I Spent Over 12 Hours on an Amtrak Train (on purpose)

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NJB Live (my live-streaming channel): @njblive

The speedometer app I use is Blue Square Speedometer:

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More Traintastic Content

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Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe

The Trains that Killed an Airline - Italian HSR

The Trains that Subsidize Suburbia - GO Transit Commuter Rail

Why Passenger Trains Suck in Canada - VIA Rail

America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit)

More Lanes are (Still) a Bad Thing

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References & Further Reading

Which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint?

Looking east at the widest segment of Highway 401

High-Speed Railways: Present Situation and Future Prospects

Mission Impossible 7 filming in Stoney Middleton
Richard Bowring

An eastbound VIA Rail Canada train passing through Port Credit GO Station in Mississauga (Port Credit), Ontario

Northbound Northeast Regional #94 arriving at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in March 2019

Amtrak train #156, The northbound Northeast Regional, is led today by GE P42 #158.

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Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:24 Leaving New York
3:04 On the train
4:03 The views
4:38 Freight trains & delays
5:37 The train is so much more comfortable
7:09 The border crossing
8:17 The Canadian side
9:24 Should you take this train?
10:20 Comparisons to Europe & Japan
11:20 We need more high-speed rail
12:02 VIA Rail is bad ... and getting worse
12:58 VIA Rail is expensive!
14:11 The new VIA Rail baggage policy 🤦‍♂️
15:49 Better train service is important!
17:14 Concluding thoughts

[NotJustBikes]

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[bababababababa]

The only big Departure board in a major station being in the FOOD COURT is the most American thing ever 💀

[EvaristeWK]

Also something you forgot to mention... You CANNOT bring your bicycle on Via Rail unless its foldable. I wanted to bring it to Montreal with me to take the train, so I could explore Montreal solely by bike. Unfortunately I ended up driving there as that was the only option. Can't bring your bike on a plane either.

Via Rail said this will change when all their rolling stock is upgraded, but God knows how long this will take.

[cardsharkz]

1:56 You can see that they had installed large screens as a departure board, but at some point an executive came around with the great idea that you could also just play advertisements on those

[ropro]

"Canadian labor laws state that employees cannot be required to lift more than 50 lbs without assistance." I've taken Via Rail many times over decades and never once has a Via employee offered to help with my luggage, so wtf is this rule all about? 😒

[KESipples]

If someone tried to charge me $25 to take a lunch bag on a train I think my head would explode.

[FailRaceFan]

"It could be worse" currently is the best compliment you can give to 'murrican train infrastructure.

[bano]

Are we sure VIA rails board hasnt been infiltrated with execs planted by the auto/airline industry?
They seem to be doing a great job in ensuring people take any mode of travel bar the train

[chron]

Last year I was travelling between Osaka and Hiroshima
The Shinkansen service was frequent enough that I was able to choose a later train (by just 6 mins), simply because it featured a newer train model with individual AC power ports on every seat.
The fact that there’s only 6 daily services between two major population centres in Canada is a travesty lol

[breadbxsket]

I can't believe that Canadian Rail is so bad that we got a mostly positive video about American Rail. For college I've been on the line between Buffalo and Syracuse multiple times. It's only slightly slower than driving, boarding is convenient, and that stretch in coach is rather uncrowded. So even with a $30 ticket for coach, it's incredibly comfortable. Unfortunately the station in Syracuse is at a dismal location, while Buffalo at least has a station downtown and even light/heavy rail a block away.

[phailupe]

Hey NJB, I just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes and making me see that driving isnt the only way to get to places. I just recently started biking to my school, which is about 25 minutes from my house on car, but since the stroads are always so jammed up with traffic, a local bike path going in the same direction gets me to school in about 35 minutes. Considering how much money that saves me on gas, and how much more exercise im getting, its been a great help

[AvalancheCleo]

Oh, congratulations on becoming a Dutchie! I'm super happy for you 😃

[drakewalters]

Me, an American; “well, it could be worse… I could live in Canada and have to use VIA rail instead of Amtrak.”

[bababababababa]

Everytime I complain about trains in my country, I just think “it could be worse. I could be American or Canadian” 😂

[gamelord]

I'm glad to see that Moynihan got the NJB blessing! There are actually duplicates of those tiny little departure boards at several points in the main hall, but I don't blame you for missing them. The big screens are saved for the ads that pay the bills. I've said to my wife many times that if every train station were like Moynihan, and people got to their destinations in sane travel times, everyone would take the train.

[viceroybolt]

Trains are the US and Canada's true heritage. It's TRAGIC that we have abandoned it. We used to have the biggest craziest trains and literally patterned the way we built towns and cities around our railroad network.

[tobarstep]

In America we're constantly led to believe that everything in Canada is nicer, and I would have just assumed that trains would be top of that list since they're so bad here. But I am heartened - and simultaneously dismayed - to find out that trains are actually worse in Canada. And I'm fairly sure the lack of seating in the train station is to encourage people to do their sitting in one of the restaurants in the food court.

[pavarottiaardvark]

The lack of seating in Train Halls could be the result of a) being hostile to homeless people or b) a trick borrowed from airport design whereby cafes and restaurants have seating in order to get you to sit there and spend.

[HMSTR]

Speaking of Amsterdam to Berlin, the relatively new company Eurosleeper are trying to make sleeper trains big again. They have a route from Brussels all the way to Prague, and plan to extend it and make more routes.

Anyone reading this, please do support them. They are starting with renting old rolling stock from the 50s and 80s and are slowly buying it and renovating it. Really cool stuff

[Ellary_Rosewood]

I've taken the Coast Starlight Amtrak from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon about 3 times. The last time I took it, it was over $300 for regular old Coach seating. They overbooked the train, so they were taking volunteers who would want to give up their seats. It was actually quite chaotic with lots of people sitting on the floor. I offered my seat, because honestly I'd rather spend all of my time in the observation car. It's a beautiful trip, but SO SO expensive and SO SO slow, you don't get access to any food other than the snack car, and it was about a 16 hour journey including all the delays. I really wish the trains in the U.S. didn't suck so bad.