Is Amtrak Safe To Ride? | What To Expect On The Train

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we are talking about if amtrak is safe to ride on all right guys rob and ali here uh we get a one question actually very often on our videos and that is uh asking us if we've ever seen a security incident on one of our train trips yeah and it's understandable because people want to be safe and they want to know they're going to be in good hands and the answer is yes we have seen security incidents on amtrak we've seen actually three of them in this past year and that can sound a little bit alarming but we'll go into a little bit of what happened and how it was handled and that should put you a little bit at ease but the thing that happens is there there are conductors that walk through the train and they are always on the lookout for people causing problems and so forth and just like any other uh part of life there are gonna be people that cause problems on a train just like on a plane on a cruise ship any mode of travel there's people that cause problems the good thing about amtrak is they handle those problems very quickly and i have seen when i say security incident i've seen three people get kicked off the train basically one of them was for refusal to comply with orders and two of them were with just kind of being generally agitated maybe they had a little bit too much to drink or they were just kind of bothering other passengers so you know they're told to stop doing what they're doing if they don't stop the very next station they're escorted off the train so that is the good thing on a plane if you have a unruly passenger they have to wait till they land i've seen it on a cruise ship too where um you know they gotta wait till the next port uh so on a train you know within 30 minutes i'll have the person off of there so yeah it's a pretty good situation yeah it is very comforting it was very comforting at the time to see how quickly they dealt with it they just they really don't put up with a lot of nonsense they're they're very very firm in the way that that they do things another question we get a lot is about um like security procedures or process to get onto the train yeah exactly and much to our surprise there really isn't a lot of security that you have to go through the most security that you'll need to you know encounter is getting into the station because getting into the station you do have to show that you are that you do have a ticket to get on the train they don't just let you roam around the station but once you're on the station and you show the ticket you show the ticket for your actual uh train that you're getting on there really isn't much more you have to do you don't have to go through a metal scanner or anything like that so and they don't you can bring you know liquids and all that kind of stuff there's no uh like it in the airport tsa you know you can't bring drinks and some types of food and things like that through you can bring those with you uh onto the train so it's not a problem at all to have liquids on you correct and you don't have to have a passport you don't have to have uh you know you need to have your id but we've actually never had it checked but we have heard other people that have said they have had their id checked so that's kind of a spot check thing it depends on who's checking the ids that day i think so yeah the security is you know kind of more like a cruise ship mm-hmm maybe even a little bit less than less yeah so not not like getting on an airplane at all right and another question we get is how do you secure your valuables while you're on well there you know it's a little bit different depending on where on the train you are so um there's a couple different things that you can do ahead of time and that is to check your big bag if you have a big suitcase with you check that at the station there are a few stations where you cannot do that so you don't have a choice and you'll know that ahead of time but i definitely recommend checking that big bag so you don't have to keep track of it because uh if you're upstairs and your bag is downstairs on the baggage rack you can't keep an eye on it and it just you know it's too much hassle to be thinking about that bag all the time so we highly recommend checking that bag the other thing is to not bring a lot with you onto the train specifically if you are in coach because if you're in coach uh we have found that you don't want to just leave your stuff sitting there so we usually travel obviously you know with our bag of electronics with us we're not just gonna leave it in our at our seat as we walk away and go enjoy some time in a lounge car or go grab something in the cafe so um bring some stuff that's small enough that you don't mind taking it with you when you move about the train the other thing is now we've never done this but a couple of people have said in the comments that they've actually um secured their bags to the railing in the overhead over the seats in coach they've brought something to to tie that like you know little chain lock type thing um that secures it to the bar at least they won't take it from there but for the most part um there's really not a lot of a lot of trouble uh as far as that's concerned just don't bring a lot with you because you could end up with you know yeah if we're in coach uh i have a backpack that i have with me and it has everything important uh and it's on it's on my back 24 7 unless i'm sitting in my seat uh i mean if we're walking around or we're in you know doing whatever in the abstraction car i have that on me and everything valuables in there if they want to take my food bag that's fine free snacks for them that's fine and then the