Fly Me First Help

Rail Passenger USA uses many resources to research the rail passenger routes and station stops that comprise our Route Guides. One of the most popular and entertaining of these is Google Earth.

The "Fly Me First" feature of Rail Passenger USA allows Google Earth users to "fly" each route from station-stop to station-stop in either route direction.

To fly a route go to the third page of any Route Guide and just click on a picture of one of the frequent flyers. For example click on the eagle below to fly the westbound Capitol Limited (Train 29) route from Washington DC to Chicago Illinois. If you haven't downloaded Google Earth yet, go to http://earth.google.com/ to download the application. The application must be down loaded and installed prior to running the Fly Me First tours.

From the Capitol Limited Route

From the Crescent Route

The exact location of each station stop shown in the "fly by" are those interpreted by Rail Passenger USA and may or may not exactly match the station locations contained in the Google Earth database, posted by members of the Google Earth Community, or listed by Amtrak.

When a route is selected for flying by clicking on the desired route icon, you will see a window asking whether you want to "open or save this file". Click "open". You will then see a Google Earth KML icon. Double click on the KML icon.

If you see a message that reads "Windows cannot open this file", "File type unknown", or something similar, it is likely that you do not have Google Earth installed on your system. If the Google Earth application is not installed on your system, you may obtain a free download of the application by visiting http://earth.google.com/download-earth.htm.

If the Google Earth application is resident on your system, Google Earth will start when you double click on the KML icon. When the application opens, the selected route will be contained in the "Temporary Places" folder on the side bar under "Places" and the Google Earth Map showing the station stops along the route will be displayed. For example if Train 29 Westbound is selected, a map similar to the following will be displayed:

(How to Fly)

To fly the route select the "Play Tour" button under "Temporary Places" in the Google Earth side bar. What you see and how long you stay at a station will depend on your settings. An "almost infinite" number of settings are available. Ray prefers the following simple settings.

(Ray's Settings)

Places Checkmarks - Set from "Places" area of the sidebar. Temporary Places/Selected Route (e.g. Capitol Limited_29.kmz) Checked (On) All Other Places Unchecked (Off)

Layer Checkmarks – Set from "Layers" area of the sidebar. Terrain Checked (On) Geographic Web Checked (On) Roads Checked (On) Borders and Labels Checked (On) Places of Interest/Transportation/Rail Checked (On) Places of Interest/All Others Unchecked (Off) All Others Unchecked (Off)

Other Settings Tools/Options All Set to Default These are all subject to personal preference. Hint: the faster you fly the more bumpy the ride Note

Saving "Fly Me First" Files On the "File" pull down menu select "Save" then "Save to My Places"