About me:
I am Tom Jankowski. As of
Besides
trains, I am also a transit enthusiast. That includes subways, light rail, and
buses. My all time favourite subway cars were the
At present, I am employed by Home Depot. Many of the train trips I’ve taken between 2005 and 2010 I worked around my work schedule at my former job at Wal-Mart. For example, if I was planning a trip somewhere for a certain number of days, I check my work schedule in advance and make reservations around that.
Some helpful
train travel tips:
1. Make reservations: Many Amtrak trains and most VIA trains require reservations anyways. If you book sooner, you may be able to get a cheaper fare. Ontario Northland’s Northlander is an unreserved train, so you have to buy your tickets on the day of departure (or the night before).
2. Get to the station early: A general rule is to get to the train station at least 30 minutes prior to your train’s departure. You should get there even earlier if you want to check baggage, (possibly 60 minutes before departure). If you do check your bags, make sure they’re identified.
3. Know
maximum size and number of carry-on articles: Amtrak allows two carry on
articles and up to three bags can be checked with no charge. VIA Rail
4. When you board the train, take your seat and wait for the conductor to take your ticket: Once the conductor takes your ticket, he'll put a small seat check tag above your seat with a 3 letter code stating where you get off (Example: TWO for Toronto) so if you want to sleep on the train, its okay; you won't miss your stop! A member of the crew will kindly wake you up when it gets close to your stop. You should also wait for the conductor to take your ticket before heading to the café car, diner, dome car, etc. If you are in a sleeper, he’ll take your ticket upon boarding.
5. Bring earphones if you bring an electronic device on board: That includes CD players, walkmans, hand-held video game systems, and scanners. You don’t want to disturb other passengers.
6. Have fun: That’s what train travel is all about. You have the freedom to walk around the train, purchase food from the café car, and visit the dome car if the train is such equipped. You also are entitled access to a dining car if the train is equipped with one.
What’s with the dot?
If you’ve read many pages with pictures, you may have noticed a small dot at the bottom of the page that looks like this:
The reason it
is there is that when I was in