It depends on which line you take. Amtrak has different service levels on different routes. When I took the coast starlight from Seattle to San Jose it was wonderful, with clean cars, great food, and courteous service. When I took the southwest chief from LA to the middle of the country, it was a completely different experience. The porters were still friendly but the equipment was grungy and frequently broken and the food was about what you’d get at Denny’s. Bear in mind that both times I was in a ridiculously expensive first class cabin.
I’ve never taken the empire builder, which runs east-west across the northern part of the country, but I’ve read that it’s a “premier” service, so it should be on par with the coast starlight.
That’s kind of true for Amtrak everywhere except a few dedicated Acela lines in the east. The rest of their trains run on freight rail and freight trains get priority.
I Amtrak’d from North Carolina to Michigan via DC. Took 24 hours. To compare, to drive was about 10 hours. I went into it knowing it was likely going to be a bad experience, but I had things to read and I was curious.
I’d do it again, but I’d arrange for a sleeper cabin and plan stops along the way. 24 hours on a train sitting upright was too much.
Meanwhile in Japan I took a train from Tokyo to Kyoto, 6 hours drive, less than 2 hours by train. So comfortable, so much space, and so convenient. I could easily nap in their upright seats, extremely comfortable, climate controlled, flying through beautiful rural regions full of mountains and trees.
Until the US stops treating humans worse than freight, you are going to need a high tolerance for bullshit to make a cross-country trip by train.
It’s been 25 years for me so things have changed. I also didn’t go the whole width of the US. But at the time it was pretty great. One of those life adventures that I’ve thought about ever since.
I went from Barstow, Ca to Chicago and back at age 18 as a graduation trip with a friend in coach. We spent most of our time (awake and asleep) in the dining and observation cars people watching and talking to folks. There was a whole car of Girl Scouts in uniform for the return trip, which felt a bit like being in Wes Anderson movie… or occasionally The Shining.
We’d jump out at stops just to say we’d been to the city where the stop was. Usually that just meant a quick lap around the train station then back on board, but it was still fun as an 18yo. On the way back we got stuck in the Sierra Nevadas (for only about 6 hours) after the train struck an elk. We were nearish enough to Donner pass that we got to hear some of the older girl scouts (still in uniform) chat about who they’d eat first. I think of that every time I see a cookie stand.
Pre-COVID, myself and my bf at the time went to an anime convention outside of Chicago. His grandma lived in St. Louis, so we decided to take the train from Chicago to St. Louis because it was cheaper than flying (we lived in CO at the time and had flown to Chicago for the convention).
Neither of us had ever been on an Amtrak train, so we had no idea how it all worked, that seats weren’t assigned, that there were different prices on different cars, etc, we’d just gotten 2 of the cheapest tickets and assumed we’d have a seat.
Well, there were no seats by the time we boarded. People had spread their shit out even though they were traveling alone, and refused to move it even when we asked. So we said fuck it, let’s see if there’s room in the next car up on the line.
We get to the next car and it’s completely empty except for 3 kids, the oldest one was maybe 12. We’re like cool, we’ll just sit in here.
A full hour goes by and an AmTrak employee comes by to collect tickets. We hand them over and she says, and I quote: “You can’t sit here, this car doesn’t go to St. Louis”.
Immediately in my head I’m like, how the fuck can this car “not go to St. Louis” when we boarded in the car BEHIND IT and THAT car IS going to St. Louis?? Is this the fucking Hogwarts train??? Did the cars uncouple and reattach to a separate engine car in the 1 hour that’s passed and we didn’t realize it??? So I ask her what she even means by that, and explain that there’s no room in the car behind us so we came to this one because no one would move, and all she kept saying is that the car we were in didn’t go to St. Louis, and we had to go back to the other car now.
Luckily, she came with us into the first car and forced a single person to go sit with another single traveler, which was very nice of her, so me and the bf got to sit together, but the seat was uncomfortable as hell (springs might as well have been up your ass), and the rest of the ride sucked because of it.
Maybe the fancy cars with the nicer seats and panoramic view windows are great, but I don’t give a fuck. Never again.
I regularly went between urbana and chicago and have never encountered this different cars to different destinations thing you encountered. Actually would often hang out in the food car just for a change of pace.
Roughly 18 years ago, my buddies and I took the California Zephyr from the Midwest out to San Fran. We were riding coach and it was two days travel each way.
The train was fine–about what we’d expected, nothing amazing but in generally good condition. The trip was great, though. The scenery traveling across the west was almost always interesting, we played a bunch of poker, and we met a bunch of interesting characters we still talk about to this day.
