Any general questions regarding the Mileage Tally can be posted in this topic.

Should you have a question concerning a specific mileage report that you've made, please feel free to post it either here or in the topic where you reported it.

The question came up during our most recent Sunday Chat regarding an AMTRAK trip that might be in progress over New Years Eve, and thus the passenger would arrive at their destination on January 1st.

The trip has to originate during the year 2004 to be eligible for the 2004 tally. Thus if you were to take AMTRAK to and from New York City to see the ball drop at Times Square, only your return trip (after midnight) would qualify.

Though this does not apply to me. What if one was en-route, lets say on the Silver Meteor from New York to Miami, New Years eve. How would this be acuratly recored?

You would not be able to report your miles for this 2004 tally.

As Kevin stated your trip must start on or after 12:00 AM January 1st, 2004 to be eligible for this years tally. So if you boarded the Meteor in Florida on 12/31/03, you would not be able to report your miles. However if you boarded that same Meteor that departed Miami on 12/31/03 in Rocky Mount, NC, your trip would now be originating at 1:01 AM 1/1/04 (assuming that the train was running on time) and you would be able to have your miles recorded.

The bottom line here is if you were already on a train as the clock stuck midnight on New Years Eve, then you cannot report your mileage. You must have boarded the train at some point after midnight for your miles to be eligible.

Now let's take this one step further and talk about the future and the end of 2004. In that case, someone boarding the Meteor in Florida on 12/31/2004 would be able to report the total miles for our 2004 tally. They would not however be able to report any miles for the 2005 tally (assuming that we have one).

Getting even more technical, what if I departed on the Silver Meteor from New York on 12/31/04 and were to arrive in Miami on 1/1/05. Could I put the mileage from New York to Rocky Mount on the 2004 tally and then mileage from Rocky Mount to Miami on the 2005 tally? Or since I'm departing on the 12/31/04 the entire mileage would just be added to my 2004 tally?

I don't know how to be more clear about this, but once again. If your trip does not start within the year in question, then you cannot report any miles for that year. A trip on one train cannot be split up between two years and it's total mileage can only be reported in the tally for the year that you boarded that train.

Strangely, in doing this on Prodigy for several years, this question never came up. Perhaps no one took a trip over New Years Eve and Day -- or perhaps my memory is failing.

Anyway, my take on it is that if a SEGMENT of a trip (a specific train # listed on tickets or an itinerary) begins in 2003, and ends in 2004 -- that SEGMENT is not reportable. But if an additional segment (new train by number) begins in 2004 it IS reportable.

So, for example I might have left on 12/31 on the Sunset Limited and traveled to NOL arriving 1/2. Not counted. But then I might have continued from there on 1/3 on (say) the Crescent and that would be counted (not the same train #).

Conversely, next December I might start the trip on 12/31/04, and then the Sunset Limited mileage to NOL would be counted. What goes around, comes around.

But basically let's hope this stuff never comes up again!

Alan,

In reading through the rules, commuter trips don't count towards the mileage--and understably so!-- But are, for instance, short trips on Amtrak Regional/Keystone service consdidered commuter mileage? Being a 'new participant' I'm just trying to get the hang of it.

Thanks!

Chris

Chris,

As long as it is a regularly scheduled Amtrak train, then your mileage counts. Kevin Korell often finds himself riding Amtrak Trenton to Philly or Metro Park to NY. Those trips would indeed qualify for inclusion in the count, even if they don't earn him very many miles. The same would also be true for say a short ride from Philly to Ardmore.

Also, while in reality the Clockers are mostly a commuter service, at present they are still Amtrak trains and therefore would qualify for inclusion. Once New Jersey Transit fully takes over the Clocker service in either 2005 or 2006, then a ride on a Clocker (if they even still call it that) would not qualify.

Alan:

Will there be a periodic posting of the year to date tally?

Bill

Yes Bill, we'll most likely post quarterly reports. However do to the formatting issues here on the BB, those reports will most likely appear on the main OTOL site.

Question:

I seem to remember on the old Prodigy site that you also kept track of members Amtrak Guest Reward points along with mileage. Is that correct and if it is would it be continued again with the new site?

Answer:

Yes, we did keep a tally of Guest Rewards points for about a year or so. However we decided not to keep this going for a few reasons:

• Guest Rewards points are cumulative, meaning that each person's total is carried into the following year, unlike our mileage tally which was just for a particular calendar year.
• In addition, should somebody redeem some or all of their reward points, their total would go down, not up. That wasn't fair to them, since they had to have earned a lot of points in order to be able to redeem them for rewards.
• Finally, there were too many ways to earn points. Besides the purchase of Amtrak tickets, one could also earn GR points by having the Amtrak Guest Rewards Master Card, by staying in member hotels, or by transferring points from other programs such as airlines. In short, one could earn points by never setting foot on a train.

So we canned the GR tally and decided to focus solely on the mileage once our tally came back from its one-year hiatus.

Question can you coun't your miles if you were detorued for example if I was on 7 from Chicago to Seattle and I was detorued on Chicago-Minneapolis can I could that? I am using this as an example.

John,

Sorry I didn't get to this answer sooner.

After conferring with other Admins including the current and former mileage tally keepers, we agreed that only the mileage point to point will be credited to you. It would be too tedious for us to figure out what route a detoured train took, and then what the mileages were on the one or more freight railroads that hosted the train.

So you will just get regular mileage as if the detour did not occur. We will amend the rules before 2006 to include this situation. Thanks for pointing it out to us!

