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Starting in January 2023, I am trying to take Amtrak instead of flying. I'm doing this mostly because of climate change. I have a job that requires a fair amount of travel, and I want to be able to say I did everything I could to slow the planet's inexorable march into being a smoldering hellscape for my offspring. If you're interested in reading more about this reasoning, here's a random article about it. It seems to be getting sort of the same numbers I got when I calculated the carbon emissions of rail vs air. I actually calculated a way bigger savings, but whatever. There's a pretty significant savings. Taking Amtrak when you need to get somewhere is a complete pain in the rear end. I'm writing this in the El Paso airport, because I had to be in 4 places in the course of 2½ weeks, and there's just no way I can do that on Amtrak. I'm planning out my next trip: I have to leave on Friday to make it to the destination on Monday. I figure there's a near-guarantee I'll be delayed by at least a day, which is why I'm planning to arrive Monday for Wednesday meeting. With people in the United States this summer dying because of climate change, maybe this thread will wind up being increasingly of interest to people. Or maybe it won't, and people will enjoy gawking at what a pain in the rear end this is. Who knows! But I'm doing this, and you can bookmark if you'd like to follow along. I already did a trip from Santa Fe to Milwaukee in another thread if you'd like to read that one. The train derailed in Chicago and made national news. That was a fun one. Next up: I schedule a two-city trip to Pasco, WA and Washington, DC. I'll probably update this OP with tips, if I ever discover any. cruft fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Aug 14, 2023 |
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Aug 14, 2023 18:23
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Amtrak's web site now returns a result for LMY - PSC! This is a big deal! It means I don't have to call in and explain my schedule to an agent and then convince them that, yes, I know this is a long trip, and I understand I'm going to need a hotel. In fact, it doesn't look like I even need a hotel in Los Angeles! Wow! I do have a 1h45m layover, which I'm sure I'm going to blow right through, requiring an overnight stay. But, as I learned in the last trip, if you have a ticket showing you're a through passenger, Amtrak puts you up somewhere on their dime. So I don't have to try to explain anything to my company's travel office. It also means the corporate travel agency will not have their head explode when they try to figure out how to get tickets. That's a huge deal in terms of convenience. So the first leg is looking like LMY-LAX (19h2m), 1h45m layover, LAX-PDX (29h49m), 1h05m layover, PDX-PSC (4h21m). That's two (2) layovers under 4 hours, so a high likelihood I'll be delayed by two days, which is why I'm planning to arrive on Monday for a Wednesday meeting. It's okay: I can work on the train, in the hotel, or in Pasco, and bill those hours. Whatever. Next leg: PSC-CHI (41h39m), 1h55m layover, CHI-WAS (17h25m). I'm giving this one a 99¾% chance of being delayed by a day. Last leg: WAS-CHI (17h40m), 6h5m layover, CHI-LMY (24h4m). 30% chance of a one-day delay. Bottom line: LMY-PSC 2d08h08m best case, 4d08h08m likely. PSC-WAS: 2d12h59m best case, 3d12h59m likely. WAS-LMY: 1d23h49m best case, 1d23h49m likely. I can't stress enough how happy I am that Amtrak's web site is now able to schedule all these trips without me having to manually index timetables. cruft fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Aug 14, 2023 |
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Aug 14, 2023 19:06
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Aug 15, 2023 02:52
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How many long train trips have you done prior to this? How close together on the calendar are each of these trips you have planned? I’m trying to gauge your experience for THIS MUCH travel like this. I have no idea but I assume taking one long train trip will give you an idea but doing 5 of them back-to-back will be a different beast so I’m interested in how you fare psychologically if you haven’t done it before, OR how you’ve coped with it if you’ve been doing it constantly since January. I’m curious about things like dealing with the long days working on a train, dealing with loneliness and/or the other passengers you’ll have to interact with. Are you booking roomettes or just a seat? The cost is already so high for a seat I can’t imagine doing a roomette constantly. How about keeping yourself fed? Etc etc.
