AlanB - Thanks for all your help (and thanks to others!)

[wintersummer]

AlanB - I've been following your posts and eagerly waiting for your responses to my posts, here at this board and at the FlyerTalk board.

You've been so helpful. You are clearly THE expert in Amtrak travel. Are you an Amtrak employee? Where did you learn so much about Amtrak? You don't know just one train or one place, you know them all! I just saw your response about the King Station in Seattle. I'm just so impressed and want to thank you for all your help in planning our very first train trip.

And - many others have also helped me with all my little Amtrak questions (coffee, hairdryers, boarding process, food, how to board, how to ticket, etc.). My husband has told me that I'm probably driving you all crazy with these little details, but I love to know the details of travel!). Thanks to everyone!!!

 

[AlanB]

Aw shucks, thanks for the kind words.

No, I don’t work for Amtrak and never have worked for them. I’m a 46-year-old network/computer consultant, who just happens to like trains. Since 1999 I’ve logged over 70,000 miles on Amtrak trains, so I’ve seen many all though not all of the routes (I’m still working on getting to every one of them), and I’ve seen all of the modern equipment. Although I know the sleeping cars much better than I know the coach cars on the long distance trains.

As for things like the Seattle station, that simply comes from the fact that I follow 3 different train boards including this one, and remember much of what I read. So I can often simply go back and find things that I read in the past, or pull up an old bookmark to a website like the Seattle one.

Finally, you can tell your husband that questions were the main reason that Anthony Rizos created this wonderful site. Anthony setup everything several years ago and other than a few bucks from the google ads, graciously pays all of the expenses to keep this site running. Since he’s currently in college, he doesn’t always have as much time as he might like to monitor things, so Eric (GG-1), Joe (AmtrakWPK), and I help out as much as possible to keep things neat and orderly, and to get rid of the spam.

But as much as many of us railfans have fun talking about trains and sharing stories, the other main reason that this site exists is for the first timer to come and find help and answers to whatever questions they may have about Amtrak. And so far I don’t think that anyone has ever asked a question that at least one member here didn’t know the answer to.

So keep asking away. But please come back and tell us how things went.

 

[MrFSS]

AlanB - I've been following your posts and eagerly waiting for your responses to my posts, here at this board and at the FlyerTalk board.
You've been so helpful. You are clearly THE expert in Amtrak travel. Are you an Amtrak employee? Where did you learn so much about Amtrak? You don't know just one train or one place, you know them all! I just saw your response about the King Station in Seattle. I'm just so impressed and want to thank you for all your help in planning our very first train trip.

And - many others have also helped me with all my little Amtrak questions (coffee, hairdryers, boarding process, food, how to board, how to ticket, etc.). My husband has told me that I'm probably driving you all crazy with these little details, but I love to know the details of travel!). Thanks to everyone!!!

I first came to this board in March of 2004 and Alan and several others were a great help to me with my first LD Amtrak trip. I have loved trains for almost 60 years and don't get to ride as much as Alan and some others have (we don't have Amtrak where I live) but I learn something new almost every day reading all the threads and posts on this board.
Tom

 

[RailFanLNK]

If it wasn't for this forum and On-Track-On-Line, I think I would have been disapointed in my first LD trip. I learned so much and kept my expectations modest. When the trip exceeded my expectations, well......I'm still here and now have 5 trips on the CZ under my belt (in less than 1 1/2 years) with a sixth trip planned for July and seventh trip in October for the forum gathering ! And it feels kinda nice to be able to reciprocate helping out the first timers since I got so much help for my first trip. Just a quick overview of my trips.

1st. LNK to EMY (one way, didn't know if I would like the train, I didn't like it at all, I LOVED it!) :lol: 3/06

2nd. LNK to GSC RT 5/2006

3rd LNK to GSC RT 9/2006

4th LNK to WIP RT 10/2006 ($71.00 RT fare...just couldn't resist)

5th LNK to CHI RT 4/2007 ($78.00 RT fare....just couldn't resist again!) :lol:

Al

 

[wintersummer]

Alan - What are the other train boards you participate in? I'd love to look at those, just to see if I can get any more information.

 

[wintersummer]

MrFSS - Your Empire Builder report and info have been so helpful to us! I'm glad that you are here and helping new travelers!

 

[RailFanLNK]

Don't know if you were asking Alan B or "Alan C" (the only people who have called me Alan in the last 30 years is my mom when she was really mad and any police officer that pulls me over) :lol: I peruse railroad.net and on-track-on-line. I like OTOL better than the other mentioned forum. The other one is really "picky" and kinda ticky tack on stuff. I really like Amtrak Unlimited because its not so hardcore on our banter.

Al

 

[AlanB]

Alan - What are the other train boards you participate in? I'd love to look at those, just to see if I can get any more information.

The two others that I follow are Railfan.net and On Track On Line. The former covers all things trains and probably wouldn't be too much help for you and might even be overwhelming. The later is a little more like here, although they post a lot more news about trains over there. They do have an Amtrak forum, in additon to others that can be found here.

Additionally on the main site you can find the Hints & Tips that I and many others refer first timers to. And there is also a huge section full of trip reports that can be found here.

Mind you many of our members here have also posted very nice trip reports, many with pictures, in the Travelouges/Trip reports forum on this board.

 

[wintersummer]

AlanB and Al - Thanks for directing me to some more places to keep reading. I also have 3 books checked out of library. Rail Ventures, Making Tracks, and Booked on A Morning Train (and the author, George Scheer, lived right here in my little town when the book was published...he may still live here for all I know). We got interested in traveling by train 2 years ago when we stayed at the Issak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana and it was more of a railroad museum than a hotel. The inn was great and it was delightful sitting on the porch watching trains. I had no idea about the inn's train history when I made reservations. I just needed a place to stay on that particular stretch of isolated highway near Glacier. Then, last year we went to Sacramento and decided to kill some time at the railroad museum. We ended up spending the entire day at the museum. So, we decided that we must be train people someplace deep inside. I'll let you know when we finish our train trip!