.jpg)
Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
Ep. 29: Amtrak - America's Train
In this episode, we recount the origins of Amtrak, born out of failing private rail services and saved by the Rail Passengers Service Act of 1970. Despite the hurdles of "manufactured mismanagement" intended to sabotage it, Amtrak emerged resilient. We also dive into our firsthand adventure on the Texas Eagle line from Austin to San Antonio offering a current snapshot of Amtrak travel today.
Share your Amtrak stories with us and support our journey by subscribing to Transit Tangents and exploring our new features on transittangents.com. Thank you for being a part of our community!
All aboard on this episode, as we take a ride on America's favorite well, our only intercity train service, Amtrak. We'll dive into the history of Amtrak, how the service operates today, and discuss our recent trip from Austin to San Antonio using the Texas Eagle. All of this and more on Transit Tangents.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of Transit Tangents. My name is Lewis and I'm Chris, and today we are diving into passenger rail in the United States. What that means more broadly for the most part, with little exception is Amtrak. Yeah, all sorts of things. We're going to talk about the history of Amtrak. Chris and I recently took an Amtrak train from here in Austin, texas, down to San Antonio for an episode that will be coming out soon on San Antonio. So keep an eye out for that one. But first I think we want to start off with kind of the history of the system in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were looking up where Amtrak came from and, as most people know, pre-Amtrak most rail service in the United States was all privately owned, which has been the case for how rail really developed across the country. We were looking at stats and in 1916 it was 98 percent of inner city travel in the us was by train 1916.
Speaker 2:And what's what's almost funnier about that too is what the other two percent, the other two percent was. Was like inner water, uh, inner inland, sorry inland waterways right which is like the eerie canal, yeah, stuff like that, which is kind of amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm taking the steamboat to St Louis, oh man. So it's pretty amazing. But when we got to the 60s, a lot of these rail services were starting to fail. It takes a lot of money to run a rail line. Just ask Brightline today.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but kind of fast forward to 1970, and that was the inception of the Rail Passengers Service Act, which was passed under President Nixon, and that was really kind of the culmination of creating what we have as Amtrak today.
Speaker 1:What I found really interesting about this is there was a big political push in the 60s to save passenger rail service, but people in Congress didn't really care about passenger rail service. The car was dominating everything. Buses were replacing trains for inner city travel, and so there was a report that came out later that the reason why Nixon signed this into law was basically it was a quick way to shut people up.
Speaker 2:It was like a quick way to say, hey, I did you right, yeah, yeah, yeah right, trying to do it, but like it seems like in in reality. Uh, it was. It was described as manufactured mismanagement. Yeah, uh, basically just like setting this thing up to fail.
Speaker 1:They expected it to quietly fade into the distance when americans stopped caring about rail, uh, and fast forward to today.
Speaker 2:That did not happen right it almost did, I almost did, yeah, absolutely amtrak still has, uh, plenty of issues, although things are generally trending in the right direction. I think I'm pretty optimistic about the future of rail in the united states. Cautiously optimistic, um, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a 1970, uh, 1974, article by fortune magazine that really exposed the manufacturing mismanagement and since then congress was then pressured to make some improvements to the system and actually give them, give them something to work with so that it wouldn't fail right.
Speaker 2:so initially amtrak did not start with any right of way at all, so they were just fully relying on other people's tracks. In many cases that would be the freight rail tracks. That's still the case across much of the system outside of the Northeast. Of the initial 306 routes, that no 366. 366 routes, sorry. Under the creation of Amtrak, which was at the time kind of a mishmash of all these private different companies, these 366 routes ended up turning into just 184 of them still existing. So the amount of routes essentially being cut in half at the inception of Amtrak, which is pretty wild that that was the case, and you know things were not looking great for quite a while during this era.
Speaker 1:There was a point in the 70s and 80s that if you look at the history of Amtrak they call it the rainbow era, and it was because Amtrak was still running a bunch of cars and the train engines under the banners of the previous companies, and so you would have a car that was color-schemed to one company connected to a car that had been color-schemed for another company. So you just had these like mismatched trains all over the country. That's pretty funny actually, which I say bring that back. I think that's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally, though, you know, in the 1990s, things started turning in the right direction. Ridership was really going up in different parts of the country and passenger levels finally began kind of increasing, especially as we moved into the 2000s.
