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43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

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Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#111

Post by cool_dude85 »

pengaru wrote: post #84

If you enjoy cycling I highly recommend riding Amtrak somewhere you'd like to explore by bicycle with your whip checked "trainside" where it's fully assembled and ready to ride. There's something magical about getting off the train in a different state with your bicycle ready to go no worse for wear. Especially at smaller stations, where the conductor or luggage handler will directly hand you the bicycle from the lug…

>Edit: I also just wanted to remind folks that train stations have the luxury of residing smack dab in city centers. Good luck de-planing with a bicycle directly into an urban center. On a train it's basically the default.

Depends where you are of course. I used to ride Amtrak a lot between Orlando and Miami. In neither city is the station particularly convenient to downtown, especially in Miami.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#112

Post by CraigRo »

Tons of foamers in the HN community. I'm sure that it is a lovely experience, and seeing America is incredibly powerful.

But the truth is that you are in an extremely heavy, expensive, and slow vehicle that requires over 1000 man-hours to carry fewer than 300 seats the whole length of the ride. That doesn't account for the capital costs of the vehicle or maintenance on the route, or overhead for the stations.

Loosening regulations to reduce the staff, making the train itself go faster (if possible), and allowing for lower cost and lighter weight cars (possibly to include the much denser sleeping cars found on Chinese and Swedish railroads) would change the economics from 'taxpayer subsidized cruise' to 'reasonable form of luxury transit'

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#113

Post by AlbertCory »

jamiek88 wrote: post #87
AlbertCory wrote: post #24

My obligatory reminder of what we lost when Stevie went to the great club car in the sky, where he's playin' cards with the old men, ain't nobody keeping score. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ztWNJYFrU The greatest train song of all time. Arlo Guthrie talking about how Steve came to him with that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZx7xCK6yfo . (at 2:09)

Oh my goodness. Id fever heard of Steve Goodman before this and that clip intrigued me. That city of New Orleans song was great but his ‘would you like to learn to dance’ was hauntingly beautiful. And such a tragic loss so young.

Age 34. I always wonder if modern medicine would make his leukemia survivable.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#114

Post by pimlottc »

CraigRo wrote: post #112

Tons of foamers in the HN community. I'm sure that it is a lovely experience, and seeing America is incredibly powerful. But the truth is that you are in an extremely heavy, expensive, and slow vehicle that requires over 1000 man-hours to carry fewer than 300 seats the whole length of the ride. That doesn't account for the capital costs of the vehicle or maintenance on the route, or overhead for the stations. Looseni…

"foamers"?

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#115

Post by hm-nah »

RandallBrown wrote: post #37
munificent wrote: post #35

This past summer, I took the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Monterey with my wife and kids. I loved it. It's hard to convey how different it is from flying. Whenever I fly somewhere, especially these days when flying is such a miserable cramped experience, I always feel like my vacation starts after I endure the entire airport + plane experience. The whole travel part is in the same "chore" bucket as packing, findin…

I planned a trip from Seattle to New Mexico on Amtrak and it was pretty cool... until they canceled the leg of the trip from LA to New Mexico and I had to take a Greyhound for like 19 hours. I was only in business class but that got me access to the dining car. Since I was alone they sat me with different people for each meal and the food was actually really good! Of the 5 or 6 times I've taken Amtrak only once has t…

Hahaha!! Yep!

I rode the Coast Starlight north through the Sierra Nevadas(?) 15-20 years ago. It was a 24hour trip, and I was delayed 24hours. We hit a pedestrian then an avalanche had us back up 2-3 hours until a Greyhound picked us up and took us the rest of the way.

Adventure: Check

I didn’t mind one bit.

Great people.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#116

Post by jrockway »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #111
pengaru wrote: post #84

If you enjoy cycling I highly recommend riding Amtrak somewhere you'd like to explore by bicycle with your whip checked "trainside" where it's fully assembled and ready to ride. There's something magical about getting off the train in a different state with your bicycle ready to go no worse for wear. Especially at smaller stations, where the conductor or luggage handler will directly hand you the bicycle from the lug…

>Edit: I also just wanted to remind folks that train stations have the luxury of residing smack dab in city centers. Good luck de-planing with a bicycle directly into an urban center. On a train it's basically the default. Depends where you are of course. I used to ride Amtrak a lot between Orlando and Miami. In neither city is the station particularly convenient to downtown, especially in Miami.

I think you can ride your bike to the Portland airport (PDX) as well. Because of course you can in Portland.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#117

Post by jt2190 »

pimlottc wrote: post #114
CraigRo wrote: post #112

Tons of foamers in the HN community. I'm sure that it is a lovely experience, and seeing America is incredibly powerful. But the truth is that you are in an extremely heavy, expensive, and slow vehicle that requires over 1000 man-hours to carry fewer than 300 seats the whole length of the ride. That doesn't account for the capital costs of the vehicle or maintenance on the route, or overhead for the stations. Looseni…

"foamers"?

Rabid rail fans, i.e. “foaming at the mouth”

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#118

Post by jrockway »

pimlottc wrote: post #114
CraigRo wrote: post #112

Tons of foamers in the HN community. I'm sure that it is a lovely experience, and seeing America is incredibly powerful. But the truth is that you are in an extremely heavy, expensive, and slow vehicle that requires over 1000 man-hours to carry fewer than 300 seats the whole length of the ride. That doesn't account for the capital costs of the vehicle or maintenance on the route, or overhead for the stations. Looseni…

"foamers"?

It's the term that railfans call themselves these days. As a railfan, I have to admit that it's pretty accurate.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#119

Post by hm-nah »

I’ve taken Amtrak in the loop Sea-Chi-TX-LosAng-Sea both forward and backwards.

It’s nice going through Glacier Natl Park and surrounding areas in Spring.

Get a sleeper car! Plush. Especially if you’re single. It was cool (in my young days) meeting people in the observation car and offering them a place to crash.

Ahhhh… back in the day…

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#120

Post by judge2020 »

munificent wrote: post #61
RandallBrown wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I planned a trip from Seattle to New Mexico on Amtrak and it was pretty cool... until they canceled the leg of the trip from LA to New Mexico and I had to take a Greyhound for like 19 hours. I was only in business class but that got me access to the dining car. Since I was alone they sat me with different people for each meal and the food was actually really good! Of the 5 or 6 times I've taken Amtrak only once has t…

I was worried about delays and canceled legs too but we got lucky on our trip and everything was exactly on time.

Amtrack has a page on it, with no route performing delivering more than half of riders on-time https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
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