The most interesting guy we met (we dubbed him “The Stranger” after Sam Elliott’s character in The Big Lebowski) was a guy who made an annual trip coast-to-coast and back. He had some kind of grift where he was getting unemployment checks from two different states and would schedule his Amtrak trips such that he’d always miss his Chicago transfer and get put up in a hotel so he could shower and sleep on Amtrak’s dime. He’d mail a suitcase to his destination with clean clothes, cigarettes, etc, and mail his dirty laundry back home. When we got struck with a delay in California, he left the train station and bought a bunch of pizzas at a nearby Domino’s for the passengers and staff.
I highly recommend it as an alternative to air travel if you can spare the time. I often think about doing it again.
I tried Amtraking from Austin to Dallas. The train was over four hours late. I ended up driving and reached my destination before the train even arrived in Austin.
Yeah SA to Dallas is 10-11 hours, driving is only about 5 hours. Down here, freight companies own all the tracks and have right of way so Amtrak has to constantly pull over and stop for freight trains to go by.
Being Europeans, it’s funny to read amtrak stories, in France/Europe there is TGV since 1981, going 200mph, and now about everywhere. It’s incredible to read your stories, it looks like 1880
It was great! Me and like forty other college students did it from Chicago to Denver and back again a few days later. Basically a mobile party rolling across state lines with no DDs needed.
This was after smoking cars got the kibosh but before vape pens, so the smokers had to to rush outside every time the train stopped; that was the only downside.
Bring your own food, bring your own drinks, have a great time.
Not east-west, but I’ve done north-south, ORL to NYP (24 hrs), as well as CHS-NYP, on the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. Since it’s not really in the vein of this question, I won’t go into detail, but it’s been between good and okay for me; doing coach and coach-premium-or-whatever-it’s-called. AMA I suppose?
Share away! It’s hard to come up with questions about an experience I’ve never had. What stuck out to you? What was different between your expectations and experiences? What do you think most people don’t understand about AmTrak travel?
So, the difference between air and train is immense. There’s like 3-4x more leg room, free 2x carryons, 2x checked, and 2x personal items (you could probably get away with more if you wanted). The seats are newer pleather that look nicer, though don’t feel too great, especially for long durations. Getting up and walking down the aisles and spending time in the café car is a great way to spend time, and you don’t really have to worry about leaving items at your seat.
What was different between your expectations and experiences?
Not much, if I had to say, I’d guess speed. It can get going pretty fast, and it’s nice to see you speeding past cars on the highway in the VA area. But also, speed… getting deprioritized against freight traffic is more than a little annoying. Was once stuck for a couple of hours because a tree had fallen across the track in a storm earlier in the day.
What do you think most people don’t understand about AmTrak travel?
Not having to deal with TSA makes the experience 100x better in speed and convenience. Taxes and several dozen bags included in the ticket price make it cheaper than air travel in a lot of situations. Seeing the countryside go by at grade-level is so beautiful. Interaction with other passengers and train attendants is very… touching, I guess? People in general are much, much more friendly and happy to be there than in an airplane.
Here’s hoping that you get a chance to experience AmTrak! Even if it’s just for a couple of hours, it’s a very unique experience. I really want to do a roomette cross-country at some point, but it does get pretty expensive, and I feel that some of the charm may be lost by having a totally private space versus coach seating.
When I was a kid (like 11 or so) my whole family went from Chicago to Portland and then a week later got back on the train and went back. It took a couple days each way. My mom hates flying and she didn’t want to drive. I remember sleeping a lot on very uncomfortable seats. Met lots of random people. There weren’t many other kids, so I befriended a lot of elderly people.
It was definitely an experience, but I’m kind of glad I was so young. I don’t know if I would want to sit for so long now. If I were to do it as an adult, I’d probably plan to stop a place or two along the way just to break up the trip.
Not cross country, Seattle to Portland was bad enough.
Amtrak doesn’t have “right of way” on the rails, which means if a freight train needs to get through, the passenger train pulls off onto a side rail to let the freight through.
We sat for 3 hours in the middle of nowhere waiting for a freight train.
When was this? They’ve recently changed it on the corridor routes so Cascades is mandated to get right of way now. I have taken it about 6 times and haven’t had any issues
give it another shot, Amtrak has upped their game especially on the Cascades cooridor. With the point defiance bypass completed we’re now down to 3 1/2 hours to Portland.
Only thing for now - they’re currently upgrading their rolling stock for Cascades and they’re still using the crappy “Horizon” cars, but the new ones are actually expected this year, and they’re supposedly going to be really, really nice
I never did it, but it’s interesting to read about. Last year I was planning a family vacation in Orlando, and we are in NYC area. The deal breaker for me was the cost which was like 3x of the flight. I understand that it would be more comfortable and probably I should compare with business class flight, but still…
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