USA train travel

Very interesting to see the photos from your trip. I remember being astonished by the ticket clipping antics of staff on LIRR trains when I had to travel out east to meet someone. Like another world and I'm surprised they have kept the same system - must cost a fortune.

The Washington Metro has become a real mess. They failed to maintain it properly resulting in fires, accidents and unreliability. They are now going through a programme of emergency closures to replace worn out tracks and other infrastructure. You might have imagined that the USA's capital would have avoided these mistakes but seemingly not.

It's very interesting to see the differences between rail systems across the US alone.

The MTA is apparently planing a large-scale modernization scheme, if you haven't seen: www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos/albums/72157670486462232

Even though the locomotive was at the back of the train, the driver was at the front. There will be a driving cab at the opposite end of the train's locomotive. US Commuter lines very often use the Push/Pull technique, especially outside the northeast.

Push pull operation, with the locomotive at the rear controlled remotely by a driver at the front of the train is very common in Europe and has been used in the UK on various routes for fifty years. The ECML used it (at 125mph) to this day.

Indeed push pull was used, with mechanical linkages, in steam days. The earliest example I know of is the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which has always operated its trains with the loco at the downhill end.

So, part 2 (!)

Setting aside the Las Vegas monorail (apparently installed to make travel between the gambling hotels owned by the same company easier), San Francisco was a transport buff's paradise though actually using the system is pretty difficult. The Muni stations don't serve the main tourist areas well and the Bart is similar to the RER in Paris where it mainly serves the suburbs. Aside from the Muni station by our hotel it was three days of full walking around before we found another Muni station. The buses, trams, trolley buses and the amazing cable car are essentially not really integrated in any major way which makes it a lot harder than it should be to travel around. However, the trams are amazing:









The cable car is equally great. It no longer really seems to function as any form of regular passenger transport as the fares are simply a flat $7 for each one-way ride. Cars are pulled using mechanisms under the road and make the ascents and descents in SF doable - it really is one of the most hilly cities that I've ever visited. Getting to the end of the line, which takes about 15 minutes, cars are turned manually by staff using the turning circle. They're immensely popular and so people (me included) are allowed to stand on the side of the cable car and hang off. When passing another cable car you're close enough to easily high-five the equivalent person in the opposite carriage.











We didn't really take the Muni metro much apart from a couple of times. Once was coming back from the Castro, the gay part of town, where one of the stations had a gayscalator (my words not theirs) installed



The stations themselves are fairly 80s though seemingly well-maintained. The trains that we got on were only two short carriages long but this may change depending on the time of day. No carpets like DC, these were strictly functional.







What seemed crazy to me was the driver's cab having a pull-up window which was raised by about twelve inches. Not only could you pay for your ticket in a machine poking out but you could also ask the driver information if you needed to. Above the cab door was a request stop' indicator and there were there wires throughout the carriage which you could pull to activate this. It seemed strange at the time though perhaps was going to make more sense the next day when we took the N line out towards the Golden Gate Bridge (though to reach it we needed the Metro and two buses - crazy).



It seemed like a bit of a light-rail system, especially when in the station three separate trains were clearly visible - one in half of the platform, one in the second half and one waiting just outside the station:



Getting on one all seemed usual until it emerged above ground and suddenly was on normal roads, mainly taking priority over other cars. I'm not sure if I just didn't notice it or some sort of configuration change happened but on one side the doors would open at platform level. On the other side steps went down to road level. It really was quite unusual and not something I've seen before:



After a few days in SF we'd booked a train up to Vancouver - a long way - breaking the journey in Portland. We got on at 9:30pm one day, arriving the next day at approximately 5pm. We decided not to rough it and get a cabin with two beds and a bathroom. While perfectly functional and nice, it was rather squashed and I must admit that getting into places like Sacramento at 1am made me not want to sleep much. 



Waking up early the next morning was spectular with amazing views of California and Oregon - from fields to mountains and rivers. For much of the journey it felt like the train didn't really go more than 40mph and distances weren't that much more than London to Glasgow, for example.





The observation car was pretty spectacular and, surprisingly, pretty calm and sedate. However, due to engineering works (on a random Wednesday morning) we spent two hours in one station just inside Oregon, waited a long time for freight trains to go past on several occasions (apparently they get priority) and then literally waited two hours 500m outside of Portland station for a signal failure to be fixed - keeping time didn't seem to be too much of an issue. We get back on the train for Vancouver tomorrow and apart from any metros there or in Seattle, that might be it for train travel this holiday.

I've tried really hard to work out what defines a gayscalator from a regular escalator but each time I struggle to get past the image of the sign at the bottom declaring "Power Mincing To The Left Only Please"

Cracking post londonstuff and looking forward to more pictures shortly!

The Amtrak website gives several prices ranging from $27 - $188 depending on the train class, ticket type and type of accommodation for the Chicago - Carbondale journey based on a random date in September. Best for you to have a play around for yourself.

Mr Londonstuff appears to be on Coast Starlight train - www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train

www.amtrak.com/ccurl/800/746/Coast-Starlight-Schedule-011116,0.pdf