29 ms·

There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

418 points by gk1 8y ago

2sk21 8y ago
I have traveled New York to Seattle by Amtrak in 2016 and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Sleeper class is not cheap in peak season, but its well worth the cost at least once.
darksaints 8y ago
> Amtrak food is on a par with the fourth-best airplane meal you could ever imagine. Well that's charitable...
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  > Amtrak food is on a par with the fourth-best airplane meal you could ever imagine. What does this even mean? Do you only get a minor case of food poisoning if you eat it?
  - gk1 8y ago
    It's an artistic way of saying it's unremarkable, or "meh."
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Food poisoning for airline meals is quite rare. They go to great lengths to ensure that it’s the least offensive to the widest range of stomachs (at the expense of flavor and variety). The last thing an airline wants is 400 people fighting over 12 bathrooms 8 hours into a 15 hour flight from LAX to SYD.
- zonethundery 8y ago
  Meals on flagship airlines in business/first can be very good. 'Fourth best' in my mind is better than domestic (US) coach (on the rare occasions it exists) and not quite as good as Emirates coach. Acela 1st meals fall in that bucket easily.
- pavlov 8y ago
  I did Seattle->Chicago on Amtrak a couple of years back in a sleeper car, and the food was just fine. Certainly much better than the foil-wrapped disappointment you get in economy class on transatlantic flights.
  - benbristow 8y ago
    Emirates airline food is pretty decent to be honest, and that's foil-wrapped.
    - justaguyhere 8y ago
      Qatar airline is not bad either, though not as good as Emirates. Jet used to be good, not sure now, with all their financial woes
      - elsurudo 8y ago
        I flew Jet just once (from Toronto to Hong Kong I think), and I remember it as the only airplane meal that didn't seem like it came from a microwave. It was actual Indian food – maybe not top-tier-restaurant quality, but good! They also handed out _actual_ hot towels – not those single-use ones. This was all in economy.
nerdbaggy 8y ago
There are many great reasons to take a train across the U.S. When I was on sabbatical I took life at a slower pace. And riding the train was just an amazing beautiful slow experience. Sometimes we just go through life to fast, and a nice slow train does the body well
- chillydawg 8y ago
  We should all remember that souls only travel at the speed of a camel, too.
  - lucozade 8y ago
    I'm guessing you've never been on a galloping camel. This is not a comforting observation...
  - strictnein 8y ago
    Interesting. In William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" the main character feels that it takes a while for her soul to catch back up to her after she takes long plane rides. Wonder if this where he got that idea from.
ilovecaching 8y ago
If Amtrak would add reliable paid WiFi and upgrade their cars, train would be exceedingly worth it. The next step would be to repair the tracks, which are shared by freight and passenger, which makes the ride worse.
- kortilla 8y ago
  The problem is the tracks are owned by the freight (at least for these long segments in the western US). For it to get better Amtrak would need an entire new set of tracks.
  - saalweachter 8y ago
    Yeah, a good rule of thumb is "don't expect Amtrak to be on time on tracks they don't control", which is "a lot of them". One thing I do blame Amtrak for is that they don't always announce their delays as soon as they were known; I took a train that was delayed for two or three hours immediately after picking me up because CSX spit decided to rearrange a bunch of freight trains directly in front of us, and my cousins waiting to pick me up at the station at the other end said that the arrivals board claimed the train was on time up until a few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive, and then ticked up the arrival time by 15 or 30 minutes at a time until we actually arrived. It wasn't Amtrak's fault I was 3 hours late, but it was their fault my cousins just had to hang out at a train station for 3 hours instead of leaving and coming back later.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Adding WiFi wouldn’t help. It would probably be a cellular based WiFi service massively shared and no better coverage than you would get with your own data plan.
  - lukeschlather 8y ago
    They have WiFi on some trains, and that's exactly what it is.
afarrell 8y ago
Note that the author took a sleeper car. In terms of price, this is a bit of a luxury. As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.
- rubidium 8y ago
  Agreed. Did Portland, OR to St. Paul, MN. Beautiful views. Fun to walk around. Wished there a was a smoking lounge. But by 24 hours in it started to stink and I hadn't slept well. By the end of the trip I was cranky and exhausted. And it really smelled in the train (and this was with it just 25% full)!
- nickjj 8y ago
  Yeah that's a big difference. The regular seats are a much different story. I've never done it but I read about how it's basically 3 days of sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone and there's no showers. Can't imagine what that would be like in a car filled with 50+ people. I did take the Amtrak from CT To Boston once and it wasn't too bad, but that was a few hour trip. Much different than a few days.
  - volkl48 8y ago
    My understanding is that most people are not actually traveling coast to coast, but on shorter segments of the overall route. I don't think you're likely to be next to the someone for 3 days.
    - zackkitzmiller 8y ago
      This is very correct.
    - afarrell 8y ago
      Yea the Lakeshore Limited Albany->Boston is fine.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
mkj 8y ago
And then there's the less-luxury option. https://moxie.org/stories/klamath-falls/ https://moxie.org/stories/klamath-falls/
arethuza 8y ago
When my father was in the RAF in WW2 he crossed the US by train from Florida to Hollywood - his reason simply seemed to be because he could. Edit: Note that he did this during some leave time he had accumulated.
gwbas1c 8y ago
I really enjoyed driving across the country three times. Anyone do both, and can compare?
- rubidium 8y ago
  By sleeper car, train is luxurious and much more relaxed. By vehicle you can sleep each night in a hotel and take a shower each day. Both have + and -'s. But my ranking would be Sleeper Car train > Driving > non-sleeper car train. Trains can be much more social.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    You can get lower with a greyhound bus. Sure they stop at every prison along the way, but the views are actually quite nice. The social is also there, but can be a bit scary depending on your appetite for adventure.
    - frosted-flakes 8y ago
      Does Greyhound still operate services across the US? I know in Canada they've shuttered most of their operations except for the more heavily used eastern-central routes in Ontario and Quebec because everything else is not profitable.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        Greyhound still has all of its cross country routes. Like I said, many people depend on them, especially prisons, but they are also cheap and service many many places that trains and planes don’t go near.
    - fwip 8y ago
      I took a Greyhound from Pittsburgh to Seattle once. It was a 4 day experience and I think it took a week for my brain to reboot afterwards. Plus, we had a 24-hour layover due to weather - I think I slept on the floor of the bus station.
- 8y ago
gk1 8y ago
For anyone interested in more train-travel stories I've written (partially) about my trip across Russia, starting with: https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-railway-st-petersburg/ https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-rail... Still have half the trip left to write about, which I'll do bit by bit.
- RightMillennial 8y ago
  I just tried some borscht a couple weeks ago. It was made by an older Russian gentleman at my church (in the U.S.). It was definitely a different flavor but it was pretty good.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  I love stories like this, and I'm eager to embark on my own trip on the railroad. Thank you for writing it.
  - gk1 8y ago
    Thanks for saying that. That encourages me to keep writing.
- xaybey 8y ago
  This sparked a lot of memories. I really enjoyed it.
- GunlogAlm 8y ago
  Really enjoyed reading this! Seems like a fascinating journey, I'd love to make the trip some day.
- AirborneUnicorn 8y ago
  Thank you for sharing, this was wonderful to read!
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  This was a fantastic read, and you are a very entertaining and engaging writer.
robmiller 8y ago
Well, this is timely. I'm hopping on Amtrak tomorrow for a 30 hour trip with three young kids.
CWuestefeld 8y ago
My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience. But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really. And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by. One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.
  - truncj 8y ago
    After 14 hours of silence you might think twice!
    - dagw 8y ago
      Spending 14 hours alone in silence is the sort of day I fantasize about.
  - galago 8y ago
    Amtrak has quiet cars, at least in the Northeast. I often take Boston-NYC and there seem to be a lot of business travelers. People who are riding in a train across Utah are probably in it for the experience.
    - shereadsthenews 8y ago
      Capitol Corridor also has a quiet car but all it means is you are assured of having to inform some bozo of that fact because the fraction of riders on their first train ride ever is very high.
Kiro 8y ago
This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you. I've personally completely stopped flying.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Many people are fine with taking the train in the US when it's remotely competitive in terms of time and price. However, in practice, that mostly means a subset of the Northeast Corridor (the whole thing is about an 8-hour trip vs. a short flight) or a handful of various city pairs that are only a few hundred miles apart. But it's simply not practical for me to take the train from Boston to Chicago, much less San Francisco. People can get out pitchforks if they like but I'm essentially always going to fly.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Quite. Makes sense to do train from NY-Boston or NY-Washington. Maybe Washington-Boston, but 5 hours is probably about the limit. I suspect few people in Sweden would recommend traveling Stockholm to Madrid by train
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Boston to Washington is something over 7 hours. I've done it but it really doesn't make sense most of the time--especially given that Reagan airport is on the metro which neutralizes one of the advantages that taking the train has in a place like Manhattan. It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
  - okmokmz 8y ago
    I've never been in a situation in the US where a train was even close to competitive in terms of time and price
m3nu 8y ago
I went from San Fran to Chicago by train as a backpacker 13 years ago. Was a nice experience. Also got my first Macbook just before the trip and had some time to play with it. :-)
anjc 8y ago
Unreadable and bizarre article. Congrats to the author on rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi and getting a...train.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
I'm planning to take my family on an RV across the US (The Lincoln Highway in other words) partly cos it's always been a dream of mine, and partly to get the kids introduced to real travelling rather than holidays. I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people, something I consider the point of travelling (yes landscapes are lovely but I am a Homo Sapiens Bigot)
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people Could you take the train, but instead of a non-stop journey just jump off when you pass through an interesting town, and then resume your journey the next day?
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    It seems to lack the flexibility I was hoping for - lunch in this town, dinner in that. plus i suspect it entails excitingly expensive tickets and fun timetable management :-)
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      Ah I'm used to roughly hourly trains - I guess some of them in the USA only pass through once a week even.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    Maybe, maybe not. Some routes are one trail per week, some 3x a week. There are many interesting places not reachable by train at all. If your trip works with those limits then there is a pass you can buy.
baybal2 8y ago
American trains are so sloooooow. I routinely take long range bullet trains in China, and am greatly grateful for the generosity of Chinese taxpayers making it real =D Shanghai - Beijing sleeper trains are great value, and during 8 hour Guangzhou/Shenzhen - Shanghai day trips, you can work comfortably.
csomar 8y ago
I tried the Amtrack against advice not to. I went from DC to NYC and then to Boston. The train was not luxurious but it was "fine". I took the cheapest option (which was not cheap given the train was slow and the distance is short). [I'm comparing prices to EU]. - The seats were large and comfortable enough. But I'm a small sized person. - The trains were on time. - The stations were not renovated or nice but functional. Boston station was good enough. NYC, a bit confusing. - There was food on board. It was okay for 3-4 hours ride. - Wifi didn't work. Data will disconnect near big buildings or under tunnels. - It's not clear which station we are in. Maybe they could have a digital screen that shows some info?
- ghaff 8y ago
  The Northeast Corridor Amtrak route is fine. The Acela trains are nicer and a bit faster but IMO not so much so that I typically will pay out of my own pocket at 2x the price. (The pricing is really for business travelers for which they only really need to be competitive with air.) I much prefer those routes to flying. But Penn Station in NYC really is a disaster. (It's a long and sad story dating back to the Penn Central bankruptcy.) Although things are slowly being fixed up as part of a massive building project.
