If its the one with sleeping accomodation, you get the meals in the dining car included with it, which makes a bit more sense. The price is usually for two people, so a lot less worth it for just the one to upgrade to it.
[Moderating]
I’m not seeing that this is particular arty, so I’m moving it from CS to IMHO.
I took amtrak from St. Paul to Seattle buying just a seat once but I was in my 20s. in my 40s I got the sleeper car from Colorado to the bay area near SF. it was totally worth it and included meals in the dining car which was the best part of it.
that was a few decades ago and the train arrive more than 12 hours late - staff told me that was actually pretty good, as the train was frequently having to pull over and let freight trains go first.
bring something to read and enjoy yourself.
We took the overnight Coast Starlight from Eugene to Los Angeles in a private compartment (a roomette). We brought snacks and a couple bottles of wine, books, laptop, my Sansa mp3 player and Bose portable speakers, and the usual toiletries you would take for any overnight trip. We ate in the dining car because it was part of the train travel experience. Wifi worked great. It was flat out one of the best, most relaxed travel experiences of my life.
The best thing to take on a long train ride is a bright, inquisitive, friendly and self directed 6 year old. I took Via Rail from Winnipeg to Vancouver when my son was 6. The trip was roughly 48 hours IIRC. We engaged with a lot of people and had a wonderful time. For food we brought subs without condiments or tomatoes and those lasted the first day.
Other train trips I took solo were a combo of books and my Walkman (extra batteries are a must!) And a deck of cards. (Hmm that was a while ago. I also may have met the Unabomber* or someone very similar while traversing Montana on the Empire Builder from St. Paul MN to Vancouver.)
*Probably just a wild and wooly conspiracy theorist who carried 5 bankers boxes of files and clippings with him. This was a few years before Ted Kozinski was arrested and all I remember about the train guy was the file boxes and the fact he needed a bath a shave and a new set of clothes. Pleasant enough though)
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I regularly take the train between NYC and Montreal, about 11 hours. I take usually things like cheese and crackers, sometimes hard boiled eggs, cut up carrots and the like. (If you take fruit, you have to eat it before the border, so I usually avoid it.) Then my e-reader and I am set. It’s a pretty trip and, while a lot longer than flying, at least you avoid the airport TSA theater and it is a lot cheaper. I just relax and read. I will go for a walk to the lounge car. Nobody ever takes my seat. But stay in your seat at a station stop just in case.
Last time I rode in coach on the CS — admittedly some time ago — it wasn’t “sit anywhere”: I was assigned a seat when I boarded. Then when the Conductor checked my ticket he put a color-coded slip of paper in a clip on the seat number plate (on the luggage rack). I believe they do that so that they can tell who gets off where, but in any case it indicates that the seat is in use.
I upgraded to business class. Thanks for that suggestion Sunny Daze.
I’ve taken long train trips, and never had any problem bringing my backpack, roller bag and a big bag filled with tripods aboard - along with a small, soft-sided cooler. There us water available in every car, but it never tasted all that good, so plan to have a lot of water with you. I knew I would be yearning for a hot meal, so I actually brought a couple of MREs with me (don’t laugh, many of them are actually quite good!) Didn’t have any problem with the heater.
The longer distance trains have more legroom than the regional ones, but both are vastly roomier than any airplane. I’ve had a sleeper a few times, and have enjoyed the conversations with strangers at the table, but the meals are priced like a restaurant - $10 hamburgers, $21 steaks, $2.50 for a soda.
I’ve never heard of anyone other than a sleeper car passenger being allowed to use the shower though.
They sometimes do, but the speed and reliability are not ideal.
Some of us other passengers think that’s a good thing to have in the car, too.
I occasionally think of the bright and charming 5yo boy who sat with me for an hour on the California Zephyr back in 1991. I had the Sunday newspaper, and we looked at the big capital letters in the sale papers and what sounds those letters represent and how sounds in a row like that could be a recognizable word that went with the picture underneath.
I suppose he’s 31 today.
Thanks for this, my son is 14 now and still is my favourite travelling companion. He geniunely enjoys meeting and talking to people. He remembers talking to a petrochemical engineer, quite vividly.
You just reminded me of something that happened on the Empire Builder. At the first night’s dinner I was seated with a woman and her two young daughters, and the younger one (possibly about 4) spent the entire meal drawing on her placemat with the tongue-sticking-out intensity which only a child that age can bring to the enterprise. When the meal was over she solemnly handed me the placemat, and I just as solemnly thanked her. Of course I never spoke with them again, but I still have it.
I love this thread. 
I like Mr. Downtown. Passengers like you make travelling with a child more pleasant than people who switch seats as soon as they see a child.
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Well, losing your seat is not usually an issue on Amtrak… just leave your non-tempting things on your seat, though it actually did happen to me once recently. I’d started having symptoms of food poisoning on a trip from NYC to Washington; I went to the restroom around Baltimore and when I came back, most of the way to Washington, someone had sat in what she thought was an empty seat. I took the aisle seat next to her and just had her pass me my things.
On the longer-haul trains they’ll usually assign you a seat, either in advance or upon boarding.
There will be an electrical outlet at your seat so you can charge your phone / ereader / music player or whatever. If you have the aisle seat, you have to coordinate that with whomever has the window seat, as obviously your cord will have to pass over his/her lap or under his/her legs or whatever. A USB brick can be useful as well.
Bring something that will work as a blanket. That could be your coat, if you’re travelling in cooler weather; when I took a trip from here to Florida and back last spring I brought a fleece throw I normally keep on the couch.
Some kind of footwear you can slip off and on easily is nice, if you want to kick it off while trying to snooze. Crocs or Birkenstocks work nicely for this.
There is probably a lounge car on the train. You can go hang out there for a change of scenery and to stretch your legs, even if you don’t purchase any food. If your seat is on the non-scenic side of the train that’s a good place to see the good stuff.
If there’s a dining car, you might want to treat (?) yourself to a meal there. Yes, it’s a bit overpriced but it’s a change of pace, and you can have pleasant chats with other people (if you’re travelling solo you WILL be seated with other people).
The bathrooms will be a bit grody. No matter how careful people try to be, let’s face it: you’re bouncing around the whole time, and water (etc.) splashes. I have found that it is, however, possible, to hurl - repeatedly - into a train toilet without making a mess. I’m rather proud of myself for that (where’s that barf smiley again?). They do clean the bathrooms periodically; if the one near you is nasty, tell a conductor, and go to another car for the time being.
The ones between here (DC) and New York do, as did the one I took to Florida last year, but it was essentially useless. I couldn’t establish a solid connection on either.
There are luggage racks over the seats on all the East Coast trains I’ve taken.
I’ve never heard of any restrictions on the amount of food you can bring on board. The limit of luggage is something like 1 (or 2?) suitcases and 2 personal items (e.g. purse + one other); I had a small soft-sided cooler of food for each leg of my Florida trip. So I wouldn’t worry about bringing your own food. Maybe if you had a huge coolerful of stuff you were basically shipping…
The WiFi on the Missouri River Runner from Kansas City to St Louis is generally reliable and reasonably fast. But it’s cell based, and any place you’re not going to get a 4G cell connection, you’re not going to get data on the train.
Don’t ask a pretty girl if she goes all the way; you might get a scotch dumped in your pants.
(Hello, Chicago, hello–gotta drink t’THAT!)