National Association of Railway Passengers

Curious about how you can support rail in the US? The National Association of Railway Passengers offers ways to take action with other people. The NARP is also a great source of information.

Here is a short video that NARP put together to inform people about the benefits of rail.

What are smoke stops?

Smoke stop

You cannot smoke on any Amtrak train, but some people, including some Amtrak employees, are smokers. And some of Amtrak's routes last multiple days. So every so often on the longer routes, there are stops that are longer than the others, so people can get out of the train and walk around and, yes, smoke. Always stay within earshot of the train, in case there is something wrong with your watch or you heard the wrong time to come back.

There is one exception to the rule that you should never be out of earshot of the train station. That is if the train is early. The longer routes have extra time built into their schedules in case something goes wrong. But some routes, such as the Southwest Chief, are running on improved track and with improved overall operations and they have fewer delays than they used to. The trains will not leave a stop early, so passengers sometimes get to explore places like Albuquerque. You should be back in the station area ten to fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure or when the conductor has told you to be back, whichever is earlier.

Do not ever get off the train at a regular stop. Ever. They will leave you behind. (By the way, this is true in France, and Korea, and Japan and every other country that has trains.)

Introduction

This is going to be a blog about traveling by train in the US. I find that there is a lot of information about being on the train, but not a lot of information about what you are likely to find when you get off the train. Therefore this blog is going to focus on practical information such as walkability of the station area, access to local public transportation, access to downtowns, etc.

The first posts are based on trips taken in the western part of the US during 2007 and 2008. Hopefully, I will eventually cover all of the US and even Canada and Mexico. Amtrak stations will form the spine of this blog, but local rail systems will get attention too. I find that local light rail systems can help a newcomer get oriented to local public transport systems, including buses.

(This post is a rewrite of the first post from my Wordpress blog.)