Boarding Amtrak style

[bikkuri bahn]

Here's how boarding a train works. Once you have your ticket and you've ascertained what track the train you want to ride on is coming to and you're more-or-less ready to board, you walk to the appropriate platform. There you wait for the train. When the doors open, you get on the train. That's how I got on a train from Brussels to Strasbourg a few weeks back, and it's how I got on the train from Strasbourg back to Brussels. It's how you board a New York City subway train, and it's how you board a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority train. It's how the train stations in Rome and Paris and Berlin work. But—remarkably—it's not how you board Amtrak trains at Washington's Union Station.

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/10/_.html

[westfalen]

I've always thought the above procedure was bizzare when I've been travelling on Amtrak, not just at Washington but Chicago and New York as well, it was at Washington Union Station in 2000 that my friend and I were removed from the platform by the railroad police while we were videoing the coming and goings of trains on the grounds that passengers weren't allowed on the platform until train time.  At Los Angeles Union Station last year though, I was able to wander around the platforms without any problem even though I wasn't catching a train or have a ticket.  The British don't seem able to know what platform a train will be on until it is actually there but at least they let you onto the platforms.

 

An other odd, and annoying, thing I found when riding Amtrak is that unlike every other railway in the world a seat reservation doesn't seem to actually allocate you a seat, where you end up sitting is at the whim of the conductor when you board.

[miyakoji]

I will definitely use this tag: facepalm

[bikkuri bahn]

At Los Angeles Union Station last year though, I was able to wander around the platforms without any problem even though I wasn't catching a train or have a ticket.

 

You make a very interesting observation there, that others (and myself) have also noticed.  At LAUPT, if you wait for a train at the main lobby, they make you wait for the gate to open.  But if you arrive (for example) by bus on the other side of the station, the access to the platforms is unregulated and open.  There is no rhyme or reason to the system.  It's entirely arbitrary, which doesn't inspire confidence in a railway.

[Guest ___]

Yes, at WAS (where I work 20 hours a month for NARP) no p[assengers are permitted on the platofrms unless they are ticketed, and are boarding the train. they must be on the platform of the train they wish to board. Photos are permitted if you are ticketted, but pax may not film trains aside from a home movie with thekids of course without approval from the yardmaster. It's bneen this way for years. Pre-9/11 police jsut removed you, today, they arrest you, subject yo to TSA and the k-9 dog and then decide if charges are in order.

 

I've always thought the above procedure was bizzare when I've been travelling on Amtrak, not just at Washington but Chicago and New York as well, it was at Washington Union Station in 2000 that my friend and I were removed from the platform by the railroad police while we were videoing the coming and goings of trains on the grounds that passengers weren't allowed on the platform until train time.  At Los Angeles Union Station last year though, I was able to wander around the platforms without any problem even though I wasn't catching a train or have a ticket.  The British don't seem able to know what platform a train will be on until it is actually there but at least they let you onto the platforms.

 

An other odd, and annoying, thing I found when riding Amtrak is that unlike every other railway in the world a seat reservation doesn't seem to actually allocate you a seat, where you end up sitting is at the whim of the conductor when you board.

[westfalen]

Yes, at WAS (where I work 20 hours a month for NARP) no p[assengers are permitted on the platofrms unless they are ticketed, and are boarding the train. they must be on the platform of the train they wish to board. Photos are permitted if you are ticketted, but pax may not film trains aside from a home movie with thekids of course without approval from the yardmaster. It's bneen this way for years. Pre-9/11 police jsut removed you, today, they arrest you, subject yo to TSA and the k-9 dog and then decide if charges are in order.

I don't know the situation today but the thing was in 2000 we saw no signs saying this, the police officers pointed out a sign about three hundred yards away down the station yard that was so faded I doubt we could have read it if we were standing beside it but that meant the area was legally 'posted'. Such a situation wouldn't stand up in court in Australia or anywhere else.  We spent about an hour and a half filming trains coming and going and the station switcher shuffling cars off trains with trains crews giving us friendly waves, if we were going to do something untoward we could have done it many times over before the railroad police discovered us.

 

I've had more freedom in communist China than 'world champion of freedom' America.

Edited September 2, 2013 by westfalen

[ToniBabelony]

Pre-9/11 police jsut removed you, today, they arrest you, subject yo to TSA and the k-9 dog and then decide if charges are in order.

 

Guilty until proven innocent? I like where this is going!

[Martijn Meerts]

I must be an exception here.. When I took the train from Washington DC to New York, I arrived late at the station with only a few minutes to spare, was my first time on the station and had no idea where to go. Only took a quick glance at in info screen to get which platform I needed, and I didn't have any problems with getting on it either... That was the Acela though, so there might be a different procedure there.

[westfalen]

The only thing consistant on railways anywhere is inconsistancy.

[bikkuri bahn]

I must be an exception here.. When I took the train from Washington DC to New York, I arrived late at the station with only a few minutes to spare, was my first time on the station and had no idea where to go. Only took a quick glance at in info screen to get which platform I needed, and I didn't have any problems with getting on it either... That was the Acela though, so there might be a different procedure there.

