Train (Amtrak) Travel as Option?

ProfMagoo(ret)

ProfMagoo(ret)

Homburg, Belicoso and Cane
Benefactor
Life Member
Multi-Factor Enabled
Joined
Dec 23, 2016
Messages
8,192
Location
Vance County NC
Rating - 100%
4   0   0
Having seen the recent air travel thread, I thought to ask whether anyone has experience with regular cross country (or half-way) travel by train?

In addition to the other reasons folks express avoidance of contemporary air travel, I have the embarrassingly inconvenient concern of oft-frequent need for a restroom (thank you, cancer). Thus wondering about train travel as an alternative.
 
We did Amtrak Kannapolis to DC last spring break. It sounded near and novelty while I planned it. Price was ok…just shy of $100 each person round trip. Plus you can’t drive anywhere in DC anyway.

It wasn’t miserable, but it wasn’t pleasant. I thought you’d be able to walk around more or sit in the snack car for a little while. Not so. It’s just barely larger than an airplane inside, so there’s no easy walking around. And you’re only allowed in the snack car if you’re eating their stuff.

Our train fell behind schedule by about an hour. Rather than ride it all the way into Union Station in DC, I called an audible and departed at Alexandria. Hopped on the Metro from there to Crystal City where our hotel was. Just to get off the damn train.

In hind sight I would rather have driven just to have more control of the trip. We could pull off and eat or do whatever on our schedule. The train got a bit claustrophobic after being inside for 8 hours.
 
I looked into it for a trip we took last year. But it wasn't worth it. Tickets were 100 or 120 a person. But there was like 7 of us going so it was cheaper to drive. And we drove in half the time, just because of all the stops it was making.
 
Spartan said:
Be VERY Careful!
Our own fearless president traveled the Francis Scott Key Bridge by train many times!
Click to expand...
OUR president?
Speak for yourself. 🤣
But seriously, I did a Raleigh to Newark NJ trip a couple years back. I live close to Charlotte, but there were no return trips that didn’t put me into Charlotte any earlier than 3AM.
The trip itself wasn’t too bad, but with stopovers in DC, I’d have made better time driving.
If you do take the train, plan both legs up front to make sure the return trip will get you where and when you need to be
 
I've done Raleigh to D.C. once. Never again.
Same experience as mentioned above - train delayed on a Friday, supposed to get in to D.C. around 3 iirc, instead we arrived in the middle of rush hour traffic & subway volume...with. our. LUGGAGE!

Also, there's a reason "wrong side of the tracks" is a saying. We saw every discarded TV, automobile, appliance, and illegally dumped trash between here & there. Zero scenery.

Out west might be a different story, but I'll drive instead of train anywhere on the east coast.

YMMV
 
Every time I’ve been on an Amtrak train, or pretty much any train, tram, or subway in America, I’ve had an encounter with a crazy person. It’s a running joke in our family. And I’ve ridden a lot of them over the years—the Carolinian (dc-clt), the silver star (rdu-mco), the empire builder (Portland-st.paul), the California Zephyr (den-slc), nyc subway, septa, trirail, clt light rail…over the decades it doesn’t matter. I always encounter schizophrenic & just batsh@t crazy people on trains. Plus they’re hours late and slower than molasses in January. If you dislike flying, you’ll absolutely detest train travel. And I love trains. But in the USA the romanticism of it is long gone. The only lower form of public transportation imho is the bus which is an absolute sh@t show circus, guaranteed. No wonder Jack Reacher likes them.

I do love to stand in awe and watch freight trains though. The USA does those better than anyone.

My advice is to ride the trains in Europe & Japan. Spring for the first class as it’s not much more and less crowded. They are incredible and what I wish we had.
 
Last edited:
Precision Seeker said:
I've done Raleigh to D.C. once. Never again.
Same experience as mentioned above - train delayed on a Friday, supposed to get in to D.C. around 3 iirc, instead we arrived in the middle of rush hour traffic & subway volume...with. our. LUGGAGE!

Also, there's a reason "wrong side of the tracks" is a saying. We saw every discarded TV, automobile, appliance, and illegally dumped trash between here & there. Zero scenery.

Out west might be a different story, but I'll drive instead of train anywhere on the east coast.

YMMV
Click to expand...
I forgot about the lack of scenery. Between Charlotte and Raleigh it seems like every construction company or scrap yard owns the property along the track. After that it’s just random woods up close to the tracks and nothing to see.

