Amtrak

October 30, 2014 | transit | travel | dc |

I took the Amtrak train for the first time from Philadelphia down to Washington DC this weekend and I was pleasantly surprised at how awesome it was! I spent a lot of time out on the road these past few years, so I have gotten used to the many annoyances of airline travel and mass transit. The last time that I was on a non-commuter train was in Ukraine when I was very young. It was certainly a very different experience to say the least! Here are my favorite parts about Amtrak:

You can get your tickets on your smart phone a few minutes before the train leaves. A very stress free experience!
Even with a lot of people riding the train the boarding process is smooth, quick, and painless.
There is usually a ton of room on board.
The seats are big and comfy, even in coach!
They have a power outlet at every seat.
They have free wifi.

Taking the train was so much better than driving down I-95 and dealing with the traffic. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable experience. It is a shame that the train system only seems to make sense on the East Coast (and perhaps the West Coast too). For example, in Cincinnati there is only one train that comes a few times a week at around 3:00 a.m. Most people in Cincinnati do not even know that the Amtrak comes there. I am not sure if we will ever get to experience an efficient high speed rail system in the US, but I am looking forward to a few more trips up and down the East Coast!

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

The AGI economy is coming faster than you think from Freethink
Rolling the ladder up behind us from Xe Iaso's blog
In Praise of “Normal” Engineers from charity.wtf
Reports of Bluesky's death have been greatly exaggerated from The Torment Nexus
What Would a Kubernetes 2.0 Look Like from matduggan.com
We Can Just Measure Things from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
The Gentle Singularity from Sam Altman
Whale Watching from https://popagandhi.com/

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Pluralistic: Daniel de Visé's 'The Blues Brothers' (21 Jun 2025)

Today's links Daniel de Visé's 'The Blues Brothers': Far more than production gossip – an unmissable portrait of a turning point in American comedy and music. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 20…

via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow June 21, 2025

Hiding metrics from the web

In 2012, artist Ben Grosser released a browser extension called Facebook Demetricator. Once installed, it hid all metrics from Facebook’s interface: likes, comments, notifications, unread messages, and so on. “What’s going on here is that these quantifica…

via Manual do Usuário June 21, 2025

It's like surfing

The weird thing about engineering management is that you feel kinda useless. Yet if you stop, projects stop.

via swizec.com RSS Feed June 21, 2025

Generated by openring