5 ms·

One tricky bit with a one-way train journey like this is that the train travels all night. So roughly 1/3 of the scenery you go through, you won't be able to s

by smackfu 11y ago

One tricky bit with a one-way train journey like this is that the train travels all night. So roughly 1/3 of the scenery you go through, you won't be able to see at all. If you have something in particular to see, like the badlands, it might only be visible going eastbound and not westbound.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Agreed. Unless you're parked in a railroad yard for 10 hours waiting for an engine, like we were. Feels pretty vulnerable; not a place I'd choose to sleep normally. On the plus side: I can say I've slept in an abandoned rail car on a siding now.
- jobu 11y ago
  Sadly this is very common. The freight companies own the rails, and if there's ever a route conflict their trains get priority over passenger trains. This means long delays in shitty railyards, and you have no way of making an itinerary.
  - hornd 11y ago
    Federal law mandates Amtrak priority over freight, even when operating on freight railways, but my understanding is that the law is not often followed.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      I think that Amtrak gets priority if they're on schedule. But if they're not, the "hole" in the freight traffic may be gone. At that point the freight railroad will do the best they can for Amtrak without bringing the rest of the railroad to a halt. But that's just my amateur understanding of the situation...
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      Only if they're running on time. And they're never running on time over the longer routes. I once took the train from Chicago to Denver and back. On the return trip, our train was delayed 24 hours total. We spent an entire extra day stuck on sidings in the middle of nowhere, as freight cars passed us by. Ofttimes in those situations, the passengers are offloaded onto coach buses, but there were no paved roads nearby. The U.S. just doesn't do passenger rail well. This wasn't the first time I had a bad Amtrak experience. I have, in fact, never been on an Amtrak train that has arrived at my destination before 150% of the scheduled travel time has elapsed.
      - phlakaton 11y ago
        Countering anecdata: I've taken the CA Zephyr from Emeryville to Grand Junction twice, and arrived on-time with the first and I think 30 mins late with the second. With a mobile phone as a hotspot, and sone snacks in the bag for lunch, it was a very nice trip!
        logfromblammo 11y ago
        I have two words for you: diaper rationing. 30 minutes late on a 24 hour trip is not horrible. That's only 2% late. But 24 hours late on a 18.6 hour trip is 129% late. That's packing a lunch, eating it, then eating the snacks you packed because you know Amtrak runs late very often, then having another five meals on the train that you didn't plan for, because you never expected even Amtrak to screw up this badly. And this was before mobile hotspots. It was finishing your book, then finishing all the puzzles in your GAMES Magazine, then rereading all of yesterday's newspaper, down to the obituaries from a city you don't even live in, then staring out your window at the featureless nothingness of the Great Plains. Your traveling companions go from "what an adventure!" to "maybe air travel with a baby over a holiday weekend wouldn't have been so bad," to pandemic cabin fever, to plotting the violent overthrow of the conductor with the guy you just met in the next car. A ranking executive of Amtrak would literally have to kiss me on my literal ass and hand me a free first-class private sleeper cabin ticket before I would even set foot in another one of their siding-idlers ever again. I did the math later, and determined that, while it would not have been accurate to say "it would have been quicker to walk", a professional touring cyclist would have been able to beat the train in a race, even including an 8-hour rest break, if he was taking all the performance-enhancing drugs and riding a faired recumbent bike.
VLM 11y ago
I've taken the chicago-NY route he mentions in the story. He has no pix because its dark both ways. The eastbound leaves around late dinner time in CHC (no point eating before boarding) and arrives before lunch in NYC, and westbound leaves NYC in mid-late afternoon right before lunch hour and arrives around rush hour in CHC. Unless they've changed schedules again. So the time "cost" of taking the train isn't 12 hours vs 3 hour flight (+ 3 hours for security and boarding + an hour each side cab ride... wait suddenly the train isn't that slow after all) The cost of taking the train is you sleep aboard and lose like a quarter of a day of awake time, its nothing. And its a REALLY good working environment. Three points of advice regarding the "expensive" sleeper car: You pay for food unless you get an expensive sleeper, in which case meals are free. Suddenly that room is not so expensive. A hotel out in the burbs or even in a recreational area is cheap, making the sleeper car look expensive; however I'm avoiding staying in NYC or CHC for a night, and hotel rooms downtown are very expensive, suddenly the sleeper is looking like a good deal. Finally the station in CHC and NYC is right downtown. I've gone to business meetings and training in CHC literally two minutes walk from the station, suddenly not paying for a cab to/from Ohare and pay parking for my car at the airport is making the sleeper car downright cheap... As a room a sleeper car is expensive, as a total systemic cost of the overall trip from home front door and back again, its probably cheaper to take the train with a sleeper cabin than to fly.
- falsestprophet 11y ago
  Chicago is abbreviated CHI, not CHC You may have seen CHC in baseball CHC is the Chicago Cubs CHW is the Chicago White Sox CHC is also Christchurch, New Zealand which looks lovely
  - nkrisc 11y ago
    Yeah as a Chicagoan that bugged me a little. Just a nitpick.
  - goodcanadian 11y ago
    Thank you. I kept reading that as Christchurch, which was confusing.
codingdave 11y ago
That is one of the nice parts about the schedule of the California Zephyr - both directions give you the mountains of Colorado during daylight. In the winter you might miss some of Utah's desert because of the shorter days, but you get at least a taste of it. And you end up sleeping through most of Nebraska in both directions as well. Nothing against Nebraska, but it looks much the same as Iowa, so a half day of looking at farms in Iowa is enough - no need for 8 more hours of it in Nebraska. I've lived in various locations on that route for most of my adult life, and take the train often enough that the conductors are starting to remember me.