Probably the fact that you arrived nearly on the dot- which spared you the agonizing wait.  At Penn Station, they often don't announce/post the track number of your train until the last few minutes (what a difference from Japan, where you can find them in timetables a month beforehand!), which results in a mad dash with fellow passengers to get to your train before it leaves.

[Ochanomizu]

Hello,

 

Thankyou for teaching me about Amtrak boarding system.  I did not know about this.  I can see positive and negative side to this procedure.

 

Positive: it keeps passengers away from platforms for a longer period of time, which is probably safer.

 

Negative: reduced freedom to move around the platform and standing in long queues.

[westfalen]

Probably the fact that you arrived nearly on the dot- which spared you the agonizing wait.  At Penn Station, they often don't announce/post the track number of your train until the last few minutes (what a difference from Japan, where you can find them in timetables a month beforehand!), which results in a mad dash with fellow passengers to get to your train before it leaves.

The same thing happens in Britain, at the London terminals like Euston and Waterloo you see large crowds of people hanging around under the train departure boards waiting to find out what platform their trains will arrive on.  I think most countries have some aspect of their railway operations that could be improved by taking lessons from Japan.

[Martijn Meerts]

Probably the fact that you arrived nearly on the dot- which spared you the agonizing wait.  At Penn Station, they often don't announce/post the track number of your train until the last few minutes (what a difference from Japan, where you can find them in timetables a month beforehand!), which results in a mad dash with fellow passengers to get to your train before it leaves.

 

I did have that in New York when taking the train back from there to Washington. Tons of people there waiting for the announcement which platform to go to, but it wasn't really that much of a rush once the announcement was made. That trip was on a regular train, not the Acela.

[Mudkip Orange]

An other odd, and annoying, thing I found when riding Amtrak is that unlike every other railway in the world a seat reservation doesn't seem to actually allocate you a seat, where you end up sitting is at the whim of the conductor when you board.

 

I'm not in any way condoning the practice for 2013, but this is less "crazy and weird" and more a remnant of an older time, when US passenger trains were some of the most complex ever operated.

 

Consider the fate of the New York-El Paso sleeper. It leaves NYC coupled to the New York-Houston sleeper and the New York-San Antonio sleeper. At Harrisburg, the Washington-Houston sleeper is added. At Saint Louis, the Washington-Fort Worth sleeper joins the train (having inexplicably traversed the B&O instead of the PRR), along with a number of cars originating in Saint Louis.

 

From Saint Louis no fewer than nine sleeping cars journey to Little Rock, where the Memphis-Houston and Memphis-Fort Worth cars are added. The now-eleven car sleeper train only sticks together for a few hours before the cars start peeling off.

 

At Longview the cars bound for Houston, Galveston, and San Antonio leave the train and we're back to four sleepers as far as Dallas, where a fifth sleeper joins the train, bound for Los Angeles. This combination lasts barely an hour before the Memphis-Fort Worth sleeper, the Washington-Fort Worth sleeper which traversed the B&O, and a third car that was added at Saint Louis are all decoupled. The NY-El Paso and Dallas-LA cars travel the rest of the way to El Paso at which our car is taken out of service.

 

The same exact complexity existed with coaches as well, except that coaches were more likely to go out of service at the next major city, as opposed to sleepers which traversed ridiculous lengths of track. And it's from this heritage that the current Amtrak policy of having conductors assign seats arises.

 

Note that not all Amtrak trains are this way. Many of the state-sponsored trains are non-reserved. It's mostly the long distance trains that operate according to the law of "conductor points you to your seat."

[Guest ___]

Guilty until proven innocent? I like where this is going!

 

Argument then becomes if someone did use this loophole to execute an attack, the public, the media and everyone else starts up, with, "where were the police when this person managed to get on to the platform? Why were they allowed to just wonder around like that? Should someone have noticed this and remove them?" Hindsight is always 20/20. And in this country, someone is going to be the fall guy who will be held accountable; if not by the public, or the politicians; the lawyers will see to that. 

Edited September 7, 2013 by Shashinka

[ToniBabelony]

Argument then becomes if someone did use this loophole to execute an attack, the public, the media and everyone else starts up, with, "where were the police when this person managed to get on to the platform? Why were they allowed to just wonder around like that? Should someone have noticed this and remove them?" Hindsight is always 20/20. And in this country, someone is going to be the fall guy who will be held accountable; if not by the public, or the politicians; the lawyers will see to that. 

 

Yeah, the price you pay for freedom in the land of the free. Not to say it's much better here in Japan legal-wise. ;)

Edited September 7, 2013 by Toni Babelony

[Jcarlton]

Probably the fact that you arrived nearly on the dot- which spared you the agonizing wait.  At Penn Station, they often don't announce/post the track number of your train until the last few minutes (what a difference from Japan, where you can find them in timetables a month beforehand!), which results in a mad dash with fellow passengers to get to your train before it leaves.

The problem at Penn is that the platforms are not dedicated and the station operators have to make things work on the fly. Trains magazine had an article recently on Penn operations and I've met some train dispatchers that have worked Penn and getting through an average day can be a dance where every minute another train has to be put through too few tracks.