If (and I admit it’s a big if) they do things the way they used to, you will still have your sleeper car after Albany. My trip was actually to Pittsfield, Mass., and they split the train at Albany. Everyone was told to just leave their stuff where it was, as the cars were divided up by whether people were going to Boston or NYC.
I’d recommend he do so before the trip. The sleeper-car bathrooms are rather small.
Well, I think it depends on the exact itinerary that I’ll be booking. Depending on which day of the week I leave L.A., it looks like some trains go straight through to NYC, and others go futher northeast from Albany. They may “split” the train there, as TYM says. At any rate, for the Albany-NYC run, only business class coach seats were available for reservation, for the particular schedule I looked at. So I’ll be sure to stake out appropriate seats at the time of booking!
That’ll be where most of the fun is. It’s always interesting to meet people who are from different places along the line and perhaps bound for different places as well. It’ll be like a hotel bar (I am excessively fond of hotel bars, for those reasons).
I guess this means that if the Southwest Chief arrives late in Chicago, they can’t hold the Lakeshore Limited.
I think I remember that. It was on the national news.
Sure will. Thanks to everyone for the advice.
I’m curious about this, too. When you travel by bus, how long did it take, and how much did you end up having to spend on food along the way?
I usually took the train between Del Mar and Los Angeles, when I was in college at UC San Diego, but a couple of times I had to take the bus. Oddly enough, for that particular route at that time, the train was a couple of dollars cheaper than the bus. Also, the bus actually gave you a much smoother ride than the train, as rubber tires on concrete provided better cushioning than metal wheels on metal.
Sad to day, the Del Mar station was closed and torn down. It was a classic clapboard depot from the turn of the last century, but the neighbors objected to the noise of the trains and, perhaps, the frumpy students crowding the station. Last time I travelled the line, I couldn’t even see where the station used to be.
To replace it, they opened a new station at Solano Beach, next town up.
I’ve never ridden Amtrak, but I have been from Montreal to Halifax and from Toronto to Edmonton on VIARail, Canada’s rail service. Always in a private sleeper compartment, and always taking full advantage of the dining car and the lounge car. I loved it; the train is a great way to travel.
I have to agree with this. It’s nice to have a private place on the train, but you’ll probably also find that you’ll have a lot of fun in the lounge car and the dining car, meeting and talking with the other travellers.
Have a great trip!
Unless they’ve changed in the last year, you don’t reserve a specific seat in business class, just that you have a seat. They sometimes overbook the coach seats, so it’s worth it, IMHO. That said, I’ve never had a problem getting the seat I want, but you can always have one person hurry ahead and stake out a spot, while the other struggles with the luggage. Also, you get a free drink for being in business class, which they don’t tell you about. Business class is at the front of the dining car, IIRC, so it’s a quick trip.
It took three days. I can’t remember exactly how much I spent on food (it was eight years ago), but suffice it to say it was still way cheaper than taking Amtrak.
Actually, it’s only the additional accomodation charge (standard, family or deluxe bedroom) that makes Amtrak expensive. If you only get a coach seat it’s usually comparable in price to – and IMHO quite a bit more comfortable than – Greyhound. Most of my cross-country Amtrak trips were in coach seats for budgetary reasons.
As a test, I just went on the Amtrak and Greyhound web sites and planned trips for one month from today (November 5) from San Francisco to New York, one-way. Amtrak came in at $133 for coach, and Greyhound quoted $179 (or $119 with 7-day advance purchase). Either way it’s not a huge difference.
Sorry, forgot to add that although the prices quoted in my post above refer to a trip in 2004, it’s of course entirely possible that when ruadh traveled, there was a major price difference in favor of Greyhound. I apologize if I implied otherwise.
Greyhound and Amtrak both have their pros and cons; I just didn’t want people to automatically assume that the bus is always substantially cheaper.
I took Amtrak from San Francisco to NYC last year. I travelled couch, and it cost about $100- less than flying and less than Greyhound. I took Amtrak because it was the cheapest option and I had all the time in the world.
