Originally Posted by
jbalmuth
I would imagine that a 3.5 hour delay from Emeryville, its starting point, would have been much discussed during your journey. Did you ever find out what the issue was? And do you know whether the passengers initiating from Emeryville were boarded before the delays began?
They told us it was a mechanical delay. What was really frustrating is that if they had told us what the extent of the delay would be from the start, we could have stayed in our air conditioned hotel until at least noon or later instead of sitting in the hot train station in Sacramento. We were then held up several times - once because the switches weren't working right and had to be changed by hand (!) and then because we got stuck behind a freight train that was running 20 mph.
Having taken many trains in Europe and Asia, my only comment is that Amtrak is a national disgrace. I don't usually flame companies, but this is truly amazing. People were repeatedly commenting about how traveling on Amtrak is like visiting a 3rd world country.