Passenger Trains > train 68 border crossing

I rode the Maple Leaf from Toronto last year and it took nearly 2 hours to get past the border. I wondered how long it generally takes with the south bound Adirondack?

Can you imagine such nonsense at the airport ? Think the airlines would stand for that ? La Hood needs to have a "chat" with a colleague.

Carper needs to tell Lahood to get the Border Babons off the Lake Shore too. I don't think the Amtrak Chairman cares. They already allowed the International to die due to abuses at Port Huron.

I usually do the trip on 68 two or three times per year and it generally takes 1-1.5 hours dwell time at the border coming into the US. Of course you can never be certain and it only takes 1 moron to foul it up for the entire train. The schedule permits 1 hour southbound and 1 hour and 45 minutes northbound. The Canadian Customs Officers are much less efficient and seem to derive some sick pleasure out of delaying the train. Just my 2 cents.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/11 14:12 by rombout137.

I was hoping that Amtrak, the State of NY, and VIA Rail Canada would get a bit more serious and actually establish a "customs clearing" area at Toronto Union Station (instead of the enroute stop), similiar to how the Amtrak Cascades trains are handled in Vancouver, British Columbia.

This would cut the running time of the Adirondack down (pretty drastically now) if they made the second (southbound) or second to last stop (northbound) in the US and then Toronto as the Terminal point where customs is done (i.e. eliminating St. Lambert as a stop).

Gone is the northbound Adirondack same day connection to VIA's eastbound Ocean or Gaspe train. This used to be a great connection so as to avoid overnighting in Toronto (or multiple nights if one wanted to try and catch the train to Gaspe).

A few times, if the northbound Adirondack was running late, I would be able to get off at St. Lambert and still make my eastbound connection to the Ocean or train to Gaspe. Course this was also when the schedule had the Adirondack arriving into Montreal earlier heading northbound.

If "customs" was done in Montreal, perhaps passengers would currently have a chance to make a same day connection between the northbound Adirondack and eastbound VIA Rail Ocean or Gaspe train.

That connection is now really tight that I would not recommend it any more. This is another connection that Amtrak has negated over the years. The Adirondack's running time has been greatly increased over the years, be it due to customs, additional padding, or reduced speeds north of Albany.

One would hope that the State of NY still and Amtrak still seeks out money to bring about some upgrades to NY's only "state financed train."

One would also think that at Niagara Falls customs could also be hastened since this is a big car/bus crossing point.

Only three trains now make the crossing into Canada. It still seems that 20th century practices (and prior) are being employed to get trains to/from Canada. Gone is the International train and even the Montrealer train.

Last March, I took my private car "TIOGA PASS" to Montreal on the Adirondack. We carefully checked out the car and
the four passengers were all in lounge (living room?) with passports, awaiting the Canadian Customs visit at Rouses
Point. The train sat there for nearly an hour, and we expected any minute to hear them enter the car. Instead,
suddenly, the train took off. We were never checked.

When I flew out of Montreal several days later, the immigation people really gave me a hard time, since their
computers had no record of my entering Canada. I should have told them I walked in from Russia!

Norm

Almost every time I've ridden the Adirondack and the Maple Leaf the U.S. Border Patrol agents removed person(s) from the trains, handcuffed them and placed them in their cars. This took over an hour each time. So, I guess they are finding people who are wanted by the law on the trains.

A couple years ago I rode the train to Vancouver, BC, and it was routed into a 10 foot high chain link "cage" at the VIA Rail station. The customs check took two hours. There was only a three hour layover before the sanme train went back to Seattle, so we had very little time to explore around in Vancouver.

NormSchultze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can you imagine such nonsense at the airport ?
> Think the airlines would stand for that ? La Hood
> needs to have a "chat" with a colleague.

Ah ha, but let's take another look here. The equivalent to "airlines" in the above example is not "LaHood". It's "Amtrak" that would be the equivalent here. So, why does Amtrak stand for this?

Likely, the answer is that it's Amtrak's customers that stand for this, and don't mind enough to "not stand for it". Amtrak doesn't really care, figuring their job is done if the train gets out of the yard, and its passengers on these trains typically ride infrequently, so they have no real incentive to get involved. If they do react negatively, it's probably by not riding again, and choosing another mode next time. Business airline passengers are time-sensitive and frequent travelers, and that's why they care.

Meanwhile, it only took about 15 minutes to clear a train at the West German/East German border, suggesting that when the train service is important, even crossing the Iron Curtain was doable with dispatch.

I've done the train to Vancouver often and Canadian Customs has never taken more than a few minutes. Of course even crossing into Russia from the Ukraine, it only took about a half hour for an 18 car train! Elsewhere in the EU of course there are no checks at all between countries.

Last June we were unloaded one car at a time at Vancouver. We were in the first car from the loco...therefore the last off 8=( Once inside the customs part went very quickly 8=)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/11 06:34 by santafedan.

reindeerflame Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NormSchultze Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Can you imagine such nonsense at the airport ?
>
> > Think the airlines would stand for that ? La
> Hood
> > needs to have a "chat" with a colleague.
>
> Ah ha, but let's take another look here. The
> equivalent to "airlines" in the above example is
> not "LaHood". It's "Amtrak" that would be the
> equivalent here. So, why does Amtrak stand for
> this?
>
> Likely, the answer is that it's Amtrak's customers
> that stand for this, and don't mind enough to "not
> stand for it". Amtrak doesn't really care,
> figuring their job is done if the train gets out
> of the yard, and its passengers on these trains
> typically ride infrequently, so they have no real
> incentive to get involved. If they do react
> negatively, it's probably by not riding again, and
> choosing another mode next time. Business airline
> passengers are time-sensitive and frequent
> travelers, and that's why they care.
>
> Meanwhile, it only took about 15 minutes to clear
> a train at the West German/East German border,
> suggesting that when the train service is
> important, even crossing the Iron Curtain was
> doable with dispatch.

After over a decade of dealing with cross-border passenger rail traffic (and over two if you count the cross-border freight traffic), I'm pretty sure that the problem is not Amtrak. The problem is customs and immigration, two departments only theoretically merged under Homeland Security, that have almost unlimited power and haven't necessarily played well together. Thee arrangement in Canada is different, but not vastly better. Amtrak is not going to change that and neither is USDOT.

TAW