16 ms·

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

• 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.
    • a_e_k 8y ago
      The line in the Pacific Northwest that I've been on also had quiet cars.
  • ArrayList 8y ago
    > In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing. That's _so_ ... British.
  • hjdehdfhjkj 8y ago
    Thats because there is a cultural difference between how americans and europeans see trains. For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation.
    • chrisseaton 8y ago
      I once saw a large party of school children going on a trip on the Caltrain. Turned out they weren't going anywhere... it was just going on the train that was the activity. A commuter train running alongside a highway through urban sprawl. They were whooping when it pulled into the station.
      • war1025 8y ago
        I've taken the train in Minneapolis from the mall to downtown several times, purely for the novelty of it. We have a lot of freight trains in Iowa. Passenger, not so much.
        • beat 8y ago
          I live a few blocks from that train, so I wind up taking it all the time to get to the mall or downtown. The novelty wears off, and you wind up mostly worried about having to share your ride with packs of unruly teenagers, or sports fans heading downtown who can't resist saying racist things about our various African immigrant neighbors. It's a pleasure or a drag, depending on the manners of those who share the ride.
        • NoNameHaveI 8y ago
          One Iowan to another: you didn't ride a train in Minneapolis. You rode a streetcar (tram in British). And yes, only the southeast corner of Iowa is served at all by passenger rail. Would be nice if they extended the Hawkeye Express to CR, or better yet, Amtrak service from Davenport to IC to DSM. Alas, not enough $$$ to make it worth doing.
          • strictnein 8y ago
  • CalRobert 8y ago
    Fortunately, that should suggest that it's OK in the other carriages.
  • mikeash 8y ago
    The observation car is a special car you can visit that has better visibility. Nobody is forced to go there.
    • chrisseaton 8y ago
      But some people might want the observe the sights and not have a lot of noise around them, right? Not really sure it's fair to pollute a public space with your music when not everyone might like it, or have the confidence to say when they don't like it. Not very nice to say to people you're going to subject them to music and if they don't like it their only option is to leave. Doesn't really sound right does it?
      • CWuestefeld 8y ago
        Most of the ride the observation car was quiet. The sing-along was a welcome diversion from the anxiety and ennui of sitting for hours waiting to see if the train would be allowed to proceed.
      • frosted-flakes 8y ago
        The train was stopped, so if someone left the viewing car they weren't missing anything.
        • CWuestefeld 8y ago
          A bit more of the story. Where we were stopped was the the side of a mountain. On the uphill side was a similarly-stopped freight train, with an oil tanker car right next to us. Below us was a raging, flooded, river (on account of the same storms that washed out the track). And up above was a cliff, with a boulder on top that seemed maybe a little precarious. So we were sitting there wondering if the same storm that eroded the tracks had maybe eroded the cliff around that boulder, allowing it to tumble down through the oil tanker to send us plunging into the flood waters below. Brooding over that was less fun than the distraction of the sing-along.
      • mikeash 8y ago
  • abraham 8y ago
    The observation car is a specific car for socializing and community gathering. If you want less noise you just don't need to go there.
  • cubano 8y ago
    Even if the guy was really good? I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience. I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer... Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs... Great memories.
    • chrisseaton 8y ago
      I guess I’m just a grump who doesn’t like being subjected to music no matter how good they think they are.
    • 72deluxe 8y ago
      I think Brits find public singing embarrassing, and even more so if the person doing it is right next to you, and a complete stranger. It gets worse if it involves a guitar. Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved. I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance awkward; we try to sit quietly and pretend it isn't even happening, eg. not even looking at the person making the disturbance. eg. some people arguing at the back of the bus probably won't make people at the front of the bus turn around or tell them to shut up.
      • munk-a 8y ago
        In the US observing someone showcasing a skill in public is usually not enjoyable but there is less of an emphasis on decorum and politeness and more of that good ol'libretarian individualism so going out into public and demonstrating how heart stoppingly amazing you are is a pretty common occurrence. I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.
  • balabaster 8y ago
    > That bit sounds like hell to me Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire
    • stuaxo 8y ago
      Hey, the moaning bit IS the fun.
      • balabaster 8y ago
        This is why all our greatest comedy is people moaning... Life of Brian, Holy Grail, Fawlty Towers, Little Britain, the list goes on...
    • ovao 8y ago
      I’ll quote Jerry Seinfeld here: “I can’t watch a man sing a song.” Jerry and I share sentiments on this.
  • luckydata 8y ago
    Are you Carl?
    • CWuestefeld 8y ago
      I am not now nor have I ever been Carl.
  • nraynaud 8y ago
    I think the USA doesn't do silence.
  • moron4hire 8y ago
    The regular passenger cars do have noise restrictions. It's only in the meal and observation cars.
  • aidenn0 8y ago
    At least in the northeast corridor (basically the only place in the US where trains are usable as transportation), there are "quiet cars" as well.
  • joejerryronnie 8y ago
    >That bit sounds like hell to me John Belushi concurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpNQ9AJYgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpNQ9AJYgU
• duxup 8y ago
  That reminds me of the song America, it's about a bus ride, but similar idea about the journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM
• StavrosK 8y ago
  > It's worth it, really How much does it cost?
