Part 3: Amtrak Travel - My experience, tips I've learned.
Three trains, three routes and thousands of miles on Amtrak. From the start of my trip upon the California Zephyr to the Coast Starlight and finally the journey home on the Empire Builder, I learned a lot!
Traveling by train does have it's drawbacks. It's slower than flying, you can't go as many places, it may not always be the smoothest ride either... but I love it! It's relaxed, a great way to see the country and a great way to meet new people.
At first I was only going to travel on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle because I had heard it was the most scenic route. I'm very glad things worked out the way they did though and I would have to disagree now. I found the trip from Chicago to Sacramento the most scenic and if you were taking a train trip purely for the scenery it is the one I would recommend.
When the bus arrived in Chicago it was snowing off and on. Enough it had caused several accidents on the interstate delaying the bus. I didn't even notice how late the bus was, I had several hours to kill before I got on the train. The cold weather and the snow don't bother me, so I didn't mind that either.
The walk from the Greyhound bus depot to the Amtrak station isn't bad. It's about two blocks up and then you turn left at the Holiday Inn and then another two blocks. There is really only one spot you would want to move through quickly and that is where the sidewalk and street passes under a bridge. There are several lanes of traffic that go under the bridge. The far side of the street opposite the Holiday Inn there is nothing except a sidewalk. On the side same side of the street as the Holiday Inn is a homeless camp under the bridge. Being so close to the Amtrak Station and the bus depot there are usually a lot of other people walking besides you so that is comforting.
The Amtrak station is really nice! They are currently doing a lot of remodeling on the inside though. I had never seen so much security in my life and coming from the Midwest it was a bit of a culture shock. There were uniformed police everywhere, one or two officers every 20 to 30 feet it seemed. I saw at least six police dogs, the kind used for sniffing bombs and drugs. That isn't even counting how many undercover plain clothed police officers they had, I saw at least one with a gun talking to uniformed officers while I was waiting.
The building doesn't look futuristic, but the environment reminded me of being in a futuristic sci-fi movie or a video game. Every 15 minutes a robotic female voice would broadcast a security message about how we are the eyes and ears and to report any suspicious activity blah blah blah. One section is Amtrak and another section is for city trains. When you walk through the city train section there are all these robotic female voices talking "Track 6", "Track 9".
After the nightmare of a bus ride to Chicago I was starting to question my decision to travel coach. I figured what could it hurt if I went over to the ticket counter to see if they had any last minute discounts they could give me to upgrade. It was a few hundred dollars more to upgrade. Instead of having to buy all my meals on the train if I upgraded I would get three free meals a day and that saves money so I figured that into the cost. I would also have privacy, a shower, and a guaranteed window seat. Getting a window seat was extremely important since I'm not just going somewhere to get there, I'm doing this for fun and being able to take pictures and video out the window is the whole point.
In Chicago I upgraded from coach to a roomette for California to Sacramento and the trip home from Seattle to Chicago. I kept Sacramento to Seattle coach since it was the shortest part of the trip and still kind of expensive to upgrade. However in Sacramento I ended up doing the same thing asking if they had any last minute deals to upgrade and they did, so I ended up doing the whole trip in a roomette.
Chicago is one of the best Amtrak stations and offers a special waiting area called The Metropolitan Lounge for higher level passengers. When I upgraded to a roomette I got access to it and it was nice! They have bowls of free fruit and free drinks like soft drinks coffee and tea. Every day at 1:30 p.m. they have free wine, cheese and vegetable tasting. A bunch of the trains were delayed because of the weather so for several hours I had the whole place almost to myself!! It was only the last couple hours I was there it got crowded when all the late trains started arriving.
I had just got to my train and sit down in my roomette when they started doing announcements they will be coming through to check tickets and get dinner reservations. We are still sitting in the station and I look up and think it's just someone at my door to check my ticket or get my dinner reservation, but it was three U.S. Air Marshals. They wanted to see my ID, tickets, ask me some questions and search my stuff. Sure, I've got nothing to hide, they were nice, did their thing and left. At first I thought I was special like someone turned me in because I'm by myself with a backpack and they have that security announcement going every 15 minutes making people paranoid. I looked online and apparently now the TSA does more than just planes, they are moving into all forms of commercial travel and now work passenger trains too. I'm just curious if they ever do anything at all these tiny hole in the wall stations we stop at in the middle of the night and pick up one or two people.
After riding three trains every one is a little different. When you depart a major station and there is a big change in passengers they do a welcome aboard announcement. The first train it was all about not smoking. The second train it was about watching your belongings and not getting your stuff stolen. The third train was all about being quiet and not disturbing other passengers. Different trains, different crews, different priorities.