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Aug 15, 2023 13:37
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tranten posted:How many long train trips have you done prior to this? How close together on the calendar are each of these trips you have planned? I’m trying to gauge your experience for THIS MUCH travel like this. These are all good questions, thanks! History: I've done, like, four to eight long-haul round trips on Amtrak, at least three involving multiple routes in one direction. I've done this enough that I don't feel like I know what I'm getting into: it's just more of the same. This upcoming trip I outlined is actually two destinations in one trip, so three legs. Psychologically: that is an interesting thought I hadn't considered. I guess it's no more or less awful than air travel. There are annoying delays in both, and inconveniences in both, and annoying passengers in both. The difference with the train is that it's quieter generally, and I can get up and move around, so my rear end doesn't go numb. Train takes longer, though, and I don't sleep super great, although I'm hoping I adjust to this as I do it more. Long days working on a train: I don't have to work the entire day, just 8 hours. Not sure what you meant by this: maybe you just mean that I'm on the train for long durations, which is true. I dunno. You try to find ways to entertain yourself. It doesn't feel too different from my work-from-home job: there's more sitting on the train, though. Loneliness: I learned during lockdown that loneliness is not a problem for me. The bigger problem is the passengers that can't leave me alone. If you've ever ridden first class on a plane, you've probably experienced the neighbor who just cannot shut up. I think it's something about the narrow seats in air coach that makes people try hard to give you what little space they can: in air first class and train coach, sometimes you get seated next to somebody who won't leave you alone, and that's annoying. Headphones can help. Passengers: Sometimes you meet interesting people. I made some friends on the last trip, to Minnesota: one of them came by to visit me at home a few weeks later. The dining car is a nice place to meet new folks, too: and you can not have to talk to them again after the meal, if you don't want to. I tend to try to ignore my seatmate and strike up conversations with people in the observation and dining cars. Cost: I go in coach. I like to point out to people that Amtrak coach seats are like United first class seats, except Amtrak seats recline more and have a footrest. The rooms are expensive, no doubt. Coach has consistently come in cheaper than flying, so it's always been well within what the company will pay for, I just have to show them the comparative pricing for air. Food can be a challenge. Train food is not great, although they brought the dining car back on the Southwest Chief, yay! So you can get nice meals sprinkled in with the garbage. I bring my own food, too, which helps. I've found hummus, crackers, carrots, and boiled eggs, travel well. I'm a vegetarian so I can't bring preserved meats, but that would be a good option for people who eat it. The Mennonite passengers seem to eat a lot of oatmeal and I've seen them with a ton of hostess cakes, so I'm not sure they have any wisdom to glean.
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Aug 15, 2023 15:59
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Things you didn't ask about: Sleeping: I'm a side sleeper and I'm over six feet tall. Sleeping in a reclined coach seat is a challenge. I'm going to experiment with packing crap into the seat to level it out more. It also helps so much if I get placed by a window, so I can jam my knees into the car wall instead of the passenger next to me. I know I can sleep in coach, I've done it before: it's just not quality sleep. I think I can improve it, though. Noise: Noise-cancelling headphones aren't quite as important as they are on an airplane, but they can help a lot. More important is earplugs. Some folks say they can't sleep with earplugs: train yourself to do that. There are a lot of people in the car. I'm eyeing a pair of Anker SoundCore Sleep A10 earbuds, too: these can play Bluetooth and white noise in addition to acting as earplugs. Kind of a spendy option, but I travel enough that I can justify it. Light: I made myself an "eye pillow" out of some Batman cloth and foam fill. It's rad. It blocks out most light and sends a pretty clear "leave me alone" signal to other passengers. You can buy these things too, but it's just a glorified bandana. Staying warm: I bought this sleep kit from Amtrak years ago. It came with a fleece blanket, an eye pillow, and some earplugs, in a little carry pouch. All I have left is the blanket and the pouch, but I can cram my Batman eye pillow and earplugs and some Benadryl in there too, and it's been good enough. Sometimes the car is overly-air conditioned and I pull the blanket out during the day. It's okay. Bathing: The restrooms on these western trains get pretty gross by the end of the trip. I bring a little washcloth and towel and focus on the stinky parts of my body. In the unlikely event that I can actually make these 1h05m transfers, I'm just gonna have to do my best. Clothing: I pack super light and wash clothes every night. There will be nowhere to dry clothes on the train. So I'm going to have to pack a little heavier than I normally do, and burn through outfits, then do a larger laundry day when I check into a hotel. I might need to bring a valise in addition to my usual backpack. Because I'm going to both Pasco WA and Washington DC, I will need to bring a sport jacket and button-up shirt, in addition to my usual western-state business attire (jeans and t-shirt). This irritates me a lot more than it should. Electricity: you get two outlets per pair of coach seats, and they're on the car wall. Always always always bring a