Speaker 1:The 90s was also when we saw a lot of improvements. We got better trains, better cars. They started experimenting with train engines from Europe and experimenting with high speed rail. All of that sort of laid the groundwork for projects like the Acela in the future too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's kind of like the brief history of Amtrak, if you will. Obviously you could do an entire episode just focusing in on all of that, but that's not the purpose of this one. Maybe we'll do that in a certain one. This is kind of a more broad overview. But yeah, that's kind of where we are today and, like I mentioned and we'll kind of get into more of the specifics later in the episode we actually rode the Texas Eagle rail line which goes from Chicago all the way down to San Antonio. We really just rode it on kind of the last leg. There's only one stop in between Austin and San Antonio, which is San Marcos. So we'll get into the kind of details of that. But let's share a little bit, I guess, of the history of the Texas Eagle line and then we'll kind of jump into the rest of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you live in Austin, you are familiar with where the Amtrak line runs. It runs right down the middle of a highway that we call Mopac. Mopac gets its name M-O-P-A-C from the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which owns, or had owned that railroad. Now it belongs to Union Pacific. Missouri Pacific operated a passenger rail line called the Texas Eagle that went from St Louis to San Antonio. That operated from about the 1940s until 1971 when Amtrak took over, and then service was briefly interrupted until Amtrak restarted the service around the early 1970s. And so it's operating as the Texas Eagle today from Chicago to St Louis. I'm sorry, chicago to San Antonio, but it has been a train called the Texas Eagle there for many, many years. Louis, I'm sorry, chicago to San Antonio, but it has been a train called the Texas Eagle there for many, many years.
Speaker 2:Nice, yeah. So generally things are trending in the right direction, especially considering where things started back in the seventies and beyond that, which was not great. The you know COVID pandemic, like you know, messing up a lot of different industries, really hurt passenger rail in the United States much like it did airlines and all sorts of public transit agencies across the country, but things have mostly recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Some of the highlights here the Acela line from 2022 to 2023 had 40% year-over-year growth, which is massive numbers. The Northeast Regional similar it's up 30% year-over-year. I'm sure Amtrak is loving seeing those and hoping that that trend can continue, as they kind of really try to double down in those corridors. I know the Acela is getting new trains, all sorts of stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the most popular train lines for Amtrak are definitely that Northeast Corridor and then I think after that it's the California one that kind of runs from Seattle to San Diego. Yes, I think those are really like the two big sort of I don't want to say moneymakers, but like the most successful of their lines right now.
Speaker 2:They are, and I mean the Acela really I don't know if it's just the Acela or the Northeast Regional is the only profitable line in the system. You know, we've said on this show multiple times before that, like public transit doesn't necessarily need to be profitable. That's not the only goal, but it certainly doesn't hurt. I'll say I don't know, especially when you know, unfortunately the political will on some of this stuff doesn't look at it in the same lens that we do. Necessarily We'll leave it at that but unfortunately, like not, the whole system is looking like 30% to 40% year-over-year growth. We are seeing kind of growth across the board.
Speaker 1:I will say yeah, we looked at a metric from 2022 to 2023 growth and most of them are up by a decent percentage. I mean, the Texas Eagle, I think, was up by about 16% or so. We saw others that were up by like 200%.
Speaker 2:Right, you know it just depends on where you are in the country.
Speaker 2:Some of the issue with those percentages, though, is when you look at what the actual number is in the percentage it's not much. So when you look at the long distance routes across the country, which makes up a good number of Amtrak's routes, obviously they've got the kind of northeast corridor routes, they have some kind of more state-focused lines, and then they have these long distance routes which literally go across the country in many cases, like the Texas Eagle or the Sunset Limited or the.
Speaker 1:What is the one that goes from California? Zephyr goes from Chicago.
Speaker 2:All the way to San Francisco, basically, or to Oakland I think is where it actually ends. You've got the Empire Builder, which goes from New York to Seattle. So those routes, not even a single one of them serves more than 1,000 passengers per day. They're all. Some of the more successful ones are around 300,000 passengers per day. They're all. You know. Some of the more successful ones are around 300,000 passengers per year. Some of the less successful ones are as low as the Cardinal. It serves only 82,000 passengers per year.