by smackfu 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Agreed. Unless you're parked in a railroad yard for 10 hours waiting for an engine, like we were. Feels pretty vulnerable; not a place I'd choose to sleep normally. On the plus side: I can say I've slept in an abandoned rail car on a siding now.

jobu 11y ago
Sadly this is very common. The freight companies own the rails, and if there's ever a route conflict their trains get priority over passenger trains. This means long delays in shitty railyards, and you have no way of making an itinerary.
- hornd 11y ago
  Federal law mandates Amtrak priority over freight, even when operating on freight railways, but my understanding is that the law is not often followed.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    I think that Amtrak gets priority if they're on schedule. But if they're not, the "hole" in the freight traffic may be gone. At that point the freight railroad will do the best they can for Amtrak without bringing the rest of the railroad to a halt. But that's just my amateur understanding of the situation...
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Only if they're running on time. And they're never running on time over the longer routes. I once took the train from Chicago to Denver and back. On the return trip, our train was delayed 24 hours total. We spent an entire extra day stuck on sidings in the middle of nowhere, as freight cars passed us by. Ofttimes in those situations, the passengers are offloaded onto coach buses, but there were no paved roads nearby. The U.S. just doesn't do passenger rail well. This wasn't the first time I had a bad Amtrak experience. I have, in fact, never been on an Amtrak train that has arrived at my destination before 150% of the scheduled travel time has elapsed.
    - phlakaton 11y ago
      Countering anecdata: I've taken the CA Zephyr from Emeryville to Grand Junction twice, and arrived on-time with the first and I think 30 mins late with the second. With a mobile phone as a hotspot, and sone snacks in the bag for lunch, it was a very nice trip!
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        I have two words for you: diaper rationing. 30 minutes late on a 24 hour trip is not horrible. That's only 2% late. But 24 hours late on a 18.6 hour trip is 129% late. That's packing a lunch, eating it, then eating the snacks you packed because you know Amtrak runs late very often, then having another five meals on the train that you didn't plan for, because you never expected even Amtrak to screw up this badly. And this was before mobile hotspots. It was finishing your book, then finishing all the puzzles in your GAMES Magazine, then rereading all of yesterday's newspaper, down to the obituaries from a city you don't even live in, then staring out your window at the featureless nothingness of the Great Plains. Your traveling companions go from "what an adventure!" to "maybe air travel with a baby over a holiday weekend wouldn't have been so bad," to pandemic cabin fever, to plotting the violent overthrow of the conductor with the guy you just met in the next car. A ranking executive of Amtrak would literally have to kiss me on my literal ass and hand me a free first-class private sleeper cabin ticket before I would even set foot in another one of their siding-idlers ever again. I did the math later, and determined that, while it would not have been accurate to say "it would have been quicker to walk", a professional touring cyclist would have been able to beat the train in a race, even including an 8-hour rest break, if he was taking all the performance-enhancing drugs and riding a faired recumbent bike.

VLM 11y ago

I've taken the chicago-NY route he mentions in the story. He has no pix because its dark both ways. The eastbound leaves around late dinner time in CHC (no point eating before boarding) and arrives before lunch in NYC, and westbound leaves NYC in mid-late afternoon right before lunch hour and arrives around rush hour in CHC. Unless they've changed schedules again. So the time "cost" of taking the train isn't 12 hours vs 3 hour flight (+ 3 hours for security and boarding + an hour each side cab ride... wait suddenly the train isn't that slow after all) The cost of taking the train is you sleep aboard and lose like a quarter of a day of awake time, its nothing. And its a REALLY good working environment. Three points of advice regarding the "expensive" sleeper car: You pay for food unless you get an expensive sleeper, in which case meals are free. Suddenly that room is not so expensive. A hotel out in the burbs or even in a recreational area is cheap, making the sleeper car look expensive; however I'm avoiding staying in NYC or CHC for a night, and hotel rooms downtown are very expensive, suddenly the sleeper is looking like a good deal. Finally the station in CHC and NYC is right downtown. I've gone to business meetings and training in CHC literally two minutes walk from the station, suddenly not paying for a cab to/from Ohare and pay parking for my car at the airport is making the sleeper car downright cheap... As a room a sleeper car is expensive, as a total systemic cost of the overall trip from home front door and back again, its probably cheaper to take the train with a sleeper cabin than to fly.

falsestprophet 11y ago
Chicago is abbreviated CHI, not CHC You may have seen CHC in baseball CHC is the Chicago Cubs CHW is the Chicago White Sox CHC is also Christchurch, New Zealand which looks lovely
- nkrisc 11y ago
  Yeah as a Chicagoan that bugged me a little. Just a nitpick.
- goodcanadian 11y ago
  Thank you. I kept reading that as Christchurch, which was confusing.

codingdave 11y ago

That is one of the nice parts about the schedule of the California Zephyr - both directions give you the mountains of Colorado during daylight. In the winter you might miss some of Utah's desert because of the shorter days, but you get at least a taste of it. And you end up sleeping through most of Nebraska in both directions as well. Nothing against Nebraska, but it looks much the same as Iowa, so a half day of looking at farms in Iowa is enough - no need for 8 more hours of it in Nebraska. I've lived in various locations on that route for most of my adult life, and take the train often enough that the conductors are starting to remember me.