The other thing I’ll add…
It’s busier than you think with ridership. We had a full train on both trips. Going wasn’t a problem as we were the second stop after Charlotte. Wasn’t many people on the train at 6am. But the family seats that face each other were all taken. I’d hoped the kids could have at least had those for playing games.

The return trip was like a Southwest Airlines flight as far as getting seats. We boarded at Union Station which is where the trains switch over from electric back to diesel (or vice versa headed north) so there’s no one on the train, but the line was long to board. And it became a free for all to get seats.

Lastly, I expected better seats, thinking there’s more room and less weight restriction than an airplane. Nope. They might be a few inched bigger, but they’re just as chincy and not roomy as an airplane. Even had to do the old “block the seat back in front of me from leaning back” trick to keep an inconsiderate entitled individual from claiming my knee space. Made them think the seat was broken so they stopped trying to lean it back.

Someone nailed it in a previous post: trains are for moving goods in America, not people. Maybe one of the specialty trains in the Rockies or Banff. But those are exorbitant in cost.
 
I can tell you “out west” is no treat on the train. People need to remember how big this country is and a cross country trip takes DAYS, and costs more than flying in many cases.
 
ProfMagoo(ret) said:
I thought to ask whether anyone has experience with regular cross country (or half-way) travel by train?
Click to expand...


In summary: no, none of us has experience with cross country travel on a train. Based on shorter trips we do have experience with, it doesn't seem like it would be much fun.
 
ProfMagoo(ret) said:
Having seen the recent air travel thread, I thought to ask whether anyone has experience with regular cross country (or half-way) travel by train?

In addition to the other reasons folks express avoidance of contemporary air travel, I have the embarrassingly inconvenient concern of oft-frequent need for a restroom (thank you, cancer). Thus wondering about train travel as an alternative.
Click to expand...

If you fly an airline for which you can choose seating, you can sit on the back row and the bathrooms are right there. I flew Southwest to Tampa and back with their open seating by sections. We got seating groups near the last ones on because our tickets were purchased late, and I sat in the back for all legs of the trip. One one leg I was back row, isle seat. I was ten feet from the two bathrooms.
 
I have been looking at getting on a car train to Florida. Load up the car in Southern Pines to Seaboard, Florida. They turn your room into a sleeper at late evening.
 
I’ve ridden Amtrak and European trains and I can tell you which one has their act together.
 
It’s not bad from my experince (high point to Baltimore and back). It’s slower than driving, but you can relax instead of drive. Definitely recommend upgrading to 1st class. The seats are more comfortable and the drinks (water) are worth it.
 
It's been a while, but on the Raleigh to Florida train the bathrooms were literally awash with pee from folks missing the pot with the train bouncing around. Must have been half an inch deep.
 
Y’all are going to laugh at me for this, but Greyhound works better than the train. The seats are bigger and they go faster. Full Internet and phone door to door. AC power in every seat. They don’t stop in every little town like they used to. My wife was traveling with a disability and she got a nonstop to DC and she said it wasn’t bad at all. Coming home, she left out of Charlottesville and had to change buses in Richmond. It wasn’t a beautiful facility by any means, but she felt safe there. Everything ran on time in fact, a few minutes early. Most of the other passengers were minorities, but they were well-behaved, and she didn’t have any problems. I wouldn’t take it as an alternative to driving myself, but if I needed it for one-way travel, for example, to reposition a car, it wouldn’t be bad. And they don’t have you getting to your destination at 3 AM like the trains do.
 
I have done NC (Raleigh) to Wausau, Wi., for a Christmas trip. Because of multiple stops it took 3 days, Raleigh-->Washington, DC-->Philly-->across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin. The excitement wore off after about 4 hours. I would not do it again.

Raleigh to DC a couple times. Again, stops, slow, weird people. I appreciate not driving but I think I'd rather drive.
 
NCLivingBrit said:
It's been a while, but on the Raleigh to Florida train the bathrooms were literally awash with pee from folks missing the pot with the train bouncing around. Must have been half an inch deep.
Click to expand...
I found the security cam footage of your bathroom event:


Seriously though...I missed the bathroom part of the OP's post. The bathrooms were about the only thing above par for me on the train. Large, clean, and plenty of them (each car has two). But not worth taking the train just for them.

