Travel Apprehensions, Anyone?

I traveled out to Chicago and down to Washington last July and was cautious but not overly concerned and had a good rime. Had a roomette from NY-CHI, CHI-WAS so I didn't have to wear a mask most of the time. I really enjoyed the trip.

I just turned 70 today and hope to get vaccinated by the end of the month. I would like to take another trip this summer but like others have said here its just not worth it if your destination is still in lockdown. My plan was to book a round trip from NYP to Albuquerque , NM. I wanted to ride the SWC through Raton & Glorieta passes before 3&4 may become extinct. My plan was to stay in Albuquerque for 3 days and take the Railrunner to Santa Fe one day to shop and dine, then down to Belen the next day to do some railfanning. If Railrunner is still not operating and most restaurants and shops are still closed it's just not worth it. At my age I just want to get out in the world and visit and enjoy places that I've never been to before.

NaugyRR wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:05 pm Because life is short and they make safe masks that are more comfortable than others. I don't like wearing my mask all the time, and wouldn't do Disney or a big vacation while the mask regulation is enforced, because yes, that's miserable. But you shouldn't limit yourself to absolutely no travel. Day or weekend trips aren't as pricey or long and I've found the two hour train trips I've been on to be a breeze with a mask. Plus you can lower your mask throughout the day in safe spots, it's not like you have to have it glued to your face your whole trip.

Find a more comfortable mask and look into a day trip somewhere, the world is still ours to enjoy, we just have to be a little more careful about it for awhile. The masks aren't forever either.

! understand your point, but everybody has their own tolerance level. With my bad allergies wearing a mask is miserable, and like I said, why would I spend money to be miserable. Once vaccines are easily available all mandates should be lifted. This idea of masking up, stay six feet away, 50%, blah, blah, blah to protect those that don't want the vaccine is baloney. I just don't see the Federal Government lifting the transportation mandates when this happens. They just constantly need to be in control of your daily life for "your own good". It's in their DNA. If other people are fine sitting on AMTRAK with a mask on all day that's good. They're able to enjoy the train when I couldn't.

It's not just apprehension. Let me bring in some context here:

The Feds (by Biden Executive Order or XO) are now mandating masks in all federal buildings, transit, planes, and trains (at least). Many states double-down on this as well, some to the order of shutting down state offices during peak hospital usage.

Personally, I've been basically sitting at home cranking on work, VPN'ed every morning and afternoon, save for the weekends. I'd love to get out and get back on the commute routine, as the time spent on the train doing Not Work is now time spent at home loitering on Youtube and text-chattering through Telegram and Discord, which are poor substitutes for in-person interaction.

NBC's Today show had Dr. Fauci on, who updated the time frame for "general access" to the vaccines for around April (probably late April) and possible herd immunity at the end of Summer.

With that in mind, we can grab the crystal ball and look into the future a bit.

When the numbers come in and we reached that herd immunity threshold, that's when the "mask off" order is going to hit, and that's when things are going to start getting back to normal. More trains are getting filled. Demand slowly creeps back. Folks start coming out and wanting to work and travel again...

You got people who were able to work though this pandemic for whatever reason, people who's job could not be sustained but can be spun back up as demand comes, and people who are completely out of work. On the travel provider side you got airlines who are packing folks in but still cut the service down VS buses and trains who cut service but still space folks out, namely because the full schedule can't be maintained right now. Many hotels are shut down because they can't justify having little-or-no usage.

When "masks off" hits, you bet there's going to be a lot of people ready to take that vacation... but not as much. All those working and able to fund a vacation. I would guess within a month the travel/hotel rates will be about 25% of 2019, maybe 33%. But not as it was back then... not for another year. You need to get people back to work. They need the cash to take those vacations. It's going to take a year for demand for services to pick back up, positions in those services to open, those positions filled, folks to work and get paid, folks to demand services, lather-rinse-repeat.

I'm reminded of one strip from the web comic "Schlock Mercenary," where Captain Kaff Tagon asks an automated medicbot who had expressed reservations on a procedure "So which is it... you can't do it, or you won't do it?" When asked what the difference was, the response is "Equipment that can't perform up to spec gets replaced. Equipment that won't perform gets abused until it will, or until it can't."

Right now, there's a metric ton of can't for various reasons (mainly lack of money) and only little won't. Go "masks off", and you start cutting down on both: External reasons disappear, demand starts going slowly up, and over time can't turns into can, and is shuffled into won't and will.

Tying back into the subject of the forum, the apprehension past "I can travel now" will go into "I can travel on Amtrak, in a sleeper, worry free... or I can take an airplane, deal with close quarters, stress that I'm trying to get away from..."

I really think Amtrak will ramp up faster than the airlines... but the whole mess won't be fully back to "near-normal" until late next year.

