"Do We smell like roses or gardenias today?"

This guy... ?

I, for one, welcome the coming Ottocracy.

Wow, this is the first thing I've seen in over year that makes me want to procreate. Just so I can do this to my kids.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the northeast corridor was the most heavily used, so the train cars are probably more "well-worn." I concur on the cafe car. No matter how long I was stuck between stations, you could never induce me to get one of their sandwiches.

I think that's a very positive and hopeful outlook on this. I'm glad someone can be less cynical about this than me.

Outlets. Yes.

Just because it's fanfic doesn't mean it has to be bad. You can find decently written fanfic easily. This is just shitty, regardless of origin.

I can see that. There is nothing more relaxing than knowing absolutely nothing can go wrong worse than "we might be stopped in one spot on the way to my destination for a while" could possibly happen.

I was completely shocked any literate person bought this after reading a free sample of it. In 10 pages of prose, I think there were maybe 6 different verbs, tops.

Tell me about it. I'll take being crowded, overbooked, smelly and scratchy on a train over the same damn thing on a plane for 10x the cost any day.

It depends on which lines have which cars running on them, and what you're comparing them to. I'm an afficionado of the Northeast Corridor (DC to Boston), but I've never done Amtrak south of DC. Maybe, when it's not an overbooked crazy unreserved nightmare ride between NYC and Philly, it's better?

There is hope for humanity yet.

Whatever is sweet, picturesque and charming on non-American trains is downright uncomfortable, scratchy, smelly, and oddly sticky on American ones.

No, I never made it past the Kindle Free Sample of 50 Shades, so you get maybe 10-15 pages of it. It doesn't get into the really raunchy stuff, which would be even more fun, but the writing is bad enough that even her first sighting of the boy (wtf was his name?) is kinda hilarious.

Yeah, has anyone here actually been on an Amtrak in the last 10 years. That shit nasty.

Double-posting to add, if you ever need to induce medical-grade laugh attacks, please make your Kindle read aloud a chapter of 50 Shades. There's just something about hearing "Oh My!" in that sexy Speak'n'Spell voice that just sends me.

It may be just that it's friday afternoon in a european-style office (ie, upper management left at noon, if they were here at all), but I totally read that as "Austrian transit company Wiener Leanin' "

Maybe that's part of it, but the insistence about scratches makes me think they're talking about any kind of resistance, including the kneeing.