Speaker 1:Very weird route too, that it takes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Sunset Limited only does 77,000. Not great. Again they are trending up, but you know we'll get into kind of should those routes even exist, a little bit. Personally I'm not super convinced and think the resources can be put elsewhere. But yeah, I mean again generally trending upwards, but still routes that aren't serving as many people as they probably could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and one of the things that we would like to see is maybe less of an emphasis on the long distance one, which we can get into in just a minute. I am curious your experiences. You've been on Amtrak a couple times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've actually had mostly positive experiences. If I'm being honest, I've never taken Amtrak in a time where, like I have to get somewhere really quickly. It generally when I'm like in a period either on vacation I did a lot of seasonal work, so it would be in my like shoulder season I would use it because it was in some cases actually an affordable way to get around. I was living in the northeast, so I've taken it from, uh, new york city and penn station up to rochester, new york, where I'm from um, and that was actually pretty smooth, uh, a smooth ride. It was a full train leaving New York City and then I've also taken it from Rochester back across to Boston as well. Same thing, fairly smooth, slower. That one in particular was like significantly slower than driving. I think it was like a nine hour train from Rochester to Boston what is?
Speaker 2:it about six hours to drive but I mean, it's a much comfier ride, I will say, and at the time I actually didn't have a car, so it was, it was a, you know uh, it was quick, you know. I mean with the flight it would have been an easy flight too, especially because the rochester airport's small, so the flight time is is easy because you're not having to get there two hours early. But, um, those are really nice. I did take one of the more scenic uh amtrak trains once. I I took uh the train from denver uh over to grand junction, colorado uh, which goes through some of the most scenic tracks on the entire amtrak system. I got to hang out in the uh, what do they call it?
Speaker 2:the, the, uh, the scenic car yeah, the viewing car a glass roof on the car and when you're going through Glenwood Canyon it's amazing. You're just, like you know, going along a river in these beautiful canyons with cliffs and everything. It goes through a massive tunnel at one point popping out by Winter Park Ski Resort. So I actually had really positive experiences. Those trains were actually fairly on time, nice and I, you know, I got to kind of get some work done while I was on them. Yeah, mostly positive. I know you've got some experience as well.
Speaker 1:A little bit. Yeah, when I was 17 or 18, we took the train from Hammond Louisiana to Carbondale, Illinois and then hopped a bus over to St Louis. I've also taken the Acela from New York to DC when I was working in the Northeast Corridor, a lot more, and then now the Texas Eagle, and all three of those experiences have been mostly positive. The Acela was probably the best because it was sort of the fastest. It was an overnight train, so I get to sleep. But the one that I remember distinctly, when we took the one from Hammond Louisiana to Carbondale Illinois a lot of sitting on the tracks and waiting for freight trains to pass yes, and this is kind of an interesting thing here and it's one of the major downfalls of Amtrak.
Speaker 2:I mentioned that I've had mostly positive experiences in terms of the schedule. But part of the reason why those trains are scheduled to be so long and also part of the reason why folks, at least anecdotally that we've talked to, have dealt with a lot of delays, and just in general I mean amtrak does have delays quite a bit is because of freight traffic. We mentioned that. You know, generally amtrak does not own the most of its right-of-way, uh, where the trains actually run. The only exception to that is really in the northeast corridor, which they own good chunks of it at, at least of that route. So they obviously have priority on their own tracks. But then you look at like Texas.
Speaker 1:Eagle here, and it's Union Pacific that owns the line.
Speaker 2:Right and, technically speaking, there is a law on the books that gives passenger rail priority over freight trains.
Speaker 1:However, that law has basically never been enforced and therefore the freight trains basically pretend like it doesn't exist and this surprised me, because this is sort of an enduring myth of passenger rail and we've mentioned it on this show. We have mentioned that, uh, freight takes precedence over priority before and we were wrong. So this is a full. I'm retracting my statement. It doesn't actually, it shouldn't well but it does yes in reality.
Speaker 1:Okay, I take back my retraction. I retract my retraction. Freight traffic isn't supposed to take priority over passenger rail is what I mean to say. But that is something that I've always understood about Amtrak and passenger rail in the country is that freight always takes precedent. I did not realize that there's a 50-year-old law on the books that says otherwise?
