My sister is turning 60 so my brother and I have planned a trip for her. At the end my sister and I will fly from Denver to Chicago which is about $163 around Memorial Day.
My sister though that, maybe, a train tip would be fun. Sounds good to me. A coach seat for that time starts at $100. Not bad but it is an 18.5 hour trip. A plane is 2.5 hours and costs $163.
Ok, so, what about a sleeper? $661. Want a room with its own bathroom? $1,339.
What the fuck is wrong with Amtrak? Do people really pay that for a night?
The rooms are not nice at all. I mean, they are ok but mostly all you get is a bunk and some privacy.
Mind you, the train leaves Denver around 7:30p and arrives at 2:30p in Chicago. Most of the trip is at night, nothing to see and, frankly, across the plains so deadly boring. And they want $1300+ so I can lie down?
Do the math…
I can fly to Chicago in 2.5 hours for $163. Another hour to get downtown so call it $200 with a cab ride and tip. That leaves me $460 for a dinner and a hotel room. Or, if I wanted my own bathroom on the train, I have $1,140 for dinner and a room for the night. That would mean I could get dinner at the best restaurant in the country (Alinea) and a really swank hotel room.
On what planet does Amtrak think they get to charge so much for a shitty room?
I am ranting because I would love to take some train trips but not at these prices and for Amtrak???
Most people shelling out for a sleeper aren’t going to be getting on in Denver - they’re gonna be riding the whole route of the California Zephyr, which starts in San Francisco at 8 AM and arrives in Chicago two days later, so they can see the sights along the way and eat in the dining car with strangers. Long-distance rail travel in this country is something you do for the experience, not because it’s cheap or efficient.
It’s a train. They can only fit so many sleepers onboard. Were you expecting a private car with a full bar, a four-poster bed, and a snooker table?
If there are 30 rooms on the train, the fair price is whatever the 31st person thinks is too expensive. This is a cruise on a land-yacht, not an essential service for all.
This ride is 18.5 hours long. 12 will be in the dark (give or take a bit). Eight hours will be spent sleeping (probably).
As noted above: For the same money you can get SO much more at the destination if you fly. A much, much, much better room and much, much, much better food.
The supply of space on the train is fixed, more or less (perhaps they have some reserve capacity they can add at peak times, but I doubt it’s much). The demand is not fixed, so at times of elevated demand for tourism (like, say, Memorial Day), the price will necessarily rise.
That’s a package on a private rail line with overnight hotel stays. The train you’ve linked doesn’t even have sleepers.
For a more apt comparison, San Fran - Chicago on the Zephyr with a basic sleeper is $808 for one, with a comparable two-night trip on Via Rail from Vancouver - Winnipeg with a basic sleeper (which is just a berth for one with a privacy curtain, as opposed to a room for two on Amtrak) running $895 CDN ($717 USD as of right now), which is pretty much a wash.
The equivalent product on a plane is even less luxurious and more expensive. You can easily spend $10,000 to spend eight hours in a little plastic pod in a seat that pulls out into a mediocre bed.
Remember, the Denver train leaves at 7:30p. A lot of the travel is at night. A lot of it most would be sleeping. And, when awake, the scenery will be the plain-states (read: boring).
For the cheapest sleeper from Denver: $0.67/mile.
From San Francisco: $0.39/mile and a lot better scenery.
You might only be using the sleeper for part of the trip, but you’re still going to wind up paying the same amount as someone who boards in San Francisco because they’re going to have to leave that cabin vacant until you show up, since even if they happened to have someone else who wanted to ride from San Fran - Denver, it wouldn’t be practical to check them out, clean and turn down the cabin, and check you in in the limited amount of time they have at the station.
I can fly from Denver to Chicago for $163. 2.5 hour flight. Add an hour on both ends and a little cushion, let’s say 5 hours travel from hotel to hotel.
The train is about 20 hours hotel to hotel.
At the cheapest (for a bed) the train wants $660.
Airfare and taxi will be $200. So, you have $460 for the day for a hotel and dinner. You can get a swank hotel room for $300. You can get a fabulous dinner for $160.
Can you say the Amtrak experience is competitive with that?
It’s not trying to compete. You may as well ask why you would bother sailing Royal Caribbean when you could just fly coach, or why you would stay at the Four Seasons when Motel 6 is closer.
Not just on the train, but also the tracks. Even if there is enough demand for a longer train with more sleepers or even a second train, there might not be the capacity of the rails to have that time and space free to use. Especially when Amtrak only owns 623 miles of track and operates another 132 miles.
And again, most won’t be getting on this route in Denver. If you want to enjoy the experience and get your money’s worth, then getting on two-thirds of the way through the trip isn’t the way to go.
Amtrak is the Orient Express compared to Greyhound. My cite is my own experience traveling overnight on both.
Greyhound is quoting me $102 for a one-way trip from Denver to Chicago on the Saturday before Memorial Day. If Greyhound had a sleeper option, and I wanted to be in a private compartment that took up the space of, say, six seats, I would expect that compartment to go for at least $600 (perhaps it wouldn’t on a particular trip, but if it didn’t bring in 6x on an ongoing basis, Greyhound would probably remove it from the bus and replace it with normal seats).
I was in a seat, as I was young and couldn’t afford a sleeper, and it was still a much better experience than Greyhound. I’m thinking about taking the Seattle-Chicago route next summer and getting a sleeper.