g3rd 8y ago
My husband and I are taking the train from Washington, DC to Glacier National Park in September. Super excited! Get to cross it off of the bucket list.
0898 8y ago
Caity Weaver used to write for Gawker. I've always loved her work – I think she's one of the best writers of our generation.
tialaramex 8y ago
Scheduled aviation means altitude which means pressure change which fucks with my ears. So, I'm useless for a day or two either side. Unless traveling across an ocean there will be a way to get there without a plane that only takes the 2-3 data I'd be out of action anyway. One of the very few down sides of this era is that the fast passenger liner isn't a thing any more. Titanic sank trying to get to New York quickly. I can get a passenger ticket to New York today, from Southampton where I live, but now it's a leisure market, they don't schedule them for rapid travel just as a cruise, so it's not practical to go back and forth that way.
jackschultz 8y ago
Last year my sister had a week off and took the Empire Builder across the country out west. Lots of talk about how the sleeper car is worth it and I remembered she didn't, so I asked her her take and this is the response: "I traveled alone on the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon (two nights/almost 48 hours) in June 2018. I wanted to get a sleeper car but waited too long to book so my only option was a regular seat. I knew I’d be unhappy if I went straight through two nights with no bed and no shower, so I made a stop in Whitefish, Montana for 24 hours. In the end it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved Whitefish and was happy to spend some time exploring the beautiful scenery I’d seen whizzing by. The sights around Glacier National Park were literally breathtaking. As far as the train itself, I spent most of time in the observation car, and as a solo traveler I was happy to find everyone was very friendly. I’m only 5’2” and luckily didn’t have a seatmate so I could pretty much lay all the way down at night. A lot of people brought pillows and blankets, but I was ok without. Ear plugs and an eye mask were the key to getting any sleep. There were delays here and there which didn’t bother me because I had a very loose schedule anyway. I don’t have enough good things to say about my trip! I’m looking for an excuse to take another long-haul train." People have their own stories, so hopefully this gives another perspective.
- bdamm 8y ago
  This is like my own experience. I've done Vancouver->Seattle->Oakland, which is beautiful. Train friends were all fun and some memorable. Also Oakland->Chicago, with my wife and 4-yr old son in a family sleeper. We had a great time. The California, Utah and Colorado segments were stunningly beautiful. And we all enjoyed the shower when we checked in to our hotel in Chicago, which was basically a block or two from the train station. Outstanding. Its not an airliner, or a bus, or a car, and that's a good thing.
- therealdrag0 8y ago
  > earplugs an eye mask where key Oh shoot, I hadn't thought of this. I like the idea of trying a long/sleeper train trip, but I'm a terribly light sleeper and I bet I would get almost no sleep :(
ams6110 8y ago
Took Amtrak from Chicago to Las Vegas once. Worst travel experience of my life. Hit a car, had a breakdown in the mountains, and they lost my checked luggage. Over 24 hours late. Never again. If you are ever tempted, just fly. It's cheaper, much faster, and you can spend the time and money you saved on something interesting.
- degenerate 8y ago
  This is what I heard from every single person who took a train long distance somewhere (>300mi)... some said it was an "experience" but they would never do it again, and flying is just as cheap, faster, better, less hassle.
cooperadymas 8y ago
The most difficult part about rail travel seems to be booking it. I've looked multiple times at using Amtrak for both travel and for rail tourism, and I've never been able to fully understand what to book and how to book it. Maybe I'm being dense about it but it always feels unnecessarily complicated and confusing.
- delecti 8y ago
  Maybe I'm not understanding what you're not understanding. Just put in your origin and destination cities and book a ticket. It's only slightly different from air travel in that there are fewer hubs and routes. Open up the map [1], pick two cities along the red lines. [1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes.html https://www.amtrak.com/routes.html
Townley 8y ago
Years ago, I took an Amtrak NY > Chicago > Seattle > SF > LA > Texas > New Orleans, stopping in each for a few days. I brought programming textbooks and some novels, and just read/thought all day long. At night I'd either eat in the dining car (expensive) or from a supply I'd picked up in the previous city. I'd get a sleeper car when it was cheap (eg Chicago > Seattle) and sleep in my seat during more expensive legs of the trip. You meet people from every part of US culture (North Dakota oil field workers, Portland hippies, LA actors...) all unified by not being in a rush and a dislike of flying. On trips outside the NE corridor, the train attaches an observation car which becomes an incredible place to talk the night away with fellow passengers. You have to be flexible, in sound physical shape, and have a month and $2k to part with (or you can just take on a few Wordpress theme contracts and call it even) but it's a truly wonderful experience for a certain person at a certain stage in their life.
jxsonl 8y ago
I did it with a 15-day railpass as a graduation trip with 4 friends. Wouldnt say that it was the best experience with very tight budget as broke college students but a very special experience for sure. Especially when passing through Washington state national park. At that moment all of us agreed that the trip was worth it.
tc7 8y ago
Lovely writing! In May, myself, my wife, our two kids (8, 6), are amtraking from Chicago to San Francisco in a family sleeper. I'm excited. We've enjoyed our (much shorter) amtrak trips from Ashland, VA to DC.
mrtnmcc 8y ago
This article is noticably more creative in its writing than the average nytimes article. Maybe a long train ride does a writer good (and anyone else who needs to think outside the box).
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  It’s a special interest kind of article that gets written every once in awhile. Most articles of the same nature are typically written similarly.
- alchemism 8y ago
  Amtrak has for a few years offered an annual Writers Residency Program. There may be some truth to your quip. https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-writers https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...
- convolvatron 8y ago
  i haven't done it for a while. but a laptop, power, a big seat, flakey or non-existent internet (is it still that way?) and nothing else to do for 24+ hours is a pretty good setup for doing some serious coding.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  It’s from the NYT Magazine, a glossy supplement included with the Sunday paper where they publish longer, more literary pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Magazine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Magazine
darrenf 8y ago
In the last 6 years I've twice done circuits of Europe by train - sleepers (mostly) in 2013 when we hit 28 countries in 18 days, and an anniversary reprise of sorts last summer which took in a mere 16 countries in 10 days. As much as I love to fly (and I do), long distance rail travel for no particular reason is wonderful. I hope one day to hit up a long Amtrak route or two in the US, maybe the Ghan in Australia, and others.
geggam 8y ago
I did Seattle to Chicago. Drank quite a few pina colada from a can while sitting in the observation car. Some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see, assuming you aren't in a hurry
mooreds 8y ago
This was awesome and the trip is on my bucket list. However, I really enjoyed the tongue in cheek humor.
supernova87a 8y ago
I have no comment on whether taking that train journey is worth it or not. All I want to say is that the UI developers for the Amtrak booking site should be shot. That site is one of the ugliest, confusing layout-infected, poorly designed sites I have ever seen for a travel booking page. (aside from 3rd world countries which have an excuse) Just try putting in dates, selecting a fare, and report back. If there were any need for a standards body for amateur UI designers doing something on the cheap without experience, this would be a cry for it.
- bluewater 8y ago
  Agreed on the poorly laid out website. I book once or twice a year and will always call in. The customer service reps are friendly and helpful. They’ll input different parameters and will hold a reservation I think for 24hrs without charge. If you don’t book the seat just goes back into inventory.
c0nsumer 8y ago
I once took the train from the Detroit area (BMM -- Birmingham) to San Francisco, roughly... 9.5 years ago. I went alone, had a sleeper cabin to myself, and loved it. I really want to do it again, this time maybe stopping off places on the way. What I particularly enjoyed was the route west seemed timed to pass through the Rockies and Sierra Nevada during daylight. Basically, I went to sleep around Omaha, woke in Colorado. Sleep near Salt Lake City, woke in Reno. Then departed in the Oakland area the next afternoon, took BART to Caltrain and on to my friend's place in Palo Alto. Made for a really nifty trip. They aren't organized (I just dumped them), and Gallery2 is showing its age, but if you'd like to see a bunch of photos from on-board the train, here you go: https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/travel/sf_via_amtrak_nov_2009/alltemp/ https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/travel/sf_via_amtrak_nov_2009/all...
- JSeymourATL 8y ago
  Upvote for photos, nice share!
apple4ever 8y ago
Back in 2011 I took a trip from Philly to Tampa (to watch spring training). Me and my buddy split the sleeper car cost (~$750 each). That also included three meals since it was a 24 hour trip. And at that time the food was good. It was really fun actually. Yes, it was long, but we enjoyed the trip. Seeing the east coast up and down was neat. Talking with random people who are there. I'd definitely do it again, but only for special trips.
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daveslash 8y ago
There's a photo of a guy burning brush in his backyard and the caption says "Somewhere in Illinois. One of Amtrak’s main selling points is the chance to spy on the nation’s hidden places, the backyards whose possible existence had never occurred to you." It's interesting for me to look at that photo and think "I too have peered into that guy's yard. I don't recall specifically, but I took that train and if I happened to be on the same side... then presumably..."
giarc 8y ago
New Canadian citizens get a Cultural Access Pass which enables them to a 50% discount on Canadian train travel with VIARail (among a ton of other perks). https://media.viarail.ca/en/press-releases/2015/10-july-2015-via-rail-renews-cultural-access-pass-progra https://media.viarail.ca/en/press-releases/2015/10-july-2015...
- ihaveajob 8y ago
  This is awesome. Talk about being immigrant friendly.
paulie_a 8y ago
While I am still going to do the empire builder. The theme I generally hear is: "despite it being more expensive, takes longer, it is an amazing trip that I would never take again"
kingaillas 8y ago
I had a very good experience taking the train from the Orlando, FL area to the Washington, DC area when I moved many years ago. That is Amtrak's auto line, so I also moved my car that way. As I recall, it was about $200 for my ticket and $200 for my car. I could have gotten a bit less buying earlier than I did. My other option was to drive myself, but that would have taken longer and been more expensive considering gas and lodging. The trip was about ~16 hours total, including some time arriving early enough to line up to load my car, and time waiting for car unload. Each carriage had an upper and lower half, and the lower half was further divided into restrooms and sleeper bunks on one half, and general seating on the other half. I just got a regular general seating ticket, which was fine because my trip was only one overnight - seats were spacious, reclined fairly far, had electric plugs and so on, and had a key advantage: the lower general seating compartment was a dead end. Only people sitting there had reason to come in, so it was quiet. The upper half of each carriage linked to the other carriages, and was how everyone moved back and forth and got to the dining carriage. There was another carriage (top half) set aside as an entertainment space, with TVs and tables, reading area, decks of cards, bar, etc. People sitting in the top area had the less pleasant situation of sitting along the path everyone had to use to move around the train. I thought the food was just fine. Yeah it isn't fine cuisine but it was tasty and included in the ticket. Anyway, I'd like to try a longer train ride sometime, I know some folks who really enjoyed a Trans-Canada train vacation that included one or two overnights off the train. It sounds kinda fun, I'd spend my time reading, bring along some compact boardgames and a portable console to play.
moosey 8y ago
I've used a number of carbon output calculators, and one of my major carbon outputs are two flights from the Inland Northwest to the Northeast part of the country each year (work related). It seems that in the case of my travel, my lowest carbon option (according to at least one calculator I've used) is actually an economy ticket on an aircraft. It also clarified that for shorter trips, the greyhound bus is without equal. I haven't been able to discover if this is something that is specific to the United States, or how that calculation is made. However, I am of the opinion that there is always a good reason to ride trains, particularly in the US: increased demand for train travel. Other than those two flights, I have abandoned all long distance travel for the rest of my life, or until largely carbon neutral and safe travel exists. I believe that such technologies will be produced in the medium term.
