Has anyone traveled long distances by Amtrak train?
 

I was kicking around an idea today for a cool summer vacation. It would entail taking Amtrak from where I live (Portland, OR) across the country to New York. Spend a week or so there then head down to Washington DC and spend a week there. After seeing those two places take the train back across the country to Arizona where I would check out the Grand Canyon then either fly home from there or rent a car and take a road trip.

The train rides are long, but it isn't too expensive to get one of the cabin rooms so you have a comfy chair, your own toilet and a bed to sleep in.

Anyone ever done anything like this and are the cabins decent? Any words of advice?

havent done Amtrak, but did a trip recently in Europe from Munich to Berlin about 6 hours, it was something different. I like the occasional train travel. I think baddog done the Amtrak thing:2 cents:

Took it last year going home for Christmas. After a 19 hour ride, the first thing I did when I got off was cash in the return ticket. It isn't too bad for a shorter trip, but the long trips suck ass on it.

I have done it a few times, its kinda funny cuz i been planning a similar trip that will take me from down south, up to ny, to chicago and onto cali :) I have no issues taking long trips on amtrak.

I've taken it from Miami to Washington DC, and it was a really cool trip. (Do get a sleeper car)

yeah, I think if I do it I would have to get the sleeper car. Looking at the times the first leg is about 45 hours and the second leg is 20 hours. That is a long ass time to sit in a small coach seat, but the sleeper cars actually look like they might be pretty comfortable.

Yo, i can travel across country for 119$? Fuck off. I'm going to Flordia :)

I traveled by train from California to North Carolina once...when I was in the Army. I did not get a sleeper. At least traveling by train you can get up and walk around...make use of the club car...and dinning car. I have never traveled by train since.

Did a few New Orleans - Los Angeles, New Orleans - Boston trips. No sleeper.
Some were great, some sucked balls but depending on the trip I might do it again.

I should add one of the boston trips was awesome. met some irish people who had the booze so we ended up getting ripped and singing Pogues songs most of the way. Note- conductors do not like this;)

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As I recall there's some kind of deal going right now where you can get like a two week ticket, getting on and off as you please. That could be cool. Sleep, eat, whatever on the train, then whenever you feel like it hop off at the next interesting place and check it out, then back on the train to the next place.

Sure sounds nice, when you go take some pics!

LA to Houston... private sleeper with bath... VERY expensive 2k round trip, and very weird.. like sleeping in a crashing plane.. the trains rock like a mofo and sleeping on the top bunk about 25 ft up... :) food is okay though... free meals with a sleeper..

That would be very cool. There are several spots along the way I would love to stop and check out even if it were only for a few hours. Or, one of the routes go through Chicago then Pittsburgh on the way to NY. It might be cool to have a 24-36 hour layover to do a quick spin around the city.

Back in college I took it from Michigan to Texas. It was a complete nightmare.

The dining car did not work, so you could only eat junk food and crap. They basically just keep loading up the train with booze the whole way. On the way back, it was more of the same with a long ass delay in San Antonio because they re-routed us from Dallas, then about half way to Chicago the last few cars literally fell off the train or became uncoupled. We had to craw into Union Station at like 5-10 miles an hour if that, for what must have been a good 4 hours if not longer. Shit was nuts.

They offered all of us some $300.00 Amtrak voucher, to which most people including myself said no way in hell. There was some guy buying them all up for pennies on the dollar. Dude must have literally bought ten thousand of them.

This happened back in '95 or '96 I believe. I have not rode them since.

It is not that cool unless you plan on stopping at different locations and then jumping on a different train the next day or something like that. Buddy and I did LA to Chicago.

You should check YouTube re: sleeper cars. Not all that great. Would be too small for me and Buddy.

There's a similar thing for Europe http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes

id do it, but only plan for the train the one way

you won't want to do it again

Thanks for the tip. I'll hit Youtube up and check it out. On the amtrak website they make the sleeper car out to be this great thing, but obviously they want to sell it to me.

That might be a good idea. We take the train their then fly home or vice verse.