I rode Amtrak this past Wednesday - and will be riding it home tomorrow evening into Monday. They are not enforcing any kind of mask wearing in the sleeper rooms - though they are no longer saying anything about not wearing a mask in your room: but it appears so long as you keep the mask on in public locations except if eating or drinking in the dining car you’re fine. I had traveled in a sleeper back in October so I was already ok with traveling. I am 34 so in a non high risk group (and I had Covid - mildly so- in early January.) But I totally understand those who are hesitant to travel at this time. And as a result of being someone who still travels and goes to restaurant, I keep a distance from some of my more high risk family members. This summer could be interesting for travel - I’ve heard some reports of improved bookings for places like Disney world for the summer and I heard Amtrak had a town hall meeting last week and while I did not see it I heard they revealed that long distance bookings are stronger than anticipated for the upcoming summer and meet the levels they were using as a metric to restore service to daily - and it sounds like they may plan to do so June 1 if they receive the required funding.

During the summer reprieve, when it looked like we might be getting out of the pandemic, traveled out of New Jersey and rode the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway out of Jim Thorpe and the Stourbridge Line out of Honesdale, PA (following mask and social distancing guidelines). When the second wave hit, I went back to pretty much no travel. My parents were finally able to get the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine with the second one scheduled. Until I'm able to, I'm holding off on some things I want to do, like visiting the new Moynihan Train Hall.

Virginians for High Speed Rail did a poll late last year about people's comfort level using Amtrak during the pandemic. I don't see the results on the organization's website.

As a hospital volunteer, I got the vaccine, but I haven't been allowed to work in the hospital for 11 months, only by phone.

My wife and I have made a couple of necessary trips on Amtrak, but nothing since June. When we can travel for recreation and to visit friends and family without endangering my wife or anyone else, we will. We live car-free in Alexandria, Va., and routinely use public buses, but rarely make any unnecessary trips. We're not afraid, just careful.

I was strongly tempted to take the $20 Acela Express ride that Amtrak offered for a few days; I think it was December. But I decided not to take chances with my health or anyone else's just so I could have fun.

Our travels this past year have been from need, not from desire. I do not expect that to change until this fall.

Even our necessary travels accounted for pandemic conditions.

- I am 43 with no underlying health conditions that I yet know of (blood sugar a bit high last time around; probably not helped by sitting at home all day, see next point).

- My family (wife and two little ones) and I have been "generally conservative" regarding risk. But we cannot and will not hide in our basement for 18 to 24 months. There IS such a thing as risk management in life, and there always has been.

- Not everything is based on the blanket "we're in a pandemic" statement. Local cases were low in the summer, and we did "discretionary" family trips to outdoor destinations we felt were reasonably safe. None by train, unless you count a short tourist railroad in an outdoor car (ruined by jackasses who took off their masks and came within inches of us to look out our window). How "discretionary" is discretionary? I took a ~30 minute commuter train trip into the city twice (in early October) to drop of my computer for rebuild at the office . . . I could have driven, but it would have taken much longer. I double masked, the train was < half full and I enjoyed it tremendously. I have otherwise worked from home, which I hate but many others apparently love.

- "Is it worth dying to <fill in the blank>?" Technically no, but there is risk in life. I could die in a fiery car crash on my way to get a hoagie this week. A hoagie is not worth dying for, but I'm still going. That doesn't mean going devil-may-care on everything, and refusing to lift a finger to help yourself or others. If you have an urge to do maskless, indoor congo lines with strangers, I really don't sympathize much with acting on that.

- As usual (this is my theme, I rarely post anything else anymore), I don't identify with extremes on either side. At all. We have already had a story of being "given hell" for eating outdoors, socially distanced, with a masked wait staff. No. And right on schedule, there is the usual honking by someone who claims that masks don't do anything. I certainly hope that is based on exhaustive research at a secret lab somewhere, where important discoveries were made that the rest of the scientific community has so far missed. I will not be commenting further, so don't bother trying to draw me into a flame war.

- One additional aspect, not mentioned in the initial post but very relevant I think: Any LONG TERM changes? Unless this is the first pandemic in human history to last "forever," at some point this will likely end. What will travel, discretionary or business, look like in the future? Just spitballing, MY future would likely be:

a) I will return to the office for work to the extent possible (if the company has offices anymore). Many supposedly will not . . . ridership for daily commutes and Amtrak-type business meetings is clouded in mystery.

b) I would strongly consider wearing a mask on crowded, shorter train or plane rides . . . especially during flu season. Low inconvenience, potentially high reward.

c) My expectations for leisure travel are going to be somewhat diminished for at least some time, if not forever. The likely demise of sleeper travel (I'm not commenting whether that's tragic or long overdue, that's not the point), potential loss of business travel "subsidies" to cheap off-peak airfares, and up to two years of vastly scaled down trips will essentially cause a "reset" in my expectations. My dream trips before all this may have been a transcontinental journey through the mountains in a sleeper, or a vacation in the Scottish countryside. Now, listening a live performance in a small live music club with a 20 buck cover charge sounds like a life-fulfilling dream.

