Railroad Forums 

  • "I Did It Once"; Or Overnight Amtrak Business Travel

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1576097  by lordsigma12345
 
I think Amtrak overnights serve a niche market which they can expand - there’s plenty of people looking for new and different experiences and some of Amtrak’s routes offer spectacular scenery. And of course you also have a captive audience of people like me who won’t fly. But it has to be good service - and it isn’t for everyone. When I took my recent trips I did bring some of my family members who flew out and back on the Emeryville - Los Angeles leg on the Starlight since it’s basically a day train and I knew it was scenic and we decided we didn’t want to drive it. We did get a sleeper as a day room and they enjoyed it a lot - but I’m not sure these same family members would have enjoyed a full overnight trip at least without getting more train experience.
 #1576599  by jbvb
 
I traveled for business on the Night Owl many times. Wilmington Trust (then a bank) put their mainframe into production at 0900 so an 0530 arrival at Wilmington was just right: grab a pastry walking up to downtown, install my new software version and test for a while, breakfast and post-mortem after 9 and return to Boston after lunch. Saved the company quite a bit of money vs. flying to PHL, renting, driving, hotel.

I also made several BOS - SJC round trips for business, but that was after laptops and before cellphones were anything like universal: that company got a lot of value out of 6 days of me programming in between watching New Mexico or the California coast go by.
 #1576680  by R36 Combine Coach
 
jbvb wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 7:19 am I traveled for business on the Night Owl many times. Wilmington Trust (then a bank) put their mainframe into production at 0900 so an 0530 arrival at Wilmington was just right: grab a pastry walking up to downtown, install my new software version and test for a while, breakfast and post-mortem after 9 and return to Boston after lunch. Saved the company quite a bit of money vs. flying to PHL, renting, driving, hotel.
Exactly the kind of business market the owl would cater to: be there in downtown right in the AM, before the first
shuttles and without hotel or car rental fees.
 #1576699  by eolesen
 
Perhaps, but that same market has shrunk considerably.

I work in IT operations... that same mainframe deployment today:

Wake up at home around 5am, get a poptart from the kitchen cabinet, log in via VPN and dual authentication, and do the upgrade while your kids eat breakfast in the next room, continue testing and do your post-mortem via Zoom or Teams.

I work for a large company with 24/7 operations, and on average 100+ software changes a night. None are done on-premise anymore. The only on-prem changes are for network switches and other hardware, and that's done by people permanently assigned to that location...

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

Re:

 #1576829  by STrRedWolf
 
eolesen wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:03 am Perhaps, but that same market has shrunk considerably.

I work in IT operations... that same mainframe deployment today:

Wake up at home around 5am, get a poptart from the kitchen cabinet, log in via VPN and dual authentication, and do the upgrade while your kids eat breakfast in the next room, continue testing and do your post-mortem via Zoom or Teams.

I work for a large company with 24/7 operations, and on average 100+ software changes a night. None are done on-premise anymore. The only on-prem changes are for network switches and other hardware, and that's done by people permanently assigned to that location...

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
Same here, done two ways: Overnight in Baltimore to get into the office at 5am, log in, deploy w/off-shore team, test, post-mortem.

Now it's: VPN from home at night, wait for things to switch over, smoke test, post-mortem. (yay blue-green)

The only difference: Mainframe? What mainframe? You mean the stuff over at the state DMV?
 #1576847  by eolesen
 
I wish we could be rid of the mainframes... I've got TPF, OS390 and a flavor of Unisys to content with in addition to every database and hardware combination imagineable...

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

 #1576851  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Messrs Olesen and Wolf, who am I to say anything when all I know is how is how to get to my regular sites, such as here on this Samsung phone (a 9) and my Dell Desktop (W 10). I would think an outfit the size of Mr. Olesen's could only have mainframes to meet their needs.

You can't be telling me that Spaceman Jeff just has servers?
 #1576894  by STrRedWolf
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:26 pm Messrs Olesen and Wolf, who am I to say anything when all I know is how is how to get to my regular sites, such as here on this Samsung phone (a 9) and my Dell Desktop (W 10). I would think an outfit the size of Mr. Olesen's could only have mainframes to meet their needs.

You can't be telling me that Spaceman Jeff just has servers?
I think the only actual modern mainframe commercially available is IBM's Z-machine series, which is still programmed in Cobol and runs zOS (an off-shoot of VM-370). Maryland's "MVA" (DMV) uses them.

