The accommodations are spartan, but you can sleep lying down, have your own toilet instead of standing in a puddle of pee, and you have a shower. The biggest problem is that these trains are old and the rails are in bad shape. You just can’t sleep well with all the stops, rough track, noise, swaying, etc. Our trip from Portland to Minneapolis was some 40+ hours. Northern tier scenery is mostly nice, but sitting in that clanking, swaying thing for that long is really monotonous. But it was worth the cost to us not be in coach.
I think you missed the point.
How much would a train trip be worth to you if you had a fear of flying?
I see YOUR problem, yes.
When my late spouse took a train from Chicago to Maine he got a sleeper because he was disabled and with his back problem he had to have a bed and not a reclining seat, and he found the seating on airplanes to be absolutely excruciating. He was also traveling with someone who have an intense fear of flying who was willing to split the cost of the “tiny bedroom” so for them it solved their problems but their problems weren’t around time or even, to some extent, cost.
For me, when I get to my destination, I am not really interested in $400 dinners, usually stay with friends, and if I do get a hotel it’s more in the $75-150 range. Sometimes it makes more sense for me to spend money on the travel comfort than the destination frills. That’s me - you do you.
Again - you keep claiming “there’s not to see, it’s boring out there”. Well, OK, you find endless plains boring. Me, I live there and I still find looking over vast swathes of land under a huge sky interesting. Again, that’s me - you do you.
If you decide on flying rather than a train that’s perfectly OK with me. It’s absolutely great we have options these days rather than taking a month to make the trip in a wagon, staring at the back end of two oxen the whole way. Yay us.
Exactly.
I also prefer to bring my own snacks but yes, the glamour days of train travel are long past. You can say the same for air travel, too.
Well, I can - but then I also fell asleep during an MRI and occasionally dozed off during band practice in a group composed of bagpipes and drums. Apparently noise and jarring doesn’t impose and obstacle to me getting a nap. Admittedly, I’m probably and exception to the general rule.
It is worth noting that a seat on the train from Denver to Chicago is $100. Cheaper than a plane.
You just have to sit in one seat for 18.5 hours (you can walk around).
No. First, it’s already been explained to you that a) the prices wildly variable and b) the prices are based primarily off of the total length of the trip even if you’re getting on at the end. Second, you’re falling into the “if I’m not willing to pay it, it’s clearly not worth the money” trap. That’s not how capitalism works. Somebody is paying for it often enough to make it worthwhile.
And, frankly, you keep throwing around the price of a private bedroom with a private bathroom. A private bathroom for an 18-hour trip. Who needs that? You certainly don’t get it in first class on an airplane. If you’re going to insist on unreasonable accommodations, you’re going to pay unreasonable prices.
One of these days I’m going to do the Coast Starlight trip. It’s expensive, but has views you can’t get while flying. I think you can also plan for stops and stuff? But it only makes sense as a trip if you do a big portion of it. Not getting on most of the way to the end.
I do not think particular disabilities figure into the discussion. Certainly if you or someone you know has special circumstances then they need special accommodation to get from A → B.
But, 99% of people traveling do not need that.
And, if you enjoy eight hours of the plains that’s cool. I will say few people plan trips to the plains but if that’s your thing then great.
The super-duper expensive meal was only for illustration.
I’m hunting around on a rail booking website, and Amsterdam to Madrid (about the same distance by air as Denver to Chicago) would be longer for sure (the shortest itineraries are 22 hours, some are more like 32), and I’m not finding any that are as cheap as $100. (Sleeper car options are nonexistent, but a person making this trip wouldn’t get much sleep anyways since they’d be making several connections.) The slowness of Amtrak on the route in question is more than made up for by the fact that it runs direct and overnight.
That length of trip just isn’t something where trains compete as transportation, no matter where you are in the world. As land-cruises, sure, but most people are not going to use it for good old A-to-B.
