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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilentZ who wrote (356964)	11/4/2007 12:30:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574499

That's for sure. I've written the Albany-NYC line hundreds of times over the years, and though it's always been busy, I'd never seen a train completely sold out before the last year. I've now seen that at least half a dozen times. When I first started taking the train between LA and San Diego in the early '90s, you could roll a bowling ball down the aisle and there were only 4 trains per day. When I stopped taking that train in 1999, there were 22 trains per day and they were mostly if not all full. When I left CA, Amtrak was haggling with the freight train companies to allow more trains on that route. If you can believe it, freight train companies have the power to stop Amtrak expansion. Is there a line from San Francisco to LA? Yes, you can go on a train from San Diego to Vancouver BC. Unfortunately the track between LA and SFO is pretty bad and the trip takes a long time. Improving the track on the West Coast has been piecemeal as states can afford it. Only recently has the run between SD and LA acquired two way track all along the route. Prior to that, south bound passenger trains would have to sit and wait at the beginning of a single track portion for a northbound freight to complete the single track portion before resuming its trip south. Waits could range up to an hour. What Amtrak has had to put up with to operate would make a saint break down in tears and turn into the devil.