- pacifist 8y ago
  The problem with airplanes is that the carbon is released in exactly the wrong place[0] so your intuitions are correct. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as air travel is concerned: don't fly and we lose a major component of global dimming[1], fly and and it puts CO2 in the upper atmosphere speeding us toward global warming on an apocalyptic scale. If you can read a graph you know we are in big trouble. [0] - https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/03/20/earthtalk-airplane-emissions-and-climate-change/ https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/03/20/earthtalk-airplan... [1] - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218772_Climatology_Contrails_reduce_daily_temperature_range https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218772_Climatolog...
- Tepix 8y ago
  Reducing carbon output by traveling by train stead of plane is a super valid reason. It's probably the no. 1 reason why kerosene will eventually get high taxes on it worldwide (the sooner the better).
redsavagefiero 8y ago
Public ground/rail transport in the US is not for the faint hearted. Spoken as a travel veteran in three decades of cross country trips via Greyhound and Amtrak. TIPS: * Don't cross Texas in a Greyhound. * Don't go to New Orleans Amtrak coach from DC.
- lagadu 8y ago
  Can you share the why of those two tips? I'm not from the US so I have no experience with those but it sounds like you have some interesting stories about it :)
  - redsavagefiero 8y ago
    Texas is a long, uncomfortable haul in general. The year I did this crossing was 1994. Witnessed racism, religion gone wrong and malicious violence in more than one local personality jumping on for a town to town hop. New Orleans coach was 2004. The rowdiness, smells and movement in the train gave me the only migraine I've ever had. I could barely give directions to the cab driver for my hotel and slept 16 hours.
  - virusduck 8y ago
    I've done DC<->ATL on both coach and sleeper. Sleeper's nicer, obv, but coach is really fine. It's not super crowded, and the amount of legroom is ridiculous compared to an airplane. Even though it takes 4X as long as a plane, it's overnight, so it doesn't really seem too long at all.
dustindiamond 8y ago
So, how feasible is this as a remote worker? What I am really asking is, how reliable is wifi/internet and is it available through the entire journey? I would not mind a workcation this way, but probably could not afford a satphone’s data plan.
- haldean 8y ago
  Extremely unreliable; I've only taken the Lake Shore Limited and California Zephyr, so I can't speak for the whole thing, but I'd say I had cell reception about half the time, maybe less.
- jointpdf 8y ago
  There is no WiFi on Amtrak trains--you'd have to tether to your phone. And for most Amtrak routes, you'd be going through some significant service deadzones (depending on the route, you could be in the middle of a mountain wilderness). But I can't think of a better workcation spot if you can be offline periodically. For me, the train is simultaneously relaxing and stimulating, a perfect place to zone in on work while still embarking on an adventure. Edit: Apparently there is WiFi on some Amtrak trains, but I wouldn't count on it.
- ghaff 8y ago
  As others have noted, variable and pretty much guaranteed to be bad in remote rural locations (i.e. many of the most scenic). TBH, reliable WiFi for workations (or even just business travel) is a bit of a crapshoot in my experience. It's a lot more consistent than it used to be. But I've also spent days fighting a marginal connection to get something done. Fortunately, in a city, you can usually find good wireless at some coffeeshop even if it's bad at your hotel.
yitchelle 8y ago
Coincidentally, I was watching Brave Dave doing freight hopping all over North America. For the brave at heart and with tons of energy, this looks a bit more exciting, and much cheaper. https://www.freighthopping.com/ https://www.freighthopping.com/
- carapace 8y ago
  And illegal, and dangerous. Train hopping is for those who need it. Give it respect and don't treat it like a sport or touristy thing. Story time... More than a score of years ago I was a young man traveling south from Seattle with a group of other kids. And old hand (I'll call him Jim) took us under his wing and showed us a bit of the ropes, how to ride the rails. The train folks are pretty old school. Level-headed, and not unkind. At one point we stopped on a siding. Before long an older man in overalls and a cap came down, walking the line. He could have walked out of a 100-year old photo. We kids were spooked and hid in the back of the car, but Jim just sat calmly in the open cargo door, in plain sight, and waited for the train man to reach us. When he saw us he was very calm and quiet, he greeted Jim and they had a very mellow and civil little conversation. Before he left to check the rest of the train, he picked up a rusted old loose train spike from the ground and showed us how to use it to spike open the cargo door so it wouldn't be able to slide shut and trap us or injure us. At a yard near Tacoma we tried to jump on a slow-moving train and the bulls stopped us. They were pretty kind considering, and they said that if we had been boarding a stopped train they wouldn't have bothered us, but a few weeks earlier a guy had tried to hop a moving train and tripped and fell and lost both of his legs, and that's why they stopped us that night, they said. Jim had a warrant out for some BS so they took him in. The next morning we tried to go see him but none of us knew his last name so the (very friendly and sympathetic) officer at the station's front desk couldn't tell us anything about him. We had to leave and I never saw him again. (Way before cell phones were common. Feels like 1800's now.) I remember getting rained on while riding on some tanker cars. They have these niches in the bulkheads at each end that are just large enough for one or two people to curl up in. We took turns in there with the rest of us huddled around to try to block the rain. It might sound crazy but it was a lot of fun. But I can't recommend it as an adventure. Visit the Grand Canyon, or volunteer in a remote place, or something if you want adventure. Train hopping is for those who need it. The old school respect and kindness that passed between the train folks and a group a homeless kids trying to travel hundreds of miles with no money was one of those secular sacred things that deserves respect. Trains are awesome.
stuart78 8y ago
This article's title strikes me as condescending and annoying. There are 'reasons' to travel by train for a lot of people. My cousin has a deep fear of flying and hasn't done so in several decades. So he travels by train. As this writer learns, it can also be an enjoyable way to see the country. That said, I did once survive a 24 hour delay on Amtrak between Chicago and Oakland. It was the middle of winter and track was splitting, so the train would move a few miles and then wait a few hours for the crew to replace the broken rail.
caprese 8y ago
> TELL YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS that you plan to cross the United States by train, and their reactions will range from amusement at your spellbinding eccentricity to naked horror Its not just that its the train use, its the fact that you want to cross America at all! The perception is that it is a large foreign land full of lots of things that can go wrong solely due to incongruent laws. (Mid 1800s) Cross a border and be sold into slavery by bounty hunters? Check (Fiction, but is it?) Transportation breaks down and you are surrounded by mutated hillbillies in the desert? Check (2010s+) Highway robbery of all the money on you by some random municipality's police themselves under protection of the state? Check (2010s+) Get thrown into an old people's home under a guardianship racket that the doctor's and the court system are all invested in? Check Be kidnapped and sold into illegal sex slavery? Be kidnapped and sold into legal sex slavery in the desert without adequate means of getting help? But yeah none of that is likely to happen and these are irrational fears, but you can ALSO just fly over all of that noise.
binarysolo 8y ago
I did a search on the thread and didn't see it, so here's a shoutout to the USA Rail Pass (15/30/45 days of travel on Amtrak; while not unlimited, it functionally is in practice): https://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-usa-rail-pass https://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-u... I spent 45 days traveling the US about a decade ago, during a transitionary period from work to grad school. Visited a bunch of friends in different states and really had a great time. The clientelle for multiday Amtrak trips falls closer with travel backpackers and RVers - people who really care about the journey over the destination (since air is far superior to get you from A->B fast and reliably). Lots of interesting folks who also are doing this for whatever-their-own-reasons. Not-sure-if-obsolete tip: I snagged my rail pass from a retiree on Craigslist for half price. Turns out Amtrak employees get friends-and-family rail passes as perks and a few of them end up on the resale market.
gumby 8y ago
It really is fun when the journey is the whole point. Last year I took the train from Adelaide to Melbourne, a trip I took frequently as a kid before the plane became primary. Back then it was exciting but there was not much to do: whole family in a sleeper cabin; a stop at the border to change crews, and that's it. Now it's a twice-weekly tourist service. I was sad at the thought that train service had fallen so low, but discovered instead that I really enjoyed the change of landscape as we traveled and spent most of the 11 hours looking through the window. I was sorry to see all the now-closed country stations we went through (including my own: I had to drive into Adelaide to get the train and then 45 minutes later pass through my starting point) as the trains really did knit the little towns together in ways cars have not. I also spent a lot of my childhood traveling on (steam!) trains in India, probably because of cost. I think that's why a friend and I took the trans Siberia express in the 1980s when we were in our 20s. It was super fun but the opposite of what I wrote above: USSR was so huge that the view outside the window was largely monotonous, but the action on the train was fun (everyone was super friendly).
vorotato 8y ago
There's also no reason not to ;).
herodotus 8y ago
There is no appetite for high-speed rail service in the US or Canada. Mainly because of distances. But the Fuxing Hao CR400AF/BF can reach speeds of 249 mph. Now at an average of, lets say, 180mph, it would take about 15 hours to travel from Vancouver to Toronto. (Yes, rough calculation, but just to get the idea.) So I could leave work early, say at 3pm, leave the stations at 4pm, enjoy the view as the rockies whip by, go to bed, wake up and have breakfast on the train, and be ready to have my meeting with the Toronto VCs at 8:30 in the morning. Use electric power instead of diesel, and this would be my preferred way for this route. Of course, the cost to build this might drain the treasury for the foreseeable future...
jointpdf 8y ago
I've taken Amtrak cross-country (CA <--> Chicago via California Zephyr / SW Chief) about a dozen times in my life. If you're not in a hurry to get from A to B, there's no better way to travel IMO. Sure, the trains are outdated and a bit stanky, but it's just a perfect cross-section of American life (both people and landscapes). It's a perfect place to zen out and burrow into a book / creative project for a few days. Plus, you can just show up right before the train arrives and you're on your way (perfect for people who run on wizard time, like me). You definitely have to prepare a bit if you want to get a decent night of sleep in coach, though. Here's a short survival kit: -Tylenol PM / Benadryl (or your preferred sleep aid of choice) -Warm clothes / travel blanket (it can get cold) -Pillow/neck pillow/some way to keep your head immobilized -Earplugs + noise cancelling headphones -Eyemask -Patience/equanimity
- dfgert 8y ago
  I agree. Train were so much more fun as I can recall from my childhood memories. Now I rarely see someone traveling via train, and those who do are trying to save some money(train fares are cheaper in other countries). I guess time that's available to people has shortened so much that they can't afford to engage in fun once in a while. Even the damn vacation feels so hectic and stressful. I guess that's because most people's idea of vacation is going to new country/city that they have never visited(totally unfamiliar with things there) and try to cover all of it in 1-2 weeks(all they get in a year).
loosetypes 8y ago
It's super cool that Amtrak does a residency for writers[0]. Now if only open-source writers could fall under that umbrella! [0] https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-writers https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...
standardUser 8y ago
I remember when a friend and I were planning a trip from SF to Chicago and looked in to taking a train. Turns out, the train takes longer than driving and costs more the flying. Which really made me wonder... who is taking these trains?
kyleblarson 8y ago
My (now) wife and I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago about 10 years ago. We purchased a private cabin. We were 8 hours late leaving Seattle and couldn't get into our cabin until we got to Spokane because of some sort of merge of trains coming from Portland and Seattle. Got to Spokane, got our cabin, another 6 hour delay. By the time we reached the upper Midwest, they were rationing food, literally cutting every meal (that we had already paid for) in half. We eventually arrived in Chicago about 22 hours late. The train was disgustingly dirty and the employees were surly and unhelpful. Having taken dozens of train trips in Japan since 2001 I was incredibly excited for the American train experience. It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again.