The couch seats were very nice- there is a ton of legroom, and the footrests go all the way horizontal at night. The train was empty enough that we could all sleep across two chairs, and it was quite comfy. They auctioned off a few empy sleeper compartments on the beginning of the trip for a few hundred dollars. I packed my own food (I was dirt poor at the time), and the trip took about four days. The meals in the dining car cost around ten dollars and were mostly pretty boring looking. The snack car was likewise overpriced. Pack your own sodas and snacks.
It was one of the best times of my life. I spent most my time in the observation car watching America go by and making friends (some of who I still keep in touch with). Some very interesting people ride Amtrak.
We were four hours late in to Chicago, but still had plenty of time to do a breif tour of Chicago and catch the horrible dirty rickety train to New York. There were a few people on the train freaking out about it being late. I really suggest you figure on it being late and relax about it. Amtrak takes the lowest precedence on the rails, and you are unlikely to be extremely late but also unlikely to be on time.
An have fun! This is going to be a great experience.
Yes, the price of accommodations does seem horrendous, but at least they feed you along the way. It’ll be sort of like a land cruise.
Thanks for starting this thread, guys. I’ve got a trip or three in mind up the east coast this coming year with a rambunctious 2 year old … if I can make one of them a train trip (with basic accomodations) I’d like to. 
I only have one experience riding on Amtrak, going from Montreal to NYDope last January. The way down, we were horrendously delayed – defective locomotive – but I’m very patient. All it meant was taking the subway at 2:30 AM. (whimper)
The way back, however, was just fine, and as mentioned, you meet some lovely people and the scenery is beautiful.
Re other lines, the cross-country trip from Toronto to Vancouver on VIA is supposed to be one of the great train experiences. They have a dining car with a huge dome that you can get a 360 degree view out of as you go past the Great Lakes, through the prairies, and over the Rockies.
I was in NYC not long ago, at a hotel that was quite near Penn Station, and I can promise you that around either there or Grand Central there are a lot of people walking around with luggage. I was afraid I’d stick out but I really didn’t.
I know this is a minor point, but I was there a couple of weeks ago and I had the same concern. It was no problem at all.
I remember that Greyhound was $99, but I don’t remember the precise figure for Amtrak. I looked them both up at the time though and made the decision to take Greyhound based on cost, so it definitely was a lot cheaper then.
But as I said, it was eight years ago.
I did Albany to Toronto with Amtrak (and their Canadian equivalent) in May. The views along the Hudson were absolutely amazing. However, we were a good 4 to 5 hours late into Toronto, mainly because of US Customs holding us up before we left the country to search the entire train. They gave the poor Bhuddist monk sat behind us absolute hell.
Season 5, Episode 73 of Sex and the City. Carrie and Samantha go from New York to L.A. on the train, thinking it will be romantic and adventuresome, but find that it’s not so much.
"The trains will occasionally arrive a few hours late, but rarely more than four’? “The latest I ever arrived going coast-to-coast was five hours”?
A coast-to-coast airliner trip is about five hours, and I’m supposed to think that taking the train, which is rarely later than four or five hours, is a GOOD thing?
Not for me.
Well, that’s fine. For me, a large part of the enjoyment of travel is the actual travel itself. I enjoy taking the train. (I enjoy driving too.)
Although over certain distances (up to say 300-400 miles) train travel can be made time-competitive with flying, that’s never going to be the case for a US transcontinental trip (around 3000 miles). The scheduled time between coasts is about three days, and the OP was asking for Dopers’ anecdotes regarding the possibility of missed connections or a missed day at his destination (NYC).
You don’t take the train coast-to-coast because you expect to get there on time, and unless Amtrak is given dispatching priority on the tracks over which it travels, that’s unlikely to change.
It’s a different thing in Europe and Japan, where a major investment in separate rights-of-way and rail technology has made the train time-competitive with flying for many intercity business trips. In the US, the only similar case is the Northeast Corridor (Washington-NYC-Boston), and that’s still behind where France was 20 years ago. Different population structures, different political will, different results.
High-speed rail is under study for the Los-Angeles-San Francisco corridor, one of the busiest air routes in the country. If they can pull it in at around 2.5 hours city-to-city, and make it price-competitive with air travel, there’s a lot of people that would take it. Of course, there’s the small matter of several billion dollars of infrastructure to be built first…