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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

#171

Post by nraynaud »

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.

I think the USA doesn't do silence.

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

#172

Post by caprese »

> TELL YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS that you plan to cross the United States by train, and their reactions will range from amusement at your spellbinding eccentricity to naked horror

Its not just that its the train use, its the fact that you want to cross America at all! The perception is that it is a large foreign land full of lots of things that can go wrong solely due to incongruent laws.

(Mid 1800s) Cross a border and be sold into slavery by bounty hunters? Check

(Fiction, but is it?) Transportation breaks down and you are surrounded by mutated hillbillies in the desert? Check

(2010s+) Highway robbery of all the money on you by some random municipality's police themselves under protection of the state? Check

(2010s+) Get thrown into an old people's home under a guardianship racket that the doctor's and the court system are all invested in? Check

Be kidnapped and sold into illegal sex slavery?

Be kidnapped and sold into legal sex slavery in the desert without adequate means of getting help?

But yeah none of that is likely to happen and these are irrational fears, but you can ALSO just fly over all of that noise.

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

#173

Post by moron4hire »

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.

The regular passenger cars do have noise restrictions. It's only in the meal and observation cars.

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

#174

Post by lmm »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75
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…

I’ve done Shanghai to Urumqi before in a hard sleeper. I don’t think I really saw much outside (no observation car, monotonous farming fields), but the people on the train were really interesting (eg Pakistani traders using the train to get back home).

There's some amazing scenery at the Urumqi end. E.g. I took this photo somewhere around there: https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/m3Wh2REpqnPIjHxe5FKNZQ...

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

#175

Post by lagadu »

redsavagefiero wrote: post #152

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.

Can you share the why of those two tips? I'm not from the US so I have no experience with those but it sounds like you have some interesting stories about it :)

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

#176

Post by mindslight »

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…

> But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle

But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over.

If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.

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

#177

Post by blang »

iandanforth wrote: post #153
ritchiea wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This video does a pretty good job of explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA

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

#178

Post by mvexel »

isostatic wrote: post #156
bluGill wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

> Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)

Agreed. When the option exists, it's so much nicer than flying.

At one point in my career I traveled from Amsterdam to various other European cities for 3-5 day work trips fairly frequently. Where direct overnight train connections existed, I would try and use those rather than get up for a 6am flight. For example Amsterdam - Copenhagen used to exist as an direct overnight connection. The cost for a private sleeper cabin with shower and breakfast was, I think, about €500 -- less than a flight + an extra hotel night. The trouble was getting my company to reimburse it, because it didn't fit neatly in their travel reimbursement policy's categories and rules.

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

#179

Post by magduf »

mvexel wrote: post #82
Kiro wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's a big movement promoting night trains in Europe right now. I see "night train maps" in my feed all the time. Additionally one of the fastest growing Instagram accounts is one shaming influencers who are flying instead of taking the train.

I just read that the Austrian national railway is planning to re-introduce them and was surprised. Europe had a pretty decent overnight train network in the 90s and even into the 2000s. Then flying got cheap and people basically didn't want to take those trains any longer. Most disappeared. What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?

>What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?

More onerous security procedures at airports, including pat-downs, extremely long lines, needing to show up 3-4 hours early, etc.?

Also, smaller and smaller seats on planes might encourage more use of trains. How do people from the Netherlands (tallest in the world on average) handle flying these days?

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

#180

Post by rpiguy »

iandanforth wrote: post #153
ritchiea wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So long as fuel is reasonably priced, planes can take more people farther, faster it is simple economics. Trains are still preferable for local trips and even some medium range trips, but to go all the way across Europe by train would be terribly expensive compared to taking a cheap flight.
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