I started taking Amtrak in March of 2006 as my way of "giving the finger" to the airlines. My trips on Amtrak (though not on time and not their fault) have been alot better experiences than the hell of air travel now. I can doze, sleep and nap comfortably, the food is alot better than on an airplane, I haven't had one rude employee and the whole experience is so much more pleseant then flying has gotten to be over the last decade. To this day, the latest I was arriving on Amtrak was 11 hours and it didn't cost me a dime for the lateness. United Airlines got me to my arrival city 14 hours late, made me pay %50 on a hotel room I slept in for two hours for a conference that is once every 5 years. I was also two hours late coming home due to United Airlines so my total "lateness" by United for that one weekend trip was 16 hours. Do the math! And you want to talk about rude employees?!? I was in line for 3 hours at United Customer Pimping desk to be bitched at and treated like crap for a flight that they made me miss and I never even raised my voice once. I just wanted my %50 off hotel voucher so I could sleep that night. Oh...it took 30 minutes to get to my hotel as well.
