Maybe traveling by train soon; what's it like?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My mother and I, along with my two kids, are planning to go to Jacksonville next week to see my sister. My husband is about to have a heart attack at the idea of us being on the road during Memorial Day weekend and has suggested we try to take a train instead. The idea intrigues me, but I’ve never been on a train before. Are train prices comparable to the money we’d spend driving down (from central Missouri) and spending 2 nights in a motel (1 going, 1 coming back), not to mention food (a Waffle House at every exit, yo)? I checked on www.amtrak.com but their price-quoter thingy seems to be down. Are they comfortable? Are they usually pretty good about making sure you and your luggage end up at the same place? Do they serve food? My knowledge of trains is pretty much limited to what I know from reading “Murder on the Orient Express” and let me tell you right now if I find a little portly Belgian guy with a funny mustache sitting next to me I’m bailing out.

And, hey, since I’m already here: Any funny train stories?

2

It’s not a bad way to travel. I work for an airline and get to fly for free. I still like riding the train.

It is a different change of pace. The baggage service is pretty reliable. There is a lot of leg room at the seats and they recline enough sleep comfortably. You generally have about 4 cars that you can walk through when you need to take a walk. There will be an observation car where anyone can go and get a better view. Downstairs on the observation car, there is a snackbar. There is also a dining car with strick serving times and moderate pricing.

The train ride is generally smooth. There are times when they go fast and time when they go very slow and times when they just stop to let other trains go around them. They also make many 5-15 minute stops along the way. They are historically late. Sometimes hours and hours late.

It’s fun for me because I can forget about news and current events. A couple of days without TV or radio along with hours and hours of scenery can be very relaxing on the body and soul.

For carryons, you might want the kids to have a backpack with activies to keep them busy. Fruits and snacks might be good to have with you. Many people like to read on the train.

3

I travelled all across the country once on the Amtrak. Round trip. Good times, good times. This was over 10 years ago, though, so I don’t know how much things have changed. I went on the Amtrak a few other times as well (just half-way across the country), so I’ve had some experience, but it’s probably a bit dated.

I liked it. It was exhausting at times (I slept in my seat—didn’t get a sleeper compartment), but the bathrooms were okay and the dining room served decent food. Actually, I’ll amend that. I LOVED IT. LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!!

Maybe that was just me, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Let me see . . . I went from Pasadena through New Mexico up through Chicago. and then all the way over to Washington DC, then down to Atlanta, New Orleans, back up to Chicago, then back to Pasadena. I stayed over for several days in different places (I visted a friend in Atlanta for about 5 days, I think, and had some overnighters in a few other places too). It was the coolest thing EVER!

Now, getting down to the details: For me, there were times when it was tiring, yes. But looking back, it wasn’t that bad. I remember arriving into Atlanta (where my friend was) early in the morning (like 7-8 am) and not needing a nap and feeling relatively perky. So I couldn’t have been that worn out. (And also I was really thrilled to see him again. :slight_smile: )

I didn’t get to take a shower on the train, but fortunately I had enough stops along the way so I didn’t go without bathing for too long. The bathrooms had a “lounge” area (small) where you can put on makeup and wash up a little bit.

The seats were somewhat roomy so you could rest semi-comfortably and most people on the train are semi-civilized (unlike Greyhound Bus people, which are scary. SCARY. I have stories). There are all these cars connected together so if you need to stretch your legs you can walk up and down and wander around a little. There’s also a snack bar sort of place where you can get drinks and chips and stuff as well. Make sure to have plenty of cash with you (though I think that sometimes you can charge your food to your account? I don’t remember and besides, things have probably changed by now anyway.) Some trains have a “double decker” car where you can go upstairs and get a nicer view of the scenery.

I didn’t have trouble with my luggage. Back then they had enough overhead room for me to drag my bags with me to put in the overhead compartment. Sometimes I did check in a bag or two, but I never lost anything.

Sometimes I had long wait times between trains, where I was stuck in a train station. Some of these were cool (I liked the DC one and the Chicago one) but it can be cramped and tedious too. Bring a book to read. Bring a warm sweater or something to wear so that if the air conditioning gets too cold, you can bundle up at night. I think they offer you blankets but I can’t remember (I think they do). Just dress comfy and bring something to wear in case it gets a little chilly.