The roomettes are certainly smaller than they make them look on Amtrak's website. For privacy you have a curtain and a sliding door which you can lock from the inside, but not the outside. I noticed some people left their doors open most of the time. I kept mine closed with the curtain pulled all the time! You have to open your door and curtain when they come around to make dinner reservations, people would fall into your room. The train rocks like a ship in ruff seas and it can make walking down the hall a challenge. The sliding door yo your roomette only locks from the inside, if you go anywhere you can't lock the door behind you. At least keeping the door and curtain pulled all the time people wouldn't know if I was in there or not, at least I hoped. I was really uncomfortable having to leave my stuff in the room to go shower, to the bathroom or to go to the dining cars for meals. There are three big shelves in the middle of the car where they have people's suitcases stored right out in the open. I figured it would be easier for someone to just go through or grab one of them than risk going into my room.
But Amtrak passengers were a much better class of people than on the bus! I did run into a couple weirdos in the dining car and observation car, but they were from coach.
The sleeping car where your roomette is has it's own attendant. They put out coffee and juice in the morning just for your car. You've got a button in your room you can call if you need anything. They are also supposed to offer a turn-down service where they come around at night when you are ready for bed and convert your roomette for sleeping. I never used it though, I told them not to worry about it and I would do it myself. One of the other passenger's told me they aren't allowed to go to bed until everyone has, so I wasn't going to keep them up if I wanted to stay up late.
The roomette has two chairs which face each other, not a whole lot of leg room. With two people your knees will probably be touching because you'll be sharing leg space and at some point you'll probably want to put your feet up beside each other. At night the two chairs recline, the seats pull forward to touch each other and the back lays down so it's a flat bed to sleep one.
The other person will have to sleep on the bunk that pulls down from the ceiling. If you've ever seen a top bunk in a big rig it's about the same thing. Theoretically you are supposed to be able to get in the top bunk with the door to the roomette closed, but you would have to be skinny! I'd have to have the door to the roomette open and then climb up. I imagine for someone older or who didn't get around easy they would really struggle.
Light sleepers probably won't sleep. I don't think I slept for more than an hour or two at a time and unless you are a really deep sleeper you probably won't either. The frequent stops and especially the train rocking can make it difficult. I would usually just wake up and go right back to sleep though. I loved going to bed and being able to lay there looking up out the window, seeing the moon and stars.
Night time was bad because you think how many beautiful things went by in the dark you couldn't see. As soon as the sun came up I was awake looking out the window.
Using the bathroom is another experience! Forget about taking any valuables you don't want stolen in there with you, there is barely enough room for you! Getting your pants up and down is a challenge, good luck if you are claustrophobic! If you are grossed out by public bathrooms and hover above the toilet, good luck! You'll touch everything! The toilets don't use water, you push a button and it's a massive shot of air that vacuums everything away.
Showering is another fun train experience. I attempted to time it so when we stopped at one of the stations we stayed at longer I could quickly shave and shower. I managed to shave and just started to shower before they pulled out of the station. It's about like being in a washing machine, bumping from wall to wall as you go down the tracks. It's also a challenge to get dressed! Between the piles of clean towels and the big bag of dirty towels there isn't much room. You're in a very tiny space and getting bounced around too.
Since I was traveling with just a backpack I didn't take any shower shoes. I just took extra old socks I could wear in the shower and throw away after I was done.
A lot of the train stations you just stop and people jump on and off and the train starts rolling again. Every now and then they come to a station and stop a little longer so people can get off and smoke and stretch their legs. I only bothered getting off one time on the last train ride home just to take a couple pictures. You aren't allowed to go into the stations, you have to stand on the platform right by the train where they can see you.
Food on the train is outrageously expensive! In the snack car it is $2.25 for a can of Coke, $5.00 for a hot dog, a microwave pizza is about $8.00 The dining car is even more expensive!! If you are in one of the sleeping cars like I was then you get breakfast, lunch and dinner free in the dining car. Almost everyone who eats in the dining car is from a sleeping car eating for free, every now and then 1 or 2 people from coach may eat in there. The food is not that good to ok. Luckily on the first meal I got seated with a guy in the military who traveled a lot on Amtrak and he gave me a heads up on what to eat and what to avoid. He said if you get the steak, avoid the mushroom sauce. I mostly stuck to the same thing every meal. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Hamburger w/ kettle chips for dinner. A couple times I just got a hot dog with kettle chips off the kids menu. Those things were pretty good. Except for maybe the hamburger which I would call edible and by the end of the trip I was getting really sick of them. The hamburgers are nothing like a hamburger you would get at Chili's, Fuddrucker's, or most other restaurants they were no where near that good. You would also get a dessert after lunch and dinner, I would go with the cheesecake or chocolate lava cake. They were good, not great. The chocolate lava cake you get at Chili's is way better and bigger! Also nobody ever said it, but I could tell the bacon is just microwave bacon.
