So it turns out that the reason Americans don't take trains isn't just that they're few, it also turns out that amtrak has gone out of their motherfucking way to make the process as uncomfortable, scary, panic inducing, slow, annoying and inefficient as possible:
- there is a check-in process
- you have to be wait in the building, you can't go on the platform until boarding starts
-yeah, there's "boarding". It starts and ends. Oh, the train has arrives and everyone has stepped off? You still can't get on, "boarding hasn't started".
- there's one gate for each train, meaning there's one giant line around the room.
- they check the tickets three times by the time the train starts, at the "gate", ten steps lager when physically boarding the train, and later on the train.
- supposedly on Cascades, it's "unassigned seating", which is fine, but then a dude tells you which part of the train you're allowed to get onto, so each one fills up and families are split up between different rows despite most of the train being empty at our stop.
The US do something right for once challenge: impossible
If it helps, we are still less infuriating and quicker to get throught than the TSA. But yeah we do need to repeal some bush era safety regulations
Apparently my local amtrak station doesn't give a shit about the regulations cause I waited on the platform for a solid 20 mins before the train got there and no one checked my ticket once
It’s also mostly a station by station basis and if a station does do this it’s because it is far too busy