- sushisushisushi 8y ago
  >It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again. All Amtrak lines are operated a little differently, AFAIK. As far as the West Coast is concerned, I find both the Pacific Surfliner and the Coastal Starlight to be pleasant and enjoyable (although not very affordable). The Northeast Regional on the East Coast is pretty affordable, runs often, and makes traveling between cities in the Northeast megalopolis without a car pretty trivial, which is nice. All that's to say that I wouldn't judge Amtrak by its least-used routes.
- munk-a 8y ago
  My wife and I were (up here in Canada) looking for a nice mellow train ride with scenery, out of Vancouver you can catch a train to Jasper and on northward to Prince George but... the cost of both of us to ride and have a cabin for two is 5k, so alternative to taking a 4 day train ride is flying out to london three separate times for the weekend. Alternatively we could book a fancy hotel room in down-town for two weeks and have a ritzy stay-cation. I don't know why continental american train service is so stupidly over priced and inconvenient, but I really hope at some point they realize they are currently uncompetitive and could actually make more money offering a better service for a more reasonable fee.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    Canada Post is doing the same thing. Probably all others too. Their continuous response to lower revenues is to raise prices. This just feeds ever-more innovation in the message and package delivery markets, sabotaging themselves.
anth_anm 8y ago
I took the train for the first time a few months back. Was a couple hundred miles (less even). I really like it for about the first 3/4. Then we took forever to get the last little bit done. I looked into it and apparently out west Amtrak has an atrocious record for on time service. It's a shame because it's a great way to travel if you can take the time. It's comfortable, I had power and wifi. The food isn't great but oh well. I'd rather take the train than my car, driving is dreary. I'd rather take it than the bus, which is just god awful. I really wish we would put in the time to make our trains better. Passenger tracks and high speed trains would be awesome. Instead we waste time and effort on Elon's tunnels.
codingdave 8y ago
I take the train cross-country whenever I can. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the views. All the positive aspects mentioned in the article are 100% true. But I can't help but feel that this author wants to dislike trains. He wants everyone to understand how awful and slow it is. And they went into this story with a chip on their shoulder, and were disappointed to find that the trip had value. But the trains aren't just about cross-country travel. They travel through small towns where people rely on them for trips to larger cities. If you live in Mount Pleasant, IA, you can take the train into Chicago just as fast, and far easier, than driving. Want to go from Salt Lake to Denver in a blizzard? Trains will take twice as long as driving but you can sit there and safely watch snow-capped peaks go by instead of worrying about driving your car off the edge of a mountainside. Pick any 2-6 hours train trip on the map, and those are the majority of passengers on Amtrak. And I have frequently run into retired people heading to Iowa to pick up RVs, because Winnebago contracts delivery of RVs out, and it is a nice part-time job to get a one-way train ticket, then drive a RV to someone's home and get paid for it all. In short, the purposes serve by Amtrak have as much variety as reasons people get in their cars. It is a valuable service to those who need it, even if authors for the NY times aren't the 'target audience'.
- sonofaplum 8y ago
  She
- freeone3000 8y ago
  This story was written with a much more positive tone than I believe the facts warranted. Such sleeping and toilet arrangements are closer to prison arrangements than anything a reasonable person would expect, and the delays were lesser than what I've experienced. I thought I was the type of person who would ride a train. I wanted to get from Denton, Texas to Temple, Texas. This was simple. The booking website is exactly as bad as mentioned. I finally got one that promised me a four hour trip with a short bus ride on each end. Alright, cool, that's fine. So I schedule to arrive about thirty minutes prior, except the train is delayed two hours. That's half the ride again, on a delay! This causes me to miss my connection, and the next train wasn't scheduled until tomorrow. I cannot imagine anyone trying to use Amtrak for actual travel, when reliability and timeliness matters.
ctingom 8y ago
Doesn't the government run Amtrak?
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Sort of, but not really. The US Government is king of weird semi-privatized public partnerships that are the worst of both worlds. Amtrak is very similar to the current iteration of the USPS, in that Amtrak is run as its own "for profit" somewhat publicly traded company, yet has to answer to the US Congress as its largest shareholder.
ggggtez 8y ago
>Amtrak clings to the hope that someday people will view its service not as something that sucks and that they hate, but as something that is actually nice and that they don’t hate. This is the money quote, I think.
mizchief2 8y ago
I don't understand the obsession with laying high-speed rail all across the US when we have perfectly good airplanes and a massive network of airports.
osdiab 8y ago
I took a long-haul, slow train in China from Shanghai to Guilin (18 hours or so) and that was a great experience - watching the Chinese landscape go by, really cheap to get a sleeper car with my friends, and no delays. The high speed rail is good too if you want to be quick, both in China and Japan (though Japan is much more expensive); I took the Chinese ones frequently but longest haul I did was Shenzhen to Shanghai (8 hours or so) and that was both smooth, nice views and comfortable.
paulcarroty 8y ago
If someone want to do it virtually - highly recommend https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5378198/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5378198/ , a lot of good nature views and historical facts.
thebaer 8y ago
I'm about to take the train from Florida to Oregon and I can't wait. I ride Amtrak up and down the east coast all the time, and will take it over flying any day. Yes, the trains are often late. Yes, it's slower than flying and maybe even driving. But it's a journey. You can show up 15 minutes before the train leaves and still make it on board. You can bring snacks and some beer, meet people you never would've talked to otherwise, see parts of the country you'd never see otherwise. You get to travel for the sake of traveling -- a rare pleasure indeed.
MarcScott 8y ago
I did SF to NY back in my 20s after working at summer camp. Not in one go, but over about four weeks with stops in Last Vegas, San Diego, New Orleans and Miami. It was a great experience and I met some great people. Never had a sleeper, and that just made it easier to mingle with my fellow travellers. I remember playing hours of chess with some old dude in the smoking carriage, and the shitty cans of margaritas at happy hour served from the train bar. Unlike jumping on the plane, the train journeys were an integral part of the travelling experience, rather than just a method of getting from one city to another.
wave100 8y ago
I took the Amtrak from Albany to Boston regularly for a while. Once, we had a hazmat train in front of us come uncoupled, and were sitting on the track for three hours. Another time, we were delayed because the tracks right past Albany were somehow on fire. I was an hour late to the station one time, and still had to wait two hours once I arrived because the train was somehow later than I was. Amtrak. Not even once.
dk1138 8y ago
The writer for this story is exceptional. This is non-fiction commentary at its best.
thecrumb 8y ago
How's the wifi? I've been considering doing this one day. I can work from anywhere - so if I had a good wifi signal for a bit everyday I could easily sit on a train and code.
devy 8y ago
To top it off, one should try Trans Siberian Railway, the longest railway in the world.[1][2] There are 3 routes: - Moscow to Vladivostok - Moscow to Beijing - Moscow to Ulaanbaatar I haven't been myself, but it's one of those things one should try once before they die. And there are even movies set in Transsib. [3][4] [1] https://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway https://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsiberian_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsiberian_(film) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express
brailsafe 8y ago
Canadian here to offer an anecdote. I spent about 80 days road tripping and living out of the car with my gf between julyish to Nov in the US, coming from Vancouver. My car died near Fresno and I had about 2 days to figure out what to do with almost all of my posessions and find a way home. After considering our options we decided to take the train from Fresno to Vancouver with some heavy and annoying baggage, and then I'd later Train from Vancouver to Winnipeg for christmas. Context out of the way, AmTrack was great and mostly on time with some killer scenery and no WiFi in economy. We really enjoyed the 30 hours or so plus the 2 hour bus ride. The train from Van to Winnipe was also fantastic in Economy, albeit a little uncomfortable and much more dated than the trains in Cali. It was just me solo, so I made some friends and got some work done, if I was single I'd maybe find a closer friend. Killer scenery. Highly recommended but it will cost you to be comfortable or pretentious.
conorh 8y ago
I’ve done Amtrak with my young kids twice, Tampa to DC overnight, in a sleeper cabin as described in the article. They love it, we love it. Hanging out, watching the scenery go by, exploring the train, meeeting other passengers, reading, playing on devices, playing games (the kids love making little forts in the upstairs bunk). It is a wonderful way to travel. We do the train one way and then fly back to save time.
jecxjo 8y ago
I've done so much air travel for work and would love to catch a train on the way back. But the fact that it costs such a ridiculous amount just doesn't work. The price really need to compete against driving your own vehicle. If you plan it right air travel can be very cheap, just wish I could afford taking a slow train on a Friday to be home in time for work Monday and cost me $100 or less
peterwwillis 8y ago
It's literally cheaper and faster in many cases to fly into one city, take a beautiful stretch of scenic railway, and then fly back home from another city. Frontier Airlines is good for this.
8bitsrule 8y ago
Always a bit amusing when people who ride trains then complain about the time. What a wonderful thing to set the world aside and just relax. I've enjoyed several 3-day trips (no sleeper) from the midwest to the west coast a great deal. Apart from the scenery, there's the honesty and storytelling ability of the landscape. Travelling through towns and seeing what the townsfolk seldom see. The weather sweeping across vast plains and mountain forests. If you know some of the history of areas you're moving through (which is very easy to do these days), no audiobooks or iPods needed. Fellow passengers may have remarkable stories to tell - even with no words spoken. Oh, and that 'no smoking inside' thing? Don't take that too seriously, keep an eye open.
pacifist 8y ago
I've taken the train across the country several times. I don't hate to fly(it's getting pretty bad actually) but I love to take the train. I never get a sleeper and I recently discovered a way to make the journey way more comfortable: not one but two buckwheat hull pillows. I use them to sleep so I usually bring one but for some reason I decided to take two and ended up with one for my head and one under my butt. I suspect that they make the seats extra uncomfortable in an effort to sell sleepers. Anyway this arrangement solves the problem for me.
forstdcli 8y ago
This post will get downvoted so much but as a female who grew up on welfare, the first one in my family to graduate from high school, with a degree in electrical engineering and now self taught crappy but getting better software engineer, I literally want to cry knowing this antagonistic response os still the default of the heartbeat in tech. If anyone eants real stories about what its like for a female in hardcore tech not a priveleged woman in pro women tech events all the time (and honestly, traumatised to go in fear of the dillemma of how do I encourage women while simultaneously warning them of what an emotioal nightmare it is wading through biases much like the ones that exist in this conversation but not as a one off hn comment threads but interwoven in the fabric of your everyday interactions with coworkers, tech scene friends and original first impression to college peers) while not diacouraging them that hey deapitw the building, the perao al dignity you'll gain from prpving yourself if your willing to put in the effort and quite honestly lets be real, the security that financially you'll never hage to depend on a man, that the day he hits you you can take you and your children and leave his sorry ass behind and never have to worry about money or atleast meeting the basic needs of your family, is nkt the high money whire rich men on wallstreet feel bjt its a high you should feel everyday when you wake up in the morning when you ask yourself what is the minimum level of bullshit your willing to put up with and what is not, is forever worth it.
f5thesystem 8y ago
Headline like this won't get me to read the article. There's plenty of reason to cross the country by train. You could be afraid of planes. You could just really like trains. You could like to see the country from the ground. Maybe it's a romantic experience or journey. Who knows, but there are certainly really good reasons travel across the country the way you want to.

