A couple of follow-up notes to my earlier comments on the Amtrak Coast Starlight (southbound and northbound):
1) apparently the Coast Starlight southbound has the problem I mentioned (transfer to charter buses in Santa Barbara) on a fairly regular basis, though it may not be noted on the website. It’s bad enough having not-on-time performance, but way more annoying when the train is scheduled to get into LA at 9 PM and any delay means that you’ll be arriving late at night and possibly past the time when your hotel expects you. Take a cell phone if you ride this route. (That’s probably good advice for any long distance Amtrak train, but as I recall the Empire Builder gets into Chicago at a more civilized time, which means that moderate delays have less effect on overnight lodging plans. On my trip I lost count of the number of cell calls I heard from people renegotiating with hotels or telling their friends/relatives that they wouldn’t be in on time; in the worst case, this can mean having to cancel and make a new reservation somewhere.)
2) The “United Rail Passenger Alliance” runs a blog that tracks Amtrak performance, advertising, and political moves, and it’s interesting behind the scenes reading, in a sort of gory way.
3) This story confirms something I noticed several times en route — that the tracking of tickets is not very good, and it would be easy for someone to get on the train who wasn’t supposed to be on, or for people to be accidentally kidnapped by the train because they’d gotten on to help a friend, or for someone to get left behind at a station (when the train stopped for fresh air/smoking breaks, the conductor always warned everyone to stay close because it was easy to get left behind when the train departed again). On the other hand, if the alternative is something like airport security where you can’t even get near the train without a valid ticket, that might not be entirely to the good either — lots of people ride the train because their physical impairments make a plane too uncomfortable, and the alternative used by airlines (lots of flight attendants with wheelchairs, etc., to help guests) would just add to the cost of running the train in a system that’s already overtaxed.
4) I forgot to mention this in the original post, but our train was stopped in Portland for a bit and some police officers came on and talked semi-randomly to some of the customers, as a security check. (Supposedly. The more I think about this in retrospect, the stranger it becomes. And I was too groggy to get a good hard look at the badge of the man who talked to me, because he woke me from a nap.) It was harmless enough, but I’m not sure I know what good it could possibly do.
Lest that all sound anti-rail, let me add: I really wish Amtrak worked better, because trains are safer and vastly more fuel-efficient than cars or planes for the same passenger-mileage. The seats are more comfortable and the security less paranoid. On the other hand, trains in the US are also slower and less reliable and the food prices are ridiculous, so if you want to do the eco-friendly thing, it takes an extra dose of patience. And pack your own lunch.