six-foot extension cord. If you get the window, you let your seatmate use it so they don't drape cords over your lap. If you get the aisle, you use it. Get the kind with three outlets on the end, and you can also make pals in train stations and airports when everybody's trying to charge and there aren't enough outlets. Internet: my cell provider allows tethering (Google Fi), but mobile network access is just spotty on train routes. None of the trains I'm using offer WiFi. I'm going to try to not schedule meetings while on the train, and if something unavoidable comes up, I'll make sure I have a deputy on the call, use the cell phone network to phone in, and warn people I may drop out a lot, or even miss the entire thing. Boredom: yeah. It gets boring. I find I have to mentally shift gears and slow down my expectations for life. I'm not going to try to paint a rosy picture of this, it's boring AF. The Nintendo Switch helps a lot. Having a good book helps a lot, too. Having a bunch of TV show episodes or movies you're interested in is also helpful: put them on your computer, there's plenty of room for the bigger screen. Having a hobby project you can bring is good. I have this electronic bagpipe that's about a foot-long 1/2" pipe, and I practice scales and songs: that helps too. And bringing work along is helpful. Attitude: I keep reminding myself that Greta Thunberg spent 10 days on a little boat. I can spend 5 on a train. cruft fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 16:06
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This is all really good info, but I can’t get over that you bring and practice BAGPIPES on a train. You wild.
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Aug 16, 2023 00:22
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tranten posted:This is all really good info, but I can’t get over that you bring and practice BAGPIPES on a train. You wild. LOL. You have to plug in an audio cable to get any noise out. It's nice, with earbuds, on places like trains and busses. cruft fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 02:51
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That all sounds like absolute hell, but thanks for the detailed write up! I don’t think I’d use it even if I got a free coach ticket versus having to pay for my own airfare… I won’t even take trains through or in Germany anymore if it requires any changing of trains, as their typical +60-90 minute delays on intercity trains I find catastrophically unacceptable. I did an overnight coach one time too, and even at average height I found it miserable, sleeping like 2 hours and it absolutely wrecking my next day. At least on an airplane the people next to you aren’t getting up and entering / leaving all the time like on trains. Can you not at least get your company to pay a base rate and then upgrade yourself to a sleeper? This sounds like a ticket to burnout city if done with any regularity, as the sleep issues build up, even for someone who doesn’t have very many social needs. Or maybe I misunderstood how often you’re planning to do this; I got the impression it would be nearly continuous for your job, like a sum total of several weeks on the train out of the year?
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Aug 16, 2023 19:52
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Saladman posted:Can you not at least get your company to pay a base rate and then upgrade yourself to a sleeper? This sounds like a ticket to burnout city if done with any regularity, as the sleep issues build up, even for someone who doesn’t have very many social needs. Or maybe I misunderstood how often you’re planning to do this; I got the impression it would be nearly continuous for your job, like a sum total of several weeks on the train out of the year? One-way, LMY to PSC in coach: $215 One-way, LMY to PSC in a roomette (cabin for 2): $1,573 I could afford that, for a while. But eventually my ability to pay $2500 per round trip to stay out of coach would disappear. It's turning out that the only train travel I can do in 2023 is the trip to Minneapolis I did in May, and this upcoming trip to Pasco in October (the DC leg is no more, so it's a simple round trip). I am going to have to fly to Knoxville in October, drive to Denver in November, and fly to Knoxville again in April 2024. This does wind up being several weeks out of the year, but I feel like you were thinking it would be more like several months. I looked into Amtrak to near Atlanta and then Greyhound to Knoxville. After researching it, I have decided that this would be beyond my capacity to deal with America's crumbling public transit. So air it is, and I'll pay some carbon credits and pretend that actually does something. I wish I could buy carbon credits to make Amtrak better. If I'm lucky, the Kansas City venue bid we just put out will come back with some venues we can choose there. If I'm unlucky, we'll get Madison, WI. Both of those are places I can get by train, but Lamy to Kansas City is the absolute easiest ever Amtrak trip and I would love that so much. We'll see. cruft fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 20:54
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cruft posted:One-way, LMY to PSC in coach: $215 Holy poo poo, that’s nuts. In Europe the couchettes are only a moderate surcharge. Like Zürich to Vienna a couchette adds about €75 to the ticket price (10 hr train), and for a slightly larger surcharge you can even get a double occupancy room with a private shower and toilet en suite. Austrian and Italian railways at least, no experience with other countries’ sleepers. My Palermo to Rome train last year was €80 for a private room with bathroom (no shower), and it was like 14 hours. Yeah I misunderstood your travel amount. I thought you were going to do all travel by land unless literally impossible due to time scheduling conflicts. A couple times a year would be alright.
