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There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

nytimes.com

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Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#151

Post by cubano »

chrisseaton wrote: post #31
CWuestefeld wrote: post #18

My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience. But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really. And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by. One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, U…

> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.

Even if the guy was really good?

I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience.

I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer...

Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs...

Great memories.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#152

Post by redsavagefiero »

Public ground/rail transport in the US is not for the faint hearted. Spoken as a travel veteran in three decades of cross country trips via Greyhound and Amtrak.

TIPS: * Don't cross Texas in a Greyhound. * Don't go to New Orleans Amtrak coach from DC.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#153

Post by iandanforth »

ritchiea wrote: post #146
hjdehdfhjkj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats because there is a cultural difference between how americans and europeans see trains. For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation.

Trains can also be pretty quaint in Europe today now that low cost airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer cheap flights to most major cities. I live in Berlin and even domestic trains are far more expensive than domestic flights to medium and large cities.

Ignorant American question. Why is this the case? What are the costs that railroads are having to pay that makes them more expensive?

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#154

Post by dagw »

Kiro wrote: post #19

This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you. I've personally completely stopped flying.

In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train

Not in the Sweden I live in. Sure there is some weak social pressure to fly less and some companies have a policy that you take the train if it's less than 3-4 hours or so (of course with SJ being SJ a 3 hour train ride has an annoying tendency to take 4-8 hours), but no one expect you take the train Stockholm-Umeå.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#155

Post by hudibras »

StavrosK wrote: post #105
hudibras wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the first paragraph in the article, it costs $1,089.

Does "sleeper car" mean you're getting a bed, or just that you're riding in that car but maybe in a seat? I'm not familiar with train travel, sorry.

Now you're just pulling my leg...

Here's a recent article that I found that describes the sleeping cars in detail: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/trai...

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#156

Post by isostatic »

bluGill wrote: post #43
Kiro wrote: post #19

This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you. I've personally completely stopped flying.

Sweden is a small country. Would you take the train from Sweden to Italy? Even that trip is much less distance than the trip in question here, but it is the closest example I can think of that ought to be possible. A more comparable trip would be Sweden to Kazakhstan.

> Sweden is a small country

It's about 1500 miles from one end to the other, and not exactly "dense".

Sure it's small compared with Russia or Canada, but it's larger than most.

Realistically anything upto about 500 miles shouldn't need flights -- that's 2-3 hours on a train.

Once you go over 1000 miles then train stops making sense, it's 5 or 6 hours compared with 2 on a plane. 5 hours might work for an evening meal/relax, departing say 4pm and hotel by 10pm. With decent wifi and power you could probably push it to 7 or 8 hours, so maybe 1500 miles if it was high speed all the way.

A sleeper train (which probably wouldn't be high speed) would work at about 1000 miles in 12 hours, leave at 9PM after dinner, getting you there for shower, breakfast, and a 9AM meeting. Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#157

Post by balabaster »

chrisseaton wrote: post #31
CWuestefeld wrote: post #18

My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience. But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really. And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by. One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, U…

> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.

> That bit sounds like hell to me

Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#158

Post by smacktoward »

mrtnmcc wrote: post #74

This article is noticably more creative in its writing than the average nytimes article. Maybe a long train ride does a writer good (and anyone else who needs to think outside the box).

It’s from the NYT Magazine, a glossy supplement included with the Sunday paper where they publish longer, more literary pieces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Magazine

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#159

Post by luckydata »

chrisseaton wrote: post #31
CWuestefeld wrote: post #18

My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience. But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really. And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by. One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, U…

> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along. That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.

Are you Carl?

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#160

Post by lukeschlather »

afarrell wrote: post #6

Note that the author took a sleeper car. In terms of price, this is a bit of a luxury. As someone who has taken the Lateshore Limited service all the way from Chicago to Boston in just a regular seat, I would strongly advise you NOT to do that. It is just miserable.

I've taken the empire builder from Seattle to Chicago a couple times in coach, which I was pretty happy with. I can sleep okay in coach on airplanes though, so sleeping in coach on a train is positively luxurious by comparison.
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