For breakfast and lunch it is mostly just show up whenever to eat, for dinner they come around and you get a reservation time to eat. On one train a couple times we had to do lunch reservations for some reason. They set you with strangers though, which I enjoyed because you meet a lot of people from all over and it's a good way to make friends.
I really regretted now having my business cards with me to hand out, but my new cards didn't come in the mail until the day after I left.
On the trip home aboard the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago I did spend part of the day in the observation car. My roomette was on the lower level of the sleeping car and water or rain had splashed up on the window and frozen so I couldn't get very good pictures. The windows in the observation car are the same size as the windows in the roomette so the view isn't much different. There are overhead windows too in the observation car, but you see sky and they make a bad reflection on the regular windows which was a pain to deal with while I was taking pictures.
Traveling in winter I would say it's definitely better to have a roomette on the upper level of the train car for cleaner windows and a better view. Several places the snowbanks were so high they blocked the view from the lower level windows.
The train traveled a lot faster than I thought it would. I figured 55 m.p.h., but several people i met were watching the speed using apps on their phone. They said a lot of the time we were traveling 70-80 m.p.h.
By no means is it a fast way to travel though! You are constantly stopping at stations, constantly stopping along the sides of the tracks to let freight trains past. I know BNSF and Union Pacific own most of the track, so I'm sure Amtrak must give their trains right of way as a condition of using it.
When you get to your roomette there are two bottles of water. It wasn't until the last train ride I found out you can have more. You might have to ask the car attendant though. They put them out by the coffee and juice sometimes, but people take them as fast as they put them out and don't care about leaving some for others. It's like soap in the showers, I saw it one time! Self-entitled people just go in and take every bit of it. I would just plan on bringing your own soap, chances are by the time you make it to the shower it will have all been stolen.
Traveling by train does have it's drawbacks. It's slower than flying, you can't go as many places, it may not always be the smoothest ride either... but I love it! It's relaxed, a great way to see the country and a great way to meet new people.
At first I was only going to travel on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle because I had heard it was the most scenic route. I'm very glad things worked out the way they did though and I would have to disagree now. I found the trip from Chicago to Sacramento the most scenic and if you were taking a train trip purely for the scenery it is the one I would recommend.
When the bus arrived in Chicago it was snowing off and on. Enough it had caused several accidents on the interstate delaying the bus. I didn't even notice how late the bus was, I had several hours to kill before I got on the train. The cold weather and the snow don't bother me, so I didn't mind that either.
The walk from the Greyhound bus depot to the Amtrak station isn't bad. It's about two blocks up and then you turn left at the Holiday Inn and then another two blocks. There is really only one spot you would want to move through quickly and that is where the sidewalk and street passes under a bridge. There are several lanes of traffic that go under the bridge. The far side of the street opposite the Holiday Inn there is nothing except a sidewalk. On the side same side of the street as the Holiday Inn is a homeless camp under the bridge. Being so close to the Amtrak Station and the bus depot there are usually a lot of other people walking besides you so that is comforting.
The Amtrak station is really nice! They are currently doing a lot of remodeling on the inside though. I had never seen so much security in my life and coming from the Midwest it was a bit of a culture shock. There were uniformed police everywhere, one or two officers every 20 to 30 feet it seemed. I saw at least six police dogs, the kind used for sniffing bombs and drugs. That isn't even counting how many undercover plain clothed police officers they had, I saw at least one with a gun talking to uniformed officers while I was waiting.
The building doesn't look futuristic, but the environment reminded me of being in a futuristic sci-fi movie or a video game. Every 15 minutes a robotic female voice would broadcast a security message about how we are the eyes and ears and to report any suspicious activity blah blah blah. One section is Amtrak and another section is for city trains. When you walk through the city train section there are all these robotic female voices talking "Track 6", "Track 9".
After the nightmare of a bus ride to Chicago I was starting to question my decision to travel coach. I figured what could it hurt if I went over to the ticket counter to see if they had any last minute discounts they could give me to upgrade. It was a few hundred dollars more to upgrade. Instead of having to buy all my meals on the train if I upgraded I would get three free meals a day and that saves money so I figured that into the cost. I would also have privacy, a shower, and a guaranteed window seat. Getting a window seat was extremely important since I'm not just going somewhere to get there, I'm doing this for fun and being able to take pictures and video out the window is the whole point.
