From now on, it’s cash or plastic to ride America’s traIns.
In yet another sign that travelers checks are going the way of the dodo, Amtrak has stopped accepting travelers checks as form of payment as of Sept. 1, either in train stations or aboard trains.
The same applies to cashier’s checks, money orders or personal checks. They will make an exception on personal checks for group travel, but that has to be cleared with Amtrak in advance.
What does that leave? Cash or the following credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.
POSTSCRIPT
Only days after I posted this, I saw a group of young Asian travelers get tripped up by this new rule at the Solana Beach station. They eventually made it onto the train to Los Angeles, but they clearly were taken aback. Hopefully, Amtrak is doing a better job of getting the word out on major policy changes like this one.
Have you heard about this?
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/when-the-border-patrol-comes-aboard/
I think America is becoming afraid of its own shadow..
I’ve seen Border Patrol agents on trains before, principally on the run between San Diego and Los Angeles. I’ve seen them chasing suspected illegal immigrants off of trains. But this goes back to the 1990s, when San Diego was main point of passage for illegal immigrants bound for Los Angeles. Now that most of the illegal immigrants traffic from Mexico has been pushed east into the Arizona desert, I haven’t seen BP on the trains out here. Perhaps that will change soon.
I have seen Amtrak police officers on those same trains, with their dogs.
In general, though, I think you’re right. 9/11 put a scare into this nation the likes of which we haven’t seen since Sputnik. We like to tell people we’re the most powerful nation on Earth, but in terms of our national psyche, we sleep with the lights on.