ABQ - LAX Amtrak experience anyone?

[janelle144]

Amtrak is government owned---what do you expect? If private owned they would have to be more customer friendly. Maybe a smoking car at the end of the train. You can get off the train at stops for awhile so smokers had their breaks but not sure what they did in between time.

Some of the people said they loved train travel so to each his own. I would do it again if I took it slower---get off at AB for a good night's rest then back for the last leg. Would need to figure how to get to a hotel though with no car. We rented a car in LA for our CA travel.

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by janelle144

Amtrak is government owned---what do you expect?
If private owned they would have to be more customer friendly.

No way. It would be broke and closed for business.

That is why there IS an Amtrak and there ARE NOT any private train companies with any real network anywhere in the world now.
All the privately-owned passenger trains went out of business decades ago.

Trains went out of business for the same reason that the trains put the cross-country horse-drawn
passenger service out of business about 100 years before the trains went out of business.

If Americans really wanted trains, they would be adequately funded and a government-owned
enterprise. If it were adequately funded, then managers would think of things that would get
more riders on the train - like smoking cars that didn't ruin it for the rest of the riders.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by bentlyslc

Has anyone who has taken Amtrak from ABQ to LAX would like to share their experience? I’m thinking about doing that since a 13 hrs drive is brutal with two kids. We thought it might be fun to have a train ride and not as tiresome when we get there.
Some specific questions that my wife asks:

1. Is it safe for a female to ride from ABQ to LAX?
2. In general, how crowd is it? Hopefully it wouldn't be like airlines that squeeze passengers into small seats and almost always overbook...
3. Any (free) internet on the train or station?
4. Any power plug on the train (for computers)?
5. Can you choose your own seat (coach)?
6. Are scenic car(s) available for every train? How to assign seats in the scenic car?

Thanks.

1. Yes
2. Coach seats are 2 on each side of the aisle with quite a bit of legroom. Even if the coach is full you'll still have plenty of personal space.
3. WiFi isn't yet available on that route.
4. There are electrical outlets at a couple spots on each coach car (used for cleaning crew's vacuum cleaners) so you might get lucky.
5. Yes, you can sit whereever you like. There is no assigned seating. However, there are a lot of through passengers who will already be on the train so you may have to hunt around to get seats together.
6. There's a lounge car that has open seating. Since the train is all double decker with most seats on the upper level, the view is pretty good from everywhere.

You might consider taking the train one way and flying the other.

You'll find a lot of info on Amtrak's website at www.amtrak.com

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by mortimer

No way. It would be broke and closed for business. That is why there IS an Amtrak and there ARE NOT any private train companies with any real network anywhere in the world now.
All the privately-owned passenger trains went out of business decades ago.

Trains went out of business for the same reason that the trains put the cross-country horse-drawn
passenger service out of business about 100 years before the trains went out of business.

I used to take the Southern Railroad out of Cincinnati when I was a young child. The service was ALWAYS on time and the service was excellent.


And the trains were always empty.

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

I used to take the Southern Railroad out of Cincinnati ...

I grew up in Dayton and never heard of it.

Is this it?
The Cincinnati Southern Railway | Connecting Cincinnati to Chattanooga

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by mortimer

I grew up in Dayton and never heard of it.

Is this it?
The Cincinnati Southern Railway | Connecting Cincinnati to Chattanooga

No. It was the predecessor railroad of the Norfolk-Southern line and offered passenger service out of Cincinnati's Union Terminal until servce was terminated in 1971.

In the late sixties, there were still about a half dozen trains in and out of Union Terminal.

See these links:


Southern Railway (U.S.) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Southern Railway - Tom Murray - Google Books

The Southern Railway's Royal Palm