Late at night, I received an email from AMTRAK. I am a big fan of AMTRAK. I strongly prefer train travel over air travel between Washington and New York City and have used the regular trains, business class and, occasionally, Acela over the years. Most of the time, everything works pretty well, despite the horrors of the restrooms.

Here is Amtrak’s message, inspired no doubt by the CDC’s latest guidance:

Hi Amtrak Passenger,

Starting May 23, Amtrak will return to selling full seat capacity on most of our trains.  While you may have someone sitting next to you, our trains offer large spacious seats, ample legroom, no middle seats, and the freedom to move about the train.

When searching for travel, you will see that we added a percentage indicator that shows how full each reserved train is at the time of booking. You can use this feature to book trains that have more space and check how full your train is prior to travel.  If capacity exceeds comfort levels, you can change your ticket without incurring a fee (a fare difference may apply).

[In this spot was a screen capture of the Amtrak listing showing the percentage of seats full on a particular train. For reasons that defy understanding, WordPress will not permit that item to display]

In the meantime, Amtrak has been upgrading our technology, fleet, stations, and processes to make travel as seamless and safe as possible. This includes upgrades to the Amtrak app, where you can book, get boarding information, and check train status from a mobile device and receive real-time information before boarding. We’ve also been focusing on making the experience touch free, including contactless boarding, scanning tickets directly from the Amtrak app and installing new kiosks, which we will be rolling out throughout the year.

Thanks for being a valued Amtrak customer.  We’ll see you onboard!

The most up to date arrival and departure times are available on Amtrak.com, our free mobile apps, by texting “Status” to 800-872-7245 or by calling 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245).

Join us on facebook.com/Amtrak
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That’s grand, as far as it goes. My question is simple: why didn’t this message use this opportunity to reinforce the federal mask mandate? Given all the uncertainties associated with changing CDC guidance, plus the hysterical anti-vaccination, anti-mask, anti-public health, etc. crowd continuing their foolish anti-science ranting, you would think someone at AMTRAK would have piped up to note the absence of a reminder about the mask policy.

The failure to cover this runs the risk that travelers will show up, sans mask, claiming they saw the AMTRAK email and it said nothing about masks, therefore “I DON’T HAVE TO WEAR ONE AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME, MY RIGHTS, MY RIGHTS” etc., you know the drill by now. This obvious omission of an important message may place complying passengers in a difficult place, as has occurred on numerous airplanes in recent months (kudos to the Federal Aviation Administration for imposing major fines and deplaning the morons who refuse to comply with crewmember instructions).

AMTRAK, do yourself and your passengers a favor and put out another message that makes clear the federal mask mandate still applies in AMTRAK stations and on trains.