Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoah, another Hacker News reader from Bingen/White Salmon?
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of gorge residents on here
At least one more
Want airline food? Take Amtrak
161–170 of 225 posts
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds beautifully scenic. What time of year would you recommend for it?
Everything you could possibly want to know about cross country trains: https://www.seat61.com/UnitedStates.htm
Seat61 has been an amazing resource for traveling the world by train. Until you just mentioned it in this context, I had never thought to use it for beta about train travel in the USA. Looks like I know what I'm reading the rest of the day.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're driving alone -- a reasonable assumption if you'd be in the market for a train -- a 31-hour "Google Maps" roadtrip takes 3 days, assuming ~10 hours of "map-time" driving, followed by 6+ hours of civilized sleep. The biggest constraint is "civilized" sleep, which is best had in a real bed at a real hotel, whose locations are constrained by settlements and whose typical availability hours begin at 15:00 local…
Yes, but trains don't need to sleep. I'm not saying I'd recommend driving 31h at a time, I'm saying I don't understand why that would be so much faster.
Plenty of stops and built-in delays with overlaid industrial trains. Additionally, you aren't going generally as fast as a car can, especially on long stretches of rural highways.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the price you were probably looking at the larger bedroom, rather than the roomette, which is generally half the price.
No, roomette. Chicago-Portland direct round trip, in mid-May, is $1,900 for the two-person "Superliner Roomette". I checked a bunch of possible journeys, and the cheapest round-trip roomette ticket was $1,000.
Ah, ok. You picked a day that is very crowded; the price goes up as the rooms are filled.
Edit: use http://biketrain.net/amsnag/amSnag.php to find a cheaper day.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amtrak doesn't own most of the track they use. They pay track usage payments to the freight railroads that actually own the track. In FY 2009 that was $115.4 million (3.3% of total operation cost). Cannot find the current numbers. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
$115.4M seems really cheap. You couldn't lay too many miles of track for that, especially if you're buying land rights along the way.
Did the interstate highway system have to buy land rights?
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#166I have a strange love for the Acela Express' cheeseburger. If I wasn't sitting in a meeting right now I would go to Penn Station now and take a ride to Newark for that burger.
The author of this site [0] seems to enjoy the cheeseburger too
> (rather good, in fact) all-American cheeseburger in the dining car
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#167As a regular rider of Germany's night trains: what's the problem with eating in a roomette (sleeper car cabin)? First of all I already hate it when the cabin mates see me totally groggy - much less a whole fucking dining car. In addition, no dining car can fit as many people as there fit in a single sleeper car, much less a whole train composed of 10-15 sleeper cars.
I took trains all over Europe the thing is the smell.
Imagine someone taking MC Donald's in a train, which is already horrible on a open floor plan wagon. Some people just can't stand some smells and cabins are usually always small and don't provide enough fresh air to compensate for Smelly food.
I've left cabins before, and I've seen other people do so. It can be a huge annoyance.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#168So Amtrack is downgrading their food to the same level as their far more successful European counterparts and everyone panics and sees it as a sign of their imminent demise.
I think people are overreacting a bit but then again i am used to the cramped overcrowded European railway network which likely have much different problems to what's seen in America.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#169I took the Empire Builder a couple weeks ago, and the Lakeshore Limited + California Zephyr last year. As much as I enjoyed the trips, I have to admit that they longer lines are incredibly impractical. Amtrak is operating at a huge loss per passenger ($32 on average)[1], and the prices aren't even that much cheaper than flying. It's viable for people with more time than money, but most of the passengers are just weir…
It's also viable for people who feel air travel is immoral due to its heavy climate change accelerating effect.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the first night of my last trip I was really bummed out that they didn't sit me next to the group of Amish folks. Instead I had to eat dinner with a family from New Jersey :P
Amish folks take trains? Isnt that against their principles?
Not at all. They can take trains, just as some will ride as a passenger in automobiles, trucks, or vans. As long as they aren't sitting in the engineer's seat or doing the actual driving :-)