Speaker 2:Right, and it's one of those things that, just like the freight rail in the United States, is huge business. I won't get into all the details. I learned a lot about freight rail in the last year and a half. I moonlit as a journalist for a little bit of last year and the big story that I covered was the East Palestine train derailment that happened in Ohio last year and I learned all sorts of stuff about the freight railways and particularly like the freight railway lobby and how many of them own the vast majority of our politicians on both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 2:Not vast majority, but there's a lot of big money in that and it probably has something to do with why administrations on both sides of the aisle have not done anything to enforce this law.
Speaker 2:That's on the books Even right now, like Joe Biden or not he's supposed to be, am on both sides of the aisle, have not done anything to enforce this law. That's on the books, even you know, right now, like like joe biden or not, like he's supposed to be, amtrak joe, like where's amtrak joe on on enforcing this law, and to his credit, you know nobody's enforced it before, but not to his credit, but to you know, to his side of it, no one's enforced it, but it seems like it'd be an easy thing to do. We're gonna jump right back into this episode in just a second, but first, if you have not liked this video, go ahead and do so. Also, leave a comment. We love reading all of them and respond to as many as we can, and be sure that you are subscribed so that you catch every episode as they come out, please share this with your friends, and if you don't have time to watch YouTube videos in the future, you can catch us on any of the podcast platforms that are out there.
Speaker 1:Just be sure to leave us a rating and give us a comment. There is a new law that has been introduced to Congress, called the Rail Passenger Fairness Act that would sort of put an emphasis on this passenger rail priority and helping us enforce the law that was passed nearly 50 years ago. Now for Biden to support it, it has to make its way For him to sign it. It has to make its way For him to sign it. It has to make its way through Congress and we'll see. Pete Buttigieg, if you want to, let us know what you're doing to help enforce passenger rail service, let us know, come on talk to us.
Speaker 2:No, I think that it would be an easy thing to do, and I mean unfortunately. I think part of the reason it's not enforced is these freight rail lines have gotten so long that the sidings in many cases on single tracked rail lines are not even big enough for the freight rails to actually pull aside on them. So logistically like it's literally only possible for the passenger rail line to go sit there while the freight lines go by at a much slower speed and in many cases are over a mile long, not exaggerating at all. I mean you can legally have mile long freight rail trains in the United States.
Speaker 1:So definitely an issue. I don't think it's been a big political priority because the people who are taking the trains and these long distance routes one probably don't necessarily have the political capital to really fight for this, and for our politicians this is just such a low priority, right on the list, yeah yeah, actually, I want to give a little bit of credit to uh, somebody in congress right now who has been like pushing this stuff more than anyone seth molten, who's a representative from massachusetts.
Speaker 2:He's a good twitter follow if you're interested in any of this stuff. That's kind of how I'm aware of of him on this. He's pushing really hard for a lot of, like, great rail initiatives more than, frankly, any politician on either side of the aisle that I've seen so far. So he's, he's my new dream guest at some point. We'll get. We'll get him on, um, but yeah, I think that that's like a big thing.
Speaker 2:But all of this, though, has kind of had me thinking about, like, the future of passenger rail in the united states, given the political climate on all of this stuff, given that there are a lot more people kind of coming out in support but it's not not everyone is bought in yet, right?
Speaker 2:I think we would agree that, like you know, I'm not expecting some massive wave of politicians to come in and be like all super gung-ho on this right away.
Speaker 2:I think we really need to sell the american people and our politicians that rail is a really valuable thing for our country to invest in in the future? And are these long haul routes that go literally across the country and are not attracting the kind of ridership that you would hope for? Is it worth Amtrak spending the time, money and allocating the resources towards those, or should more emphasis be put on these kind of shorter routes that make tons of sense on paper routes that we're seeing companies like Brightline actually put private investment into, because they can see the path to not only profitability but a lot of people riding them, which is how you get to profitability. Again, these things don't need to make money, but I think if politicians saw whoa, tons of people are riding this because it is the most convenient way to get from point A to point B and people actually Americans going and riding it and being like holy shit, rail is awesome. I should be, you know, I want more of this. I want this in my town, like I just to to me.
Speaker 1:I see these long distance routes kind of as a waste of resources. Yeah, I don't disagree. One of the things I thought about when we were taking the texas eagle was uh, it's so easy to get from austin to san antonio taking it. I would absolutely make the trip if the trains were running, you know, on a regular basis, once every two, three hours, and not once in the evening.