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Aug 18, 2023 13:20
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Saladman posted:I thought you were going to do all travel by land unless literally impossible due to time scheduling conflicts. A couple times a year would be alright. That's what I'm doing, if you replace "literally" with "practically". I worry a lot that my current definition of "practical" is too permissive, and I'm having to try to convince myself that I can't do this overnight. But as time goes on, I'm going to be less permissive about what I can consider "practically impossible". Right now, the trip to Tennessee counts. In 2 years, I'm hoping it won't. But I need to shift an entire institution to do this, so I'm taking small steps. I have a call with my travel person at work today. I assume it's to schedule the train. It's taken a week for my request to get to this point, and the price has gone up by $5 in that time. So there's a lesson learned: get on this crap right away. Having a program sponsor who likes to make travel changes a week before a trip makes this sort of scheduling really difficult.
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Aug 22, 2023 15:55
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The corporate travel agency apparently doesn't have locations entered for most of the train stations, so the location defaulted to "Worldwide". This enrolled me in the international travel alert program at work.  The good news is that the travel agency actually did book me for Amtrak! I think they selected the "2 hours faster" route that means I have to get off the train and onto a bus three times going south, so I'll have to iron that out. But overall, encouraging!
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Aug 23, 2023 23:53
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Corporate travel agency booked the ticket, and all I had to correct was asking to please stay on one train from PDX -> LAX, instead of switching to a bus, then to another train, then to another bus. Switching is actually 4 hours faster for some reason, but I have to stay overnight in Los Angeles anyway, I'd rather not have to keep switching transportation modes. I did have to get a "fare quote", to demonstrate that I'm not pissing away my employer's money on extravagant weird transportation. Here's the comparison: Total price for train tickets, round-trip Lamy to Pasco: $406 Total price for plane tickets, round-trip Santa Fe to Pasco: $839 Depending on how my corporate travel office does their accounting, I may actually get to include the $183 stay at the Omni in Los Angeles as part of my reimbursement, since it's still going to come out much cheaper than flying. This, in my experience, is pretty typical of train travel: it really is much less expensive than air, if you compare coach to coach. I get a lot of people asking me how I am able to do this because they assume train travel is more expensive, and I'm not sure where that idea comes from, but I've never actually seen that be the case. Maybe it's because I'm flying out of a smaller airport? I dunno. e: nope, that can't be it. There is one round trip flight from Albuquerque to Pasco with an 11-hour layover in Seattle for $379, but the next cheapest ticket is $530. Factor in the miles added to my car driving from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and back ($83) and even the 11-hour layover flight costs more than the train. And that's not factoring in parking costs for my car. cruft fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 25, 2023 |
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Aug 25, 2023 20:05
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Has anyone tried just hitching rides on freight trains? I wonder how feasible it is nowadays without going to gitmo immediately.