The $661 option (see the title of the OP) does not have a private bathroom (just a bunk bed mostly).
And the $1340 option remains to be justified.
So… $661 for two adults, yes? 330 bucks a person? Cheaper than what you’d pay for business class on an airplane?
No, that is one adult.
Two adults would be $820 or $1500.
$410/$750 each.
You’re paying more for Memorial Day, most certainly. Other days are much cheaper.
But 410 a person is still comparable to a first-class ticket on a plane, and for the money you get a bed. It’s not an unexplainable travesty.
I found two first-class (one way) nonstop flights on AA from Denver to Chicago on May 28th (the Saturday before Memorial Day). One is $409 and the other is $848.
I think first-class prices on planes are also insane pricing. Maybe moreso.
The thing is…18.5 hours on a train most humans will want to sleep. 2.5 hours on a plane…not so much.
Sure you can sleep in a seat but we all know it is not good.
Most people agree, which is why the majority of the plane is dedicated to the more price-sensitive customers.
exactly! 
I’ve taken two Amtrak trips and enjoyed them both. each time I wanted the experience AND the destination.
Minneapolis to Seattle in a seat, and Denver to San Francisco in a sleeper, but not the kind with a private bathroom.
the Colorado landscape was especially stunning
Train travel is not necessarily economical, and it’s slow. I think a lot of people do it for the experience and atmosphere (for lack of a better word). It’s for people who are not in a hurry, or don’t like flying, or who hate crowds. I’ve taken the Empire Builder twice, once in coach and once in a room. I did coach because I had little money at the time and needed to get myself and three kids from Seattle to MSP. My wife and I did the room bit because we just felt like taking the train. We also took Amtrak once from SFO to whatever stop hooks you up with the bus to Yosemite.
It’s pretty much the Orient Express because there is nothing to compare to it in the U.S.
That said, I have friends who traveled from Chicago to Seattle and back in a sleeper suite. They were off the train for a few hours in Seattle. My friend has MS and lacks the energy to deal with planes and she wanted some mountain scenery. Her husband arranged the trip as a surprise. Yes, it was expensive, which is part of the reason they didn’t spend time in Seattle. She was very happy with watching out the window and drinking her fill of mountain meadows.
Well, honestly, if the plains are so deadly boring (which I will not gainsay), it seems like night would be the best time to (not) look at them. By the time you get up and go eat, you are already almost at the Mississippi, where there is almost scenery.
One thing to note about the roomettes in days of plague is that, in coach and public spaces, everyone has to wear a mask all the time (except when the food is approaching the mouth). Thus Amtrak can charge more just because demand is higher. They might possibly demand you wear a mask in the roomette, but they will not open your curtain to check.
I have taken a 44 hour ride, and the upsides to the sleeper are quite good. I like my coffee, and there it is, all day long, much better than having to go downstairs and pay $2 for each cup. Meals are in the price (which is not all that great a deal for me, because, at my age 3 is too many) and that covers both riders. Of course, the privacy is good, but for me, the big goddam thing is the shower. In coach, you might be able to spot-clean in the bathroom, but getting in that shower (albeit shared, for the roomettes) makes all the difference as to how you feel when you get there.
$600+ is a lot for 18 hours, but the ~$750 I paid for 44 hours was definitely a decent deal. I have also done that run coach at least a dozen times, and it is ok that way too – sometimes you end up sitting with a stranger that you talk to the whole time, sometimes you sit alone and just read or something.
As of July/August last when I was on Amtrak, no, you need not mask up in your compartment. Us peons in coach had to stay masked, though. Also, while diner meals were back for sleeper passengers (as opposed to the airline meals they’d been serving) they were brought to you eat in the compartment rather than eaten in the dining car. Coach had to make do with microwave stuff in the cafe car. When the attendant mentioned there would be a lady trackside in El Paso selling tamales, we jumped at the chance.
That’s per person. Two people is $4,000 USD minimum.