other thing is if you're in a room you can bring a padlock and lock the outside of the door so that no one could get in yeah there's a small little latch when you bring the doors together it's got a little circle in it and you can generally fit a small padlock around there or one that has one of those little keys that you can put on there to secure it if you want we've actually never locked our room at before and left all of our equipment in our room and just walked away we don't um the thing is when you're on the train generally to go from uh the room out section to the you know the observation car the dining car if you're in coach you can't get to the room at section so there's not going to be just random people right walking around that area because they'll know someone's in the wrong area really quickly because the the car attendant knows what eight people are supposed to be in that car and if you're not one of those people they'll know that you're in the wrong spot so you don't really have people walking through we've never really even thought about having an issue in the room at you know if you really want to be safety conscious though or something really valuable in there which we don't usually have the only thing valuable we would have would be our phones and we take them with us so if you have something really valuable or leaving behind maybe bring the padlock though to lock that room at otherwise probably not a big deal because the the car attendant will will watch that for you yeah and then uh the last big one i think that we get a lot well not the last one but it is definitely a big question that we get often is uh how safe are the stations for layovers so if you're you know getting off the coast starlight and or off the california zephyr let's say in emeryville trying to get on to go on to the coast starlight you're gonna have a few hours kind of layover and so and in a lot of other places too you'll have layovers so a question we get a lot is are the stations safe for layovers yeah i think they're very safe because like we mentioned before you can't get in the station unless you have a ticket so uh and they actually walk around the stations and they're checking people you interestingly uh in some stations they really don't even let you lay down or sleep on the seats now some of them they do but like in seattle uh at the king street station it's kind of this nice old beautiful station and they were people were kind of laying down on their layover on the on the benches inside because they haven't slept well on the train they were making them set up because they didn't want the you know the appearance of a of a kind of disheveled station look so they they run a pretty tight ship in the stations the only thing you'll need to figure out is some of the stations don't have good food options so if that's the case you'll need to go out into the surrounding area maybe walk somewhere and get food you could always just order food delivered to you on ubereats or something but you uh you need to figure out your food plan if it's a big station like chicago or la there will be food right in the station you'd never even have to leave it some of the smaller ones like your atlanta it'd be a tough station to get food at you'd probably have to order something but but the big ones you're going to be fine with yeah so overall i would say i really never felt unsafe i felt like at all times someone was in charge of the overall safety on the train they do have security cameras in all of the you know kind of public areas on every single car so they do have a security of some sort overall on top of the fact that the staff is actually quite firm one night actually we were on the i think the sunset limited in coach overnight and i was asleep all of a sudden i woke up because there was you know i heard loud voices i take my my plugs out and i i heard a very uh spirited conversation between a man and one of the staff people and he was yelling at him saying i can't find my seat and the guy said you know just calm down tell me where you're seated anyways it turns out that the guy got onto the wrong train he wasn't even on our train and the guy said you know you've been rude this then that he apologized the guy apologizes to the staff amtrak staff person and then the staff person was like you know um you came on here you woke these people up you were rude uh i'd be more than happy to arrange a room for you at the local jail if that's what you need to help you calm down and the guy very quickly uh calm down and very quickly exit the train um but i was very impressed with how firm um you know the staff people are on the security of the train yeah and they are they are there 24 7. because i've i've walked through a lot of the cars late at night early in the morning and there's always a couple of them on duty so yeah not really a concern for us i don't think you'll have much of a problem on amtrak uh you know just figure out what you're bringing with you and how you need to secure that but overall we would rate it as being a pretty safe way to travel and in a pretty fun and enjoyable way to travel as well

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 67,402

Keywords: is amtrak safe, amtrak, train travel, amtrak safety, amtrak trains, safe travel, train travel usa, amtrak coast starlight, amtrak empire builder, amtrak california zephyr, amtrak observation car, amtrak tips, amtrak texas eagle, amtrak sunset limited, amtrak train, high speed train, train travel amtrak, amtrak safety video, train travel videos, amtrak safe, is amtrak safe to ride, amtrak coach, amtrak sleeper, amtrak sleeper cars, amtrak tips and tricks, amtrak faq

Id: FYWc-Ew6xco

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021