no more printed system timetables?

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yarrow

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far ne washington state, 1/2 mile from canada
this probably has been discussed earlier but i was talking with a ticket agent in pdx and he said they have no printed system timetables and he doesn't believe they are printing them anymore. just another thing for us old folks to be nostalgic about and for everyone else to say "why would you want a printed timetable?"
 
I used to pick one up every time I was in New York. Really enjoyed reading them but can see why they don't produce them anymore when you can get them online
 
I asked the station agent in Winter Park about this today, and he said they had tried to order them. He was told they will be coming out, but they haven't been printed yet because Amtrak wants to put in the new changes for different routes, so it will be a month or two. So that is what he was told, and I hope he was given correct information.

I use the books to plan my trips, find new towns to stop in that I didn't know were there, and compare times on the same route. It is much easier to see the big picture that way, all in one place, than it is to put bits and pieces together online. (The exception, of course, is Amsnag, which is wonderful and I love!)
 
The shift to less paper media is done for only one reason-more profit. This way if you want a printed version, the customer now pays the paper and ink costs.
 
The only reason I like the paper copy is it easier to compare times between trains when planning connection trains. Online you have to look at several screens to look at the times.
 
I order Amtrak marketing materials for distribution at a tourist railroad and museum. I was told that the system timetables should be available sometime around the middle of the month.
 
I love printed timetables. They're great for dreaming about future trips. But I supposed like everything else in this computer age their days are numbered.
 
If there's no timetable, then the train can't be considered late. It just arrives when it wants to.
 
I love printed timetables. They're great for dreaming about future trips. But I supposed like everything else in this computer age their days are numbered.
Along this line I enjoy looking at old Timetables, be it rail, air or even ship and think about the fun of traveling back then. The highlight of my collection is an original 15 March1937 timetable for the Hindenburg and Graf.
 
Might be a Portland thing...I often see in emails from Portland businesses "please think about the environment before printing this email".
 
Might be a Portland thing...I often see in emails from Portland businesses "please think about the environment before printing this email".
I suppose that the Portland Public Library has eliminated all printed books, and instead provides a bunch of 'Kindles's' or similar for its customer's? :eek:hboy:
 
I have tried to obtain the national system timetable while in Savannah and Fort Lauderdale. Neither station had them, but did have all of the individual route timetables with many of them having 2012 and 2013 effective dates. I hope those who have been told that the national timetable will be available later this month is correct.
 
If there's no timetable, then the train can't be considered late. It just arrives when it wants to.
I assume this comment was tongue-in-cheek. The existence of a printed timetable has no relation to the on-time-performance of the train.

Might be a Portland thing...I often see in emails from Portland businesses "please think about the environment before printing this email".
I don't think anyone under the age of 70 prints out emails just for the heck of it.
 
If there's no timetable, then the train can't be considered late. It just arrives when it wants to.
I assume this comment was tongue-in-cheek. The existence of a printed timetable has no relation to the on-time-performance of the train.

Might be a Portland thing...I often see in emails from Portland businesses "please think about the environment before printing this email".
I don't think anyone under the age of 70 prints out emails just for the heck of it.
My father does, but he's over 70. He worries about not being able to find stuff in the future that he saw online. His near vision is also going bad so he prints things up so he can look at them closely.

While he can figure out the basics of using a computer, some of the details he just can't get. If the web browser changes the printer to a document file producer, I get called up and might even need to come to their house to fix it.

My wife also prints up a lot of stuff since she worries about not being able to find it later - especially message board postings.
 
And you can't just tell your father to RTFM.

Although I do sometimes say that to my wife when she asks me a computer question, but she knows I'm just joking.
 
The shift to less paper media is done for only one reason-more profit. This way if you want a printed version, the customer now pays the paper and ink costs.
Ummm, no. The timetables bring in advertising to the company and (hopefully) cover the cost of printing and then some. Remove the paper, remove the ads. Remove the ads, lose the revenue.

Dakota 400: Savannah ticket agent told me to expect them "in February".
 
I do a lot of sustainability tasks at work. My email footer says "Go Green, Please don't print this email unless you really need to."

We just replaced a work process that required a signature document to be printed /signed/scanned four times before it was completed. We estimate this will eliminate approximately 4K sheets of paper in a year.

Amtrak measures sustainability in these huge terms like fuel saved with motor replacements. The real way to sustainability measures like eliminating the printing one sheet at a time or recycling one can at a time. The path to the mountain is measured on small step at a time Printed timetables still have a value, but I would institute a process where they were requested and delivered one at a time rather than putting them in a rack ,,,,,,
 
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