If you absolutely, positively had to take the train, do as suggested above and upgrade to the business class or first class. It wasn't much per person, but when I had 8 people traveling, it added up, so we didn't do it. Amtrack let's you "bid" on upgrades in the last 24 hours before your ride. I put in a bid of like $5 per ticket and it got denied. So we rode with the commoners and chicken crates.
 
Not recently, over 20 years ago, but we took Amtrak to New York for a wedding, my wife had recently had back surgery and thought it may be easier travel for her than by car or plane. Big mistake as others mentioned, not very clean, way too many stops, one long stop for fuel, maintenance? It may be different now but we could have gotten there quicker by driving ourselves.
 
I’d like to take the train that goes to Banff.

Meanwhile my wife: “Let me tell you all the reasons that ain’t happening.”
(Most of them are in this thread) 🤣
 
Diablos said:
that would be awesome. just for S&G i was looking at the trans-siberian railway, would be an epic trip
Click to expand...
There’s an article out there with a lot of pictures from a young woman who took it from Siberia to Moscow. A four or five day trip. Unfortunately, she slept through the Urals and didn’t get pictures. She did have different cabin mates each night, including a British couple and a group of Russian Army soldiers.
 
To be a bit more forthcoming, my situation is contemplating future trips from NC <=> TX given my mother's age and (eventual) health. So a significant distance, not merely a day trip. There is the direct RDU <=> AUS flight, of course, and I've taken that a few times. I've just become increasingly enochlophobic with the years and the press of people at airport terminals and gates along with the physiological concerns in the first post led me to consider other options. The drive time would be around 20+ hours or so, which at my "speed" means two fairly full days.

if train or bus are counter-indicated, I can manage flights. I was hopeful, however, that there might be an option.
 
ProfMagoo(ret) said:
To be a bit more forthcoming, my situation is contemplating future trips from NC <=> TX given my mother's age and (eventual) health. So a significant distance, not merely a day trip. There is the direct RDU <=> AUS flight, of course, and I've taken that a few times. I've just become increasingly enochlophobic with the years and the press of people at airport terminals and gates along with the physiological concerns in the first post led me to consider other options. The drive time would be around 20+ hours or so, which at my "speed" means two fairly full days.

if train or bus are counter-indicated, I can manage flights. I was hopeful, however, that there might be an option.
Click to expand...
There are supposedly private jet charter companies that "fill" their empty jets that are moving about the country to pick up executives. I've never had success at tracking down that old wives' tale. But maybe they're out there.

EDIT...
I found this website: https://jettly.com/

I signed in with my Google account as the curiosity was killing me. Here are the "hot deal" prices for a CLT to DFW flight:
2.png
 
Last edited:
Couldn't pay me to take the train here, but it's my preferred method of travel in Europe. I used to travel from Stuttgart or Karlsruhe to Munich pretty regular back when. If I drove down after work on Friday, it'd take 3 1/2 to 4 hours, stuck in stau after stau & by the time I got to my cousin's place, I'd be stressed out, aggravated AF & just tired, not want to do anything. But... for about $10-ish more than gas woulda cost me, the train would get me there in 2 1/2 to 3 hours & could chill in the bar car with a sammy & a bier, or a smoke, a cuppa coffee & a book & be ready to go out with my cousin & his girlfriend for drinks.

For our trip to Germany & Austria next month, our itinerary dictates a rental car while in Germany. To that end, I've rented an Audi A6 45 Avant. Hey, dream/once in a lifetime vacation, might as well do it right, y'know? We'll turn the car in once we get to our first stop in Austria & will take the train from there to Vienna & then back to Stuttgart to fly home.
 
ProfMagoo(ret) said:
To be a bit more forthcoming, my situation is contemplating future trips from NC <=> TX given my mother's age and (eventual) health. So a significant distance, not merely a day trip. There is the direct RDU <=> AUS flight, of course, and I've taken that a few times. I've just become increasingly enochlophobic with the years and the press of people at airport terminals and gates along with the physiological concerns in the first post led me to consider other options. The drive time would be around 20+ hours or so, which at my "speed" means two fairly full days.

if train or bus are counter-indicated, I can manage flights. I was hopeful, however, that there might be an option.
Click to expand...
Kudos, dude. You actually made me hafta look up a word 😆 'N now that I know what it means, yeah, I'm with you on people-y stuff. This Europe trip is actually way outside my comfort zone these days, but I've got family & friends there that I haven't seen in 30 years & there's never gonna be a better time for us to do it.
 
