Just going to give a shout out to former Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson, who worked for free between 2017 and 2020 and came so painfully close to making Amtrak profitable…. Until Covid hit. The guy really tried his best to both improve Amtrak and prevent it from running at a loss and I was really rooting for the guy, Covid sort of threw things off though.

That opening line: "Imagine an America where you could just go anywhere by train."
For me, that's less something I imagine and more something I dream about.
And then that further line, "This America existed."
And that's where the pain sets in.

On my first Amtrak ride, I ate lunch with the amish and was in the middle of an FBI raid. The ride was 14 hours long. The drive was 6 hours.

As a frequent Amtrak rider since the 1970s, the delays certainly are frustrating but the train remains a more dignified way to travel and it’s one of the few shared spaces where people seem to retain the capacity to engage with strangers in an open and friendly way.     I’ve had so many great encounters and conversations in the lounge, dining, and observation cars.

This video should have been called, "One Giant Agency Fails to Enforce One Tiny Law, and This Keeps Amtrak Terrible". Seems like if the DOJ would just do its job, the freight lines would behave.

I’ve taken Amtrak from winter park Colorado to Glenwood springs, and while the train was horrifically behind schedule, we weren’t in a hurry and the ride was almost luxurious.  The seats were massive and much less cramped than an airplane, there were dedicated cars with massive windows for viewing the beautiful nature we traveled through, snack bars on the lower decks of some cars, plenty of room for everyone to move around, etc.  Overall a much more pleasant experience than flying and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

In The Netherlands people are really upset because 95% on time became 91%. Note: over 3 minutes will count as a delay. On the less busy stations the connecting trains will often wait.

Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, I watched the Santa Fe passenger trains routinely run at speeds around one hundred mph, and freight trains around seventy mph. When Amtrak came in, they started slowing down. Years later, i found out from a gentleman who worked for the Santa Fe that they had to down grade the quality of their lines to match the lines back east.

As a European, being used to a 98% on time train service, I I'm really rooting for amtrack to make this work. Its so worth it!

With the nightmare that flying and airports have become, I hope trains make a huge comeback and upgrade the dated passenger trains

A little more than 10 years ago, Virginia got passenger service back to Norfolk for the first time since Amtrak's founding. It was one of those imperfect steps. The train left once a day at 4:50am. It had to leave so early because of track conditions along the route, slowing the train to a crawl in places. So after a couple of years of ridership growing slowly despite the early departure, the state gave the freight railroads (CSX and Norfolk Southern) money to fix the offending stretch of rail so Amtrak could run at higher speeds. The departure time moved to 6am and ridership grew so much so quickly that they added a 9am departure in 2019 (suspended during the pandemic, returned in late 2021) and a 1pm departure in 2022. That imperfect step a decade or so ago made possible the service we have today. But if we had to wait for it to be perfect, it would have never happened.

I rode a train through Alaska and immediately fell in love.  Spacious seats, beautiful landscapes, dining car...  If you care more about the comfort of the journey than the length, rail is a great way to travel.  Unfortunately, there are so few routes these days it's hard to find one that takes a reasonable route to where you're going.

Everyone along the Colorado front range has been begging for a train for years. I have not met a single person who said they would prefer to drive to Denver over a train. Palmer saw this exact vision when he placed Colorado Springs back in the 1870s and the fact that we back tracked is ridiculous. The whole town is there because of the railroad.

For those wondering, Amtrak's plans for new trains is called Connects US. It is a list of routes less than 750 miles in length, those which require state funding, which can be setup and run in a fairly short time frame. If all of the routes in this plan are created, Amtrak's daily trains will approximately double. A small step towards a much better rail system. Additionally, the FRA has created Corridor ID/Connect ID, a inquiry into new routes, some of which are in Connects US, which will be eligible for federal funding for startup costs. Those startup costs are most of the costs involved, so having those covered essentially guarantees a route will happen.

As someone from Kentucky who has lived in Louisville for the past 6 years, it sucks to know that we used to have passenger rail service to the city but it shut down in 2003. If we got service again, I would no doubt use it to take trips to Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Chicago for weekend trips, concerts, etc instead of having to drive. Literally a dream of mine, really hoping that Amtrak's plans get through.

Thank you for explaining why any kind of large infrastructure must NOT belong to some corporation.

Canada, too. 😢 It sucks so much to have to wait for a freight train.

I wonder how much better the US and Canada would be if they had spent trillions on rail and public transit over the past 70 years, instead of only stroads and highways.

Amtrak currently has a lawsuit going against the freight companies for not honoring their agreement

I wish this video talked more about how this Amtrak dream across America EXISTS in the northeast where Amtrak owns the tracks. I live in NYC, don’t have a car, and take trains everyday. Whether it’s the subway to get to work, commuter rail to visit friends in New Jersey and Connecticut, and Amtrak Acela when heading to Philly or Boston or DC, the American rail dream exists here and it’s amazing. I just wish the rest of America got to experience it as well.

1:30 "took it off track" okay, mr definitely not HAI sam