thomsen.

It’s the end of the 4th of July. A long, exciting weekend for many of us. For some, the dreading moment has already arrived. For others, it is still awaiting for our return. The moment, of course, is the day that we go back to work. The moment, in which, our daily rituals are never-ending. You knew that the day would come, but you didn’t think that it would end so far.

As for me, that moment is still awaiting for me. As of right now, powered by 120 Volts, powered by Amtrak, I am able to write this post. I have to say that my overall experience hasn’t been too bad. If I had to compared this experience to my last experience, well, all I can say that the experience has been a vast improvement compared to last time. This train ride so far has been a pleasant experience. At first, I realized that I was on the wrong side to board the train heading to San Diego, but with quick feet, I made it to the other side in plenty of time to board the train. As I boarded the train, I went up the stairs and quickly found an empty seat for myself and for my travel suitcase.

As I got myself comfortable, (the train has plenty of leg space!) I was able to pull out my laptop with ease. Not only that, I had plenty of typing room to work on this post. Please feel free to check out some of the pictures that are posted. As you can see, this is a vast improvement compared to my last experience riding on Amtrak trains. The ride on the train is quite smooth right now. Before, the train shook and vibrated so bad that it was nearly impossible to type, but now, I can look out the window and type and watch has beautiful houses, trees, and people pass me by.

Improvements

Now, for all reasons that I mentioned above, that yes, the experience was overwhelming positive. However, I still believe that there can be significant improvements that can be made to make the ride even more positive than before.

Wi-Fi

Free or not, I believe that wi-fi should be offered on all trains. I would hope that Amtrak would be able to find a way to encourage that they would be able to offer free Wi-Fi to their customers, but I understand that sometimes, not everything is possible. Nevertheless, if Amtrak does opt for paid Wi-Fi, I would be more than happy to pay $5-6 bucks for up to two hours of Wi-Fi time. My best guess, since I don’t have internet right now to research this, is that Amtrak is or already is setting up a system that will enable this use within the next several months or two to three years from now.

*Update: A little after half an hour on writing this, Amtrak does offer free wi-fi. However, at some places during the trip, it can be extremely slow.

Accommodations

Accommodations are still lacking for people who are deaf/hard of hearing and blind. With the technology that we have now, announcements of arrival to a station should be announced electronically and verbally. For my trip, all arrival announcements were made verbally, but still, if a client who was totally deaf would still not know when they have arrived at a particular station. Now, yes, some could argue that there are signs at the station for them to look out the window that let’s them know that they have arrived, yet, what if they get distracted texting a friend, in a deep conversations with their wife, reading a suspenseful book, or is typing a blog on their laptop computer?

Accessibility is not an issue; accommodations is the issue. I believe that accommodations should be given equally to all customers.