Amtrak Fans Facebook. You also can't make reservations. As usual, Amtrak enjoys not being forthcoming.

You never know what will happen. Engines break down, the bridge at Albany gets stuck, the bridge at the northern tip of Manhattan gets stuck. The odds are with you. But for an international flight, start off as early in the day as you can. If you have hours to kill, before you head off to JFK...

My advice to you is, take the same bus all the way from NY, just as long as it is not Greyhound under any circumstances. Last year for me, which was the first Saratoga Springs day for the Adirondack in late July, #69 left one hour and 50 minutes late from NYPS due to "mechanical problems". Then...

Border agencies in both countries have been restructured in 20 years since, back in a day and age when cellphones were bricks and predates flip-phones. Any requirement about stickers and stamps is lost institutional knowledge. There has never been any checking of them. Border agents have...

What happens to the tunnel boring machine once it gets through ? Do they pull it out or bury it in the bedrock, which is what I think they did to LIRR Grand Central Madison.

Moselman came up with something that could work on paper, but it means the southbound Borealis would have just 51 minutes in Chicago to be the next northbound Hiawatha, and assumes the Borealis sets will be topped and tailed with a Cabbage or a P42. 51 minutes may be the situation now with...

There's no rumor that they scheduled an 8th frequency ghost train on CP to deadhead, which would also be very expensive, Chicago can barely put out service now (no 3rd Hiawatha train set), and Siemens equipment can't go north of the Milwaukee monolith. Somebody on Trainorders said no Cabbage-40...

Are they allowed to use the Siemens Midwest equipment on the Borealis ?

When the Hoosier State existed, it piggybacked onto the Cardinal one day a week in one or both direction, otherwise it made no sense either. I forgot how and when.

I think we are going to have to wait and see for how they will be shuffling equipment on the remaining 6 Hiawatha frequencies. I for one don't understand it. If I were King, I would let trains 333/340 as such be, attach trains 1333 and 1340 to them like VIA Rail does with their "J" trains at...

Pennsylvanian and most NEC Regional trains use an Amfleet-1 60-seat coach for Business class, which is inferior to an Amfleet-2 60 seat coach, which has legrests. The Borealis will get a dinette-cafe-business car, 15 seats 2+1, most likely Horizon, but maybe Amfleet-1. The Amfleet-1 ones in...

Wider seat, 2-seater having a big fat armrest, but shorter seat pitch than a LD coach.