that’s very clever design
imagine all the trains have their own watch…
… the sickos one was already claimed, i admit my failure…
I am currently on the Coast Starlight to Seattle. Making a game on the train. Will report back if anything Truly Weird happens on the train or if my videogame is good.
We got business class and are having a true luxury experience. Wish I could have snagged a roomette though because then it’s not just travel, it’s a Fun Getaway… they were all sold out when we booked though.
I believe I can speak for everyone who has posted in this thread when I say you should post more train pictures
Ok I walked around the train at night and took more pictures! Will take better lit ones of interiors tomorrow
Spooky nighttime business class, facing the dining car:
It’s hard to see but my husband took this photo of the word “Gremlins” scratched into the metal above the door handle in the bathroom… perhaps a curse upon the train for gremlins to come and destroy it all?
They turned on the spooky nighttime lights in this train car:
Never seen the observation car this empty before, even at night. I think the alcohol policy is different on this train than on other ones I’ve ridden, so people cannot hang out here drunk at all hours like they normally do. You can’t see it but there is a guy sleeping on some of the armchairs wrapped in a sheet like a burial shroud… very Ominous
They just gave the final announcement of the night. No more PA calls until 7 am… the night realm is a place of chaos and mystery for those deboarding between Martinez and Klamath Falls!!
Cafe car secrets. Unknown human for scale
Excellent, thank you
…does that menu have a beverage called “body armor”
Indeed it does! Bought it last night and it’s basically Gatorade.
We have been making progress through Oregon all morning. The landscape is gorgeous but completely blanketed in a dimly brown haze of forest fire smoke.
We have begun to be able to smell the smoke in the train car.
Saw this cloud bank this morning on Upper Klamath Lake before we saw the other clouds that made us realize what was going on with the smoke. Still not sure whether this was just very cool early morning haze, or also fire related
Some other morning shots:
Vegan,
Vegetarian,
Amtrak’s Healthy Option
Train update: we got in to Seattle only 10 minutes or so late. Absolutely stellar performance by Amtrak… they will retain my loyalty for now!!
We felt like shit tho because we had such a hard time sleeping the one night we were aboard. We got to our hotel and almost immediately fell asleep. Total KO. It’s so hard to be comfortable on the reclining seats even in Business Class. Hoping that we can successfully bid up to a roomette on the way back.
When we arrived in Seattle though I was heartened by the huge benefit of traveling by train, which is that you exit the vehicle immediately downtown, where all the stuff and people are, instead of exiting the vehicle in an airport, which is generally a type of Hell Mall built 30+ minutes outside the city center, often in a swamp. Meanwhile we Train Enjoyers walked directly to our hotel from the station!!
before clicking and reading what’s up with that:
wondering how that works, re: signaling equipment and block distances for traffic control. OK, let’s assume they are driving in either ETCS unsupervised Lv.0 or using national control system that allows them to drive on sight and they manually checked that path is clear, right…
What still puzzles me (from TCMS PoV) is how they manage traction across what looks like many (fixed?) consists being coupled together, technically not an easy feat (slip/slide somewhere inbetween would put significant stress on couplers and drivetrain somewhere else in the chain, amount of consists you can couple is limited due to size of message bus traffic and number of supported consists) - hence i guess that 250 car-count has a good a reason/bus protocol reasons, but still doesn’t account for sophisticated drivetrain control…
- click *
so seems it were 25 trains(or rather, trainsets/consists) and 100 cars, that’s more like what MVB or TRDP would support, all’s right again.
Stadler, ABB and Siemens named on the loco posted a few posts further down below, so seems there was a bit more logistics involved than just slapping them together and driving off 
Recently got to ride the extremely cute Kominato Railway in Chiba, an old commuter rail that becomes primarily a sight seeing train on the weekends
With all the flowers and cherry blossoms in full bloom there were dozens of train otaku camped out in the hills and valleys, or standing on the crossings trying to get the perfect shot. It was very endearing to see except for when it was concerning like a few younger looking guys who definitely stayed a little too in the middle of the crossing for a little too long. Train otaku are powerful folks
I got my crossing video as well, at a distance
Also a neat NHK railway journal about the line
god that is so cute! id love a backpack in those two colors! did the benches pinch your buttcheeks those kinds of benches always pinch my buttcheeks
