The positive aspects described in the story are all fine and nice. You just have to know that the author almost certainly left out the heavy downsides of the j

The positive aspects described in the story are all fine and nice. You just have to know that the author almost certainly left out the heavy downsides of the journey, which would have been the totally unpredictable, frustrating, hours-long (maybe even good-part-of-a-day) delays along the route where Amtrak is stuck waiting for freight trains on rails that it does not own. Unfortunately a few hours of scenery isn't worth the overall frustration at the state of US rail in my opinion.