Trains

Ok I know its not national train day yet, thats may 8th (from the hundreds of signs around me telling me this) but i'm going to blog about my love hate relationship with amtrak

Ok so at 7:30 this morning I hopped on a train to nyc for a day trip. The train originating from DC was great. I got a window seat with a plug for my computer and I even slept half the time. I was feeling pretty good about amrak and was even thinking that I should start taking it more often.

I arrived at Penn station a little early waiting for my evening 8pm train home on acela the "high speed" express train between ny and dc. You should know that I have taken the acela train once before in 2001 between dc and boston, and something happened to the train once we were en route that made it go SLOWER than a normal train. it was miserable. So here I am many years later willing to spend the extra money and give acela another try and what happens? So far my train will be 35 minutes late. WTF, at that rate i might as well have paid less and gotten to dc at the same time, not to mention there is a good chance my train will be delayed further. (as I typed that it delayed to 40 min late)

THIS is one of the many reasons trains will never do well in this country. Too bad too b/c when things go well I enjoy taking trains. (oh, did i mention that the train is also more expensive than flying) Also why do shady chinatown buses have wi-fi but the trains do not?