  • magduf 8y ago
    An absolute fortune. I've looked into this, and it isn't economical in any way, shape, or form. Flying across the continent is MUCH cheaper, and with your number of vacation days usually being limited, gives you a lot more time at your destination. The only reason to do this is because you really want to spend your vacation time sitting in a train watching rural American scenery go by in states like Montana. It's sort of like taking a cruise ship, except a lot more expensive and the food isn't as good (or even included in the price I think) and there's not much to do on the train except watch the scenery and talk to people. If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights, it'd be more comfortable than an airplane's economy seats, and the ridership would probably be higher (which would lead to lower costs). As it is, long-distance rail travel in the US is an expensive disaster.
    • veryworried 8y ago
      $2k is hardly an "absolute fortune". For the typical hackernews software developer this is something like a week's worth of work for one of the most unforgettable experiences of their lives.
      • CaptainZapp 8y ago
        I totally agree with you. But compared to a one way flight, which can be had for as little as 100 bucks it's still pretty steep. Alas, the experience certainly cannot be compared. It's not about getting to the destination, when you take the train. You pay for the entire experience.
      • magduf 8y ago
        I can go to Europe for 2 weeks for $2k or so, all-inclusive. Spending that much money just to sit on a train and look out a window sounds like a fortune to me. Maybe for very sedentary people it's an attractive option. Even a cruise ship is a more active experience, since there's a LOT more to do on a cruise ship, and you can probably do that for less than $2k as well if you avoid all the extras.
• seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I’ve done Shanghai to Urumqi before in a hard sleeper. I don’t think I really saw much outside (no observation car, monotonous farming fields), but the people on the train were really interesting (eg Pakistani traders using the train to get back home).
  • creaghpatr 8y ago
    I did the Shanghai/Beijing bullet with some friends who had never been to China, it was great perspective for them and me to see all the massive cities in between that are not known outside of China but the size of New York City
  • CWuestefeld 8y ago
    I went Shanghai to the Yellow Mountains on a very old, slow sleeper train. It was basically a dormitory, with bunks three high. And you don't want to know about the bathrooms - it's really just a hole in the floor, falling onto the tracks. But even so, it was a wonderful experience. The Chinese landscape is nothing short of awesome. And the culture that unfolded was completely unknown to me, so constantly interesting. One thing that really made me take notice was the wide range of people. On the way to the Shanghai train station, we had walked by a Lamborghini dealership (I don't recall ever having seen even one of these in the USA) - there's a not-insignificant population of filthy rich people in and around Shanghai. But on the train we saw people peasants using an ox to plow a rice paddy of only a fraction of an acre. The degree of inequality was hugely wider than America or any other nation I've seen. EDIT: the Shanghai airport maglev train was an interesting experience just to say I've gone 300+mph on a train, but otherwise totally boring.
    • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Yes, that is what we call a hard sleeper :). A soft sleeper in contrast is usually four bunks in its own room. I’ve also done Shanghai to Changsha and Changsha to kunming like that. It gets interesting west of hunan.
  • lmm 8y ago
    There's some amazing scenery at the Urumqi end. E.g. I took this photo somewhere around there: https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/m3Wh2REpqnPIjHxe5FKNZQT9U8DI0lzh5jAmyE2BVq4 https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/m3Wh2REpqnPIjHxe5FKNZQ...
• jjoe 8y ago
  > But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. Cattle?
  • Symbiote 8y ago
    "Economy class, also called scum class, steerage, standard class or cattle class, is the lowest travel class of seating in air travel, rail travel, and sometimes ferry or maritime travel." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_class
  • darrenf 8y ago
    "Cattle class" is a kinda faux-pejorative term for economy/coach/whatever the cheapest cabin is in some mode of transport.
    • oarsinsync 8y ago
      Faux-pejorative indeed. Cattle are required to be given more space when being transported, than humans are, in Europe. Human class is below cattle class.
      • 123jay7 8y ago
        I don't think that's true. Have you seen how they move cattle in trucks? Maybe more space than a human because they take up more space, but they stacked right next to each other.
        • Symbiote 8y ago
          Have you seen the commuter trains in some larger European cities, like London, Paris, Brussels (I think)...? People sometimes aren't just stacked, they're squashed.
          • improbable22 8y ago
            India produces some real champions in this sport, the euros don't stand a chance. They have leagues up to "super-dense crush load", 14-16 people per square meter. It's still hard to believe this is possible...
• braythwayt 8y ago
  I once was headed to MacWorld at the Moscone Centre on business with my partner. We flew from Toronto to Chicago, where we took the California Zephyr to Oakland. After MacWorld we did a little sightseeing, then took the Coast Starlight to Portland, where we changed to the Empire Builder back to Chicago. Except what actually happened was that an avalanche in the Cascades held us up until a work train called "Snowball" showed up to clear the tracks. It had a massive snowblower, a plow, a flat car, a crane car, and a couple of coaches full of workers and equipment. We then missed our connection, so they loaded us on double-decker buses that raced to catch up with the Empire Builder. It was very memorable.