All this information is dated and my memory may be a little fuzzy, but unless travelling by train has changed dramatically within the last decade, you’re going to LOVE it, if you know what to expect and you prepare for it. Have a great time!

4

This Lady on Eopinions was a newbie to trains too – I point out her rather than the many, many others Eopinions because A. 252 people trust her opinion (That is extraordinarily high) & **B. ** She makes most of my points better than I could

http://www.epinions.com/content_74079506052

On Price it depends on where you depart, what options you chose and how early you book – in general if you are willing to sit in coach for 11-13 hrs you may be able to actually do this trip cheaper than a full on drive by car w. an overnight hotel stay while buying on-the-road and hotel food. The options (like sleeper cars and where/when the train actually departs) you have – and that decide you need to add on – will make the pricing more transparent to you.

In general, trains are safer than travel by car – double that around Memorial Day

I went through Penn Station in NYC twice last Thanksgiving weekend and it was literally my definition of “a mob scene” – but it was only intimidating at first and the crowds moved very efficiently and quickly

5

I did it once about 15 years ago. I travelled round-trip coast-to-coast. I think it’s something everyone should experience at least once.

The Good:

Some of the scenery is stunning. The southwest desert and the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges were my particular favorites. Since highways tend to attract populations and towns, you find yourself in many more wilderness-like areas.

The seats are much roomier and comfy than the typical airline seat. Given the added travel time, they have to be.

The ride is smooth and quiet… that was a surprise to me.

The dining cars were good, as is the bar car. You also get to meet a lot of interesting people and develop some nice, albeit temporary, friendships.

The Bad:

While the seats are nice, they weren’t great for sleeping, IMO (this might have changed, but it was my experince then). You can sleep in them, but if the train is full, it’s a fitful rest. Once I went into an empty luggage room and slept on the luggage rack.

You have to have the added time. It took 3 days coast to coast.

The cars east of Chicago weren’t all that nice… more cramped and less fancy than the Western trains. Again, this might have changed since then.

6

I took my Very First Train Trip over spring break this year, a fourteen-hour ride from Cincinnati to Washington, D.C.

It was a nice way to travel, I thought. The seats are pretty comfortable for mass transport, a lot more so than airline seats. And if you get tired of sitting, you can take a little walk along the cars or grab something to eat in the snack bar. The steady rocking motion of the train was soothing.

The scenery was pretty, the back sides of little towns and along the sides of rivers, sometimes with no roads or civilization in sight.

The other passengers were quiet, respectable folk. Pretty much everyone was reading, sleeping, or listening to headphones, and the car was surprisingly quiet. There were little outlets at every seat, and a few people had plugged in laptops or portable DVD players. (I’ve heard you want a surge protector on these, but I brought a bagful of books instead of electronics).

The food didn’t suck, though it was snack-bar standard- hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, heated up on demand in a little microwave. I gather that other trains have more of a kitchen arrangement with fancier food, but mine didn’t.

I’m totally going to ride the train again- it was a lot nice than flying, I thought.

The only disadvantage I saw was that it is slow- I could have driven there a lot faster.

7

I wouldn’t presume to advise, Marlitharn, me being a foreigner and all that, but I just had to pop in to register my amusement at not being used to trains. :slight_smile:

As someone else said, take a little pack of snacks, and kiddy amusement things, but you’d probably do that for a car journey anyway, right? The train will, no doubt, have food, but I mean jsut in case there is anything you and kids are especially fond of. And of course, you add reading materials to that becuse, not driving, you can look at scenery and read at your leisure, if your kids allow you to, of course! I hope the trip goes well. :slight_smile: Is it a terribly long journey?

I doubt, of course, that the train would be quite as posh as the Orient Express. :slight_smile:

And

8

And, of course, trains at least have facilities for “calls of nature”, which can be a problem on long car journeys!:slight_smile:

9

I’ve never travelled Amtrak, but I have been most of the way across Canada on VIARail, as well as too many train trips to count between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. I love trains.

