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Traveling by Amtrak

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Your Feb. 12 article (“An Ill Desert Wind,” Metro) about the Amtrak “Train From Hell” was annoying, but useful: Amtrak is full of passengers like Suzann Jaure and Masoud Razipour, and maybe now they’ll stay away.

I’ve ridden both the Desert Wind and the Coast Starlight several times, and each trip was a unique and wonderful experience--breakdowns and delays included. Why? Because taking the train is an adventure. People who expect something as unpredictable as a train ride to conform to their strict workaday timetables haven’t spent much time in the “real world.”

The whole point of rail travel is to sit back and enjoy the ride, taking in whatever comes your way with a relaxed good humor . . . and that includes delays (an expected part of train travel since the Civil War) and the occasional breakdown. Cranky, impatient passengers should stick to airplanes, which, as we all know, are never late, never overbooked and never fall out of the sky.

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This is not to belittle the serious concerns your article raised about inadequate government funding. Amtrak could use a lot more money; but Amtrak can definitely use a lot fewer passengers who can’t roll with the punches.

DINO R. DiMURO

Los Angeles

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