Speaker 2:It'll take you to san antonio and then no way to get home, right, you know and and that's the thing with those long distance routes is like oftentimes they're running once per day in each direction. Yeah, so like if we wanted to take it on a day trip to san antonio. It's impossible. The only train is you leave at 6, 30 or so pm, 7 pm, and get down to san antonio and then, if you want to back, you take the train back at 6.30 in the morning the next day. A day trip is not possible going there and, frankly, just having one train per day anywhere to me doesn't feel like a real piece of transit. It feels almost like a novelty at a certain point. Agreed, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I do think we can convince more people to take passenger rail if we're focusing on these smaller city pairs. You know, look at Chicago to St Louis, look at Dallas to Austin, Austin to San Antonio, San Antonio to Houston these smaller city pairs could support more frequent train travel.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think you could encourage a lot more people to take them if the trains are just consistent. One of the best experiences that I've had with rail has been in Amsterdam, and I don't want to be I've said this before, but I don't want to be the podcast that's like Europe's always better, but one of the best experiences I've ever had with rail was in Amsterdam and you could go to any city outside of Amsterdam every 40 minutes, every 20 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on time of the day.
Speaker 2:There's a reason people like to ride the train there and it's because it's actually convenient. I mean, even when I another Europe example but I missed a train in Italy at one point and I got to the station and I asked someone and they're like, oh, it's okay, just like there's another one in 20 minutes, you can just go get on that one. And it was like the smallest deal ever. Like in my head. I was like, oh my God, I missed it. You know like I'm going to be stuck here all day. And it's like no, there's another one in 20 minutes and people will make the argument it's valid.
Speaker 1:Us cities are a little further apart. Fine, but that doesn't mean we still can't have regular service going between them, even if the trip is more than 45 minutes-hour trip. If you know that you can get back with regular service, right yeah.
Speaker 2:So I definitely think that the emphasis needs to be more on some of these short routes and the value and the kind of like worthiness of should these trains and this personnel be spent on some of these lower frequency, longer distance routes. I kind of don't see it. I also will say, though I mean you know if, if the amtrak is the only thing that stops in some of these towns, I wouldn't want to just necessarily rip it away and replace it with nothing, um, but I do think that that's a valid spot for maybe intercity bus versus intercity rail, which is a lot less costly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and there and we'll do a whole episode on that, yeah, and you should still be able to connect from one side of the country to the other via train. But you know, maybe you do it through these city pairs, right, and that's how you get there. Some people just aren't going to fly, right. Yeah, some people, it is their way to get across the country.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about our specific experience. I think on the Texas Eagle, some things that stood out. It was, I mean, it was basically on time. I think it was 10 minutes delayed or something, when we, from when we were supposed to get on it which was not a big deal, I will say it felt a little. The boarding process felt a little clunky. I was going to say janky, clunky for sure. Yes, clunky is the better word. It was just, I mean, there was no level boarding.
Speaker 1:There was no level boarding. You got a little yellow stool that you had to step up on.
Speaker 2:You had to help somebody get on the train right, there was a, an older woman with a cane who, uh, had, you know, I, she needed a hand getting onto it and there was no one there to really help her. And I just like saw them going up on their own and I was like, do you want some help? And I I literally, you know, put out my arm and helped her get up onto it. And then, right, when you get on the train too, it's super narrow. There's a super narrow staircase to wind up.
Speaker 1:Um, there is lower level seating as well, so that not everybody goes to the top.
Speaker 2:But still not not the most accessible thing. Uh, there also, just uh. I experienced this in new york city and I see people complain about this on twitter. The boarding process for a train should not be everyone getting in a single file line and then being told where to go. Trains have multiple doors and everyone can get on and on faster if you have people literally line up where the platforms are and every other place that I've gotten on a train that's kind of been how you do it.
Speaker 1:But we stood at the end of. We stood at the end of the walkway and the conductor came by and scanned every single ticket before you got on the train, and then you waited in a line to get on the train.
Speaker 2:It didn't make any sense right, and the scanning off the train also doesn't make a whole lot of sense on a route like that too. When you've got 45 minutes before the next stop, you check tickets on the train, which is again how basically every country that knows how to do trains does trains. So you know the efficiency of the whole thing wasn't great. Another thing we noticed Chris said it very quickly, like we kind of got on the train and we sat in our seats and very quickly Chris was like this feels a little dingy and they were Chris was like this feels a little dingy, and they were.