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Sep 7, 2023 21:04
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mobby_6kl posted:Has anyone tried just hitching rides on freight trains? I wonder how feasible it is nowadays without going to gitmo immediately. It’s still a thing but it’s for "adventurers" and people who are weirdly obsessed with trains. For instance, this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXTG4btUuC8 There are apparently ways of knowing where a freight train is going but it’s not an actual way to travel, it’s either a fringe lifestyle like the YouTuber above or an "adventure" for dudes in their 20s. There’s probably also a fine needle to thread to not get arrested, beaten up, and/or robbed. Being a creepy looking but simultaneously friendly-ish seeming dude but who you want to keep at distance is probably the only way to do it solo, like the style of the YouTuber
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Sep 8, 2023 08:12
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My travel schedule in the second half of 2023 has been nuts. Everybody keeps moving dates for things and I'm frantically mapping out new trips. This is compounded by my spouse needing the sole car to get to weeks-long appointments in remote parts of the state, and living in a remote village. I wound up Anyway. This Friday I'll be taking Amtrak from Lamy to Pasco! In the time since I last posted, I repaired my folding bicycle and got a gigantic Cordura bag to carry the bicycle onto the train. This will be how I get around in Pasco, and will get me from the Albuquerque station to the car rental agency when I get back from my second trip in early November. I've also got a pair of Anker sleep buds that I'm going to try on the train to see if they help me sleep better. And I'm committed to cramming some junk in the seat crack so my sleep surface is more even. Lastly, I have this new plastic doodad that I shove up my nose which claims to reduce snoring, and actually seems to work. This might allow me to sleep on my back without waking up, which would make the recliner-style seat more workable. These trips are boring as crap, so I'll probably be updating this thread frequently this weekend 
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Sep 25, 2023 18:47
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Ooh, I took a photo of my backpack contents from the Minneapolis trip. Here ya go! This is everything I brought for the 10-day trip. I pack really light and wash laundry: most folks would bring more clothes. But this should give you a visual idea about what I bring!
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Sep 25, 2023 18:56
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SA only gives you one chance to attach a file, so here's a third post.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:59
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Largest bag on Amtrak is 28"×22"×14". Looks like I won't be taking the folding bike after all. That's okay. Maybe that's for the best. The bus in Richland is $1.25 per trip, I'll just do that. I'm glad I checked before I tried to board!
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Sep 29, 2023 03:24
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It is hard to get comfortable in these seats when I'm trying to get to sleep. After a couple hours, I think I gave up trying to get comfortable, and just slept, LOL. Other things I realized I should mention: The stairwells are pretty narrow. This is good when the train is bumping around. This isn't so good if a person is pretty wide. You can get free water and ice at the snack bar thingy. I bring instant coffee for this purpose. Ice cools off my little insulated lunchbox full of hard boiled eggs and hummus. The noise-making sleep buds worked great. Other people who couldn't sleep were having noisy phone conversations (why do people always use speakerphone now?) Or the old guys next to me were yelling at each other because they're both losing hearing I guess. The noise generators didn't completely block that out, but they made it so I didn't care. Neat!
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Sep 30, 2023 13:58
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cruft posted:SA only gives you one chance to attach a file, so here's a third post. Are clif bars still good? I get the feeling that quality went down recently. Also, I am very impressed by how light you pack! I need to do something similar, but I always bring too many books while I travel.
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Sep 30, 2023 20:21
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sb hermit posted:Are clif bars still good? I get the feeling that quality went down recently. I don't think they were ever good. But they have a long shelf life and they're not awful, so I pack 'em for when something breaks and I get stuck. And I ate a whole bunch when I did things like 209-mile 1-day bike rides. On this trip, I've got Bob's oat bars, though. Usually I only break these things out during air travel. On this trip, I brought avocados, boiled eggs, hummus, triscuits, bagels, carrots, and apples. The eggs and hummus are in a little insulated lunch sack that I was cooling with the free ice until we got to California, the humidity went up, and the ice bag either leaked or sweated all over the place. Now I've got ice in a steel bottle: we'll see if that does any better. sb hermit posted:Also, I am very impressed by how light you pack! I need to do something similar, but I always bring too many books while I travel. I'll share a secret my great aunt taught me in 1990: wash your clothes in the sink. That won't help with books, I guess. I got an ebook reader, but I know some people (like cruft jr) can't tolerate 'em. I've hardly ever needed more than one book per trip, but I'm a slow reader, so I guess I've got that working in my favor. I packed way too much food for this trip, oops. --- Currently north of Santa Barbara looking out over the ocean. This route gratuitously goes right out to the tip of the peninsula at Conception, which probably adds 30 minutes to an hour. But it sure is pretty. cruft fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Sep 30, 2023 |
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Sep 30, 2023 20:38
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cruft posted:I'll share a secret my great aunt taught me in 1990: wash your clothes in the sink. Food is always good! I don’t see your e-reader. Is it like one of those small ones about the size of a notepad with e-paper, lasting a couple days on a charge? I read a lot of PDFs (RFCs and technical manuals are a good way for me to spend an afternoon) so I prefer a 10” tablet instead. I also have epub books for my smaller readers but I only use them when I have to slip them into a pocket. I wash a lot of hiking accessories (hats, gloves, and so on) in the sink but maybe I should also try my clothes as well.