^ A very well written post. Thanks for your thoughts and insight.

The long term change that is needed ( next virus could be completely different) is contact tracing. (While it has overtones of big brother, if they want to watch you , they already will be ) The ability to trace contacts is the only way to shut it down effectively.

Contact tracing has serious constitutional issues in many countries, including the US.

Perhaps it's not as big of a concern in nations without a shared land border or a legal right to private free movement, but contact tracing completely fails as a solution once you get below a certain income level where people don't have or dont want that type of technology.

Conversely, it worked great for professional sports where everyone opted in and the risks were financial or individuals were contractually obligated as a term of employment.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

Contact tracing does not have to be digital recording of people's movements via electronic device. The classic form of contact tracing is having people (the contract tracers) interview each person who is diagnosed and find out who they spent time with and sometimes what congested public spaces they spent time in in the previous x days. And then getting in touch with those contacts, advising them to quarantine for a while and get tested, and sometimes asking them who they have spent time with. This is what happens as work when one of us tests positive. With a disease like Covid-19, which you're not very likely to catch while walking past someone on the street, this method is probably enough to keep small outbreaks small -- even if a few people refuse to answer and even though most people don't know the names of absolutely everyone they have spent some time near. I think there are already US and/or state laws about keeping contact-tracing information -- like census answers -- out of the hands of other parts of the government, and we could reasonably tighten those up. That's not going to satisfy people who just don't want anyone knowing where they've been and who they've been with, but it's a far cry from putting everyone's test results in a public database that everyone's phone can access.

Many of our posters here have not read the FED's bank reports. The savings rate has ballooned and the pent up funds left for traveling may over whelm the travel industry ?

west point wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:03 pm Many of our posters here have not read the FED's bank reports. The savings rate has ballooned and the pent up funds left for traveling may over whelm the travel industry ?

Kinda what's happened here. Because we can't travel overseas easily(and most would not want to ), domestic tourisim has exploded . As has demand for rv's , boats, home improvements etc.
As for the privacy issues , the contact data is not accessible to anyone except medical authorities when a covid case is detected. It self deletes after 60 days. I guess its a matter of how much you trust your government agencies, lucikly we are in the top 10 worldwide.https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/dis ... vid-tracer

NH2060 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:22 am Until Amtrak lifts their mask mandate I won’t be traveling with them. I’m not going to risk passing out or suffocating from wearing one or TWO () pieces of fabric for 2+ hours that provide just about zero protection for/from me or anyone else.

I was afraid to death of COVID-19 in the beginning. I drove myself up the wall trying to keep my hands, clothes, etc. sterilized. But since the summer the debates on mask wearing, the merits of constant air cycling, the ridiculous mandates/lockdowns, and general mask cultism mentality thankfully by the Grace of God brought me out of the “sheeple tent”.

I mean it when I say that I would have ZERO fear riding Amtrak or any other form of transport with every other passenger not wearing a mask. Trains are capped at 50% capacity as it is so why the need for masks EVEN WHEN YOU ARE SITTING ON YOUR OWN BY YOURSELF IN YOUR SEAT WITH THE SEATS BEHIND AND IN FRONT OF YOU CLOSED OFF? Not to mention the air filtration cycles have been increased onboard the trains.

I’ve been to the grocery store so many times shopping for myself and for others over the past year that I was more at risk of exposure to COVID-19 there. And yet I still go more often than not. Life has to carry on at some point

And FWIW a close friend who’s autoimmune got it, was sick for a whole month and still suffers lingering effects (heartbeat irregularities, etc.). It’s scary stuff. So my personal take on traveling during this time is not coming from a place of ignorance or “COVID denial”. The virus is 100% real. The continued -not initial- reaction to it is the real pandemic. And it’s effect on rail and transit systems may be irreversible. It’s certainly been extremely costly

I agree 100%. The virus is real and everyone should react in a manner that they feel is best for their individual situation. The Mrs and I have taken Amtrak recently, and reluctantly wore a single mask. We board the train at a station where the train turns around overnight and gets cleaned. We are both 50+ and have health risks, but we have decided to live our lives and take sensible (to us) precautions. That being said, we are definitely seeing an increase in cars in the Amtrak parking lot, which is awesome! We regularly get out and take day trips and go to restaurants every weekend, but we too are not going to lay out big bucks for vacations to places that are closed down. So we have traveled to rail hot spots such as Altoona PA, Berea & Fostoria, OH and Chicago for weekend track-side trips. We know these areas well enough to find secluded spots to sit alone and watch trains. Safe and fun!