418 points by gk1 8y ago

I have traveled New York to Seattle by Amtrak in 2016 and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Sleeper class is not cheap in peak season, but its well worth the cost at least once.

darksaints 8y ago

> Amtrak food is on a par with the fourth-best airplane meal you could ever imagine. Well that's charitable...

AllegedAlec 8y ago
> Amtrak food is on a par with the fourth-best airplane meal you could ever imagine. What does this even mean? Do you only get a minor case of food poisoning if you eat it?
- gk1 8y ago
  It's an artistic way of saying it's unremarkable, or "meh."
- kortilla 8y ago
  Food poisoning for airline meals is quite rare. They go to great lengths to ensure that it’s the least offensive to the widest range of stomachs (at the expense of flavor and variety). The last thing an airline wants is 400 people fighting over 12 bathrooms 8 hours into a 15 hour flight from LAX to SYD.
zonethundery 8y ago
Meals on flagship airlines in business/first can be very good. 'Fourth best' in my mind is better than domestic (US) coach (on the rare occasions it exists) and not quite as good as Emirates coach. Acela 1st meals fall in that bucket easily.
pavlov 8y ago
I did Seattle->Chicago on Amtrak a couple of years back in a sleeper car, and the food was just fine. Certainly much better than the foil-wrapped disappointment you get in economy class on transatlantic flights.
- benbristow 8y ago
  Emirates airline food is pretty decent to be honest, and that's foil-wrapped.
  - justaguyhere 8y ago
    Qatar airline is not bad either, though not as good as Emirates. Jet used to be good, not sure now, with all their financial woes
    - elsurudo 8y ago
      I flew Jet just once (from Toronto to Hong Kong I think), and I remember it as the only airplane meal that didn't seem like it came from a microwave. It was actual Indian food – maybe not top-tier-restaurant quality, but good! They also handed out _actual_ hot towels – not those single-use ones. This was all in economy.

nerdbaggy 8y ago

There are many great reasons to take a train across the U.S. When I was on sabbatical I took life at a slower pace. And riding the train was just an amazing beautiful slow experience. Sometimes we just go through life to fast, and a nice slow train does the body well

chillydawg 8y ago
We should all remember that souls only travel at the speed of a camel, too.
- lucozade 8y ago
  I'm guessing you've never been on a galloping camel. This is not a comforting observation...
- strictnein 8y ago
  Interesting. In William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" the main character feels that it takes a while for her soul to catch back up to her after she takes long plane rides. Wonder if this where he got that idea from.

ilovecaching 8y ago

If Amtrak would add reliable paid WiFi and upgrade their cars, train would be exceedingly worth it. The next step would be to repair the tracks, which are shared by freight and passenger, which makes the ride worse.

kortilla 8y ago
The problem is the tracks are owned by the freight (at least for these long segments in the western US). For it to get better Amtrak would need an entire new set of tracks.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  Yeah, a good rule of thumb is "don't expect Amtrak to be on time on tracks they don't control", which is "a lot of them". One thing I do blame Amtrak for is that they don't always announce their delays as soon as they were known; I took a train that was delayed for two or three hours immediately after picking me up because CSX spit decided to rearrange a bunch of freight trains directly in front of us, and my cousins waiting to pick me up at the station at the other end said that the arrivals board claimed the train was on time up until a few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive, and then ticked up the arrival time by 15 or 30 minutes at a time until we actually arrived. It wasn't Amtrak's fault I was 3 hours late, but it was their fault my cousins just had to hang out at a train station for 3 hours instead of leaving and coming back later.
scarface74 8y ago
Adding WiFi wouldn’t help. It would probably be a cellular based WiFi service massively shared and no better coverage than you would get with your own data plan.
- lukeschlather 8y ago
  They have WiFi on some trains, and that's exactly what it is.

afarrell 8y ago

Note that the author took a sleeper car. In terms of price, this is a bit of a luxury. As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.

rubidium 8y ago
Agreed. Did Portland, OR to St. Paul, MN. Beautiful views. Fun to walk around. Wished there a was a smoking lounge. But by 24 hours in it started to stink and I hadn't slept well. By the end of the trip I was cranky and exhausted. And it really smelled in the train (and this was with it just 25% full)!
nickjj 8y ago
Yeah that's a big difference. The regular seats are a much different story. I've never done it but I read about how it's basically 3 days of sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone and there's no showers. Can't imagine what that would be like in a car filled with 50+ people. I did take the Amtrak from CT To Boston once and it wasn't too bad, but that was a few hour trip. Much different than a few days.
- volkl48 8y ago
  My understanding is that most people are not actually traveling coast to coast, but on shorter segments of the overall route. I don't think you're likely to be next to the someone for 3 days.
  - zackkitzmiller 8y ago
    This is very correct.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    Yea the Lakeshore Limited Albany->Boston is fine.
- 0xffff2 8y ago

mkj 8y ago

And then there's the less-luxury option. https://moxie.org/stories/klamath-falls/ https://moxie.org/stories/klamath-falls/

arethuza 8y ago

When my father was in the RAF in WW2 he crossed the US by train from Florida to Hollywood - his reason simply seemed to be because he could. Edit: Note that he did this during some leave time he had accumulated.

gwbas1c 8y ago

I really enjoyed driving across the country three times. Anyone do both, and can compare?

rubidium 8y ago
By sleeper car, train is luxurious and much more relaxed. By vehicle you can sleep each night in a hotel and take a shower each day. Both have + and -'s. But my ranking would be Sleeper Car train > Driving > non-sleeper car train. Trains can be much more social.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  You can get lower with a greyhound bus. Sure they stop at every prison along the way, but the views are actually quite nice. The social is also there, but can be a bit scary depending on your appetite for adventure.
  - frosted-flakes 8y ago
    Does Greyhound still operate services across the US? I know in Canada they've shuttered most of their operations except for the more heavily used eastern-central routes in Ontario and Quebec because everything else is not profitable.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Greyhound still has all of its cross country routes. Like I said, many people depend on them, especially prisons, but they are also cheap and service many many places that trains and planes don’t go near.
  - fwip 8y ago
    I took a Greyhound from Pittsburgh to Seattle once. It was a 4 day experience and I think it took a week for my brain to reboot afterwards. Plus, we had a 24-hour layover due to weather - I think I slept on the floor of the bus station.
8y ago

gk1 8y ago

For anyone interested in more train-travel stories I've written (partially) about my trip across Russia, starting with: https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-railway-st-petersburg/ https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/russia-trans-siberian-rail... Still have half the trip left to write about, which I'll do bit by bit.

RightMillennial 8y ago
I just tried some borscht a couple weeks ago. It was made by an older Russian gentleman at my church (in the U.S.). It was definitely a different flavor but it was pretty good.
yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
I love stories like this, and I'm eager to embark on my own trip on the railroad. Thank you for writing it.
- gk1 8y ago
  Thanks for saying that. That encourages me to keep writing.
xaybey 8y ago
This sparked a lot of memories. I really enjoyed it.
GunlogAlm 8y ago
Really enjoyed reading this! Seems like a fascinating journey, I'd love to make the trip some day.
AirborneUnicorn 8y ago
Thank you for sharing, this was wonderful to read!
cycrutchfield 8y ago
This was a fantastic read, and you are a very entertaining and engaging writer.

robmiller 8y ago

Well, this is timely. I'm hopping on Amtrak tomorrow for a 30 hour trip with three young kids.

CWuestefeld 8y ago

My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience. But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really. And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by. One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.

chrisseaton 8y ago
> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.
- truncj 8y ago
  After 14 hours of silence you might think twice!
  - dagw 8y ago
    Spending 14 hours alone in silence is the sort of day I fantasize about.
- galago 8y ago
  Amtrak has quiet cars, at least in the Northeast. I often take Boston-NYC and there seem to be a lot of business travelers. People who are riding in a train across Utah are probably in it for the experience.
  - shereadsthenews 8y ago
    Capitol Corridor also has a quiet car but all it means is you are assured of having to inform some bozo of that fact because the fraction of riders on their first train ride ever is very high.

Kiro 8y ago

This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you. I've personally completely stopped flying.

ghaff 8y ago
Many people are fine with taking the train in the US when it's remotely competitive in terms of time and price. However, in practice, that mostly means a subset of the Northeast Corridor (the whole thing is about an 8-hour trip vs. a short flight) or a handful of various city pairs that are only a few hundred miles apart. But it's simply not practical for me to take the train from Boston to Chicago, much less San Francisco. People can get out pitchforks if they like but I'm essentially always going to fly.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Quite. Makes sense to do train from NY-Boston or NY-Washington. Maybe Washington-Boston, but 5 hours is probably about the limit. I suspect few people in Sweden would recommend traveling Stockholm to Madrid by train
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Boston to Washington is something over 7 hours. I've done it but it really doesn't make sense most of the time--especially given that Reagan airport is on the metro which neutralizes one of the advantages that taking the train has in a place like Manhattan. It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
- okmokmz 8y ago
  I've never been in a situation in the US where a train was even close to competitive in terms of time and price

m3nu 8y ago

I went from San Fran to Chicago by train as a backpacker 13 years ago. Was a nice experience. Also got my first Macbook just before the trip and had some time to play with it. :-)

anjc 8y ago

Unreadable and bizarre article. Congrats to the author on rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi and getting a...train.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

I'm planning to take my family on an RV across the US (The Lincoln Highway in other words) partly cos it's always been a dream of mine, and partly to get the kids introduced to real travelling rather than holidays. I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people, something I consider the point of travelling (yes landscapes are lovely but I am a Homo Sapiens Bigot)

chrisseaton 8y ago
> I had never considered it by train - seems harder to just stop off and meet people Could you take the train, but instead of a non-stop journey just jump off when you pass through an interesting town, and then resume your journey the next day?
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  It seems to lack the flexibility I was hoping for - lunch in this town, dinner in that. plus i suspect it entails excitingly expensive tickets and fun timetable management :-)
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    Ah I'm used to roughly hourly trains - I guess some of them in the USA only pass through once a week even.
- bluGill 8y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. Some routes are one trail per week, some 3x a week. There are many interesting places not reachable by train at all. If your trip works with those limits then there is a pass you can buy.

baybal2 8y ago

American trains are so sloooooow. I routinely take long range bullet trains in China, and am greatly grateful for the generosity of Chinese taxpayers making it real =D Shanghai - Beijing sleeper trains are great value, and during 8 hour Guangzhou/Shenzhen - Shanghai day trips, you can work comfortably.

csomar 8y ago

I tried the Amtrack against advice not to. I went from DC to NYC and then to Boston. The train was not luxurious but it was "fine". I took the cheapest option (which was not cheap given the train was slow and the distance is short). [I'm comparing prices to EU]. - The seats were large and comfortable enough. But I'm a small sized person. - The trains were on time. - The stations were not renovated or nice but functional. Boston station was good enough. NYC, a bit confusing. - There was food on board. It was okay for 3-4 hours ride. - Wifi didn't work. Data will disconnect near big buildings or under tunnels. - It's not clear which station we are in. Maybe they could have a digital screen that shows some info?

ghaff 8y ago
The Northeast Corridor Amtrak route is fine. The Acela trains are nicer and a bit faster but IMO not so much so that I typically will pay out of my own pocket at 2x the price. (The pricing is really for business travelers for which they only really need to be competitive with air.) I much prefer those routes to flying. But Penn Station in NYC really is a disaster. (It's a long and sad story dating back to the Penn Central bankruptcy.) Although things are slowly being fixed up as part of a massive building project.

g3rd 8y ago

My husband and I are taking the train from Washington, DC to Glacier National Park in September. Super excited! Get to cross it off of the bucket list.

