Is it worth it to take Amtrak for the "experience"?
 

I may visit my daughter in Chicago. Then instead of the both of us flying back to Baltimore, I was thinking it would be fun to take Amtrak. I'd get a "roomette" for the 23 hr. ride. Anyone ever done this? What is Amtrak like? Food? Clean sheets? Service with a smile?
Thanks.

Trains are often late, so if you don`t have extra time, don`t do it.

Hi zztopz,

I'd recommend taking the Capitol Limited to DC... I've done that ride twice: 18 hours, a pretty ride (Allegheny River, Harper's Ferry, western Maryland quite lovely) and then switch to take the very regular regional trains or even MARC from DC to B'more.

Sheets were clean, your meals are included in the price if you get a sleeper car, attendants can be quite friendly. Talk with people in the dining car. Trains might be on-time BUT can be a few hours late, so prepare yourself mentally for that, so that you won't be angry when the delay arrives. I say, go for it, try it once, see if you like it. Some people don't; for me, it's my favourite way to travel!

Best wishes,

Daniel

There is a really great Amtrak forum in case anybody is interested -- these guys know everything about trains!

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/

I've never done that route, but I really love train travel.

If you book a roomette, your meals in the dining car are free. Dining car service can be spotty but I think the food is pretty good...better than I had imagined. Sleeping-car attendants are usually great, very friendly etc.

Sheets are clean, no worries there. Bathrooms can get grody after a while, but your trip isn't super long and the sleeping-car bathrooms won't get as much traffic as the coach bathrooms.

Please keep in mind that these trains are almost never on time, for various reasons (freight-train interference is a common cause of delays). If you are on a tight schedule, DO NOT assume the train will get you where you need to be when you need to be there.

My experience (thankfully) with Amtrak outside the NE corridor is limited. But I have yet to see any food that is more than edible- and some that isn;t even that. Suggest you bring your own with you.

A couple years ago, we went round-trip in a roomette between Seattle and Chicago from which I learned that I never want to travel over night on Amtrak again.

The food in the dining room was o.k., the sheets were clean, the mattress was VERY thin, the train rocked back and forth, the delays were long, and room service was non-existent.

My suggestion: Some people like Amtrak, and the only way to find out if it is "fun" for you is to give it a go.

NYtraveler -- Did you eat in the dining car or in the "lounge"?

The food in the lounge is disgusting, but the dining car food isn't bad.

happytrails, don't blame Amtrak for the roadbed...it belongs to the freight lines and they are the ones who beat it up.

Bob, I don't blame Amtrak for the roadbeds or the delays caused by priority given to freight trains, but they are both part of the Artrak experience on the Seattle-Chigago route. HTTY

I love Amtrak! I would totally recommend that you do this for the "experience" at least once - and then you'll know if train travel is for you. I have always found that people are much friendlier on trains than elsewhere, I've met some great friends that way. The food in the dining car is pretty good (this is NOT the same food as in the lounge, which is generally pretty bad). And the route you're talking about can be quite nice.

But I do agree, don't take it if it matters what time you get home. Delays of 3 or 4 hours are quite common!

I absolutely think that Amtrak is worth the "experience". Have done both eastward and westward bound trains out of Chicago and they are great. The eastern ones are only single decker because of the low bridges they have to deal with, but still very nice and relaxing (I think). Yes, they tend to run late, but as long as you take that into account and don't fret about it it can be agreat way to go. The Capitol Limited train is very nice - I took it once to a conference in DC. The beds are clean and the food is quite good. Enjoy!

The dining car. And the food was awful. If it were a restaurant we would have returned it and left - but had no choice - so managed to swallow some of it. Luckily it ws only one dinner - or we would have starved.

And although we like good food and eating out - we're not tremendously pciky eaters - as long as whatever it is is fresh and well-prepared.

This was just awful - similar to airline food - in coach.

Interesting, NYtraveler.

We were expecting the dining-car food to be mediocre to bad, closer to your experience, but were pleasantly surprised. Fresh eggs (not Egg Beaters) for breakfast, non-fishy fish for dinner. Significantly better than airline food.

I guess the quality varies. Maybe the California Zephyr has better food? Would be interested to hear from others re: dining-car food on other Amtrak lines.

My husband and I have taken the train two times just for the fun of it...and loved it, flaws and all. The trains do tend to run late, once was by several hours and as the trip went on they continued to lose time (that was June, 2004 LA to San Antonio). We had a small sleeper and it was small! But, we loved having our own little space..just down from the dining car...we thought the food was fine, not Spago's but still good...and looking out at the world as you ate and the interesting people we met...loved it. We would love to do another train ride again..just never enought time to do everything!
I say go for it when you have the chance!
Shadow

Hi, zztopz -

I enjoy trains in general and was glad to have taken this particular route once. I prefer taking the train from DC to Chicago than the reverse - at least when I've gone, I've had great scenery in the mountains before sunset when heading west, but have been less fortunate with scenery coming east. But as others have noted, trains can be substantially delayed and in any case, that would depend on the season.

Hope that helps!

I didn't like traveling via Amtrak, but the food on the Empire Builder two years ago was much better than I anticipated. It's not up to the standard of the 1950s--far from it--but it was not to be sneered at.

