I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought my tickets

I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought my tickets way ahead of time for cheap, brought my own food, and did it because I wanted to see the country. I'd recommend everyone give it a try just once, it is certainly much better than my Greyhound experiences. That said, there are glaring problems in the system. In El Paso, they forced everyone off the train and onto cramped shuttle buses all the way till San Antonio, less comfortable than Greyhound buses, asides the lack of crack smoke that is. And why? For track maintenance. Yet, they didn't inform anyone ahead of time that this was going to happen. This is in addition to the numerous stops of hours at a time where we would just sit, and of course not be informed why we were just sitting. In each case that I could determine, it would be because we were waiting on a freight train to pass. Amtrak has three major problems. One, they play second priority to freight rail, and thus trips become inconveniently long. Two, they are horribly mismanaged, which leads to the conductors not knowing what is going on. Three, the employees I have met at Amtrak have generally sucked in terms of customer service. I'm not surprised given they are working a dead-end job with poor management, but it's certainly one place that unionized, government subsidized labor hasn't led to stellar results.