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43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

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Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#181

Post by fzeroracer »

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…

This has nothing to do with regulations and I'm not sure where that's coming from. It has to do with America being designed for and catering to cars above all other forms of transit, which makes it exorbitantly expensive to expand our train network.

This is before we even talk about how much price gouging and other cost reductions our current train networks already get away with thanks to private ownership. I'm assuming you must've been asleep at the wheel considering the railroad strike and the conditions that the workers are put thru.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#182

Post by qwezxcrty »

baby wrote: post #178
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find train travel so much better in Asia or Europe. I can’t really find it enjoyable in the states, even for a short jaunt from Portland to Seattle (though it still makes sense vs flying). I did a 3 night hard sleeper from Shanghai to Urumqi once, and the scenery was nice, I can’t imagine it being that nice in the states even with a better bed (hard sleepers are a bit cheap).

I did Shanghai Beijing. 15hours, no seats. Man I will never do this again.

Understandable, I used to take a K train twice every year before my grandparents passed away. I could always manage to get a seat as my route was less busy. It's certainly not a enjoyable experience.

However, I'd recommend to try again with the high speed trains. Chinese railway has changed a lot in the last 15 years. 5 hours between Beijing and Shanghai (that's more than 1200 km), on time, comfortable seats and quick transit to city center.

Or alternativly the sleeper trains, depart at night and get to destination in the morning, easily fits schedule and save one day of hotel. The comfortableness is a bit less than European's standard unless on the newest trains, though.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#183

Post by gambiting »

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…

Funny, I feel the exact same way about driving. We normally travel to visit family in Poland over christmas(we live in the UK), but the thought of airports and air travel around christmas is filling me with such dread, that we decided to drive this year - and it was glorious. Yes it took us nearly 3 days instead of 2 hours by plane, but I would do that again in a heartbeat. Overnight ferry to Amsterdam, then one hop to a hotel in Germany, then finally drive to family in Poland - it was great, pretty relaxing, and much much much less stressful than flying. I've done the drive across many times before, but now we decided to have a stop in the middle(we have a kid now, so didn't want to spend 12h+ in the car in one day) and it made the whole trip much more relaxed. We stopped in some small German village, had a look around their christmas market, went for proper German good in a tiny gesthaus.....just brilliant.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#184

Post by chrismorgan »

chrismorgan wrote: post #122

In 2014, I took my recumbent tricycle to San Francisco, and cycled in the direction of St Louis. I got as far as Tucson in the time I had available, and there boarded a train the rest of the way: something like a hundred dollars (not sleeper), and an extra ten for my trike, considerably cheaper than flying, and more interesting. Good stuff. In 2021, I returned home from India to Australia once I could, but with quara…

(Update: I think my recollection of the price for the Darwin–Adelaide train was wrong; not sure where that $1,200 figure came from, but their cheapest prices for this and next year are about $3,000, which is feeling familiar. Even bus is much dearer than flying—around $467, compared to the likes of $139 from the cheapest airlines (which were largely just not flying in early 2021).)

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#185

Post by db48x »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #74
lawgimenez wrote: post #42

I think I recognize that section of Chicago's train station from my favorite scene of all time. That shootout scene from the movie The Untouchables. Correct me if I am wrong.

I was thinking the same, where they paid homage to the "Odessa Steps scene" from Battleship Potemkin.

Yes, that was an excellent scene in a great movie!

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#186

Post by e28eta »

trynewideas wrote: post #13

> I could have bought an economy ticket for $150, but sitting for so long was out of the question. If I treat this as a cruise, I want a good level of comfort. As someone who's done the Crescent (30 hours) and City of New Orleans + Lake Shore Limited (38 hours + layover) on Economy, you get about the same comfort sleeping, just none of the privacy. The seats in Economy are close to the ones in the bedrooms, you just…

> What you're paying $1,000 for is privacy and access to a shower.

And meals, which are included in the fare for sleeper cars but not economy.

I'm sure you know that, but not everyone who reads your comment will. Whether this comment was soon enough to be useful, idk.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#187

Post by tomcam »

hm-nah wrote: post #115
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…

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.

> We hit a pedestrian

Uh what?

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#188

Post by tomcam »

dbrueck wrote: post #43
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 always feel like my vacation starts after I endure the entire airport + plane experience Your whole comment brought back so many great memories for me, but this hits the nail on the head. I've only done one long train ride but the experience was so great that I'm eager to do it again. Being able to take a shower and lie down at night was a game changer - I slept so well. For me it was sort of a working trip in th…

I have a pretty big shower but I pretty much never lie down in it ;)

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#189

Post by sofixa »

baby wrote: post #177
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…

Agree. That’s why when I’m in Europe I just train everywhere. Milan Paris? Fuck it I’ll take the 5h train. It’s so chill and nice and I’m door to door.

Another vote for the Milan or Barcelona to Paris trains. I've taken them multiple times over the plane, even though on theory the plane is faster (but in practice it usually isn't if you count all the time wasted in getting to and from airports, the security checks etc.). Added bonus for Milan - Paris is that it passes through the Alps and has a few stops high up with magnificent views.

Re: 43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief

#190

Post by Akronymus »

zerocrates wrote: post #168
fumeux_fume wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it pretty unsettling how many people are raving about travel by train. If your standards are insanely low then I suppose you can say the food is good, dining with random people is fun and the cabins are comfortable.

It's a low bar to clear when you're comparing to the comfort and food on a typical flight nowadays. Of course, the train trip will be longer so, tradeoffs.

With the whole check-in/boarding process planes actually become close to as slow as trains on short-ish trips.
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