The Amtrak "Viewliners" are cramped and not to fun to ride. These types are predominately used in the east. I rode one from DC to Boston. Not a bad trip, but nothing great.

The Amtrak "SuperLiners" are double deck cars used on the western US Transcon. They have much more room. The dome car and the club car are cool. I've ridden them from Abq. New Mexico to Los Angeles. The dome car is neat to sit in at night while going across the western high deserts at 90mph.
 
BigB6flyer said:
I do love to stand in awe and watch freight trains though. The USA does those better than anyone.
Click to expand...
The 2.5 - 3 mile long trains flat haul ass out west....
Them engineers step down on those "Big Jack" locomotives.

 
Last edited:
9outof10mms said:
We did Amtrak Kannapolis to DC last spring break. It sounded near and novelty while I planned it. Price was ok…just shy of $100 each person round trip. Plus you can’t drive anywhere in DC anyway.

It wasn’t miserable, but it wasn’t pleasant. I thought you’d be able to walk around more or sit in the snack car for a little while. Not so. It’s just barely larger than an airplane inside, so there’s no easy walking around. And you’re only allowed in the snack car if you’re eating their stuff.

Our train fell behind schedule by about an hour. Rather than ride it all the way into Union Station in DC, I called an audible and departed at Alexandria. Hopped on the Metro from there to Crystal City where our hotel was. Just to get off the damn train.

In hind sight I would rather have driven just to have more control of the trip. We could pull off and eat or do whatever on our schedule. The train got a bit claustrophobic after being inside for 8 hours.
Click to expand...
When we lived in Burlington NC, my wife would take the train up the Baltimore to visit our daughter. I always booked her business class for the extra comfort on the long ride.
 
ProfMagoo(ret) said:
To be a bit more forthcoming, my situation is contemplating future trips from NC <=> TX given my mother's age and (eventual) health. So a significant distance, not merely a day trip. There is the direct RDU <=> AUS flight, of course, and I've taken that a few times. I've just become increasingly enochlophobic with the years and the press of people at airport terminals and gates along with the physiological concerns in the first post led me to consider other options. The drive time would be around 20+ hours or so, which at my "speed" means two fairly full days.

if train or bus are counter-indicated, I can manage flights. I was hopeful, however, that there might be an option.
Click to expand...
If work allows we are driving out to Copperas Cove, Texas the first Friday in April. I wanted to fly but the wife doesn’t like flying. It’s 2 days and a hotel stay. Then the same back. That is a lot of road time. We will be in your home area.

One thing to remember about a train trip is you are not going to see some beautiful scenery. The most rundown part of every city and town is next to the railroad. Until you get in the heartland it’s going to be disappointing.
 
BlackGun said:
If work allows we are driving out to Copperas Cove, Texas the first Friday in April. I wanted to fly but the wife doesn’t like flying. It’s 2 days and a hotel stay. Then the same back. That is a lot of road time. We will be in your home area.

One thing to remember about a train trip is you are not going to see some beautiful scenery. The most rundown part of every city and town is next to the railroad. Until you get in the heartland it’s going to be disappointing.
Click to expand...

Pass on my regards to the one you're visiting.

I'd probably have my nose in a book, not looking for the Banff vista trip. I was merely hoping for an alternative that might get me there-and-back on a semi-regular basis in one piece; having avoided a nervous breakdown; and having not committed a felony.
 
BlackGun said:
One thing to remember about a train trip is you are not going to see some beautiful scenery. The most rundown part of every city and town is next to the railroad. Until you get in the heartland it’s going to be disappointing.
Click to expand...
I found this to be true in the eastern US. DC to Boston was like one long trip through industrial sectors and back alleys.

The western US is wide open and generally remote between major cities.
 
NC Boy Scout said:
OUR president?
Speak for yourself. 🤣
But seriously, I did a Raleigh to Newark NJ trip a couple years back. I live close to Charlotte, but there were no return trips that didn’t put me into Charlotte any earlier than 3AM.
The trip itself wasn’t too bad, but with stopovers in DC, I’d have made better time driving.
If you do take the train, plan both legs up front to make sure the return trip will get you where and when you need to be
Click to expand...
“OUR fearless president” he said without a hint of sarcasm or mocking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom