Amtrak's actual ID checking policy revolves around your ticket number. A random number is chosen at the beginning of each train trip, and if the last digit of your ticket number matches that, the conductor is supposed to check your ID.

The conductor who usually works my morning train says apologetically "It's like a strange lottery with no prize"... He doesn't like doing it.

The one time I rode the San Joaquin line, the conductor asked EVERY passenger for ID. And he hassled quite unapologetically anyone who could not produce one (although I don't think he went so far as to kick them off of the train). He even had to gall to try to make small talk about his brother living in the same town that I do.

On the other hand, I have never been asked for ID on the Coast Starlight.

Seems kinda tricky. There are three or four places on the train a passenger could be. Lounge, cafe, dining car, seat, room if sleeping car. It is one thing to know where the passenger is supposed to ride. It is another thing to actually find them there. But maybe that varies by the route.

Bolding mine: This doesn't surprise me. It is probably a DHS requirement, you know, "ID is important! (so that we're not made to look like idiots when a person with 11 fake IDs gets past us)" :rolleyes:

It's been a while since I've been asked for ID on Amtrak, but discretion does go a long way in my book. Starting a conversation or making a public remark based on any of my personal data on the ID is definitely a turn-off. Back in 2005, boarding the northbound Silver Meteor in Jacksonville, the conductor collecting tickets in the station looked at my California ID and loudly exclaimed, "California! Well, you're sure a long way from home!" I'm sorry, any innocent intentions aside, my home location is no one's business. :mad: I can put it out there on my FT profile, but such public disclosure is my prerogative, not that of anyone else.

You should respond with "Si Senor". All CBP officers need to know how to speak spanish. So if the officer complains, just say you're brushing up on your spanish skills ;)

I'd say "thanks a lot for sharing it with all these strangers. Now I won't have to strike up conversations with everybody in the car so I can tell them where I'm from". Then give him a look that says "Idiot!"

I'm on the Maple Leaf right now and wasn't asked for any ID. I don't recall if I've been asked before - maybe on a NEC trip DC to NYP.

But what I'd really like to know is how Amtrak can justify this? They claim to be a private company, and so what authority do they have to demand my ID? Other private companies could never get away with that.

Actually, I think it would be easier for private companies to get away with this than the government. After all, the only thing our Bill of Rights applies to is government (and really mostly toward Federal at that, unless you look at something the the Tenth Amendment). (Notwithstanding that privacy isn't a right...)

Private companies can place whatever restrictions and requirements they wish upon people in a business relationship. If you don't like it, you're free to conduct business with someone else. (Subject, of course, to market forces making such choices imprudent for them.)

Amtrak is only a private company in organization, it's owned by the government and funded by the government. If it was truly private, then first amendment issues would be moot because as was pointed out, there IS no first amendment with private entities. Otherwise, the outrage about Amtrak arresting the photographer, and the ACLU getting them to change their photographic policy wouldn't have worked. Greyhound prohibits taking pictures, but you don't see the ACLU suing them over it.

I wan't aware that Amtrak changed their photo policy; I'm under the impression that they always allowed photography and the Amtrak Police just didn't know their own employer's rules and made an arrest.

Obscenity if not protected under the First Amendment.