Dear Amtrak: We want to like you, but your website sucks. Your "iPhone app" sucks. Your fares suck too, but that's another story.

 Your website looks like it hasn't been touched since 2003 and was designed by the cheapest morons you could find. Don't tell me "I can use a train to get from A to B instead of an [airplane | car | unicycle]" — I'm on your site, I already know that. Don't just tell me I can, tell me why I want to — no dealing with traffic or airport security, big comfortable seats, free wireless internet, food that doesn't taste like it's from a hospital, in-car entertainment by unemployed car salesman — oh, by the way, make sure you actually have all those too.

 Tell me about how I can see America from the window of a train — from the prairies to the coast to the desert. Tell me what makes each route special — like how the Acela Express was the first high-speed train in North America, or the history of the Coast Starlight, or how the final battle of the Canadian invasion was fought just 400 metres north of part of the Empire Builder. Remind me of how taking the train is a very American thing to do.

 Make it ridiculously easy for me to decide I want to take the train, RIGHT NOW, to another city. Don't require fifteen billion different forms, either — for crying out loud, even the airlines do this better than you. I shouldn't have to know which station near Boston to choose if I can only use one of them to get there from here anyway. Let me print my ticket – or save it to my iPhone – and use that to board, today. Speaking of which, I should be able to do all this from a native iPhone app.

 After you do all this, it'd help if your train service was good too. It doesn't have to be as good as European train service, just good enough to make you a practical alternative to a six-hour drive or three-hour plane ride. That means decent food, spacious seats, room to walk around, and free internet access.

 If anybody at Amtrak happens to read this… make it happen. Make me proud to be a train-riding American.