Last time we were going to go on Amtrak, it was the run from Chicago through Reno(where we were boarding) and on to Oakland. The train hit a cow somewhere along the line, and I can`t rememeber how many hours late it made the train, but we gave up and drove. My daughter went on Amtrak across country, and had many bad episodes. The police were at the station in Sacramento, to arrest some rowdy people. Later, a lot of the people on the train came down with a virus, probably the noro virus. She didn`t like the food much, and the service even less. She finally found out where the linen and towels were and started helping herself. They got off the train in Florida, hours late and with no dinner. Amtrak lost one of her bags. When she tried to find out what was going on, she was told to call Amtrak. Amtrak just hung up the phone. They stayed at a hotel in Florida, and the day they checked out, she saw her bag, sitting in the lobby. Not one word from Amtrak about it. But the scenery can be beautiful, especially through the Sierras. A lot of foreigners were on the train, which made it more interesting. I would try it and find out for yourself. You could be lucky and have no problems, especially if you don`t have to change trains.

You should do it zztopz. What the heck, travel should be fun and adventurous. Even if the food is terrible, you're not going to starve in 23 hours. Have a roll or bread and butter. Unless you are on a very strict schedule, the worst thing that will happen is that you've wasted a day (and night) of your life. You may love it.

I often like things that other people think are unacceptable. But I believe that you never know until you try.

Yeah, just do it, I say. If you don't like it, you don't like it. If you love it, then great!

So far, in the last 20 plus years, our family has had no good luck with Amtrak.
Our cousins rode Amtrak from Alabama to California to visit, and on the return were in the terrible crash in Alabama that had many fatalities. They escaped but spent time in the water, a bad experience for people in their 70's.
Our son rode Amtrak for several years between Indiana and Colorado, and occasionally between Colorado and Los Angeles. Not one single trip was without serious problems, including overnight delays, being charged for a bus portion of the trip despite having already paid for it, having to walk miles to a hotel in the dead of winter, etc.
I really wish it was a different experience. We love the trains in Europe. I like riding trains. But who wants to take the chance on being TWO DAYS late for a holiday, or spend 48 hours sitting up when delays occur? A few years ago we compared prices to fly or train, and it was by far cheaper to fly. So, even that incentive was gone.
Good luck if you decide to do it, but be sure you're not in a hurry.

Just for your own curiosity, Amtrak offers their on-time performances for each of the various routes on their site, which I include as a link bellow. Do note that according to the Amtrak glossary, for routes of over 550 miles, within 30 minutes of expected arrival time is counted as on-time. Some routes (even some long-distance like the Empire Builder, Auto Train) you'll notice perform significantly better than others. Unfortunate incidents do happen with all means of travel transportation, but 48 hours late is an extreme case and not the norm... in my experience on the long-distance routes (and I've taken many), I tend to get (and as a pessimist, I tend to expect) somewhere between 1-4 hours late. (Although I could see how living through the exceptional experiences would turn people off Amtrak altogether.)

The Capitol Limited seems to be having some issues with tardiness more than others of late... on the two occasions I took it, it was 2 hours late and 4 hours late into Chicago respectively.

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/Conten...=1202243059386

Have fun deciding,

Daniel

As pointed out - Amtrak is not always the cheaper option. But we have always looked at it as part of the vacation and maybe that's a key to having a good time. We bring a deck of cards and a cribbage board and play cribbage across the country while we look out at the scenery. And granted there are parts that are not exactly beautiful, but it is still interesting to see the rest of the country and not have to be doing the driving.

The food is not necessarily "fine dining" but I have always found it tasty and well prepared. In fact, for desert there is a "volcano cake" type of thing that is a chocolate cake with hot fudge inside - absolutely decadent! The only downside of the food comes on long trips since they seem to have the same menu for a month. When we did a month long trip out wets that involved several legs of train travel we found that we were getting the same five options. But fortunately there were ones that we didn't mind having twice.

I'm always sad to hear when people have bad experiences on the train since I would really like to see train travel expanded in this country. But it also seems that generally (not always certainly) the bad experience came about because of the expectations the person had of the trip - they expected it to be punctual and cheaper than flying among others.

Often the delays come because Amtrak does not own the rails on which they travel and they have to give way to freight trains. There were many times that we sat on a siding while we waited for a huge freight train to come along and go past us the other direction. Since those trains are not always running exactly on time, that can delay the Amtrak train that has to wait for them.

I hope you decide to try the train and I hope you have a great experience that you can then report on here.

We, too, would love to see trains come back, but after the experiences I posted earlier, I'm not sure that will happen. I know there are extenuating circumstances in every mode of transportation, don't expect perfection at all, could certainly endure delays that were infrequent and handled with concern for the passenger.
Another big concern is the stations, or lack thereof. We've been on trains in DC and Chicago, those are fine, but where we would catch the train, Waterloo, Indiana, there is no station, no facilities, no actual parking lot. There is a three sided plexi-glass shed, very small, and one pay phone, and the nearest restroom is several blocks away in a service station that is not open 24 hours. So, if you are catching a train that is very late,or waiting on someone to get off, the only way to know that is if you call the 800 number and hope the information is up to date.
I don't know what happened first, a decline in passengers due to air travel or a decline in service that prompted the increase in air travel, but unless some serious efforts are made to improve routes, services, and reliability, I doubt trains outside a few areas will survive.