Originally Posted by sdsearch

It's not an obvious answer is you had read the OP's profile. They seem to be based in Australia, where there is no Amtrak. And also note that every train system they asked about in their post was outside the USA.

The Amtrak train system in the USA isn't used much by most long-distance travelers, while train systems in other parts of the world are. One reason: The US is big, but most Amtrak trains are slow and low frequency compared to various high-speed trains in Europe or the bullet trains in Japan (while Europe and Japan are much more compact than the USA).

I've been sitting on about 8000ish Amtrak points for about a decade now (I think my last significant point increase was a transfer in from the long-gone-now Midwest Airlines), and I still haven't come up with a "non-wasting" use for them (so I do just what's necessary to keep from expiring, hoping that in another decade I might find some good use for them finally). Amtrak just doesn't seem to make any sense on most of the journeys I take (given that I'm based in SoCal, rather than along the Acela corridor). If Amtrak points worked on the Alaskan Railroad, then I'd definitely have a use -- Alaska is one of the very few places in the country where trains get you to places that no other transport can), but no, that's a completely independent system.