Amtrak's Host Railroads

I am a rail fan and frequent Amtrak rider, so you're probably asking what I have to complain about. Here's the answer: Amtrak's crappy performance.

Believe it or not, most of the time it's not Amtrak's fault that they are late, it's their host railroads such as BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern, etc. The dispatchers are REQUIRED BY LAW to give Amtrak trains priority to operate on time but they don't. They stop an Amtrak train about every 30 minutes to let a long, slow freight go by. Why? Because they are getting more money off of freight and don't care about passengers who may have to connect to another train in Chicago or something. The passengers end up cranky and so does the train crew. The bad thing is that there is a federal law that a train crew may only work twelve (12) consecutive hours before they are forced to stop the train. The schedules are worked so that trains can switch crews at appropriate times, but when a train it late, it is required to stop wherever they are when the crew reached 12 hours. That means the trains will become even more late because they will have to ship the new crew out to the train's location, and everyone gets pissed off. In short, I am angry with these host railroads who hold up everyone's day because of some long, slow freight. Amtrak needs to purchase all of the tracks that they operate on and say "screw you" to the freight companies, because they suck.


Railpictures.net 2

Railpictures.net... oh where do I start on them? That site is definitely what you would call a "country club". Internet Country Club to be more specific. They are really picky about what pictures they accept, I have uploaded some very nice pictures in my opinion) to their site and are promptly rejected for some bullshit reason. Yet at the same time I see really crappy, dark, almost hard to see pictures accepted. My guess is those pictures are submitted by the asskissers/respected members on the site, the loyal do-gooders on railpictures.net. And gladly throw their money away on a "RP Elite" membership at the same time. And I am pretty damn certain the pictures are promptly rushed thru the screening process and put up immediately. I'm sorry, but I take pretty damn good pictures and I don't need "you people" to tell me how to shoot them and criticize them. I will simply upload my pictures elsewhere where quality is not a top priority like you control freaks. I advise my fellow rail fans to STAY AWAY from rp.net, and upload them to rrpicturearchives.net .

*Note from Anger Central
We looked at both sites and do not have any way to make a comparison. They both look ok to us, but we don't have any interest in them one way or another. We also placed it under companies/railroads since it deals with companies and railroads. Originally the poster placed this under groups.


DSB Railways 3

DSB, probably one of the most hated rail companies in existence at this point. Once upon a time, they were efficient, well-run and pleasant to ride on. I used to look forward to it, in fact, during my travels in Scandinavia.

At this point though? Not so much. The last few times it's been nothing but delay after delay, malfunction after malfunction. They cannot keep their trains on time no matter how many of them they have or how good the weather is. You'd think that in the 21st century, we'd have something as basic as rail service within our command, optimized and running like a well-oiled machine, but you'd be horribly wrong if you were talking about DSB.

These absolute fucking idiots actually spent BILLIONS of dollars on new trains recently, sourced from Italy (but probably full of parts from China) which it turns out cannot run worth of shit. The 20+ year old trains they had? Those work just fine. The new pieces of shit? It's been such a spectacular failure that they've had brake failures which almost caused collisions. No, not just a one off, but repeatedly. The toilets don't work properly, the A/C doesn't work properly, the computers have issues, the engines don't work properly, the electrical system has issues related to the temperature, you name it, there's a fucking problem.

And no, I'm not exaggerating either. It's been covered in Scandinavian tabloids and major news rags for many months since it began and the company is hemorrhaging money, so this doesn't help. They've given a staggering number of refunds to people, myself included, because of their colossal and repeated fuck ups and inability to get people from point A to point B without delays, trains breaking down, near-collisions or God only knows what else.

What's worse, DSB is actually trying to get out of their contract with these pieces of shit in Italy and to give back these fucking trains that don't work. I hope to God they work something out and get rid of them, or I'm going to just start taking road transport instead. It costs more, surely, but what is your choice? Save a few bucks and miss your non-refundable flight at the airport when the shit breaks down or gets you maimed in a wreck? No thanks.

Fuck you DSB, you completely and utterly helpless pieces of shit. You've run the fucking company into the ground and turned rail transport in Scandinavia into a fucking joke. I used to love riding the rails, now it's almost as bad as the airlines thanks to you assholes.

Oh and another big FUCK YOU for getting rid of your puppet/mascot 'Harry', which was the coolest signature character ever and whose merchandise and TV commercials were witty and funny. One less reason to ride the rails with DSB (as if anyone needed another reason).


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