Given their size now, though, I would think such "big iron" is only shipped by ground (maybe containers by train) due to size constraints.
 #1576906  by Gilbert B Norman
 
So "Spaceman Jeff" runs his business with rows and rows of servers like I've seen in photos where they're used for mining Bitcoins?

Oh well, maybe Driver's Services here (it's a department of the Secretary of State in IL) still has mainframes.

COBOL? I think I heard a frat brother majoring in Computer Science use that term; also heard him use FORTRAN.
 #1577107  by STrRedWolf
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:58 am So "Spaceman Jeff" runs his business with rows and rows of servers like I've seen in photos where they're used for mining Bitcoins?

Oh well, maybe Driver's Services here (it's a department of the Secretary of State in IL) still has mainframes.

COBOL? I think I heard a frat brother majoring in Computer Science use that term; also heard him use FORTRAN.
More like stock photos of server racks, but yes.

*shudders* Fortran. I'm reminded of the payroll system at MTA Maryland when I worked there. The timesheet software used Fortran. I swear I could write something much better that didn't use the concept of "buckets of time"... I could go on.
 #1577592  by jonnhrr
 
I did once have a business trip that involved overnight Amtrak travel. In 1985 I was sent out to a customer in Davenport IA a cement plant where our control system would occasionally reset usually resulting in conveyor belts dumping cement all over the place which for some reason annoyed the customer :) After a few days of investigation we were able to diagnose the problem and reproduce it at home so I could return. I had flown out since I needed to be there by yesterday, but had no return reservation. Amtrak was running a sale on sleepers so I decided to take the Broadway Limited home from Chicago to Paoli PA and booked a roomette. The only unpleasant part of the trip was getting from Quad Cities to the Windy City, the puddle jumper I had booked had an equipment failure and the flight was cancelled but fortunately I was able to grab the last seat on a competitor. Once I got to CUS the rest of the trip was uneventful. Of course it was fun filing my expense report and trying to explain that I took a train (interestingly enough the old forms we still used had a place for "Pullman" expenditures).
 #1577611  by Shortline614
 
After reading this thread, I decided to preform a little experiment involving my Dad and Amtrak business travel.

For context, we live in Northern Virginia but my Dad works in either North Carolina or Georgia depending on the week. He's has been making this NOVA-Charlotte-Atlanta run twice a week for over two years now, and is quite sick of all the driving. On a whim he asked me to look into Amtrak for him, taking me along for a nice Father-Son train trip of course.

I decided to book a round trip journey for two people between Washington D.C. and Atlanta. We would depart Monday August 9th and return Friday August 13th. The WAS-ATL trip was actually quite coinvent time-wise, leaving Washington D.C. at 6:30pm and arriving in Atlanta at 8:43am. Even factoring in the inevitable delays, it would put us in Atlanta nearly half a day before we actually had to be there.

The ATL-WAS trip was a bit more iffy. We would leave at 11:29pm and arrive at 1:45pm. It's nowhere near as convenient was the WAS-ATL trip. Upon telling my Dad this, he said that the ATL-WAS trip "wasn't that big of a deal" for him. I was quite surprised, but then I realized my Dad is used to traveling 9-10 hours twice each week, often staying in a hotel overnight halfway though the journey. Amtrak probably seemed like a dream to him.

The big sticking point was price. For a single roomette for the both of us it was $940 for the WAS-ATL trip and $645 for the ATL-WAS trip. $1585 in total, which is a bit too pricey for my Dad's taste. Next week he has to be in Atlanta and would prefer to fly. Perhaps I could pitch in some money and convince him to take Amtrak just to see how it fares. If so I will certainly be reporting it here.
 #1577615  by Gilbert B Norman
 
From Pitter Hotel, Salzburg--

Mr. Shortline, this whole experience you related here is simply testament as to why Amtrak is not in any kind of business travel market away from the Corridor.

For example, any company travel service provider would look X-eyed at a request booking anything they don't understand. How many providers, in house or outside, would know how to arrange Amtrak transportation? How.anxious would they be to learn?

And why should they? Price, convenience?

Even auto travel, Mr. Google is happy to report the mileage, which is paid at a fixed rate.

While as Mr. Shortline notes, #19's schedule is convenient for business travel WAS-ATL, same can hardly be said of #20's.

All told, short of a railfan who can completely formulate travel policy, overnight Amtrak business travel is simply a "no happen".