by AgentSkelly
NellieBly wrote:Sigh! I'm sorry to see so many of you whose ONLY passenger train experience was with Amtrak. Gentlemen, it used to be much, much better.Well, I have not directly experienced it, but my grandfather has told me all about his adventures in the pre-Amtrak days. He used to take the New York Central trains out of Buffalo as well as worked in the post office behind the BCT where his cousin worked the Railway Express.
I've never loved Amtrak, only regarded it as an unpleasant necessity if there were to be any passenger trains at all. My first "Amtrak" trips were on the Coast Starlight and the Super Chief in August 1971, and they may as well have been trips on the predecessor railroads. I rode in an SP aritculated coach, and in a Santa Fe sleeper, rode in the Pleasure Dome, and ate in a Santa Fe diner. Amtrak had brought the SP "Stairway to the Stars" domes out of storage, so I rode in one of them, too.
The "Rainbow Era" was interesting. I got to ride in lots of cool equipment, like domes from Chicago to Milwaukee, an ex-B&O flat-end obs down the Susquehanna from Harrisburg to Washington, and a dome from Chicago to Charlottesville, VA on the James Whitcomb Riley (dome was going to Newport News). Since C&O never ran domes, to my knowledge, that was really cool.
Amtrak no longer offers me much of a reason to ride. Timekeeping is poor, service is poor and getting poorer, Viewliners are poor replacements for Pullman cars. I'm sorry for those of you who never experienced the rich diversity of passenger rail travel pre-Amtrak.