Speaker 1:It was, excuse me, it was just dark and you know the seats were comfortable, but it just felt dingy.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was old, it felt old. Yeah, it was clearly one of those trains that replaced the Rainbow trains in like the early 90s?
Speaker 1:Yeah right, I mean I'm not exaggerating, it definitely was. It felt like that. Yeah, like the early 90s, yeah right, and I mean I'm not exaggerating, no, it felt like that. Yeah, absolutely it was. It felt older, it felt a little dingy, not. All that being said, it was still comfortable yeah, and it was minus the bathrooms.
Speaker 2:It was clean it was clean.
Speaker 1:The bathrooms were not pleasant, but it was also the end of a really long journey for the train. So, yeah, maybe that's a good excuse, but for the most part very clean, and we did walk over to the, the lounge car, yeah, and spent most of our trip from there right, yeah, which was nice.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know I I enjoyed the lounge car. Both the lounge car and the actual seats is nice, like if you want to work on something like this, you've got reliable plugs, you have a lot more room than you would on a plane or anything like that.
Speaker 1:You could literally, like, put your feet straight out uh, I will say with the lounge car, the dining car, we got on and it was like we just started leaving austin and they came over the intercom and they're like, hey, the lounge is closing like the last call for any alcohol or snacks or food. Uh, and this is before we even got to san marcos, so it wasn't like this was after the last stop on the train line. Right, there was a whole stop ahead of us before.
Speaker 2:Right, they were already shutting things down and like you know, we got over there and, like you know, the, the woman who was running it, actually like she had pulled it closed when we wanted to get another drink real quick, and she, she hooked it up for us and everything. So, uh, it was all good. But, um, you know, a couple other pluses though you get some nice views along the way. Uh, you know, going over the, the bridge, leaving austin, we had a couple nice views, even headed south, uh, further down along the track. So, uh, you know, getting some perspectives you can't get unless you're on the train, which is nice.
Speaker 1:And there's something really nice about just being able to like sit at a table while you're traveling, and we miss that with air travel because you're crammed into your seat. There is no like communal space, and what I really really appreciate about train travel is that there is a communal space that you can hang out in. Now, the busier the line you shouldn't spend a whole lot of time in there, um, but it's an option that's available to you that you just don't get in any other real, you know, regular form of transit.
Speaker 2:Right, I agree. But uh, the future of these things, uh, you know there's there's some optimistic things to look at. Earlier this year we had the corridor id program kind of launch and, uh, there's a really fun map to look at that we can put up on the screen. If you're watching, if you're listening, you can look up the corridor id map, um, but uh, yeah, I mean, on it there is a lot of kind of what we talked about as far as, like, some of these shorter routes versus long distance routes, although there are also, hilariously like, there's like a long distance route that goes across montana. That's that made the list for a feasibility study and, if like to me, that's just put that money and those resources towards something that makes sense now.
Speaker 2:Put it where people live. We can build rail across Montana once we connect major cities. Houston is not connected to so many of these systems. Big cities should be connected before we start connecting small places across the country. So something positive to look at, and there is some funding being there. Most of this funding is for studies, which you know. A study is great, but there are lots of things that have been studied that nowhere see the light of day. So if you're into this sort of thing, definitely reach out to your representatives, to your city councils and to all those sorts of folks and let them know that it's a priority, because if nobody's saying anything to them, they're not thinking that it's a priority. So definitely make sure your voice is heard in those forums when you can. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think we're probably going to wrap it up there.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So tell us in the comments have you taken Amtrak? Do you rely on it regularly? What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 2:What would you like to see be the future of Amtrak? Absolutely, and if you haven't liked this video already, please consider doing so. Also consider subscribing. And we're also a podcast too, so if you want to just listen to some of these in the future, uh, go ahead. You can find us on any of your favorite podcasting platforms, whether that be Apple, spotify, amazon, whatever pod platform you may be. We're on SoundCloud, which my partner, jerry, is a little upset about. Maybe we'll be on SoundCloud someday.
Speaker 1:There's also a new feature on our website. If you go to transittangentscom, you can support the show by buying us a coffee. So if you feel so inclined and you like what we're doing, please feel free to visit our website and do that as well.
Speaker 2:And I believe you can also do that on YouTube now in the comments too. So thank you all so much for watching. Anyway, we really appreciate it and we will see you on the next Transit Tanges Tuesday.