Hi all! I haven't been around for a while, but I am considering doing another AMTRAK trip next year. Where on the AMTRAK web site (or any other site) can I find updated schedules for all trains? All I can find now are "city A to city B" schedules.
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
I can't find any timetables on the Amtrak site. It only shows maps. I tried the Builder, Zephyr, Coast Starlight, SW Chief, and Pacific Surfliners. No timetables.
Richard
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Taking another page from the airlines.
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
At another forum, I read where Amtrak will discontinue "traditional timetables" in PDF form.
Instead, Amtrak has plans for "automated timetables", coming sometime in Sept. What are "automated timetables"?
The inquiry was answered by a couple of people in the "Amtrak Center for Excellence". What is the Amtrak Center for Excellence?
Richard
Posted by rbamtrak (Member # 1598) on :
Amtrak Center for Excellence. the office is closed for now!!
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
quote:Originally posted by rbamtrak: Amtrak Center for Excellence. the office is closed for now!!
********************************** I'm devastated! Well, when it opens back up I hope they work on having excellence in food quality, for all Amtrak trains.
Richard
Posted by irish1 (Member # 222) on :
on the dixieland amtrak status maps you can click on a train number and the schedule will come up.
Posted by TwinStarRocket (Member # 2142) on :
There is a website called "Amtrak Timetable Archives" that contains pdf files of most recent print versions from Amtrak. For most routes, the schedules have changed very little. Most of the LD trains are listed as 3 per week schedules but are now daily. They may be printed from your browser.
In addition to the Amtrak Timetable Archives, posted above by TwinStar, RPA (Rail Passengers Association) does offer timetable information which I believe is updated routinely:
I simply can't believe there is a good reason for Amtrak dropping PDF timetables from their website. On another forum, someone suggested that one of the train magazine publishers offer printed copies of Amtrak timetables. For example, if Kalmbach or White River would offer hard copy timetables, for a modest price and updated at least yearly, it would be greatly appreciated.
Richard
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
OK; let's accept that printed timetables are a relic of the past that have been supplanted with newer technology. This means that Amtrak can make schedule changes and "be covered" by notifying electronicslly any ticketed passenger without concern that there are bundles of timetables out there with incorrect information.
To my knowledge, airlines no longer have printed flight schedule matter as well. And for the youngsters around here, "once upon a time" airlines actually had "bar" timetables in the railroad tradition. Of course, that was in the day when airlines flew either N-S or E-W. For example, TWA's schedules were E-W while Eastern's were N-S (oh and youngsters; "Daddy, what's TWA and Eastern?).
A final remembrance; there was (actually still is) a hotel at Wells and Adams in Chicago called The Midland. It was of the "econo" varietal; and several railfan groups such as "RC2" (Railroad Club of Chicago) held their monthly meetings there. They always had a well stocked "rack" of railroad and airline timetables that be it assured was "stripped" by the time these meetings ended.
Well, the structure still stands and remains a hotel. However, it is now an "upper scale" Marriott "W" brand. X Adams Street was the former Railway Exchange Building that had the last railroad "City Ticket Office". That structure has been "repurposed" as a "quite upscale" Marriott "JW" brand (can't tell you about either as the highest I've stayed in Marriott's pecking order is simply "plain vanilla Marriott").
Posted by TwinStarRocket (Member # 2142) on :
As a youngster in the 50's I would collect timetables on display the depot, many more railroads than came through my hometown of Minneapolis. I would store them in boxes alphabetically from Atlantic Coast Line to Western Pacific, and go to sleep looking up where I was on my imaginary cross country tour by roomette.
In my 20's I would take some timetables on long distance bicycle tours because they would show elevations of every town (almost every road had at least a branch line next to it). They got pretty ragged being stuffed into a pack.
As an adult I began to make my own timetables for auto trips with a column for miles and elapsed time (with allowances for gas stops and eating) that included rest stops, scenic stops. and favorite motels and eateries. Friends would ask me to do one for them and I enjoyed doing it.
Later I added color coding and started using spread sheets that I could edit for similar trips (and make the print bigger as I got older so I could read while driving).
To me collections of timetables were like a shopping catalogue for travel. To a true nerd they are a thing of wonder and a map to an adventure.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Mr. Twin Star Jerry, I once was equally precise with road trips as you have likely surmised. I once had a "timetable" for a trip I was driving, recorded actual times against scheduled times for passing landmarks such as State Lines. I once drove from home here to meet friends at a restaurant in Boulder CO. No Sat/Nav, no cell phones; just discipline - I showed two minutes early of scheduled time.
Nowadays, with Sat/Nav, and "hands free" phone and text in a Lexus LS, as well as some forty years older, I'm "uh, not exactly" as disciplined. On the road trip to Salt Lake City, from which I returned, this past Monday, the Sat/Nav told me how many miles to go and the ETA. I didn't even take a Road Atlas with me.
Navigating boats, power and sail, was a skill that I learned as a Cadet in the Fairfield Navy. Now Sat/Nav has rendered those skills obsolete.
Posted by TwinStarRocket (Member # 2142) on :
Mr. Norman, 2 minutes off your arrival time on a 1,000 mi journey is VERY impressive.
Sat/Nav would spoil the fun for me. Now that avg. speed is easy to select on my car's computer, I just use my timetable miles to figure the ETA in my head and add about 8 minutes for a gas stop. I am usually within 5 minutes.
But I am curious now that you brought it up. How is distance (or knots) measured in a boat? Before satellites was it sextants?
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
For Coastal Navigation, it was simply charts, parallel bars, and a pair of dividers. Ocean navigation, with which I cannot claim experience, it would be the Sextant.
No damage done, but one of my more embarassing moments navigating in this life occurred in The Solent during '79. I was in my Brother in Law's 35ft sailboat, and he asked me to set a course from a marker near the Isle of Wight to port in Lymington. That I set the course for the rhumb line (as the crow flies) right over The Brambles caught me a snide from him. I suppose some was lack of familiarity with Her Majesty's charts which report all sounding in fathoms (6') - even in Coastal waters. But I suppose some was how could a major ocean shipping port be surrounded by such a shoal?
Again alas, navigating any kind of a watercraft with Sat/Nav is now no different than driving a motor vehicle with same. Charts, parallel bars, dividers, Tidal tables to measure your "set", is how I knew it "back in my day".
Posted by TBlack (Member # 181) on :
But I am curious now that you brought it up. How is distance (or knots) measured in a boat? Before satellites was it sextants?
Distance, on the water, is measured in nautical miles (2000 yards). And, as a former Naval navigator, the sextant was my primary tool. A bitch on a cloudy day! Tom
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Mr. Black, a Nautical Mile is 6076.1 feet. and is the Unit of Distance measurement for both water and aircraft.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
On NM - Nautical Miles to SM - Statute Miles conversions, seems like the Riverside (CT) Yacht Club has a sign entering their parking lot "Speed Limit 9 Knots". I guess their intent is to have vehicles go 10.35mph (which to me is the maximum safe speed in a parking lot - but uh, we all know how well that is adhered to; don't we?????).
Somehow, I doubt if RYC has a copyright on suggesting such a speed in that manner (unenforceable; 20 mph min enforceable speed; private property).
Posted by irishchieftain (Member # 1473) on :
Great way to discourage travel by train. But perhaps that's what they want.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Thank you, Mr. Helfner, for returning this topic to rail related discussion.
Possibly our Moderator, Mr. Tabern, will choose to move those postings related to both marine and auto navigation to a created topic at Open Discussion. That's what that forum is there for - and why it was started at my request.