I've been answering a lot of e-mail from people privately. Most of this e-mail has been requests for suggestions about what routes people should take from point A to point B. Some of the people that write to me are veteran Amtrak travelers with much more experience than myself, but most are novices that have never been on Amtrak trains before. I felt I should share some of these letters with everyone.
Please feel free to send me e-mail, comment on my web pages, even offer opinions counter to anything you may have read here! If you would like me to help you plan your itinerary or just offer suggestions, I'll be happy to do that, time permitting. I will send my answer direct to you via private e-mail, but I may also post your e-mail along with my reply here.
Unless you instruct me otherwise, I WILL POST your e-mail address, name, and other information that is in your e-mail messages to me for public viewing. If the content is obviously sensitive or private, I will not post it publicly. If you do not want your e-mail to me to be publicly posted, it would be best to request that confidentiality in each such e-mail that you send me so that I don't accidently post something that appears harmless to me.
Note that this is a reversal of my prior policy of not posting private information unless receiving prior permission. Almost everyone has told me it was OK to post their information publicly so far. Thus, it saves time for me to just post your e-mail to me unedited unless you request otherwise. The content of almost all e-mail has also been mosty harmless and most writers seem more than happy to share their name and e-mail address with others interested in rail travel. So, if you do send me e-mail that you do not wish posted publicly, be sure to tell me that in that particular e-mail message. I don't post all e-mail to the web. I only post those messages where either the message or the reply would be of general interest.
All messages sent to me along with the replies may someday appear in printed form in either a book or magazine. I will remove all personal identifying information from all e-mail messages before turning those messages into printed form. If I do wish to identify you in an article, I will obtain writen permission from you before I publish your information. By submitting messages to me, you are granting permission for me to use those messages in a book or magazine so long as I do not identify you personally without your prior written approval. I have no plans at this time of publishing any of this in printed form, but who knows what the future may hold!