> Full trains are a bigger problem than fresh food for Amtrak.

And upgrading their network to Positive Train Control should be a higher priority than full trains and food. They've had several fatal crashes recently that PTC might have avoided.

I thought the holdup with PTC is that the freight companies don't care about it so aren't bothering to instrument the tracks.

They're working on it, and have been for a while now. The main problem is its just a massive amount of work. They had to develop a fail safe system almost from scratch (Which also has to be interoperable between railroads). And then they have to implement it, and since it requires installing new hardware (antennas, different processors, etc), every couple of miles along the track it is a time consuming process. And then there's all the backoffice infrastructure to manage it, and the railroad-grade hardware to be installed in every locomotive. BNSF alone has 34,000 miles of track, UP a similar amount.

It'll be really neat when its done, and its in operation on some subdivisions, its only a matter of time.

Source: Worked on PTC for BNSF.

Depends on where you are flying. ANA is my favorite airline (Japan), but Lufthansa (Germany) has better food I think.

EVA (Asia) food isn’t great, but United and Delta are still worse imo.

My experiences with ANA have been pretty fantastic. One time I was flying to Japan and the plane were going to get on was hit by lightning as it landed. Apparently the FAA then requires a mandatory rebooting and testing process that takes 6 hours. ANA did three things here that really separated them from other airlines:

1. During the 6 hour wait, despite there being no news, I could walk up to the counter and say "Hey just checking again to see if there's any update?" and every single time, without fail, they were friendly, polite and apologetic for the situation.

2. When we got on board the captain got on the loud speaker and immediately apologized profusely "for our incompetence." The plane was struck by lightning, a literal "act of god" and the captain still apologized to us.

3. When we landed in Tokyo they handed us about $200 in cash to deal with taking a cab since it was much later than expected arrival.

I just can't imagine this kind of treatment from an American airline, even on international flights.

Thts cool, yea ANA seems to get it. I also appreciated the bidets on the plane toilets :)

Singapore Airlines has amazing food if you use their book the cook service but even the lobster and steak, while good, is obviously not prepared from scratch in the galley.

Amtrak's food was on par with Applebees, not amazing but still restaurant quality food. I don't think there's any airline that really compares since none have a full kitchen on the plane. E.g. here's amtrak's dining cars: https://www.amtrakvacations.com/content/uploads/2016/01/supe...

The BA LON - EDI route always used to have awesome cream teas on the evening flights to London :-) and being able to rock up show your card and have a drink and be on a plane < 30 mins later

Then again I Was on full ride and was staying in the Balmoral or the Cally

Never flew Asian airlines, but among European ones the best food I typically find on flights with Air France.

Air France! Yea I forgot that one. That was very good! Iirc they had warm hand towels before each meal that were real towels instead of packaged towelettes.

Agreed in the UK I used to have to fairly regularly do London to Scarborough for conferences I always used to prefer to go up on the Friday on the flying Scotsman to York (and eat on the train).

And have Saturday and Sunday as time to prep for conference and have some me time in a cool uk seaside resort

I'm curious what regular conferences are held in Scarborough?

Political ones mostly

Food on the Amtrak line running up the length of Oregon to Seattle is terrible. Not airline terrible, but not far from it.

Oh sorry for the contradicting opinion, I thought we were sharing anecdotes here.