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American efficiency · 1 November 04
Oh my god, but the trains here are so bizarre – a mixture of fantastic, with utterly stupid and inefficient! I sit here in my coach class seat, and literally cannot reach the seat in front when I stretch out my legs. Not only that, but they have a power source by the seat – yay, can plug in my laptop. No wireless sadly – I checked. But hey, you can’t have everything!
But then comes the utterly stupid. Everyone has to get on and off through one single door? Not only that, but in major stations like Union station in DC, they only let you onto the platform 5 at a time?!? Ostensibly this is so that you can be ‘allocated’ a seat, but they don’t actually allocate you a seat, just point you in a vague general direction. And what on earth is wrong with a system where you find your own seat? Even if the trains are too long for many platforms, can’t you just say – if you are going to such and such a station please only use the front four carriages or whatever??? You also shouldn’t necessarily believe the seat attendant when they tell you which way to go for your seat – look around and it seems you find an area with next to noone sitting in it – hooray! And the schedule is quite fascinatingly empty – if you’re lucky, 2 trains a day…
It’s also weird to go to the station the day before and find that the train has already set off on its journey. Although I guess that happens in Europe too. But then, it’s pretty impressive for it to travel for that long and that far, and yet still be running on time! Although, similarly to Europe, there seems to be a lot of leeway built into the schedule – the train isn’t exactly sprinting along – not to mention the minimum of 20 mins spent at every station. Easier to be on time when you build in lots of faff time…