At least on VIA, there is food and bar service. It was served at your seat, airline style, on the short trips; but on the longer trips, there was a dining car with much better meals than you’ll find on the road or on an aircraft, and a lounge car with a bar. Get up and take a nice long walk up and down the train (careful–it will sway), and see what facilities your train offers. Regardless of what facilities your train has, you’ll undoubtedly find that the scenery is great, there are interesting people to meet, and the train crew are generally pretty friendly and helpful.

And as one of those who always seems to be pulled aside for the secondary inspection when he travels by air, I find that the ability to just get on a train without being questioned and searched is welcome indeed.

Bring some activities for the children, some books or whatnot for yourself, and settle back and enjoy.

10

As a small child, I traveled from Chicago to San Franscico.

I loved it!

I saw cows! :slight_smile:

Tumbleweeds! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Oil wells! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

The observation car is great for kids, & I wish we’d get an Amtrak hookup here in the Nashville area.

I’d bring a CD player, comics, books, or a portable video game for the kids, but they might see little use.

11

I took several small train trips and one big one from New Orleans to somewhere in Michigan for some reason when I was a kid.

The good:

Scenery, lots of it. The rocking motion of the cars. Being on a train is inherently cool.

The bad:

You could probably drive/fly faster/cheaper. For example, I looked at taking the train from Atlanta to Savannah for one of our vacations and Amtrak routed us up through DC on a 2 day trip (it’s a 6-7 hour drive), each way. In addition, it would’ve cost twice as much as flying us both down there and renting a car.

It can be slow. If you’re going through a hot area, the train’ll probably stop completely for minutes/hours because the tracks expand.

You’re stuck in a fairly small, confined space. We were on the train for about 3 days, as I recall. If your kids get cranky, you may want to murder them, especially if you’re stuck with em for days.

I assumed some things (St. Louis-Jacksonville, leaving today). You’d leave St. Louis at 11:00pm on the 22nd and take a bus to Carbondale, IL, arriving at 1am on the 23rd. Then you’d take a 1:30am train down to New Orleans, arriving there at 3:31pm on the 23rd. Then you’d have a 7 hour layover at the Amtrak station in New Orleans–which, if it’s anything like it was, is not a place you’d want to spend 7 hours–and leave for Jacksonville at 10:30pm on the 23rd and arrive at 4:40PM on the 24th. Total cost for 2 adults and 2 kids was $522. One way.

12

Check it out! Doomtrain is experiencing a moment of username/post content kismet! :smiley:

After looking at Doomtrain’s price quote and spending some time wrestling Amtrak’s online trip planner into submission, it doesn’t look like the train is going to be an option. The price I got was $993 round trip, and I only got that by plugging in the dates I WASN’T traveling. Everything for the days we need looks to be booked up (sigh). Heck, we could FLY down for $625. Maybe if we’d thought of it a couple of months ago we might have been able to manage it, but we somehow got so fixated on driving that nothing else occurred to us. So, it’s going to be me, my mother, and 2 children (ages 13 and 5) in a Chevy Cavalier for 2 days. I’m going to have to practice saying that last sentence out loud until it stops making me feel faint.

I’m bummed, though. After reading some of these responses I was starting to get really psyched about train travel. :frowning:

13

Well, let me unbum you. Trains suck. People who think trains are a neat way to travel must also think that battery acid is a lovely exfoliant.

Trains combine the speed and convenience of Greyhound with the flexibility and economy of first-class air travel.

14

There’s no similarity between Amtrak and Greyhound, other than they both travel on the ground, rather than fly through the air.

When I travelled by Greyhound (did that cross-country once too), I looked like the Wrath of God. Like Death Warmed Over. The psycho seatmates threatening my life (well, almost), the cramped seats, the abysmal bathroom, the crazy, eccentric bus drivers—there is NO comparison between that and the convenience of the train, which is as I described above.

When I traveled by train I looked pretty fresh and was able to function the rest of the day after the trip. On the Greyhound I had to sleep for several days and wait for my ankles to unswell. There’s a world of difference.

15

Well, I actually have traveled on the Orient Express, from Paris to Linz, Austria, but this was in 1980 when it was a normal train, before it got upgraded. I also traveled from LA to Chicago in 1978, and have been on trains in Alaska.

