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It had a Heritage diner in the early to mid-2000s, shortly after conversion from Superliner. It may have been one of the first trains to lose a diner during the start of the cuts to on-board service, but it had one for a little while at least.

It doesn’t cost Boeing (nor Airbus) $100 million to build a single-aisle airplane. Even if they build things correctly with proper quality controls, I’d be surprised if the marginal cost of manufacturing is more than $20-30 million. There’s really no reason a properly run production line...

The connection will be fine. As long as it is on the same PNR, everything should pass through automatically.

The Lincoln Service is the most recent of the three examples you note. They changed in the mid-2000s, when service on the corridor was expanded to the current service level. The Hiawatha Service has been that way since the 90s at least. The NEC went through a couple of phases. I don’t know...

New cars will be built this way. Meanwhile, the Amfleet Is, which already had rotating seats, will have them set to the new orientation and then, more-or-less permanently set that way. The seats could easily be rotated when the cars are serviced overnight, so it’s not a “one-at-a-time” deal...

Given that the Hiawatha is all-reserved, passengers will simply ride whatever train time and number is on the ticket they book. I doubt there are really that many passengers boarding based on train name.

You stated “it should be no surprise that Amtrak…” So, that implies you are placing the blame on Amtrak.

Note as well that Amtrak is planning to repair additional cars this year and put them into service. But they’re (hopefully) not going to add the capacity to a train for booking until they’re certain the cars are available. They got burned on that a couple years ago where they had to start...

It absolutely takes time to turn the seats. These aren’t modern Japanese trains where the seats can all turn simultaneously at the push of a button. An employee must flip the seats, row by row, across 8 cars. In what world does that not take time?

Honestly curious, why would they do it that way? There’s fundamentally no reason there couldn’t be a consistent row where the seating direction changes. Having the direction change in different rows for different cars is just asking for problems for no real reason. On all of the midwest/West...

Funny how passengers on the Surfliner, San Joaquin, Capitol Corridor, Hiawatha, etc., have had 50/50 forwards/backwards seating for decades just fine, but somehow it’s going to be this terrible thing on the NEC.

Meh. Overtime is something every transit agency deals with, and has dealt with since forever. And since the start of COVID and resulting staffing shortages, the choice has been OT or service reductions. Of course, they single out the top earners to try to get people riled up, but if they were...

The one problem I see with the 757 is…it’s too damn heavy, and therefore basically a non-starter as far as airlines are concerned (at max takeoff weight, it actually got “heavy” added to the callsign because ATC had to provide extra spacing for wake turbulence). There’s no new engine in its...

Confidentiality agreements would typically cover competitive information. I’d imagine something as sensitive as presidential movements would require security clearances administered by the feds, not a contractual employment agreement.

But the imbalance still needs to be rebalanced, or eventually you’re going to wind up with a bunch of Acelas piled up in WAS and nothing in NY.

A quick turn wouldn’t change the imbalance in the number of trains heading one way vs. the other.

Wow. That’s incredible incompetence not to, apparently, have so much as an email follow-up to a conversation about the purchase of a multi-million dollar piece of property.

I’m sorry, but I have to strongly disagree. There is virtually no universe in which having Madison Airport be “the” station for Madison makes any sense. As an additional “suburban” stop, a la MKA, maybe. But for the main/only stop, no way. If you’re going to serve the state capital and the...

I doubt those seats have extra legroom. The whole point of putting a plug there instead of a door is so the airline doesn’t have to work their seating layout around it.

There’s typically a lull in freight traffic between Christmas and New Years.