0898 8y ago

Caity Weaver used to write for Gawker. I've always loved her work – I think she's one of the best writers of our generation.

tialaramex 8y ago

Scheduled aviation means altitude which means pressure change which fucks with my ears. So, I'm useless for a day or two either side. Unless traveling across an ocean there will be a way to get there without a plane that only takes the 2-3 data I'd be out of action anyway. One of the very few down sides of this era is that the fast passenger liner isn't a thing any more. Titanic sank trying to get to New York quickly. I can get a passenger ticket to New York today, from Southampton where I live, but now it's a leisure market, they don't schedule them for rapid travel just as a cruise, so it's not practical to go back and forth that way.

jackschultz 8y ago

Last year my sister had a week off and took the Empire Builder across the country out west. Lots of talk about how the sleeper car is worth it and I remembered she didn't, so I asked her her take and this is the response: "I traveled alone on the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon (two nights/almost 48 hours) in June 2018. I wanted to get a sleeper car but waited too long to book so my only option was a regular seat. I knew I’d be unhappy if I went straight through two nights with no bed and no shower, so I made a stop in Whitefish, Montana for 24 hours. In the end it couldn’t have worked out better. I loved Whitefish and was happy to spend some time exploring the beautiful scenery I’d seen whizzing by. The sights around Glacier National Park were literally breathtaking. As far as the train itself, I spent most of time in the observation car, and as a solo traveler I was happy to find everyone was very friendly. I’m only 5’2” and luckily didn’t have a seatmate so I could pretty much lay all the way down at night. A lot of people brought pillows and blankets, but I was ok without. Ear plugs and an eye mask were the key to getting any sleep. There were delays here and there which didn’t bother me because I had a very loose schedule anyway. I don’t have enough good things to say about my trip! I’m looking for an excuse to take another long-haul train." People have their own stories, so hopefully this gives another perspective.

bdamm 8y ago
This is like my own experience. I've done Vancouver->Seattle->Oakland, which is beautiful. Train friends were all fun and some memorable. Also Oakland->Chicago, with my wife and 4-yr old son in a family sleeper. We had a great time. The California, Utah and Colorado segments were stunningly beautiful. And we all enjoyed the shower when we checked in to our hotel in Chicago, which was basically a block or two from the train station. Outstanding. Its not an airliner, or a bus, or a car, and that's a good thing.
therealdrag0 8y ago
> earplugs an eye mask where key Oh shoot, I hadn't thought of this. I like the idea of trying a long/sleeper train trip, but I'm a terribly light sleeper and I bet I would get almost no sleep :(

ams6110 8y ago

Took Amtrak from Chicago to Las Vegas once. Worst travel experience of my life. Hit a car, had a breakdown in the mountains, and they lost my checked luggage. Over 24 hours late. Never again. If you are ever tempted, just fly. It's cheaper, much faster, and you can spend the time and money you saved on something interesting.

degenerate 8y ago
This is what I heard from every single person who took a train long distance somewhere (>300mi)... some said it was an "experience" but they would never do it again, and flying is just as cheap, faster, better, less hassle.

cooperadymas 8y ago

The most difficult part about rail travel seems to be booking it. I've looked multiple times at using Amtrak for both travel and for rail tourism, and I've never been able to fully understand what to book and how to book it. Maybe I'm being dense about it but it always feels unnecessarily complicated and confusing.

delecti 8y ago
Maybe I'm not understanding what you're not understanding. Just put in your origin and destination cities and book a ticket. It's only slightly different from air travel in that there are fewer hubs and routes. Open up the map [1], pick two cities along the red lines. [1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes.html https://www.amtrak.com/routes.html

Townley 8y ago

Years ago, I took an Amtrak NY > Chicago > Seattle > SF > LA > Texas > New Orleans, stopping in each for a few days. I brought programming textbooks and some novels, and just read/thought all day long. At night I'd either eat in the dining car (expensive) or from a supply I'd picked up in the previous city. I'd get a sleeper car when it was cheap (eg Chicago > Seattle) and sleep in my seat during more expensive legs of the trip. You meet people from every part of US culture (North Dakota oil field workers, Portland hippies, LA actors...) all unified by not being in a rush and a dislike of flying. On trips outside the NE corridor, the train attaches an observation car which becomes an incredible place to talk the night away with fellow passengers. You have to be flexible, in sound physical shape, and have a month and $2k to part with (or you can just take on a few Wordpress theme contracts and call it even) but it's a truly wonderful experience for a certain person at a certain stage in their life.

jxsonl 8y ago

I did it with a 15-day railpass as a graduation trip with 4 friends. Wouldnt say that it was the best experience with very tight budget as broke college students but a very special experience for sure. Especially when passing through Washington state national park. At that moment all of us agreed that the trip was worth it.

tc7 8y ago

Lovely writing! In May, myself, my wife, our two kids (8, 6), are amtraking from Chicago to San Francisco in a family sleeper. I'm excited. We've enjoyed our (much shorter) amtrak trips from Ashland, VA to DC.

mrtnmcc 8y ago

This article is noticably more creative in its writing than the average nytimes article. Maybe a long train ride does a writer good (and anyone else who needs to think outside the box).

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
It’s a special interest kind of article that gets written every once in awhile. Most articles of the same nature are typically written similarly.
alchemism 8y ago
Amtrak has for a few years offered an annual Writers Residency Program. There may be some truth to your quip. https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-writers https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...
convolvatron 8y ago
i haven't done it for a while. but a laptop, power, a big seat, flakey or non-existent internet (is it still that way?) and nothing else to do for 24+ hours is a pretty good setup for doing some serious coding.
smacktoward 8y ago
It’s from the NYT Magazine, a glossy supplement included with the Sunday paper where they publish longer, more literary pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Magazine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Magazine

darrenf 8y ago

In the last 6 years I've twice done circuits of Europe by train - sleepers (mostly) in 2013 when we hit 28 countries in 18 days, and an anniversary reprise of sorts last summer which took in a mere 16 countries in 10 days. As much as I love to fly (and I do), long distance rail travel for no particular reason is wonderful. I hope one day to hit up a long Amtrak route or two in the US, maybe the Ghan in Australia, and others.

geggam 8y ago

I did Seattle to Chicago. Drank quite a few pina colada from a can while sitting in the observation car. Some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see, assuming you aren't in a hurry

mooreds 8y ago

This was awesome and the trip is on my bucket list. However, I really enjoyed the tongue in cheek humor.

supernova87a 8y ago

I have no comment on whether taking that train journey is worth it or not. All I want to say is that the UI developers for the Amtrak booking site should be shot. That site is one of the ugliest, confusing layout-infected, poorly designed sites I have ever seen for a travel booking page. (aside from 3rd world countries which have an excuse) Just try putting in dates, selecting a fare, and report back. If there were any need for a standards body for amateur UI designers doing something on the cheap without experience, this would be a cry for it.

bluewater 8y ago
Agreed on the poorly laid out website. I book once or twice a year and will always call in. The customer service reps are friendly and helpful. They’ll input different parameters and will hold a reservation I think for 24hrs without charge. If you don’t book the seat just goes back into inventory.

c0nsumer 8y ago

I once took the train from the Detroit area (BMM -- Birmingham) to San Francisco, roughly... 9.5 years ago. I went alone, had a sleeper cabin to myself, and loved it. I really want to do it again, this time maybe stopping off places on the way. What I particularly enjoyed was the route west seemed timed to pass through the Rockies and Sierra Nevada during daylight. Basically, I went to sleep around Omaha, woke in Colorado. Sleep near Salt Lake City, woke in Reno. Then departed in the Oakland area the next afternoon, took BART to Caltrain and on to my friend's place in Palo Alto. Made for a really nifty trip. They aren't organized (I just dumped them), and Gallery2 is showing its age, but if you'd like to see a bunch of photos from on-board the train, here you go: https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/travel/sf_via_amtrak_nov_2009/alltemp/ https://nuxx.net/gallery/v/travel/sf_via_amtrak_nov_2009/all...

JSeymourATL 8y ago
Upvote for photos, nice share!

apple4ever 8y ago

Back in 2011 I took a trip from Philly to Tampa (to watch spring training). Me and my buddy split the sleeper car cost (~$750 each). That also included three meals since it was a 24 hour trip. And at that time the food was good. It was really fun actually. Yes, it was long, but we enjoyed the trip. Seeing the east coast up and down was neat. Talking with random people who are there. I'd definitely do it again, but only for special trips.

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daveslash 8y ago

There's a photo of a guy burning brush in his backyard and the caption says "Somewhere in Illinois. One of Amtrak’s main selling points is the chance to spy on the nation’s hidden places, the backyards whose possible existence had never occurred to you." It's interesting for me to look at that photo and think "I too have peered into that guy's yard. I don't recall specifically, but I took that train and if I happened to be on the same side... then presumably..."

giarc 8y ago

New Canadian citizens get a Cultural Access Pass which enables them to a 50% discount on Canadian train travel with VIARail (among a ton of other perks). https://media.viarail.ca/en/press-releases/2015/10-july-2015-via-rail-renews-cultural-access-pass-progra https://media.viarail.ca/en/press-releases/2015/10-july-2015...

ihaveajob 8y ago
This is awesome. Talk about being immigrant friendly.

paulie_a 8y ago

While I am still going to do the empire builder. The theme I generally hear is: "despite it being more expensive, takes longer, it is an amazing trip that I would never take again"

kingaillas 8y ago

I had a very good experience taking the train from the Orlando, FL area to the Washington, DC area when I moved many years ago. That is Amtrak's auto line, so I also moved my car that way. As I recall, it was about $200 for my ticket and $200 for my car. I could have gotten a bit less buying earlier than I did. My other option was to drive myself, but that would have taken longer and been more expensive considering gas and lodging. The trip was about ~16 hours total, including some time arriving early enough to line up to load my car, and time waiting for car unload. Each carriage had an upper and lower half, and the lower half was further divided into restrooms and sleeper bunks on one half, and general seating on the other half. I just got a regular general seating ticket, which was fine because my trip was only one overnight - seats were spacious, reclined fairly far, had electric plugs and so on, and had a key advantage: the lower general seating compartment was a dead end. Only people sitting there had reason to come in, so it was quiet. The upper half of each carriage linked to the other carriages, and was how everyone moved back and forth and got to the dining carriage. There was another carriage (top half) set aside as an entertainment space, with TVs and tables, reading area, decks of cards, bar, etc. People sitting in the top area had the less pleasant situation of sitting along the path everyone had to use to move around the train. I thought the food was just fine. Yeah it isn't fine cuisine but it was tasty and included in the ticket. Anyway, I'd like to try a longer train ride sometime, I know some folks who really enjoyed a Trans-Canada train vacation that included one or two overnights off the train. It sounds kinda fun, I'd spend my time reading, bring along some compact boardgames and a portable console to play.

moosey 8y ago

I've used a number of carbon output calculators, and one of my major carbon outputs are two flights from the Inland Northwest to the Northeast part of the country each year (work related). It seems that in the case of my travel, my lowest carbon option (according to at least one calculator I've used) is actually an economy ticket on an aircraft. It also clarified that for shorter trips, the greyhound bus is without equal. I haven't been able to discover if this is something that is specific to the United States, or how that calculation is made. However, I am of the opinion that there is always a good reason to ride trains, particularly in the US: increased demand for train travel. Other than those two flights, I have abandoned all long distance travel for the rest of my life, or until largely carbon neutral and safe travel exists. I believe that such technologies will be produced in the medium term.