Since I am a new member, can I add miles from the past from the trips I have record of?

Benltrain,

First of all welcome to OTOL! As a new member from the Philly area you're in good company around here.

We have held this mileage tally dating back probably to the mid-1990's, when our group was part of Prodigy. The tally has existed every year except for 2003, when we were in a state of transition as this board was founded in the middle of that year. We have had many "mileage keepers" take charge of the task, some of whom are still members (and administrators) and some who don't post regularly or at all anymore. The totals for our previous years have already been finalized and posted by the various people, so it would be difficult to go back and add to those totals.

Bill Magee is the current keeper of the Amtrak mileage. He has already posted results for 2006, his first year in doing the tally. I think with us already being 25% of the way through 2007, it's too late to add to 2006 or any previous years totals. I am sure Bill will concur with that. However, I believe that you should be able to post any mileage that you may have ridden from New Years Day 2007 to date.

Let me second Kevin's welcome to OTOL!

The books for 2006 have indeed closed, but 2007 is open for business. Please post any miles you have ridden this year, even those from before you joined OTOL. We look forward to your postings both here and on our discussion boards.

Bill

Hi Alan,

What is the mileage tally for Cleveland to Chicago?

Railette in training (obviously) LOL

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure either. But no worries, Bill can and will calculate the mileage for you when he updates the stats.

Is there anywhere to get the Amtrak mileages for routes long gone?

I'm doing my own tally from the years prior to 2005, and need the mileages for some routes that do not operate any longer. These include routes like:

1. SLC-PDX-SEA (via the Pioneer)
2. SLC-Las Vegas (LVS?) (via the Desert Wind)
3. LAX-LVS(?) (via the Desert Wind)
4. LAX-NOL-JAX (via the Sunset Limited)
5. CHI-NYP (via the Broadway Limited / Three Rivers)

I think the only way to answer this question is to find somebody who has kept old versions of the Amtrak timetables from when those trains existed.

I rode the NOL-JAX segment of the Sunset Limited three times (and never rode it other than bustitutionwest of NOL), the last time being in April of 2003. Unforunately, 2003 was the only year from 1995 to present that we did not have an Amtrak tally because that was the year we knew we would be in a state of transition from our Prodigy site to this one.

The city code for Las Vegas, NV when the DW ran was LAS. The bus connections from Salt Lake City and from Los Angeles are regularly scheduled Greyhound runs, so they serve the Greyhound Terminal downtown, which is LVS. The LAS code came back when they started the Thruway connection from Needles, CA (now Kingman, AZ) to McCarran International Airport.

I may have some of those mileages in my pile of old timetables. I'll check tonight when I get home (unless another pack rat beats me to it).

Traveler,

Head back over to AU and send a PM to Tom (aka MrFSS). He should be able to look up that info for you.

Good advice. My timetables are either too old (1972) or too new (2001) to show those mileages.

How soon after a month ends is the thread for that month's submissions closed? I only recently joined the tally, 'catching up' by submitting January-July 2008 in the August thread (invoking 'and earlier trips'), with the idea that in future I'd a single post for a whole month's trips to that month's thread very early in the next month. I'd be trying to do so on the 1st of the next month, but in case I don't find the time, would the thread still be open as late as, say, the 3rd or 4th?

Thanks,
Chris

There is no monthly deadline. A new thread is opened each month just to keep things tidy, but any mileage for earlier in the year can be submitted on the open thread. Whenever you get your August data together, just post it and it will be added.

The only deadline comes at the end of the year. We keep the prior year's tally open until the end of January. On February 1 the prior year is closed, so any miles for 2008 should be in by 1/31/2009.

Well here is something I couldn't find in the new rules so I thought I would ask, What About the new ACES service. Since when you book you do it from Amtrak.com and it gives you an Amtrak Reservation number?

Sorry if this was discussed and I missed it...

No, you did not miss it. I had not worked that one over yet. But, now I have.

The NJT ACES service will not count toward the Amtrak Mileage Tally.

The ACES will be stand-alone with Amtrak only providing reservation and ticketing service. You cannot book the ACES as part of an Amtrak reservation, even on the multi-city page. Trips on ACES will not earn AGR points. Since it is not an Amtrak connecting service and does not earn AGR points, it is not part of the Amtrak network and will not count on the mileage tally. The present NJT Atlantic City Line service from PHL is treated by Amtrak like a Thruway connection. Through ticketing to and from Amtrak is offered, and the NJT segments earns AGR points. For those reasons, the regular NJT ACY Line counts, and ACES will not.

I'm leaning toward having the ability to earn AGR points be the determining factor for Mileage Tally qualification. If a segment of a bus, train, or covered wagon service earns AGR points, then the miles will count toward the tally. If not, then they don't.

Bill

What? You mean I can get mileage credit for flying from EWR to BOS by Continental?

Alright thanks just curious. I am going to part take in the tally this year and am planning on riding ACES in a few weeks. So wanted to double check before I posted my first trip and looked like the black sheep

Would the train taken on July 23rd for the Chicago activity's be separate or would that be posted under trips take during the otol railfest. Also can I post trips that are coming up for the july month like one for the 16th or do I have to wait till I taken the trip.

As Bill indicated, all trips should be posted under the July topic as usual. He will then determine it is related to the Fest and re-post it under that subcategory.

When you take a trip it's best to post the mileage after the trip is complete, or at least the last leg is in progress .. this way things don't get tallied wrong should something happen with the trip.