2 Amtrak trips, one was round trip St Paul to Seattle and a one-way Denver to Oakland.
the first I was young and went coach - interesting but barely slept - the second I was older and took a sleeper others have described but the top bunk wasn’t in use since it was just me. plenty of room and loved that trip. got to California 12 hours late.
it was explained to me that since Amtrak doesn’t own the track they have to pull over and let anyone who does go first. I loved the trip in the sleeper but you sure can’t go by their time table.
IIRC two nights between L.A. and Chicago has been typical at least since the early 20th century. According to Amtrak’s website the Southwestern Chief takes about 43 hours.
Washington, DC to Chicago. We got a “roomette” sleeper, and they upgraded us to a deluxe one with a private bath for very little when they called a week later. Very enjoyable ride.
A tad over 50 hours, Chicago to Seattle. Four hours late. We got stuck behind a disabled freight just outside of Milwaukee, and by the time we got going again we were outside the window where Amtrak has priority. At one time we were six and a half hours behind schedule, so they did pretty well under the circumstances.
I’ve taken the Trans-Siberian, Beijing to Moscow through Mongolia with my wife. We stopped off for a day or two at Ulan Bator, Irkutsk and Yekaterinburg, so overall it might have been pushing 2 weeks.
Epic trip, train journey of a lifetime, but one you’d need to be in the right frame of mind for. Some weighty novels were read, the trans-Siberian cribbage championship was contested 50 games to 49, that sort of thing.
Probably three night on the train, in a sleeping car, between St. Louis and Seattle, back in 1951, behind a real steam engine. Remember vividly that the engine broke down somewhere in Montana, and we had to wait for some hours for a replacement to be sent out. Still steam. A real fun trip.
Regarding the above post, I have to apologize. I know that a lot of Dopers were expecting a photo of the gorgeous stewardesses, not a stupid airplane. Sorry.
While we’re on this subject, sort of, I also got to travel between New York and Hamburg, Germany (round trip, obviously) on several crack ocean liners. On the trip over, I was only three years old, so don’t remember anything about the voyage, although I do have some old photos. However, on the trip back, on the Bremen, I can remember some things, in particular the play room that was provided for the kids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-11081,Schnelldamper%22Bremen%22.jpg
I may have the shortest. Distancewise, my record is probably South Amboy NJ to NYC. Timewise it may have been on the T as it is slower and takes more stops, from Quincy to Logan, if you don’t count the short time for a transfer as another train ride.
I used to take the Southwest Chief between Kansas City and Chicago fairly frequently. It only took seven hours, and frankly - when you figure in the time it takes to check your luggage, to get through airport security, delays on the tarmac, to get your luggage and the travel time to and from the airport as opposed to leaving from and arriving in the city center - it was about the same amount of time as the supposedly ninety minute plane ride. But over the last few years, I’ve been using Megabus. It’s a longer trip, but so much cheaper than it doesn’t even compare. The last twenty Megabus trips I have taken have cost me $1.
Being a steam-railway nut, I envy you the outward journey, hugely. Though if I’d been there, my memories of it would be fragmentary at best: in 1951, I was aged three ! Though I can count my blessings in that here in the UK, rail steam traction lasted most of a decade longer than in North America.
Back in the 1980s, Amtrak had a deal where you could do a roundtrip anywhere they went for $299, with a couple stops along the way. In 1987, I had a couple of ailing, elderly relatives I wanted to see again while they were still more or less with it, one in LA and one in the Four Corners area.
So I went from DC to LA and back, with a stop somewhere in NM to rent a car to drive up to the Four Corners area to see my 94 year old great-aunt, spent a couple of days there, then drove back to the train station I’d left, took the train to LA to see my grandparents, spent a few days with them, then took the train back to DC.
Altogether, I spent six days on the train, with the last three continuously except for a stop or two in the early going that were just long enough to stretch one’s legs, and a change of trains in Chicago with maybe 2 hours between trains.
It wasn’t bad back when I was a quarter-century younger, and didn’t have much excess cash. But I sure wouldn’t do it now.
About 8 hours on a Turkish train from Ankara to Istanbul, much of it spent stalled on the tracks waiting for another engine to pull us the rest of the way.