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Sep 30, 2023 20:52
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Third leg delayed by 9 hours, so I get a nice dinner here in Portland and then board at... 01:45, ugh. At least I can go right to sleep! Should arrive in Pasco at about 07:00, and then I guess I head in to work. LOL. SB Hermit, yeah, ebook readers are suboptimal for PDFs. Screen's too small. The one I have is a hair larger than a trade paperback.
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Oct 2, 2023 01:12
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cruft posted:Third leg delayed by 9 hours, so I get a nice dinner here in Portland and then board at... 01:45, ugh. At least ebook formatted texts (using stuff like epub or mobi) are getting a lot more common, and more technical computer stuff gets published with attending source so that you can (in theory) rebuild a manual or reference in epub. It’s bad enough to have to use a pdf for a reference if you want to flip back and forth, but doing it on an e-reader is a real test of patience. I have noticed that google maps can sometimes help plan train rides and other public transit, but it seems to either be missing routes or ignoring them entirely. Do you just use the Amtrak webpage to plan your trip, or do you use a different trip planning website like Google Maps?
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Oct 2, 2023 15:11
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sb hermit posted:I have noticed that google maps can sometimes help plan train rides and other public transit, but it seems to either be missing routes or ignoring them entirely. Do you just use the Amtrak webpage to plan your trip, or do you use a different trip planning website like Google Maps? I print out timetables and work it out with a pencil and paper, like a savage. Train left the station at 04:45, 12 hours late to the minute. I got a little sleep. 3 hours, looks like. This was nice to wake up to. 
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Oct 2, 2023 15:37
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cruft posted:I print out timetables and work it out with a pencil and paper, like a savage. water, the bane and savior of america
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Oct 2, 2023 18:17
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someone should download the timetables and make a cool app that allows people to create itineraries based on their workflow the main problem with a lot of modern planning apps vs using a whiteboard or clipboard or notepad or etc is that there is usually no facility for just freeform arranging things and adding notes and etc etc I guess the nearest equivalent is using a modeling software like rational rose or uml or, of course, visio but I think it would just be more fun to have a bucket of clip art and microsoft paint
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Oct 2, 2023 18:21
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One type of person I meet a lot is the Old Dude Who Always Wanted To Travel By Train But Is Definitely Never Doing This Again. They appear to enjoy telling everyone what a lousy time they're having. I don't enjoy listening to them. But this might be one of the reasons I strive to be up front about what this is actually like, warts and all. I've noticed that I'm coming around to where I can say I enjoy the train. Knowing what to expect probably plays a role in that. cruft fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Oct 5, 2023 |
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Oct 5, 2023 22:23
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cruft posted:One type of person I meet a lot is the Old Dude Who Always Wanted To Travel By Train But Is Definitely Never Doing This Again. Do you run into any Europeans on the trains? I’ve met so many people here who romanticize the idea of traveling the great Wild West by train, but like your old guys I’d guess 95%+ of them would be tempted to bail out mid-trip. My wife was also really into the idea of cheap seats in night trains ("you save so much money by sleeping in a chair instead of a hotel room!") and after me being unwilling to do it with her for years (I did it once by myself and, never again) she finally did a couple times on her own and … now she also flies or pays for a couchette. I’m still shocked at how expensive couchettes are on American trains. It’s like business class flight level expense. Long distance trains are totally fine with couchettes, and I hope Europe actually brings them back like they are claiming to.
