Barciur
OBS Chief
This is an excert from the article found here: http://www.vox.com/2014/3/31/5563600/everything-you-need-to-know-about-boarding-an-amtrak-train
I find this to be an excellent article as it is a humorous way of talking about something that seems rather bizarre.
Fair use brief:
Thoughts on the boarding procedures at Amtrak's large stations? Are there actual good reasons for this to be in place? I must say, I always found it very weird coming from Europe, but not really as inconveniencing. I guess if I ran into the station and wanted to buy a ticket on board then it would be an issue, because you can't if you depart from those stations.
I find this to be an excellent article as it is a humorous way of talking about something that seems rather bizarre.
Fair use brief:
In general, once one knows on which track a train will arrive, one goes to the adjacent platform and waits. When the train arrives, the doors will open and people who need to disembark will get off. Then you go through the open door and hop on the train. This process is seen at train stations around the world, including intercity trains everywhere from Brussels to Shanghai and mass transit trains such as the 1, 2, 3, A, C, and E New York City Subway lines at Penn Station and WMATA's Red Line at Union Station in Washington, DC.
At smaller stations such as New Haven, New Carrollton, or New Rochelle, Amtrak uses the same boarding procedure used by foreign intercity railroad operators and by commuter rail and mass transit rail systems in the United States.
This makes sense, since that's how one boards a train.
However, at larger stations, Amtrak chooses to ignore 150 years of accumulated human wisdom about boarding trains. So at Boston's South Station, New York's Penn Station, Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, and Washington's Union Station, people wishing to board intercity trains must go through a more elaborate process. You wait for your track to be called and then need to queue up — with each passenger presenting a ticket to an Amtrak staff member before you are allowed onto a platform. This is roughly how one boards an airplane in all countries, but it is not normally how one boards a train.
Thoughts on the boarding procedures at Amtrak's large stations? Are there actual good reasons for this to be in place? I must say, I always found it very weird coming from Europe, but not really as inconveniencing. I guess if I ran into the station and wanted to buy a ticket on board then it would be an issue, because you can't if you depart from those stations.
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