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From what I understand, you can blame Governor Scott Walker. I believe the Wisconsin HSR funds that he turned down (and that my state, California, gladly accepted) included upgrades that would have made additional CHI-MSP frequencies possible.

I'm standing in the woods between Dover and Wells, trackside next to the Downeaster #681. We hit something on the tracks. The locomotive and first coach car are on fire, and one truck on the first coach derailed. No fatalities, some minor injuries. Fire department is clearing things up.

Translation: We're running some super-long trains on the CS (when I was on it last week, it had an extra sleeper and an extra coach) in order to re-route people SEA-SAC-CHI, but they're going to be empty south of SAC. If you can fill up that space, we'd appreciate it!

This is correct, per Amtrak this afternoon. I was booked on 8 next Monday. I've been re-routed via SAC and the Zephyr, at no extra cost. No word on compensation yet- customer relations was closed. Every agent I spoke to confirmed the line will be down for at least a month.

They're mailed from beautiful Riverside, CA. I always get mine the next business day. (Sadly, I can't convince them to waive the 15-day rule.)

The Empire Builder due to depart Seattle today is showing a service disruption. Two weeks of cancellations... now what? I am seriously getting nervous.

Even if it were on time, I wouldn't book that trip. You have to take the FlyAway to LAX, and if the train arrives right at 9 you'll probably have to take the 9:30 bus out. That bus will take at least a half an hour to get you to the airport, which leaves you two hours and change to clear...

No love for Sacto on this thread, I see. Downtown Sacramento really rolls up the sidewalks at 5, when the government workers go home, but there are restaurants and nightlife in Midtown, not too far from the station. Take the 30-J St. bus or the Gold Line light rail eastbound right from the...

Looks like you got your wish. What's that they say about being careful what you wish for?

You need to go to a staffed station with your pass and all tickets associated with it, turn them all in, and get everything re-issued. You won't get any sort of refund for it, but you could make two more reservations within the validity dates of your pass.

Sleeper is almost universally preferable- free food, showers, privacy, a place to lay down... I can't imagine, all things being equal, preferring coach. But all things are not equal, and on a grad student's salary, I have the choice between a week's trip this summer in sleeper and a month's trip...

IIRC, it was also supposed to be up and going mid week last week.

You can buy and change segments at any time up until your train leaves, but remember that, if you already have a ticket, you need to physically take it to a staffed station in order to exchange it. Of course, you can't travel without a ticket. Also, the rail pass only covers the bottom three (of...

I'm with Sunset on this one. I wouldn't be going on my trip this summer without Hotwire. My wife won't stay in hostel dorms (and, to be honest, if she's along I would rather not as well...), and in most cases even the cheapest hostel private room is more expensive than a 3-star hotel on Hotwire...

I'm sorry... did you mention evidence for your claims? I must have missed it. Do you have an inside source at Amtrak operations who knows something about a secret cache of Superliners that the (from what I've seen, very-knowledgeable) participants of this forum are unaware of? Have you listed...

I wonder if you couldn't whine a bit to Customer Service and at least get them to comp your meals. Tell them that food on the return trip wasn't in your budget, since it was going to be included under the roomette. I'm not saying they have to, but you might get a sympathetic CSR.

Yawn... another "government trains are evil and collectivist, while cars on government roads are the epitome of FREEDOM!" rant from the right. Rail has, inexplicably, become an ideological issue this year. We should expect to see a lot more of this from the libertarian right, and if we see more...

<BLINK> and <MARQUEE> have gone the way of the dodo, and good riddance- though some sites still manage to accomplish the same effect via either animated .gifs or flash. The standard for alerting visitors to important information is to use a highly contrasting colour and larger font- much like...

Yay! An answer! So the question is, is it worth it to cut two stops out of the LSL's schedule in order to save 10 minutes' travel time? On a long-distance, overnight train, I can't figure that those 10 minutes are going to be worth inconveniencing even the tiny number of passengers boarding at...

Stop cost is a function of a lot of things, including station dwell time (for loading and unloading of passengers, as well as possibly crew changes and loading food and supplies), but also including train speed before and after the station and the train's acceleration and braking...