I bought a car in CT and took the auto train from Washington DC area to Sanford FL. It wasn't too bad. Back then I was a smoker and spent a lot of time talking with the other smokers/watching movies in the smoker car, staring out the window, playing games/puzzles.

Back then my family would do long road trips and wed be driving like 8 - 12 hours to see family so, for me, it was like that but more spacious and I could smoke lol.

Maybe if the auto train works with wherever you want to go and you don't mind using up your miles you could have your car when you get off, then drive back, maybe do a scenic thing with stops or something.

Good luck with your trip.

Significantly more expensive and the sleepers are too small to allow you to bring your luggage in with you.

Definitely. There is no way I would have wanted to go home that way.

Amtrak does not have smokers any more. Not much in the way of Internet either. They do not provide wifi and even if you have your own wireless, you travel in a lot of places that have no signal.

everything seems cheaper in your country

Longest I ever did was Minneapolis to Detroit and back... over 20 years ago. It was actually pretty enjoyable.

I haven't ridden the train for a long distance in ages. I remember it being pretty nice. Smooth, fast and cheap. I remember going through a really nasty thunderstorm and walking back to the observation car which had a glass ceiling. That was pretty cool.

ive travelled long distance by amtrak a few times in my life, no real complaints past... dont drink too much, a hangover on a train is 10x worse then on land.

one trick i picked up was, findout which lags have lower ridership and dont book the cabin before boarding, just get the ticket. then once on board they will slash the prices trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of the folks willing to upgrade.

cabins are nice to have, as having one will get you access to different dining areas and "activities"(how i ended up hung over)

all in all, if you have the time, its a great way to see the countryside and meet a few people along the way.

I went from Virginia to Florida via Amtrak and I thought it was a horrible trip. Food was terrible, wasn't a comfortable ride, etc. This was like 9 years ago though, maybe it has improved.

Train is more expensive than plane so I never take trains.. Although its not as scary as flying. But I think they at least should charge reasonable sum in order to attract more people.

Naa bro but took a greyhound from vegas back to dallas after i ran outta coin spending my last 5 bucks on the roller coaster ride at NYNY. What a fuckin hell on wheels ride greyhound was.
2 years later did the same shit again, toilet paper hanging outta my ass and all.

I've never ridden AmTrack, but I love trains. My dad used to work for CN Rail and we'd always get free rides (when I was a kid) and he'd always be bringing home the latest HO model engines and cars. I have miles of track in a box here.

All I do anymore is Toronto-Windsor and Toronto-Montreal. Not very exciting.

yea definitely save flying for the home leg.. i took the train from toronto to montreal, and walked out into the middle of the montreal downtown core with no hassles

heed the hangover advice lol that sounds like a special sort of hell

Thanks all for the good advice and sharing your experiences. I checked out some of the videos online and while I think the cabin will work for us it will be a little cramped, so I think if we do this it will be a situation where we take the train there and then fly home and maybe try to set it up so we have a few day layover somewhere along the way there.

I'm still not sure we will end up doing this, the girlfriend suggested we do something cool next summer and this is something I have thought about doing for a while. If nothing else it will be an adventure.

Train travel in a sleeper cabin is nice, definitely worth trying.

Hop a freight train instead.

Does that happen in real life often? I though it happens only in movies.

I would NEVER compare european travel on trains to US travel on trains. :2 cents:

Tons of people do it as a hobby. I'm pretty sure security has tightened since 9/11 but it does still regularly happen.

*Warning: Hobos may not be as nice as they seem.

The funny thing is when I first suggested the train trip my girlfriend thought this is what I meant. She suggests we come up with something cool to do next summer. I suggest the train trip to New York. She says, "Like a hobo?" I smile and say, "Yes! We will tie all of our belonging onto the end of a stick, put them over our shoulders and hop freight trains!"

She then thanked me for being a smartass.

No, but I hear the Adironack line from NYC-Montreal is quite scenic.

Bring some air freshener!

Train travel used to be fun... They have made so many cutbacks now that it is about as fun as a packed flight from Los Angeles to New York with 2 stops...