Just for information for those involved with rail passenger (air and bus and transit also) operations, the mask requirement has been extended to May 3rd.

Yes and with the newest variant now starting to spread widely it's entirely possible that we may be required ( as Philadelphia just announced) to go back to mandatory masks at all indoor settings??


Guess until we can get everyone vaccinated (and the anti-vaccine crowd all dead) we'll just have to keep dealing with this awful thing??

Ross Rowland

Have any prospective riders walked away or requested refunds when they were told masks were mandatory?

I have an undocumented feeling the mask requirement is preventing many from returning to transit.

Phil Mulligan

As a transit rider in my city I don’t see the issue. Bus pulls up, I put on my mask and ride the bus.

I don’t feel the need to personally wear a mask in businesses that don’t ask me too but I have no issue wearing it while riding transit.

I've not booked a certain five-hour round trip yet, in part because of these mandates on the RR in question.

That's not specifically the question you asked, but I guarantee you that is currently being factored in by prospective riders other than myself.

Yes - I have see it quite often at several different operations I work with. Also look at the record problems on the air lines, so there have been problems there. However, if you get the word out, you can let folks decide before they arrive - if they read the information (which many don't).



I haven't flown (most flights for me take 8-10 hours at best) since the mask mandate has started, choosing instead to drive (several days, but much more comfortable).



And for those who complain that not everyone has had the vaccine, I have had family members die from it [I guess I could claim that I am highly offended by the comment as some do, but I just mark it up to not seeing the entire picture]. We have an issue with it that was discovered in the ICU and some of us have been told by doctors to not take it due to a strong family allergy. I haven't had more than a light cold and haven't really stopped my travel the entire time. Just my own experience.

I really don’t care any more. I feel there’s many that agree with me in that regard.

At this point I don’t really see any point in regulations.

"Guess until we can get everyone vaccinated (and the anti-vaccine crowd all dead) we'll just have to keep dealing with this awful thing??"

For reference, according to the US CDC, the "Covid Vaccine" does not prevent you from catching the virus, nor does it prevent you from transmitting the virus. That is not a vaccine as they used to be considered. I have taken REAL Vaccines for; polio, yellow fever, hepatitis, etc.

I, for one, am not an "anti-vaccine" crowd member and have no plans on dying to accommodate your desire to live an entirely 100 plus percent risk free life (good luck with your desire).

I am an avowed "Anti Experimental Drug" taker.... The "vaccines" promoted by the gubermint do not do what they claim to do and are in fact quite dangerous.

Better approach would have been to provide extra shielding for the most vulnerable (old folks) and explore suitable prophylactics to reduce the symptoms of the disease.

In the past I have traveled to parts of the globe where Malaria is still prevalent, no vaccine against Malaria currently exists. In parts of Africa where Malaria is present "Persons of European Descent" regularly take Hydrochloquine to reduce the chances of severe Malaria symptoms. In fact, during this whole "Covid" panic the incidence rate in Africa has been much lower than the rest of the Globe. Coincidence ?

Somehow a Virus knew enough to not infect people in Africa, or people seated at tables in a restaurant, but was evil enough to infect people as they walked from the entrance of a restaurant to a seat at a table ????

Anyplace that requires an ineffective mask against a low risk flu is off my list of viable establishments for my visits. Either they will fold up and go out of business or all the "anti-vaxers" will die.

And who exactly is going to tell us when all the "anti-vaxers" have perished ??? Absent some kind of forced medical testing to identify the "anti-vaxers" and forcefully separate them from "Compliant Society" how are you going to know who/where they are ????

I, for one would like everyone to undergo forced testing for sexually transmitted diseases and require that they never be allowed to use public toilet facilities without passing the test.... Maybe we put yellow colored stars on the clothing of people that refuse a mandatory STD test every week ????? Slippery slope...

You need to reevaluate this bad take on the situation because you're making yourself look like a fool.

Pretty spot on, if you ask me.

I have not, and will not patronize a tourist railroad that mandates me to wear a mask while riding a train to nowhere. Obviously it's out of their control as to what big brother wants them to do, but it's also my prerogative that I will choose to spend my money where I feel it is of the best benefit for my own sanity, and riding a train to nowhere with a piece of cloth on my face is not on that list.