• drawkbox 8y ago
  > whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by My family went by train from Flagstaff, AZ to Trinidad, CO for a wedding and the observation car was amazing, it was part of the Southwest Chief route [1]. Even through what you'd think would be boring stretches of New Mexico not one scene wasn't awe inspiring. We got to see landscapes out of westerns and mostly away from roads/main bustle, but you'd be surprised how there is always something to see and almost always people living out there. We had to go through the Rockies in historic coal mining country Colorado and had to stop once for freight trains to go by, but the views were amazing. It is fun to lookup what you are going through on Google maps and finding lots of interesting stuff. Trinidad, CO was a nice little interesting historical town, once a border town, where Fishers Peak was a guiding landmark for settlers on the Santa Fe Trail, with Native American, pioneer and Spanish history, that has a Masonic cemetery, old limestone masonry buildings and underground tunnels for coal, once the sex change capital of the world, and today it is now a cannabis hot spot [2]. Best part of the train is the view and you can get up and walk around unlike on a plane, the rides are longer of course but more flexible to move while traveling which is nice. I brought my laptop to work but the views were too good to pass up. If I had more time I'd love to take the train all across the US. I wish there were more trains simply to see the less busy areas and interesting viewpoints you can't see from the road. Amtrak does leave lots to be desired in terms of technology, price, the food (dining car wasn't good) and general areas like maintenance, but the observation car was difficult not to be up there the entire time. [1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes/southwest-chief-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/routes/southwest-chief-train.html [2] https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/health/trinidad-colorado-small-town-marijuana/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/health/trinidad-colorado-smal...
• mindslight 8y ago
  > But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over. If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.
• kibwen 8y ago
  I'll take economic umbrage at "don't sit with the cattle". When I traveled from Chicago to SF on the California Zephyr (40-ish hours), a seat was $100 and a sleeper car was over $1,000; for reference, a flight between the two is about $200. Being able to afford such a sleeper car is the sort of luxurious expense that most vacationers will likely prefer to spend on going to a more exotic destination by plane. (I do recommend the California Zephyr, and second the parent's suggestion of spending the whole of it in the observation car, but skip the part of the route between Chicago and Denver; Denver and onward is where the real action's at.)
  • cycrutchfield 8y ago
    If you're buying a sleeper car ticket, you should be comparing it to an international business class flight with a lie-flat seat. Not a domestic flight in economy.
    • kibwen 8y ago
      I'd agree only if our benchmark of comparison is "I want to travel while sleeping", but the value of flying is that you get there so fast that you usually don't even need to sleep. The journey from Chicago to SF is eight times longer by train than by plane, and, price aside, the only value proposition is a (very) scenic view; considering price, you can either spend half the price of flying in exchange for two rough nights stretched diagonally across two train seats, or five times the price of flying for two nights of decent sleep.
  • tcpekin 8y ago
    I did Denver -> SF this past summer and it was absolutely unreal. I was extremely happy I did it, the sights were gorgeous, and it was an awesome time to just sit and think while some of the West's most gorgeous scenery passes by.
• fatnoah 8y ago
  Agree. I did a round trip about 12 years ago: Boston-DC-Chicago-Sacramento-LA-San Antonio-Chicago-Boston. Ten days on the train over 14 days. It was awesome. I brought lots of electronic entertainment and never used it. I spent endless hours just looking at parts of the country I've only ever flown over and met many interesting folks.
• Kurtz79 8y ago
  In Europe there has historically been an "Interrail" ticket, aimed to allow backpackers to travel in EU countries outside of their own with a single, dirt cheap pass, valid for a month or so on each country's rail network (of course, cheapest seating and class). I did two of them and they are some of the best travel experiences I had in my life.
  • jaclaz 8y ago
    Yep, and it was also a sort of "rite of passage" that every 18 year old took or wished to take.
    • ghaff 8y ago
      I never did it (though I have taken quite a few trains in Europe) but in the 70s or thereabouts spending a summer after graduation or whenever traveling with a "Eurail Pass" (whatever the proper name was) was almost a chiche.
      • jaclaz 8y ago
        I can confirm that it was still a thing in the '80's. And it still exists (just for the record): https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass But of course the times have changed. The huge thing about this was that for most young people at the time the 18 years birthday meant a lot, in most EU countries that was (is) a "threshold" you become to all effects an adult and getting an Eurail ticket was the first "totally independent" travel experience without the family, and you got for an all in all affordable to everyone amount of money "freedom", you met a lot of other young people doing the same, you could try to start a conversations with someone (a "peer") in (actually usually much improvised) other language, you could visit places you had only read about in books, etc. It was a great experience.
• camelNotation 8y ago
  One thing I've noticed that makes it such a wonderful experience is that the trains still use the old tracks (not literally the same metal, but the same paths) that were laid down decades or even centuries prior. So as you roll through these small towns, you are often seeing the old parts that are full of character and charm, not the strip-malls or Wal-Marts. I love that.