In Chicago I upgraded from coach to a roomette for California to Sacramento and the trip home from Seattle to Chicago. I kept Sacramento to Seattle coach since it was the shortest part of the trip and still kind of expensive to upgrade. However in Sacramento I ended up doing the same thing asking if they had any last minute deals to upgrade and they did, so I ended up doing the whole trip in a roomette.
Chicago is one of the best Amtrak stations and offers a special waiting area called The Metropolitan Lounge for higher level passengers. When I upgraded to a roomette I got access to it and it was nice! They have bowls of free fruit and free drinks like soft drinks coffee and tea. Every day at 1:30 p.m. they have free wine, cheese and vegetable tasting. A bunch of the trains were delayed because of the weather so for several hours I had the whole place almost to myself!! It was only the last couple hours I was there it got crowded when all the late trains started arriving.
I had just got to my train and sit down in my roomette when they started doing announcements they will be coming through to check tickets and get dinner reservations. We are still sitting in the station and I look up and think it's just someone at my door to check my ticket or get my dinner reservation, but it was three U.S. Air Marshals. They wanted to see my ID, tickets, ask me some questions and search my stuff. Sure, I've got nothing to hide, they were nice, did their thing and left. At first I thought I was special like someone turned me in because I'm by myself with a backpack and they have that security announcement going every 15 minutes making people paranoid. I looked online and apparently now the TSA does more than just planes, they are moving into all forms of commercial travel and now work passenger trains too. I'm just curious if they ever do anything at all these tiny hole in the wall stations we stop at in the middle of the night and pick up one or two people.
After riding three trains every one is a little different. When you depart a major station and there is a big change in passengers they do a welcome aboard announcement. The first train it was all about not smoking. The second train it was about watching your belongings and not getting your stuff stolen. The third train was all about being quiet and not disturbing other passengers. Different trains, different crews, different priorities.
The roomettes are certainly smaller than they make them look on Amtrak's website. For privacy you have a curtain and a sliding door which you can lock from the inside, but not the outside. I noticed some people left their doors open most of the time. I kept mine closed with the curtain pulled all the time! You have to open your door and curtain when they come around to make dinner reservations, people would fall into your room. The train rocks like a ship in ruff seas and it can make walking down the hall a challenge. The sliding door yo your roomette only locks from the inside, if you go anywhere you can't lock the door behind you. At least keeping the door and curtain pulled all the time people wouldn't know if I was in there or not, at least I hoped. I was really uncomfortable having to leave my stuff in the room to go shower, to the bathroom or to go to the dining cars for meals. There are three big shelves in the middle of the car where they have people's suitcases stored right out in the open. I figured it would be easier for someone to just go through or grab one of them than risk going into my room.
But Amtrak passengers were a much better class of people than on the bus! I did run into a couple weirdos in the dining car and observation car, but they were from coach.
The sleeping car where your roomette is has it's own attendant. They put out coffee and juice in the morning just for your car. You've got a button in your room you can call if you need anything. They are also supposed to offer a turn-down service where they come around at night when you are ready for bed and convert your roomette for sleeping. I never used it though, I told them not to worry about it and I would do it myself. One of the other passenger's told me they aren't allowed to go to bed until everyone has, so I wasn't going to keep them up if I wanted to stay up late.
The roomette has two chairs which face each other, not a whole lot of leg room. With two people your knees will probably be touching because you'll be sharing leg space and at some point you'll probably want to put your feet up beside each other. At night the two chairs recline, the seats pull forward to touch each other and the back lays down so it's a flat bed to sleep one.
The other person will have to sleep on the bunk that pulls down from the ceiling. If you've ever seen a top bunk in a big rig it's about the same thing. Theoretically you are supposed to be able to get in the top bunk with the door to the roomette closed, but you would have to be skinny! I'd have to have the door to the roomette open and then climb up. I imagine for someone older or who didn't get around easy they would really struggle.
Light sleepers probably won't sleep. I don't think I slept for more than an hour or two at a time and unless you are a really deep sleeper you probably won't either. The frequent stops and especially the train rocking can make it difficult. I would usually just wake up and go right back to sleep though. I loved going to bed and being able to lay there looking up out the window, seeing the moon and stars.
Night time was bad because you think how many beautiful things went by in the dark you couldn't see. As soon as the sun came up I was awake looking out the window.
