Limited Booking

[PJS1]

According to Amtrak's website, booking for coach and business class will be limited temporarily to 50 percent of capacity.  

Based on the number of passengers observed on the Texas Eagle, this should not create much of an issue. 

Also, I believe Amtrak has suspended communal dining on its long-distance trains.  Given the small number of people traveling, apparently there are enough tables to seat everyone separately.  

[Convicted One]

PJS1

booking for coach and business class will be limited temporarily to 50 percent of capacity.  

If it were your responsibility, how would you implement 50%?

Every other row? every other seat? Staggered row placement?

It seems to me that 50% isn't going to comply with the 6 foot rule, which is why I ask.

[PJS1]

Convicted One

If it were your responsibility, how would you implement 50%?

Every other row? every other seat? Staggered row placement?  

Staggered window seats by row probably would keep passengers six feet apart on most coach and business class cars. 

 

No system is perfect.  Maintaining the desired separation could be compromised when people board and deboard the train or get up to go to the toilets, dining car, or lounge car unless the crew carefully controls the processes.   

 

COVID-19 is a serious health issue.  Social distancing and avoidance of close encounters of any sort is a prudent defense.  But it is important to keep the risk in perspective. 

 

According to the CDC, based on data as of April 6^th, across the U.S. .10% of the population have come down with COVID-19 and 2.69% of those that had it died.  A significant percentage of those that have died from the disease had underlying heath issues or were relatively old.  Moreover, to get to the point where 1% of the population had the disease would take 3,295,000 cases, which even the most pessimistic estimates don’t predict.

 

I am 80.  My next cruise is scheduled for October.  If it goes, which is problematic, I will be on it.  I am not going to spend the rest of my life hunkered down in my house scared of my own shadow. 

[Convicted One]

PJS1

Staggered window seats by row probably would keep passengers six feet apart on most coach and business class cars. 

Your suggestion of staggered row window seats appears workable from the 6 foot perspective. But that to me sounds like less than 50% capacity, at least for coach. (one seat out of every four, if I understand you correctly) But I suppose that concern  is petty because they will be lucky to sell even 25% with the way things are.

 

PJS1

According to the CDC, based on data as of April 6th, across the U.S. .10% of the population have come down with COVID-19

I have personal reservations about the testing  statistics as reported. If tests were available to anyone who wanted one then I might be more optimistic. 

But the way it looks to me, unless you are part of a privileged group, the only way you are gonna get tested is if you are headed to the hospital anyway.  I think they are using the tests available, not in any attempt to document  the extent of the spread of the virus, but more in an attempt to seggregate hospital admissions to protect  medical staff.

As such, I don't believe that the "scoreboards" that are so popular everywhere reflect realistic numbers, because testing strategy as designed  excludes asymptomatic infections

[PJS1]

Convicted One

 Your suggestion of staggered row window seats appears workable from the 6 foot perspective. But that to me sounds like less than 50% capacity, at least for coach. 

You are correct.  It would fill only 25 percent of the seats.  According to Amtrak's latest numbers, ridership is down more than 80 percent, so the 50 percent booking level may be a target that is rarely achieved.

On a Superliner, even if the company sold every window seat, there probably is six feet or more from widow seat to window seat across the aisle.  I am not sure how much distance exists between the rows, but it is significant.  So, the company probably could sell every window seat without greatly compromising the "social distancing" recommendations.

The statistics re: COVID-19 are all over the place.  WHO, CDC, John Hopkins, Texas Health and Human Services, etc. all report different statistics.  John Hopkins as well as the media seem to be in a race to report the scariest statistics before anyone else.  Even for a worse case scenario, the percentage of Americans that are likely to come down with COVID-19 is very low.  And the percentage that are likely to die from it is even lower.

The concern is that even a small number of cases will overwhelm the health care system, which is apparently what has happened in New York City.

[Electroliner 1935]

PJS1

I am 80.  My next cruise is scheduled for October.  If it goes, which is problematic, I will be on it.  I am not going to spend the rest of my life hunkered down in my house scared of my own shadow. 

While I am not scared of my shadow, I am hunkered down in my house and hoping to not be a burden on an overloaded medical system. That is what concerns me, people who ignore their responsibility to society to not put the caregivers in jeopardy needlessly. Until the CDC announces it is ok to stop the shelter in place rules, I am resigned to try to cooperate. My wife and daughter are nurses and while they are not currently practicing, I respect what doctors and nurses are doing and they are needing the public's help to limit the burden they are faced with. If by your choices, you come in contact with a "spreader" (one that is asymptomatic but spreading the virus) and get infected, I am sure you would want medical care. What if it was not available because the medical providers were sick and dying? Think about it and do the best to NOT add to the problem.

[daveklepper]

Well said, Electroliner, but there is no real conflict between you and the previous poster.  He is observing the rules as you are.  The issue is whether Amtrak's policy goes far enough.

[PJS1]

daveklepper

 Well said, Electroliner, but there is no real conflict between you and the previous poster.  He is observing the rules as you are.  The issue is whether Amtrak's policy goes far enough. 

I am practicing avoidance of close encounters, which means social distancing. 

 

I am wearing a bandana when out even though I know it is a fool's errand.  But what the heck, most people don't know it.  It is a railroad bandana, so maybe when this thing blows over I'll go with Butch and Sundance to hit the Flyer. 

[CMStPnP]

Asthmatics have the ability to aersol the virus via the use of their inhaler spray.    Once in an aersol the virus can travel quite a distance on the air and they have found where the aersol has floated from upstairs to downstairs in a home to infect someone else quite a distance apart.    Also, several health care workers were infected this way.

[Electroliner 1935]

Who was that MASKED MAN? Sorry PJS1. My Granddaughter who is working on her masters degree in epidemiology, has sewed me a nice mask for when and if I go out of the house. I am fortunate to have my children and grandchildren living near me and doing the grocery shopping for us. 

I over reacted. Maybe a little stir crazy. I want this pandemic to end. I've had it with those who don't want to "hunker down" and insist that their right to congregate is absolute. (Not you) The mayor of Chicago is trying hard to break up the people who insist on going out in groups and potentially adding to the problem. And as I said the medical community needs people to stop exposing themselves to the virus. I hope that the projections that this sheltering is taking effect and the trend is downward are real and that you will be able to take your cruise in October. Though with what has happened on Cruise Ships this year, are you sure that you will be comfortable getting on one? And let us all be able to return to "normal" life way before October when I become 85.