Two congressmen have introduced a bill (HR 2066, the Pets on Trains Act of 2013) which would require Amtrak to formulate a policy for carrying domestic pets on certain trains. See the Huffington Post for a brief summary, and here for the actual text of the bill. What discussion I’ve seen focuses on a non-issue: that after three days in transit a dog wouldn’t be a good companion in the coach. That possibility is foreclosed by the text of the bill, but no one ever reads such things. I don’t see this going much of anywhere but I thought I’d offer some more detailed commentary.
Amtrak allows service animals only. No comfort animals or pets. I once sat across from a woman with a service animal for two days aboard the Empire Builder and it wasn’t a problem, but obviously (a) service animals are well-trained and (b) their owners are used to handling them in public.
The proposed bill, which includes escape hatches like “certain trains” and “where feasible” would require either that Amtrak either set aside a car where pets would be allowed as carry-on items, provided that the pet is contained in a kennel and that the pet as stowed meets the current carry-on policy or that Amtrak allow pets as checked baggage, provided that the area is “temperature controlled” and that the pet as stowed meets the checked baggage policy. In both cases the journey as ticketed would have to be 750 miles or less and Amtrak would be allowed to assess a commensurate fee. Finally, the bill provides that “[n]othing in this section may be interpreted to require Amtrak to add additional train cars or modify existing train cars.”
750 miles is a magic number in Amtrak transport planning; any route of 750 miles or less, excluding the Northeast Corridor, must be supported by its host state(s) according to a complicated cost-sharing formula. Routes over 750 miles are considered long-distance and may be fully-funded by the federal government. The specific verbiage, however, is “the passenger is ticketed for traveling a distance less than 750 miles.“ I assume that captures all short-distance services, all Northeast Corridor services, and all long-distance trains provided that you’re not going further than 750 miles. I foresee Amtrak arguing that the 750 mile limit would be hard to enforce within the current ticketing system, thus excluding long-distance trains (and upending the raison d’etre of the bill). This, coupled with the issues I’ll outline below, would seem to exclude any sleeping car passengers from traveling with pets.
The checked baggage section is similarly useless. Amtrak’s baggage cars are over fifty years old, some of the last remnants of the “Heritage Fleet” inherited from the private railroads in 1971. They’re in terrible condition and they’re not climate-controlled. Amtrak does have new Viewliner baggage and baggage-dormitory cars on order, but they won’t be delivered for at least another year and I don’t know whether they’ll be climate-controlled either.
That leaves setting aside a coach for contained animals. Anyone who knows anything about Amtrak operations knows that Amtrak is desperately short of equipment of all kinds. On many routes demand has long outstripped supply. Furthermore, this isn’t Western Europe. A 750-mile train trip can take the better part of the day. I can’t see passengers without pets happy with being seated in the pet coach. This places an artificial limitation on Amtrak’s carrying capacity. I would imagine Amtrak would levy a hefty surcharge on pet transport to compensate, but it still winds up losing passengers which hurts it down the road.
All that being said, if limited to carry-on there’s plenty of space in Amtrak’s primary coaches (Amfleet, Horizon, Superliner) for carry-on baggage, and there’s supplemental storage space on the lower level of the Superliner that could be pressed into service. I just don’t see many people taking advantage of it, and I don’t see Amtrak willingly implementing a policy given the issues I’ve outlined above.
