Trip Report -- Lake Shore Limited/Empire Builder

Re:

And frankly? The "riff-raff" I meet in Amtrak coaches are often considerably more interesting than the suburban drones I've met in the sleeping cars.

Has it been Mr. EastCleveland's experience that "suburban drones" can be found in greater number in Amtak's sleeping cars as opposed to coach? Also, is there any difference between a "suburban" drone and an "urban" drone?

Just curious.

Here's my definition of riffraff: People who literally go out of their way, with a child in tow, to skulk around in private sleeping compartments in order to "get the goods" on a conductor for some imagined slight. Teaching your kid to be a Peeping Tom--yup, that's what I call riffraff.

Wow.

How does one respond to that?

My advice, don't dignify this character (I use the term loosely) with any response.

As I see it, if you play his game, you lose.

Game? What game? People who call themselves fans should act like fans. People who are old enough to have children should act like grownups. The issue is, in a word, integrity. Play right, play fair, everybody wins.

Has it been Mr. EastCleveland's experience that "suburban drones" can be found in greater number in Amtak's sleeping cars as opposed to coach? Also, is there any difference between a "suburban" drone and an "urban" drone?

Yes and yes.

Interesting. I have never noticed the phenomon Mr. EastCleveland describes.

As for Mr. Fels' ad hominan attacks, I think I will follow Mr. LCJ's wise counsel and not respond directly to Mr. Fels most recent attack. I think this thread demonstrates that, in reaching his conclusion, Mr. Fels has twisted the discusion completely out of proportion. Further explication is not necessary. I have afforded Mr. Fels an enourmous amount of solicitude during this discussion, but I will not be bullied into playing the "game" according to Mr. Fels' "rules" of Amworship.

Rest assured, my future trip reports will include any observances of crew member laziness should I encounter them, even though Mr. Fels will no doubt be able to imagine up scenereo to defend, explain, and rationalize the laziness.

"Ad hominem"? No, simply a summary of the correspondent's own account of his own behavior. No one disputes these key facts:

• Annoyed by the conductor's refusal to sell him a upgrade
• which he had already declined at the ticket counter,
• "Rhinecliff" twice entered an off-limits sleeper
• with his two-year-old son in tow
• attempting to see which compartments were occupied and which weren't
• and making a careful count of the supposedly vacant ones,
• and then later used this "information" to bash the conductor, and by extension Amtrak,
• in a public forum
• for a supposed lack of "integrity"

Here's another key fact that is not under dispute: "Rhinecliff" claims that EIGHT compartments in the Portland sleeper were available for the entire CHI-MSP segment. Yet the first time he admits to visiting the sleeper was five hours into the trip, at La Crosse, and then again just outside Saint Paul. That's not enough data to support such a claim.

Regarding the ongoing debate:

What constitutes "riff raff" is, of course, in the eyes of the beholder. Here are some of the people I've met in Amtrak coaches and lounge cars during the past year or two:

-- a trio of tattoo artists traveling to a tattoo convention

-- a lesbian dance company

-- a 70 year-old ranch hand, who was venturing out of Colorado for the first time in his life

-- a NASA engineer who'd helped develop the Mars Rover

-- a very refined, middle-aged English junkie (think Peter O'Toole)

-- six elderly bluegrass fiddlers

-- a sad woman on her way to the foreclosure of her brother's farm

-- a one-armed biker and his "old lady."

-- a Japanese speed metal band

-- a peaceful family of illegal Mexican immigrants (who were pulled off the train by the INS)

-- two cute Irish nannies, "out to charm America"

-- a stage mother and her "wildly talented" teenage daughter

-- numerous retired employees of various Fallen Flag railroads

-- a group of inner city spelling bee champions

-- two Buddhist monks

-- a woman and her five kids, on the run from an abusive husband/father

-- an Amish farmer

-- two strippers from Kentucky

-- a quartet of South Asian sisters, each wearing a spectacular sari

-- a birthday party clown, in full costume


By contrast, the sleeping car passengers I've traveled with tend to be white, comfortably middle-class suburbanites. The majority are aged between 40 and 70. And many seem to have eerily similar lives -- 16 years at the XYZ corporation, house in the 'burbs, hate the traffic near the new mall, like golf, 2.5 kids in college, wary of big cities, etc.

Are there exceptions? Sure. But you don't find many tattoo artists camping out in an Amtrak sleeper. And, sad to say, the only non-Caucasian in the entire car is usually the attendant.

Granted, not every coach passenger is a living treasure. I've encountered my fair share of Neanderthal frat boys, football bozos, demonic three year-olds, Wall Street morons with cell phones, and drunken off-duty cops.

But while some might dismiss several of the passengers on my opening list as "riff raff," I certainly enjoyed meeting them. They may not be Middle America -- or "normal" -- but I'd ride with them anytime.

This is yet again another post which is going NOWHERE!!!!!!!!!!

Can we keep the sniping down to a minimum and just get on with the discussion???

Otherwise, shut this thread down....NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!