Using the bathroom is another experience! Forget about taking any valuables you don't want stolen in there with you, there is barely enough room for you! Getting your pants up and down is a challenge, good luck if you are claustrophobic! If you are grossed out by public bathrooms and hover above the toilet, good luck! You'll touch everything! The toilets don't use water, you push a button and it's a massive shot of air that vacuums everything away.
Showering is another fun train experience. I attempted to time it so when we stopped at one of the stations we stayed at longer I could quickly shave and shower. I managed to shave and just started to shower before they pulled out of the station. It's about like being in a washing machine, bumping from wall to wall as you go down the tracks. It's also a challenge to get dressed! Between the piles of clean towels and the big bag of dirty towels there isn't much room. You're in a very tiny space and getting bounced around too.
Since I was traveling with just a backpack I didn't take any shower shoes. I just took extra old socks I could wear in the shower and throw away after I was done.
A lot of the train stations you just stop and people jump on and off and the train starts rolling again. Every now and then they come to a station and stop a little longer so people can get off and smoke and stretch their legs. I only bothered getting off one time on the last train ride home just to take a couple pictures. You aren't allowed to go into the stations, you have to stand on the platform right by the train where they can see you.
Food on the train is outrageously expensive! In the snack car it is $2.25 for a can of Coke, $5.00 for a hot dog, a microwave pizza is about $8.00 The dining car is even more expensive!! If you are in one of the sleeping cars like I was then you get breakfast, lunch and dinner free in the dining car. Almost everyone who eats in the dining car is from a sleeping car eating for free, every now and then 1 or 2 people from coach may eat in there. The food is not that good to ok. Luckily on the first meal I got seated with a guy in the military who traveled a lot on Amtrak and he gave me a heads up on what to eat and what to avoid. He said if you get the steak, avoid the mushroom sauce. I mostly stuck to the same thing every meal. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Hamburger w/ kettle chips for dinner. A couple times I just got a hot dog with kettle chips off the kids menu. Those things were pretty good. Except for maybe the hamburger which I would call edible and by the end of the trip I was getting really sick of them. The hamburgers are nothing like a hamburger you would get at Chili's, Fuddrucker's, or most other restaurants they were no where near that good. You would also get a dessert after lunch and dinner, I would go with the cheesecake or chocolate lava cake. They were good, not great. The chocolate lava cake you get at Chili's is way better and bigger! Also nobody ever said it, but I could tell the bacon is just microwave bacon.
For breakfast and lunch it is mostly just show up whenever to eat, for dinner they come around and you get a reservation time to eat. On one train a couple times we had to do lunch reservations for some reason. They set you with strangers though, which I enjoyed because you meet a lot of people from all over and it's a good way to make friends.
I really regretted now having my business cards with me to hand out, but my new cards didn't come in the mail until the day after I left.
On the trip home aboard the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago I did spend part of the day in the observation car. My roomette was on the lower level of the sleeping car and water or rain had splashed up on the window and frozen so I couldn't get very good pictures. The windows in the observation car are the same size as the windows in the roomette so the view isn't much different. There are overhead windows too in the observation car, but you see sky and they make a bad reflection on the regular windows which was a pain to deal with while I was taking pictures.
Traveling in winter I would say it's definitely better to have a roomette on the upper level of the train car for cleaner windows and a better view. Several places the snowbanks were so high they blocked the view from the lower level windows.
The train traveled a lot faster than I thought it would. I figured 55 m.p.h., but several people i met were watching the speed using apps on their phone. They said a lot of the time we were traveling 70-80 m.p.h.
By no means is it a fast way to travel though! You are constantly stopping at stations, constantly stopping along the sides of the tracks to let freight trains past. I know BNSF and Union Pacific own most of the track, so I'm sure Amtrak must give their trains right of way as a condition of using it.
When you get to your roomette there are two bottles of water. It wasn't until the last train ride I found out you can have more. You might have to ask the car attendant though. They put them out by the coffee and juice sometimes, but people take them as fast as they put them out and don't care about leaving some for others. It's like soap in the showers, I saw it one time! Self-entitled people just go in and take every bit of it. I would just plan on bringing your own soap, chances are by the time you make it to the shower it will have all been stolen.
Nice Blog ! thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThali Services in Ranchi
Best Banquet in Ranchi
Budget hotels in Ranchi
Family Restaurant in Ranchi
Book Hotels in Ranchi
Hotel in Ranchi
Best bar in Ranchi
Accommodation in Ranchi
Meeting & Events Hall in Ranchi
Business Conference Rooms in Ranchi
Best Bakery in Ranchi
Your blog was so nice and very attractive to see. Thank you so much for sharing these nice articles
ReplyDeleteHeart Surgery in Ranchi