Mooning Amtrak annual event in California July 9

by Meg Nesterov on

If you’re traveling through California by train next month, keep your eyes peeled for some special scenery in Orange County. On Saturday, July 9, exhibitionists, daredevils, and the just plain childish will gather in Laguna Niguel, drop their pants, and moon the passing Amtrak trains from early morning to late night. According to the excellent travel site Wish You Were Here, the event started 32 years ago as a bar dare (as these things do) at the Mugs Away Saloon and now draws thousands each year to participate in some good old-fashioned mooning.

You don’t have to participate to join in the fun, but we think going to watch a mooning event without participating is even weirder than joining a crowd of strangers to show your bare buttocks to a train of people. The event keeps going past 8pm, when the night mooning begins, which the official site claims is “more authentic” but does require additional lighting.

Check out all the details for the 32nd annual Mooning Amtrak here.

For more fun with trains, check out today’s Manhattan User’s Guide (not just for New Yorkers) for railroad history links and info.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Chuck “Caveman” Coker.

Survey says: 79% of travelers would pick high speed rail over air travel when possible

by Scott Carmichael on

In a recent poll of global travelers by SilverRail Technologies, 90% of respondents said they would like to see rail options displayed alongside flights when searching for travel. Rail is suddenly a hot topic (again) as the Obama Administration has pledged $53 billion to create several new high speed rail corridors in the country.

High speed rail is a very realistic alternative in Europe and Asia, but in the US there are very few routes that can currently be replaced by rail transport. When asked whether they would pick rail over air when available:

  • 79% would choose train over plane if high-speed rail options existed.
  • 61% would choose rail over air if the cost was the same or better.

The hassles involved in air travel have also helped increase interest in rail alternatives:

  • 86% of people would accept having the entire time from door-to-door be longer to avoid the process of checking in, security and boarding.
  • 66% would willingly add an hour or more of total travel to their trips to avoid the hassles of long lines, airport security and baggage fees.

Just how bad is the packing situation? Some people actually pack underwear in their laptop bag to reduce the weight of their main bag:

  • 89% of people take action to avoid paying bag fees, planning packing days in advance and stuffing carry-ons to maximum capacity to avoid checking bags.
  • 19% of people surveyed say they pack underwear in a laptop bag to avoid checking bags.
  • 61% are frustrated with extra costs added to airline ticket prices and wanted to be secure that the ticket price they paid is the total price.

And finally, when asked about how air travel has changed in recent years, 72% say waiting in the various lines is the #1 hassle:

  • Waiting in line is the #1 air travel hassle, according to 72% of people.
  • While waiting in line for a pat down, 47 % dream about the easy travel of yesteryear
  • 36% wanted family and friends to be able to accompany them to the gate, an impossibility with air travel

Amtrak police chief to TSA: Stay off our property

by Scott Carmichael on

Our colleagues over at AOL Travel reported on a really troubling story last week involving the TSA and an involuntary security check at an Amtrak station in Savannah, Georgia.

All passengers getting off a train at that station were forced to have their belongings checked, and some (including kids) underwent a pat-down.

The whole thing stinks – and the TSA of course issued their usual (non) apology. But now someone with some real authority has weighed in – the chief of Amtrak Police has told Trains Magazine that he is outraged.

Police Chief John O’Connor first thought the reports of the TSA checkpoint were a joke – but once he discovered that this “VIPR” (Visible Intermodal Protection and Response) team was performing a real search of all Amtrak passengers, he banned the TSA from all Amtrak property until a formal agreement is drawn up.

Of all the stupid things the TSA has done in the past (and there are a lot of them), stopping and forcing train passengers to undergo a forced checkpoint really is the worst.

[Via: The Wandering Aramean]

Video: Catching a moving train in Burma

by Meg Nesterov on

A Reddit user submitted this video of people catching a moving train in Yangon, Burma. Note that the train doesn’t actually *stop* in the station. The first woman gets an assist from a train employee as well as a man on the ground, who then has to run down the platform – in flipflops, no less – and catch the train with several bags to carry before it leaves the station. The video uploader explains that the train was running two hours late and had no time to stop, and the man had seven bags to get onto the train in less than a minute.

Imagine Amtrak (or even your local commuter train) adopting this new policy for late trains. Think you are intrepid enough to jump on a moving train with luggage?

New Jersey; Amtrak announce plans for “Gateway Project” to replace failed Hudson River commuter tunnel

by McLean Robbins on

New Jersey‘s two senators and Amtrak executives announced plans yesterday for the “Gateway Project,” an alternative to the Hudson River commuter-train tunnel scrapped by Gov. Chris Christie last October.

Largely following the same footprint as the previously-proposed tunnel, the plan includes an expanded Penn Station and an additional 11 NJ Transit trains per hour – from 22 to 33 – as well as eight more Amtrak trains. The hope is to have the tunnel built within a decade.

The Wall Street Journal states that Gateway would be less beneficial to commuters than the canceled Access to the Region’s Core, or ARC, project, because its primary goal is to speed long-distance trains between New York and destinations like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

[Flickr via Nesster]

The cost could be upwards of $13.5 billion, but Amtrak officials say they believe the tunnel fits in well with President Obama’s vision for infrastructure improvements in America and high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C.

Amtrak plans to ask the government to fund a $50 million study on the plan this week. Funding for the remainder of the project has yet to be determined, but it is predicted that Amtrak will fund at least part of it.

Amtrak had intended to build another tunnel to improve capacity in the nation’s most congested rail corridor, but not until 2040. In a best case scenario, this project could be completed by around 2020.

Along with the Gateway project would be a plan to raise and replace the century-old train Portal Bridge between Kearny and Secaucus over the Hackensack River.