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Salt Lake County is built on a lakebed, mostly. Once you get away from the mountain benches, the bedrock goes very deep, *very* quickly. The proper bedrock is a few thousand feet down in the center of the Valley. Basically, the soil is dried up mud and silt in the central and western side of...

The problem is that's a very poor comparison - VIA and IP's diners are in far better condition than Amtrak's - Amtrak has run its diners far harder than VIA or IP ever have or will run their Budd diners - many of Amtrak's diners are literally becoming unsafe, even if refurbished, because the...

I imagine CAF and perhaps Alstom and Siemens are feeling very good about getting orders to expand Amtrak's LD fleet - I have a feeling N-S has screwed the pooch.

You're probably right. I'm trying to get a good look at prices, planning a booking for February. I'd like to book ASAP so I can plan around the firm date. Guess I can wait for the fall/winter half-off sale. Perhaps they'll bring back off-peak prices by then.

I'm not seeing sleepers in Discount Tuesday deals lately. Did something happen?

With the new prices, it's not as much of a great deal for people on a somewhat tighter budget like me, especially with no off-peak prices - a cabin for one is nearly 1.7k USD when discounted now. Don't know what sale prices are like - is there still half off sales? Amtrak's actually seemingly...

Coast-to-Coast Amtrak is getting more appealing by the year in comparison to VIA, just with the constant price increases and service reductions from VIA.

Hi, I'm currently waiting to test for Assistant Conductor, and just had a few questions if anyone could answer. Firstly, I called about testing, and they said all the slots were full for the dates in the email - but slots would open next week and I can still test for the same position. Is this...

One of the BC cars or more now has the Club-Cafe style BC seats from what I've heard.

The Acela leases were bought out, as I recall.

Don't see what's to complain about a corridor ride in a Superliner long distance coach. To be fair, it is the one type of railcar Amtrak actually has enough of.

The Park Dome isn't owned by them as I recall - it's owned by a PV leaser. Not sure if it even has HEP. Hell of a PV to own, though. Bucket list to own on if I ever find enough money.

As others have mentioned, VIA still runs very nice, recently refurbished Budd dome-lounge and sleeper-dome-obs cars. They're honestly very, very nice with the ongoing refurbishments that started in 2011 (Park, Diner, and Manor cars are done, I think the Skylines are still a WIP, but most are...

Ah, fair enough - though I thought Alstom was caught up in the Acela/HHP-8 mess than soured the Amtrak-Bombardier waters as well, as well as only licensing the Superliner design from Bombardier to produce Surfliners? If it was more extensive than a simple license, then Alstom might be a better idea.

Apparently the cars failed the 800k lb crush test.... badly. Hearsay on the trains magazine forums, but it could mean delays. If N-S screws up the corridor order, it won't look good for them when it comes time for Superliner replacement. Might be we actually see Amtrak try Bombardier again for...

Let's say, just as a hypothetical, Amtrak, VIA, Iowa Pacific, or some other entity wants cars identical to Budds built to modern regs for some reason. Maybe VIA has a bad accident and is short of stock or Iowa Pacific decides they want to keep a Streamliner fleet instead of a modern one when...

Yeah - the Northern/Western route isn't THAT much less scenic than the SW route. It's plenty beautiful and it makes far more sense when it comes to the economy and transportation - Banff has plenty of transportation options. Jasper does not. It'd be like the Empire Builder going through...

The Canadian is a missing sore thumb. That route is amazing (but looooong - one of the longest train rides in the world). Any list of scenic train trips is lacking without le Canadien.

Amfleet IIs are slowly recieving wifi equipment throughout this year and next as I recall.

They can have anyone they want building it, it's cheaper because all R&D is in-house, plus maintenance is cheaper.