pacifist 8y ago
The problem with airplanes is that the carbon is released in exactly the wrong place[0] so your intuitions are correct. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as air travel is concerned: don't fly and we lose a major component of global dimming[1], fly and and it puts CO2 in the upper atmosphere speeding us toward global warming on an apocalyptic scale. If you can read a graph you know we are in big trouble. [0] - https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/03/20/earthtalk-airplane-emissions-and-climate-change/ https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/03/20/earthtalk-airplan... [1] - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218772_Climatology_Contrails_reduce_daily_temperature_range https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218772_Climatolog...
Tepix 8y ago
Reducing carbon output by traveling by train stead of plane is a super valid reason. It's probably the no. 1 reason why kerosene will eventually get high taxes on it worldwide (the sooner the better).

redsavagefiero 8y ago

Public ground/rail transport in the US is not for the faint hearted. Spoken as a travel veteran in three decades of cross country trips via Greyhound and Amtrak. TIPS: * Don't cross Texas in a Greyhound. * Don't go to New Orleans Amtrak coach from DC.

lagadu 8y ago
Can you share the why of those two tips? I'm not from the US so I have no experience with those but it sounds like you have some interesting stories about it :)
- redsavagefiero 8y ago
  Texas is a long, uncomfortable haul in general. The year I did this crossing was 1994. Witnessed racism, religion gone wrong and malicious violence in more than one local personality jumping on for a town to town hop. New Orleans coach was 2004. The rowdiness, smells and movement in the train gave me the only migraine I've ever had. I could barely give directions to the cab driver for my hotel and slept 16 hours.
- virusduck 8y ago
  I've done DC<->ATL on both coach and sleeper. Sleeper's nicer, obv, but coach is really fine. It's not super crowded, and the amount of legroom is ridiculous compared to an airplane. Even though it takes 4X as long as a plane, it's overnight, so it doesn't really seem too long at all.

dustindiamond 8y ago

So, how feasible is this as a remote worker? What I am really asking is, how reliable is wifi/internet and is it available through the entire journey? I would not mind a workcation this way, but probably could not afford a satphone’s data plan.

haldean 8y ago
Extremely unreliable; I've only taken the Lake Shore Limited and California Zephyr, so I can't speak for the whole thing, but I'd say I had cell reception about half the time, maybe less.
jointpdf 8y ago
There is no WiFi on Amtrak trains--you'd have to tether to your phone. And for most Amtrak routes, you'd be going through some significant service deadzones (depending on the route, you could be in the middle of a mountain wilderness). But I can't think of a better workcation spot if you can be offline periodically. For me, the train is simultaneously relaxing and stimulating, a perfect place to zone in on work while still embarking on an adventure. Edit: Apparently there is WiFi on some Amtrak trains, but I wouldn't count on it.
ghaff 8y ago
As others have noted, variable and pretty much guaranteed to be bad in remote rural locations (i.e. many of the most scenic). TBH, reliable WiFi for workations (or even just business travel) is a bit of a crapshoot in my experience. It's a lot more consistent than it used to be. But I've also spent days fighting a marginal connection to get something done. Fortunately, in a city, you can usually find good wireless at some coffeeshop even if it's bad at your hotel.

yitchelle 8y ago

Coincidentally, I was watching Brave Dave doing freight hopping all over North America. For the brave at heart and with tons of energy, this looks a bit more exciting, and much cheaper. https://www.freighthopping.com/ https://www.freighthopping.com/

carapace 8y ago
And illegal, and dangerous. Train hopping is for those who need it. Give it respect and don't treat it like a sport or touristy thing. Story time... More than a score of years ago I was a young man traveling south from Seattle with a group of other kids. And old hand (I'll call him Jim) took us under his wing and showed us a bit of the ropes, how to ride the rails. The train folks are pretty old school. Level-headed, and not unkind. At one point we stopped on a siding. Before long an older man in overalls and a cap came down, walking the line. He could have walked out of a 100-year old photo. We kids were spooked and hid in the back of the car, but Jim just sat calmly in the open cargo door, in plain sight, and waited for the train man to reach us. When he saw us he was very calm and quiet, he greeted Jim and they had a very mellow and civil little conversation. Before he left to check the rest of the train, he picked up a rusted old loose train spike from the ground and showed us how to use it to spike open the cargo door so it wouldn't be able to slide shut and trap us or injure us. At a yard near Tacoma we tried to jump on a slow-moving train and the bulls stopped us. They were pretty kind considering, and they said that if we had been boarding a stopped train they wouldn't have bothered us, but a few weeks earlier a guy had tried to hop a moving train and tripped and fell and lost both of his legs, and that's why they stopped us that night, they said. Jim had a warrant out for some BS so they took him in. The next morning we tried to go see him but none of us knew his last name so the (very friendly and sympathetic) officer at the station's front desk couldn't tell us anything about him. We had to leave and I never saw him again. (Way before cell phones were common. Feels like 1800's now.) I remember getting rained on while riding on some tanker cars. They have these niches in the bulkheads at each end that are just large enough for one or two people to curl up in. We took turns in there with the rest of us huddled around to try to block the rain. It might sound crazy but it was a lot of fun. But I can't recommend it as an adventure. Visit the Grand Canyon, or volunteer in a remote place, or something if you want adventure. Train hopping is for those who need it. The old school respect and kindness that passed between the train folks and a group a homeless kids trying to travel hundreds of miles with no money was one of those secular sacred things that deserves respect. Trains are awesome.

stuart78 8y ago

This article's title strikes me as condescending and annoying. There are 'reasons' to travel by train for a lot of people. My cousin has a deep fear of flying and hasn't done so in several decades. So he travels by train. As this writer learns, it can also be an enjoyable way to see the country. That said, I did once survive a 24 hour delay on Amtrak between Chicago and Oakland. It was the middle of winter and track was splitting, so the train would move a few miles and then wait a few hours for the crew to replace the broken rail.

caprese 8y ago

> TELL YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS that you plan to cross the United States by train, and their reactions will range from amusement at your spellbinding eccentricity to naked horror Its not just that its the train use, its the fact that you want to cross America at all! The perception is that it is a large foreign land full of lots of things that can go wrong solely due to incongruent laws. (Mid 1800s) Cross a border and be sold into slavery by bounty hunters? Check (Fiction, but is it?) Transportation breaks down and you are surrounded by mutated hillbillies in the desert? Check (2010s+) Highway robbery of all the money on you by some random municipality's police themselves under protection of the state? Check (2010s+) Get thrown into an old people's home under a guardianship racket that the doctor's and the court system are all invested in? Check Be kidnapped and sold into illegal sex slavery? Be kidnapped and sold into legal sex slavery in the desert without adequate means of getting help? But yeah none of that is likely to happen and these are irrational fears, but you can ALSO just fly over all of that noise.

binarysolo 8y ago

I did a search on the thread and didn't see it, so here's a shoutout to the USA Rail Pass (15/30/45 days of travel on Amtrak; while not unlimited, it functionally is in practice): https://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-usa-rail-pass https://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-u... I spent 45 days traveling the US about a decade ago, during a transitionary period from work to grad school. Visited a bunch of friends in different states and really had a great time. The clientelle for multiday Amtrak trips falls closer with travel backpackers and RVers - people who really care about the journey over the destination (since air is far superior to get you from A->B fast and reliably). Lots of interesting folks who also are doing this for whatever-their-own-reasons. Not-sure-if-obsolete tip: I snagged my rail pass from a retiree on Craigslist for half price. Turns out Amtrak employees get friends-and-family rail passes as perks and a few of them end up on the resale market.

gumby 8y ago

It really is fun when the journey is the whole point. Last year I took the train from Adelaide to Melbourne, a trip I took frequently as a kid before the plane became primary. Back then it was exciting but there was not much to do: whole family in a sleeper cabin; a stop at the border to change crews, and that's it. Now it's a twice-weekly tourist service. I was sad at the thought that train service had fallen so low, but discovered instead that I really enjoyed the change of landscape as we traveled and spent most of the 11 hours looking through the window. I was sorry to see all the now-closed country stations we went through (including my own: I had to drive into Adelaide to get the train and then 45 minutes later pass through my starting point) as the trains really did knit the little towns together in ways cars have not. I also spent a lot of my childhood traveling on (steam!) trains in India, probably because of cost. I think that's why a friend and I took the trans Siberia express in the 1980s when we were in our 20s. It was super fun but the opposite of what I wrote above: USSR was so huge that the view outside the window was largely monotonous, but the action on the train was fun (everyone was super friendly).

vorotato 8y ago

There's also no reason not to ;).

herodotus 8y ago

There is no appetite for high-speed rail service in the US or Canada. Mainly because of distances. But the Fuxing Hao CR400AF/BF can reach speeds of 249 mph. Now at an average of, lets say, 180mph, it would take about 15 hours to travel from Vancouver to Toronto. (Yes, rough calculation, but just to get the idea.) So I could leave work early, say at 3pm, leave the stations at 4pm, enjoy the view as the rockies whip by, go to bed, wake up and have breakfast on the train, and be ready to have my meeting with the Toronto VCs at 8:30 in the morning. Use electric power instead of diesel, and this would be my preferred way for this route. Of course, the cost to build this might drain the treasury for the foreseeable future...

jointpdf 8y ago

I've taken Amtrak cross-country (CA <--> Chicago via California Zephyr / SW Chief) about a dozen times in my life. If you're not in a hurry to get from A to B, there's no better way to travel IMO. Sure, the trains are outdated and a bit stanky, but it's just a perfect cross-section of American life (both people and landscapes). It's a perfect place to zen out and burrow into a book / creative project for a few days. Plus, you can just show up right before the train arrives and you're on your way (perfect for people who run on wizard time, like me). You definitely have to prepare a bit if you want to get a decent night of sleep in coach, though. Here's a short survival kit: -Tylenol PM / Benadryl (or your preferred sleep aid of choice) -Warm clothes / travel blanket (it can get cold) -Pillow/neck pillow/some way to keep your head immobilized -Earplugs + noise cancelling headphones -Eyemask -Patience/equanimity

dfgert 8y ago
I agree. Train were so much more fun as I can recall from my childhood memories. Now I rarely see someone traveling via train, and those who do are trying to save some money(train fares are cheaper in other countries). I guess time that's available to people has shortened so much that they can't afford to engage in fun once in a while. Even the damn vacation feels so hectic and stressful. I guess that's because most people's idea of vacation is going to new country/city that they have never visited(totally unfamiliar with things there) and try to cover all of it in 1-2 weeks(all they get in a year).

loosetypes 8y ago

It's super cool that Amtrak does a residency for writers[0]. Now if only open-source writers could fall under that umbrella! [0] https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-writers https://www.arts.gov/audio/writing-rails-amtrak-residency-wr...

standardUser 8y ago

I remember when a friend and I were planning a trip from SF to Chicago and looked in to taking a train. Turns out, the train takes longer than driving and costs more the flying. Which really made me wonder... who is taking these trains?

kyleblarson 8y ago

My (now) wife and I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago about 10 years ago. We purchased a private cabin. We were 8 hours late leaving Seattle and couldn't get into our cabin until we got to Spokane because of some sort of merge of trains coming from Portland and Seattle. Got to Spokane, got our cabin, another 6 hour delay. By the time we reached the upper Midwest, they were rationing food, literally cutting every meal (that we had already paid for) in half. We eventually arrived in Chicago about 22 hours late. The train was disgustingly dirty and the employees were surly and unhelpful. Having taken dozens of train trips in Japan since 2001 I was incredibly excited for the American train experience. It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again.