For my LA trip, I got a sleeping compartment, which was well worth it, traveling by myself. Back then the food on the train was fantastic. Nice silverware, good service, good food, and a great view. I spent a lot of time in the observation car.

But it was not perfect. This was in January, and the reason I took it was because I had a great deal of problems transporting my hamster. TWA made me buy a giant dog carrier so the hamster couldn’t bend the bars of his cage, crawl out, chew on the wires, and make the plane crash. So I figured going back by train would be easier. The Amtrak folks said I had to put him in the baggage compartment, but that I could go and give him fresh water there during a stop.

It all was fine, until we got to Dodge City, Kansas. (Yes, there is such a place, Gunsmoke fans.) The geniuses at Amtrak chose to leave the baggage car doors open during the long stop. Then, on the way to Chicago, icing and icy tracks caused the train to go very slowly. Some of the toilets in the sleeping compartments overflowed, they were hours late, they ran out of food, and when I picked up my luggage and hamster in Chicago I found him frozen solid. :eek:

After a screaming session they gave me $25 bucks for him. Then I stuck frozen hamster and cage into the luggage rack of the train heading for Champaign, where I arrived in a blizzard. No cabs, but I lived in walking distance of the station.

One good fallout - the only person who I felt could appreciate this odyssey was my ex-gf. She was sympathetic, we started talking to each other again, I invited her to help me move to Louisiana, we got engaged, and we’re still married 27 years later.

But you’ll be fine.

16

I only travelled Amtrak once but loved it. I’d still like to do the cross-country thing in a sleeper car someday.

One question. Do they still have smoking cars? When I went there was one car everyone could go to smoke. This makd the trip’s time much more bearable and and it was mostly people my age, so also entertaining.

Oh, and the beer was really expensive. Like airline expensive.

17

I went from San Francisco to New York last summer. I chose the train because it was cheaper to book than a last minute plane ticket.

It was a lot of fun. I had great adventures. I met all kinds of people- from Amish travellers to actors travelling to audition for big parts to people that I still consider friends. There was even some innocent stranger-on-a-train romance. I hung out in the obvservation car all day reading, eating, and chatting with everyone. Even the staff became friends near the end.

If you don’t have a sleeper, it’s not too glamorous. I had no trouble sleeping in the cars, but the train was fairly empty (two chairs reclined easily is as large as a single bed) and I can sleep anywhere. Washing up was a chore that was accomplished part by part in the still of night in one of the larger bathrooms (which got progressively ickyer as the trip went on) with a cup of soapy water and a cup of clean water. I recommend packing a quick-dry travel washcloth.

Also bring lots of food. The food is expensive and not very good, but you can easily pack decent supplies for the trip of your own. I didn’t eat at the dining car once and only used the snack bar for coffee.

Here are my pictures from the trip . Overall it really was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience. I really reccommend it.

18

Depends on the route. Sometimes smoking is allowed in the lounge car. A lot of them are now completely non-smoking, and the only chances to smoke is when the train is going to be a platform for a while. Generally when they’re changing crews (if they do that), fueling, doing routine maintenance, and so on. This appears to be particularly true in the Northeast. I haven’t done anything larger than a 13-hour stint from where I am to Chicago, so I can’t speak for the trains using Viewliners.

19

I used to ride Amtrak regularly between Chicago and Detroit in my college days. Measuring from door to door, it was actually faster than using the airlines because of the time required to get to and from airports and the necessity to arrive well in advance for a flight. With the train, I need only get to the station in time to board the train, not an hour in advance (or more). I also found it more relaxing - aside from much more leg room, folks on the trains just didn’t seem as stressed out and hurried as at the airports. Then, too, most of this travel I was doing in winter, and the trains are the last thing to be stopped by the weather. There were some days the big airports were shut down or seriously delayed but the trains went right on through.

It really depends on the route you take and how much in a hurry you are. When time isn’t a huge factor I prefer the train. Unfortunately, in this country trains are very limited in where they go and when.

I never had a train with a dining car, just a snack bar - but then, that route was only about 7-8 hours in length (and that was if you continued to Cleveland). The food was OK. I used to bring fresh fruit along sometimes.