...@CBB, I mentioned the NAGtRL for it still discusses travel. Whether for a shadow op, SINner business, or pleasure, the fluff applies to all forms of and reasons for travel. As for Shadowbeat, true, it does not involve travel but does relate to other leisure pursuits such as sports and concerts. These are still diversions one can attend in person & not just sit in front of the trivid to watch.

Again, This is a GM thing, Some like their world to be so Orwellian that the only quality to life is work, eat, & sleep. Others such as myself and Daddy's Little Ninja, see room for a more "normal" functional society outside of the shadows. Oh, I'm sure there are some corps and megas that want total control of your life (I even have one written up in a character background) but there are also a lot of small to medium size companies that I see would function pretty much as they do today.

I do agree with your assessment that the US is "overworked", even in RL today. I've been with the same company for more than a dozen years and only have 3 weeks (the maximum cap) paid vacation. In some countries, time off from work is not only encouraged but mandatory and can accrue to the level of a month or more of paid leave.

I've heard that even other countries are starting to emulate the US trend, but I hope it isn't true. I've supposedly got it pretty good, being a government employee, but up until a couple weeks ago, I had no vacation (I was accruing it, just couldn't use it), and now I have 2 weeks. Trick is, all the other BS in life piles up, and I don't have the money to take a truly spectacular vacation, so I'll probably just sit on the 2 weeks until I've saved up enough money to get bored with my job and go on some crazy multi-continental bender for a month, but that's years away, and the thought of being a bureaucrat for years really hurts my soul. But accrued vacation time isn't the only measure of whether or not you get a vacation; you still gotta scrape the scratch.

And thanks, Fortune. I like to think I would have gotten there eventually, but I kept thinking "Rising Sun," which didn't seem quite right. 25 is too young to be forgetting the names of awesome books I've read.

There is a lot to be said to just getting away from work for a week or two, even if it's just staying home.

...which is pretty much what I do save for maybe taking a couple days to visit friends in RL Seattle 3.5 hrs away by train.

I do have a grand European tour I've been planning and saving for. The only downside is the trip there and back. Unless your filthy rich & can afford passage on the Queen Mary II, your stuck with someone sitting in your lap for 10 - 11 hrs, worrying that your bags may wind up in Frankfort KY instead of Frankfurt Germany & dealing with customs while bleary eyed at 7:00 in the morning after getting no sleep.

...hmm, maybe I'll pick up a ticket for this weekend's Megabucks draw on the way home tonight.

You worry wa-a-a-a-ay too much.

...let's just say I've had my share of bad airline experiences for one lifetime.

Vacations are supposed to be for relaxing. Flying today definitely isn't

Are you kidding? I have done close to (or maybe even more than) a thousand flights in my lifetime, and not once have I lost a single piece of luggage. I have never had problems with missed connections, and customs has pretty much always been a breeze, even though for most of those flights I looked and dressed like a fat Metallica roadie.

...you my friend are a fortunate man indeed

I have dealt with my bags not making connections to even having them left on a luggage cart on the tarmac at JFK for nearly a week. I've slept in airport terminals after missed connections (not even receiving as much as a meal voucher or an upgrade on the next flight out for the trouble). Once I even had to board a 727 through the "DB Cooper door" while the engines were running (after a harrowing ride in an airline service van over an icy tarmac at Denver).

Not very relaxing.

Now on Amtrak, I have experienced little if any trouble and have always been accommodated when something went awry. Sometimes the train is late, that's fine, I'm on vacation and I consider the train trip to be part of it. Personally, I find train travel to be far more relaxing than air travel.

Now YOU'RE the lucky one, Kyoto Kid. When I started taking Amtrak, it was great. It was a little odd that it took 50% longer to get to DC than it would have via Greyhound, but whatever. But every time I took it, the trip got longer and longer. To the point where I would routinely be left waiting 5 hours at a train stop in Kentucky that wasn't anything more than a plastic bus-stop type shelter (actually less, because those usually have 3 walls to protect you from the wind. What should have been a 12 hour trip was eventually a 23 hour trip. And if you read the ticket real carefully, you'll see that they're actually under no obligation to compensate you at all if they just don't show up. Think about that: once you've paid them, they're under no obligation to provide the service you've paid for. And if the train shows up in DC and your friends aren't there to pick you up because you're 11 hours late, and the Metro's stopped running, it's not like Union Station's the most pleasant place to sleep, and wait for morning, and you're certainly not going to get cab fare.

As for comfort, it can be ok, if the train's not packed. Luckily, as Amtrak's service declines (and I realize why it does), there's less chance of that happening. It's roomy, and easy to sleep on, and you can get up and walk around the train. But again, that's if it's not packed. Sometimes it is, and you have most of the problems you do on Greyhound, only the annoying little kids are free to run up and down the aisles unless an adult has the sheer force of will to stop them.

Bottom line: kids suck; we should put them in camps.

...In a way I am a bit more fortunate in that rail service out where I live (the Pacific Northwest) has more support of the local state governments. A fair amount of regional service outside of the Boston - DC corridor is funded and administered by bistate and regional commissions rather than Amtrak directly. Out here, both Washington (state) and Oregon have a strong commitment to maintaining a viable corridor that stretches from Eugene OR to Vanvouver BC. similarly, In the great Lakes it is Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan that oversee the regional service there. The only other operations that Amtrak is directly in charge of are the long haul overland trains (Chicago - Seattle/Portland, Chicago - LA/SF, Seattle - LA, etc.).

A good reason for the decline of Amtrak service in inherent in the way it was set up 30 years ago. Amtrak was designed to fail so that the US could bow out of the passenger train business altogether. They have constantly dealt with federal budget cuts every biennium. Amtrak trains are required to run on the private railroads' lines (at a charge to use the tracks). Freight lines were not required to provide railbeds for higher speed passenger trains so in many areas speed is capped below what the actual train itself could achieve.

For example the Cascade train sets (designed by Talgo of Spain) are capable of 125 mph but forced to operate at a restricted maximum of 79 mph and only on a short segment between Vancouver WA and Longview WA (about 38 miles) Amtrak trains are also occasionally forced to give way to the slower freights (keep in mind who owns the tracks). Furthermore track conditions particularly in some regions of the east, has been allowed to degrade so badly the speed has to be further restricted, sometimes to a jogging pace (which is possibly why the trip to DC kept getting longer and longer each time). Unfortunately track maintenance outside of the Boston - DC Corridor is the responsibility of whatever private railroad owns the tracks.

Though supposedly federalised, Amtrak is still required by charter to turn a profit as if it was a private corporation (no other national rail system is). If it doesn't, the budget is further reduced and with it the level of service.

What should have been done (in hindsight) was that the government took over the main lines, kind of like a rail version of the Interstate Highway system, and leased them back to or charged a "road tax" as they do for long haul trucks, to the private roads. In fact most of the rights of way that the private railroads charge Amtrak to use were originally given to them for free by the Federal Government in the 19th century.

...uh oh...got me on my soapbox again...apologies for derailing (ducks & cringes) the thread
[/derail]

It took you three hours!?

Yeah, well I was sympathetic for a while because these people were litterally war refugees and I was raised by my mother on stories of Nazi occupation in WW2 when she was a little girl, so it bought them some slack. After 4 hours I was wondering if Iraq had invaded Kuwait because he found them so annoying too. By the time my plane was announced I was giving serious thought to buying a piece of luggage, just to stuff with someone and leave unattended so they would be destroyed-that kept being announced on the loudspeaker- unattended baggage will be collected and destroyed.