Paul CantrellWow, the crew on this Amtrak has an unusually high asshole quotient.
Rail travel in the US is such a disappointment.
If anybody has the Secret Amtrak Complaint Line and wants to help me return the headache for some dudes running a dining car with unnecessary police vibes, let me know
The snack car person is singlehandedly redeeming the whole crew with her salty good humor and utter disregard for the petty tyranny going on upstairs
Train food refrigerator broke. They had to throw away a bunch of food. No more meals from the kitchen.
No problem! Crew just ordered 30 pizzas to be delivered to the next train stop
(That’s as we were crossing the CA/NV border, west of Reno)
In other news, neighbors inform us that golf-ball-sized hail shattered one of the storm windows on our house back in Minneapolis. This train ride has been a real roller coaster! (mercifully only in the figurative sense…so far)
Pizza’s going to be a long time coming: conductor told snack car person she’s on her own parceling out those 30 pizzas to the passengers.
We asked if we could help her out somehow. She said yes: really enjoy those slices when you finally get them
Traveling by plane in the US, the dominant feeling is •extraction•. You can just feel the distant MBAs spending untold sums to squeeze every last drop of blood out of you.
Traveling by train, the dominant feeling is •disinvestment•. It’s not efficient. It’s barely functioning. The crew is always teetering on the edge of social-emotional breakdown trying to hold the operation together within a system designed to destroy it.
T. Thorn Coyle they/themI was once on the train from Paris to Frankfurt. We were barreling through gorgeous countryside when lunch arrived.
Lunch was served in a clever box that unfolded into a placemat. Inside was a small green salad, a dish of pasta, some protein I don’t recall, and a covered glass of wine.
I turned to my partner and said, “I hate the US.”