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Legislation introduced to allow pets on trains
Ew, absolutely discusting. They better be in a contained area. I will not put up with someone’s dog in my face. I have allergies, and cannot breathe around pets.
If Amtrak charged an appropriate fee, this could help the bottom line.
Do the pets get tickets, or does Amtrak pick up the extra expenses? How do pets “facilitate transportation efficiency”?
A permanent funding solution would be, give Amtrak for one year what the Defense Department (should still be War Department) gets in one day. As for the animals, how do they arrange for pets to answer the call.
Let Amtrak effectively deal with the smell of human waste on its train bathrooms (will no longer take the Coast Starlight south of Emeryville) before adding dog and cat feces to the mix.
If they have time for this sort of legistlation they then should consider a tax on airline tickets to help fund Amtrak. Now that would be quite fitting.
A train trip can last a lot longer than a plane ride. I agree, work on the real problems and let AMTRAK work on what services they want to provide.
Amtrak had allowed pets in checked baggage until 1977. The reason Amtrak quit transporting pets is that the humane society said that Amtrak had to have heat and a/c. Amtrak didn’t have the funds then to convert the bag cars.
Prior to Amtrak taking over U.S. passenger service passengers who occupied rooms in sleeping cars (bedrooms, drawing rooms, compartments, etc.) were allowed to bring their pets with them. Passengers traveling on European trains are allowed to bring their pets on to trains although dogs can only travel cars where smoking is permitted in Finland.
This is what Congress has time and interest to discuss in regards to Amtrak? No time or interest to discuss a permanent funding mechanism?
Would a pet Goose be allowed on Amtrak???
As a kid, we always traveled with our dog. Yes, the owners had to be available to feed, water, and walk the pooch at designated stops. A memorable trip was from Sydney, NS to San Francisco, CA. The dog rode in the baggage car. No problem.
Amtrak exhibits rather a lot of inflexibility on things like–“excess” baggage to stops without checked baggage services (i.e., the discrepancy between what you can take for baggage based only on your origination and destination cities, rather than uniform for all travelers, all destinations); ridiculous “unaccompanied minor” rules that are far less flexible than VIA or any public transit entity in the country (i.e., one has to be old enough to drive in nearly every state to travel unaccompanied on Amtrak without being subject to extremely limiting conditions); transporting unloaded firearms (this did take a legislative act to set up a reasonable–but not perfect–system). While usually destructive, sometime micro-managing by Congress is the only way to get some rules through.
On a practical note, since all trains are now non-smoking, smoke breaks are built in to the schedule. It is logical that these would be the times to take pets off the train to attend to nature… This should not be that big of a deal to implement…
I wouldn’t mind this since I have some cats that I could take along in theory, but it’d be the annoying dogs that’d drive me crazy - I want to go in quiet, not hear a dog barking the entire way!
Congressmen promoting this bill should be glad Mitt Romney didn’t become President, as I have a feeling I know where the pets would be located if he was running Amtrak…
(Which might be a problem with the lower clearances on the NEC…)
Some pets are more fun to travel with than some people.
I fail to see why this should be a problem, providing that the owner of said pet is available to walk (and clean up after) their pet, and they should be allowed to enter the baggage car to feed and water them. But what the hell do I know??
I believe allowing small pets in cages, could work with appropriate oversight. No large pets (except service animals) permitted. I don’t think pets of any type or size should be handled in baggage cars due to the environmental issues. Amtrak should also have the right to charge a fee when pets are transported, and limit carriage to one pet per adult passenger.
I believe allowing small pets in cages, could work with appropriate oversight. No large pets (except service animals) permitted. I don’t think pets of any type or size should be handled in baggage cars due to the environmental issues. Amtrak should also have the right to charge a fee when pets are transported, and limit carriage to one pet per adult passenger.