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I'll probably always take the train into Boston. Even though it's a little more expensive than taking a greyhound or driving (if I can find parking), I don't like to drive in Boston. However, if I needed to go much further I'd be in a bind. The website is really difficult to use at times. I was trying to get to Maryland(?) at one point to buy a used car, but I couldn't find a page that would show me stations near where I needed to go. I ended up finding one nearby using Google, and though the Amtrak website allowed it as a destination, it seemed there were never trains headed there. After 15 minutes of confusion, I checked wikipedia and it turned out the station had been closed to trains for years and only operated as a museum.

So even if they redid the rails, they might have to redo the website as well.




If you can drive in Boston, you can drive almost anywhere -- e.g. I didn't find driving round the Arc de Triomphe in Paris particularly difficult. Who needs lines? :-)

But I'd probably take the commuter train instead if they ran more often -- if we ever go back to offices.


The UI of the Amtrak fare / ticket finding website is terrible.


The website is bad, but phoning Amtrak actually worked pretty well for me! There wasn't much of a wait, the staff were friendly and knowledgeable, and they were able to really quickly plan out complicated routes with multiple transfers and compare different options. (One wonders if they could make whatever fancy planning/booking system they use available to the public.)

Admittedly this was a couple years ago, so it's possible COVID or budget cuts have changed things for the worse.


> The website is bad, but phoning Amtrak actually worked pretty well for me!

Underappreciated these days: web is not always the priority method of interaction for people.

The web is great, but for historical or practical reasons a lot of people and businesses prefer other solutions.

E.g. construction workers and phones




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