sushisushisushi 8y ago
>It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again. All Amtrak lines are operated a little differently, AFAIK. As far as the West Coast is concerned, I find both the Pacific Surfliner and the Coastal Starlight to be pleasant and enjoyable (although not very affordable). The Northeast Regional on the East Coast is pretty affordable, runs often, and makes traveling between cities in the Northeast megalopolis without a car pretty trivial, which is nice. All that's to say that I wouldn't judge Amtrak by its least-used routes.
munk-a 8y ago
My wife and I were (up here in Canada) looking for a nice mellow train ride with scenery, out of Vancouver you can catch a train to Jasper and on northward to Prince George but... the cost of both of us to ride and have a cabin for two is 5k, so alternative to taking a 4 day train ride is flying out to london three separate times for the weekend. Alternatively we could book a fancy hotel room in down-town for two weeks and have a ritzy stay-cation. I don't know why continental american train service is so stupidly over priced and inconvenient, but I really hope at some point they realize they are currently uncompetitive and could actually make more money offering a better service for a more reasonable fee.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Canada Post is doing the same thing. Probably all others too. Their continuous response to lower revenues is to raise prices. This just feeds ever-more innovation in the message and package delivery markets, sabotaging themselves.

anth_anm 8y ago

I took the train for the first time a few months back. Was a couple hundred miles (less even). I really like it for about the first 3/4. Then we took forever to get the last little bit done. I looked into it and apparently out west Amtrak has an atrocious record for on time service. It's a shame because it's a great way to travel if you can take the time. It's comfortable, I had power and wifi. The food isn't great but oh well. I'd rather take the train than my car, driving is dreary. I'd rather take it than the bus, which is just god awful. I really wish we would put in the time to make our trains better. Passenger tracks and high speed trains would be awesome. Instead we waste time and effort on Elon's tunnels.

codingdave 8y ago

I take the train cross-country whenever I can. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the views. All the positive aspects mentioned in the article are 100% true. But I can't help but feel that this author wants to dislike trains. He wants everyone to understand how awful and slow it is. And they went into this story with a chip on their shoulder, and were disappointed to find that the trip had value. But the trains aren't just about cross-country travel. They travel through small towns where people rely on them for trips to larger cities. If you live in Mount Pleasant, IA, you can take the train into Chicago just as fast, and far easier, than driving. Want to go from Salt Lake to Denver in a blizzard? Trains will take twice as long as driving but you can sit there and safely watch snow-capped peaks go by instead of worrying about driving your car off the edge of a mountainside. Pick any 2-6 hours train trip on the map, and those are the majority of passengers on Amtrak. And I have frequently run into retired people heading to Iowa to pick up RVs, because Winnebago contracts delivery of RVs out, and it is a nice part-time job to get a one-way train ticket, then drive a RV to someone's home and get paid for it all. In short, the purposes serve by Amtrak have as much variety as reasons people get in their cars. It is a valuable service to those who need it, even if authors for the NY times aren't the 'target audience'.

sonofaplum 8y ago
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freeone3000 8y ago
This story was written with a much more positive tone than I believe the facts warranted. Such sleeping and toilet arrangements are closer to prison arrangements than anything a reasonable person would expect, and the delays were lesser than what I've experienced. I thought I was the type of person who would ride a train. I wanted to get from Denton, Texas to Temple, Texas. This was simple. The booking website is exactly as bad as mentioned. I finally got one that promised me a four hour trip with a short bus ride on each end. Alright, cool, that's fine. So I schedule to arrive about thirty minutes prior, except the train is delayed two hours. That's half the ride again, on a delay! This causes me to miss my connection, and the next train wasn't scheduled until tomorrow. I cannot imagine anyone trying to use Amtrak for actual travel, when reliability and timeliness matters.

ctingom 8y ago

Doesn't the government run Amtrak?

WorldMaker 8y ago
Sort of, but not really. The US Government is king of weird semi-privatized public partnerships that are the worst of both worlds. Amtrak is very similar to the current iteration of the USPS, in that Amtrak is run as its own "for profit" somewhat publicly traded company, yet has to answer to the US Congress as its largest shareholder.

ggggtez 8y ago

>Amtrak clings to the hope that someday people will view its service not as something that sucks and that they hate, but as something that is actually nice and that they don’t hate. This is the money quote, I think.

mizchief2 8y ago

I don't understand the obsession with laying high-speed rail all across the US when we have perfectly good airplanes and a massive network of airports.

osdiab 8y ago

I took a long-haul, slow train in China from Shanghai to Guilin (18 hours or so) and that was a great experience - watching the Chinese landscape go by, really cheap to get a sleeper car with my friends, and no delays. The high speed rail is good too if you want to be quick, both in China and Japan (though Japan is much more expensive); I took the Chinese ones frequently but longest haul I did was Shenzhen to Shanghai (8 hours or so) and that was both smooth, nice views and comfortable.

paulcarroty 8y ago

If someone want to do it virtually - highly recommend https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5378198/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5378198/ , a lot of good nature views and historical facts.

thebaer 8y ago

I'm about to take the train from Florida to Oregon and I can't wait. I ride Amtrak up and down the east coast all the time, and will take it over flying any day. Yes, the trains are often late. Yes, it's slower than flying and maybe even driving. But it's a journey. You can show up 15 minutes before the train leaves and still make it on board. You can bring snacks and some beer, meet people you never would've talked to otherwise, see parts of the country you'd never see otherwise. You get to travel for the sake of traveling -- a rare pleasure indeed.

MarcScott 8y ago

I did SF to NY back in my 20s after working at summer camp. Not in one go, but over about four weeks with stops in Last Vegas, San Diego, New Orleans and Miami. It was a great experience and I met some great people. Never had a sleeper, and that just made it easier to mingle with my fellow travellers. I remember playing hours of chess with some old dude in the smoking carriage, and the shitty cans of margaritas at happy hour served from the train bar. Unlike jumping on the plane, the train journeys were an integral part of the travelling experience, rather than just a method of getting from one city to another.

wave100 8y ago

I took the Amtrak from Albany to Boston regularly for a while. Once, we had a hazmat train in front of us come uncoupled, and were sitting on the track for three hours. Another time, we were delayed because the tracks right past Albany were somehow on fire. I was an hour late to the station one time, and still had to wait two hours once I arrived because the train was somehow later than I was. Amtrak. Not even once.

dk1138 8y ago

The writer for this story is exceptional. This is non-fiction commentary at its best.

thecrumb 8y ago

How's the wifi? I've been considering doing this one day. I can work from anywhere - so if I had a good wifi signal for a bit everyday I could easily sit on a train and code.

devy 8y ago

To top it off, one should try Trans Siberian Railway, the longest railway in the world.[1][2] There are 3 routes: - Moscow to Vladivostok - Moscow to Beijing - Moscow to Ulaanbaatar I haven't been myself, but it's one of those things one should try once before they die. And there are even movies set in Transsib. [3][4] [1] https://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway https://wikitravel.org/en/Trans-Siberian_Railway [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsiberian_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsiberian_(film) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express

brailsafe 8y ago

Canadian here to offer an anecdote. I spent about 80 days road tripping and living out of the car with my gf between julyish to Nov in the US, coming from Vancouver. My car died near Fresno and I had about 2 days to figure out what to do with almost all of my posessions and find a way home. After considering our options we decided to take the train from Fresno to Vancouver with some heavy and annoying baggage, and then I'd later Train from Vancouver to Winnipeg for christmas. Context out of the way, AmTrack was great and mostly on time with some killer scenery and no WiFi in economy. We really enjoyed the 30 hours or so plus the 2 hour bus ride. The train from Van to Winnipe was also fantastic in Economy, albeit a little uncomfortable and much more dated than the trains in Cali. It was just me solo, so I made some friends and got some work done, if I was single I'd maybe find a closer friend. Killer scenery. Highly recommended but it will cost you to be comfortable or pretentious.

conorh 8y ago

I’ve done Amtrak with my young kids twice, Tampa to DC overnight, in a sleeper cabin as described in the article. They love it, we love it. Hanging out, watching the scenery go by, exploring the train, meeeting other passengers, reading, playing on devices, playing games (the kids love making little forts in the upstairs bunk). It is a wonderful way to travel. We do the train one way and then fly back to save time.

jecxjo 8y ago

I've done so much air travel for work and would love to catch a train on the way back. But the fact that it costs such a ridiculous amount just doesn't work. The price really need to compete against driving your own vehicle. If you plan it right air travel can be very cheap, just wish I could afford taking a slow train on a Friday to be home in time for work Monday and cost me $100 or less

peterwwillis 8y ago

It's literally cheaper and faster in many cases to fly into one city, take a beautiful stretch of scenic railway, and then fly back home from another city. Frontier Airlines is good for this.

8bitsrule 8y ago

Always a bit amusing when people who ride trains then complain about the time. What a wonderful thing to set the world aside and just relax. I've enjoyed several 3-day trips (no sleeper) from the midwest to the west coast a great deal. Apart from the scenery, there's the honesty and storytelling ability of the landscape. Travelling through towns and seeing what the townsfolk seldom see. The weather sweeping across vast plains and mountain forests. If you know some of the history of areas you're moving through (which is very easy to do these days), no audiobooks or iPods needed. Fellow passengers may have remarkable stories to tell - even with no words spoken. Oh, and that 'no smoking inside' thing? Don't take that too seriously, keep an eye open.

pacifist 8y ago

I've taken the train across the country several times. I don't hate to fly(it's getting pretty bad actually) but I love to take the train. I never get a sleeper and I recently discovered a way to make the journey way more comfortable: not one but two buckwheat hull pillows. I use them to sleep so I usually bring one but for some reason I decided to take two and ended up with one for my head and one under my butt. I suspect that they make the seats extra uncomfortable in an effort to sell sleepers. Anyway this arrangement solves the problem for me.

forstdcli 8y ago

This post will get downvoted so much but as a female who grew up on welfare, the first one in my family to graduate from high school, with a degree in electrical engineering and now self taught crappy but getting better software engineer, I literally want to cry knowing this antagonistic response os still the default of the heartbeat in tech. If anyone eants real stories about what its like for a female in hardcore tech not a priveleged woman in pro women tech events all the time (and honestly, traumatised to go in fear of the dillemma of how do I encourage women while simultaneously warning them of what an emotioal nightmare it is wading through biases much like the ones that exist in this conversation but not as a one off hn comment threads but interwoven in the fabric of your everyday interactions with coworkers, tech scene friends and original first impression to college peers) while not diacouraging them that hey deapitw the building, the perao al dignity you'll gain from prpving yourself if your willing to put in the effort and quite honestly lets be real, the security that financially you'll never hage to depend on a man, that the day he hits you you can take you and your children and leave his sorry ass behind and never have to worry about money or atleast meeting the basic needs of your family, is nkt the high money whire rich men on wallstreet feel bjt its a high you should feel everyday when you wake up in the morning when you ask yourself what is the minimum level of bullshit your willing to put up with and what is not, is forever worth it.

f5thesystem 8y ago

Headline like this won't get me to read the article. There's plenty of reason to cross the country by train. You could be afraid of planes. You could just really like trains. You could like to see the country from the ground. Maybe it's a romantic experience or journey. Who knows, but there are certainly really good reasons travel across the country the way you want to.