It seems that the Gov't will delay the abolishment of this mandate until something new pops up out of nowhere, giving them just another excuse to extend it. The masking seems more and more to simply be a unpleasantly experiment to see how much more they can involuntarily force people to adapt.

Moral of the story, if you think that families, individuals, and foamers will suck it up and patronize your tourist railroad or museum regardless of this mandate, you are very wrong.

Tourist railroads are not the only place this mental "war" is playing out.

Transit agencies, who depend on farebox receipts, are effectively celebrating when they reach 50% of pre-Pandemic ridership levels, even on among the most "captive" systems out there like the NYC and DC subway systems. Similar declines endure on Amtrak, airlines, etc.

Media accounts on the coasts are interpreting this syndrome in terms of "everyone's telecommuting." But some of the transit experts I hear from say "it's all about the masking."

Simple experiment: Does Transit/Amtrak ridership go up when the Federal transportation mask requirements finally get dropped for GOOD?

Aging commodities trader: Get vaxxed, everybody get vaxxed.

World class oncologist: Don't get vaxxed, not a good idea for you based on my experience.

Tough choice.

What vestige of covid that is dominant right now should not even be considered the same virus that caused the pandemic because it is so much less damaging. Covid is now very comparable to a flu virus. Several friends have had it lately including morbidly obese and elderly people and all have recovered. Two years ago, the original strain would have certainly killed them.

However, that distinction is not being made by Fauci and the CDC, who conveniently ignore talking about how less of a problem the new variant is, conflating it to the Alpha. Notice how they talk about how transmissible it is but never talk about how deadly it is?

Just remember, the people telling you to mask up DO NOT do it themselves because they know that the latest variant poses little risk. But why do the mask mandates continue? Because they are Democrats and their constituency of leftists believe in masks (yes I am being political and I don't care. The truth is the truth).

Oh, Mr. Rowland, you are so woefully misinformed about the vaccine and what it can do and what it cannot do. People who have refused the vaccine (and are increasingly being justified in that decision by mounting cases of side effects among the vaxxed) are not causing covid to continue. The virus changed into a less lethal variant which masks the fact that the vaccines lose effectiveness over time, causing people to think that it is the vaccine that is causing the drop in cases. It turns out that the Delta variant itself was the best vaccine of all by creating natural immunity.

One last thing. Go to https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ and look at the charts. Look at how small the uptick in cases is and then look at last years trend. A small uptick at the same time a year ago then a complete fall off in the summer. But Fauci, the CDC and the news media would have you believe that the pandemic is going to return in full force, and the worst part is that even after the lies they have told us, too many people still believe them.

Covid is a bat virus that attacks the brain. It is an awful virus - you do not want to be exposed to it.

Covid is an airborne disease -- aerosol scientists and some professional engineers understood that right away, but many doctors and public health experts continue to deny it. Here is a great article from last May:
Wired magazine - The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill

I'm doing my best to minimize my chances of being exposed to it by following the guidance posted at Clear Air Crew dot org.

This is not rocket science - an airborne virus lingers inside indoor spaces, sort of like how cigarette smoke lingers in the air. You can remove the virus from indoor spaces by opening windows (improving ventilation) and running the air thru HEPA/MERV13 air filters and/or Corsi-Rosenthal boxes that you can make yourself. [Corsi is the Dean of Engineering at UC Davis and Rosenthal is the CEO of a furnace filter company.] The Corsi-Rosenthal boxes are just four furnace filters taped to a box fans to make a cube; they have been proven in tests to work extremely well.

If you're in an indoor space that does not have good air ventilation and/or filtration, then you want to wear a respirator (to keep the virus out of your lungs!)

This is deadly Bullshit:
There is no such thing as "natural immunity" - you can survive being infected with one Covid variant (Delta), then get reinfected with another Covid variant (Omnicron.) Reinfection has happened as quickly as 23 days according to this CDC publication from last week:

Centers for Disease Control - Notes from the Field: SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant Infection in 10 Persons Within 90 Days of Previous SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Infection — Four States, October 2021–January 2022 Weekly / April 8, 2022 / 71(14);524–526