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Oct 6, 2023 08:29
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The only European I met was a college fine arts professor from Poland, who always wanted to do this, as you said, and appeared to actually be enjoying it. She was probably in her 30s, clearly knew how to pack light, and I'm guessing understood what she was getting herself into. The sleeper rooms are enormous. There's one with 4 beds, one with 6 I think, and a few with 2. So that's space for like 80 people, taken up by 30 or so. I plan to take one again someday: I'm racking up enough points that it'll be practically free. But it's pretty clearly set up that retirees who will only ever ride the train once and will hate it are subsidizing the route. There's a dining car, too. Dinner is $45: you get a 3-course hot meal, wine, and dessert. I had dinner once and I really enjoyed it: I'd say it was worth the price. Meals are included with the sleeper car fare. I've been on TGV a few times: it's a very different experience. I'd say Amtrak feels more chill, less "alternative to flying", and because it's slower, more about the scenery. In the Western states, the scenery can be gorgeous. Happy to report I'm definitely able to sleep in coach class now. It took maybe 6 trips before I could claim this, though. E: not to say TGV isn't chill. Just that Amtrak is more chill. It's so chill that it's off-putting to lots of people who have better uses of their time than staring out a train window for days. cruft fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 15:16
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A "trespasser incident" is when somebody ignores the numerous warnings that a 4,000 - 20,000 ton train is coming, and the train hits them, because it takes a while to change 20,000 tons of inertia. The commuter train ahead of us just had a trespasser incident. But we're rolling again, so probably it just tore somebody's truck apart and sent the passengers to the hospital. That's about the best case scenario. Don't try to race the train, folks. E: oops, no, we're stopped again. If there was a death, we're gonna be here for hours until the detective is all done. cruft fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 17:16
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cruft posted:TGV I tried looking up what TGV is because as a non-train person (and probably most other people) I have no idea what that acronym means and the best I could find within context was a high-speed train in France? Is it that or something else? Anyhow, still enjoying the thread!
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Oct 6, 2023 22:17
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Twenty Four posted:I tried looking up what TGV is because as a non-train person (and probably most other people) I have no idea what that acronym means and the best I could find within context was a high-speed train in France? Is it that or something else? Yeah, Train à Grande Vitesse I may have meant Eurostar when I wrote that, although I'm sure I've taken both. cruft fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 22:37
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Twenty Four posted:I tried looking up what TGV is because as a non-train person (and probably most other people) I have no idea what that acronym means and the best I could find within context was a high-speed train in France? Is it that or something else? TGV is also the model for many other high-speed rail networks, since they were the second, after Japan, to make high-speed rail routes, so it's kind of the Kleenex or Xerox of high-speed rail, at least for Western Europe. Kind of like how people often call subway systems a "metro", which are all derived from Paris's Métro. TGV isn't quite as generic as metro is, but occasionally you'll hear someone mention like, Morocco's TGV system, even though it certainly has some other name. E: Apparently, it's called "Al Boraq" (Arabic for Pegasus). "Moroccan TGV" would definitely be widely understood. But yeah it's a different world from the US AmTrack, since TGV/high-speed rail never run overnight and afaik never have couchettes, although maybe that is changing with the new longer routes they are adding in 2024. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 23:51
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Saladman posted:But yeah it's a different world from the US AmTrack, since TGV/high-speed rail never run overnight and afaik never have couchettes, although maybe that is changing with the new longer routes they are adding in 2024. This is true afaik, at least in Europe. High speed rail and night trains are two quite different products.
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Oct 7, 2023 16:31
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Every station has a slightly different boarding process. In Lamy (Santa Fe), you run up to the car and tell the conductor your destination city. No ticket scan ever happens, probably because they know three people are getting on, and can count to three easily enough. In Pasco, the conductor comes into the station and processes everyone lined up. In Portland, you line up but that's just to get out to the platform, where it's like Lamy. In Chicago, there's a little room that's sometimes open where you can get assigned a seat. In Los Angeles, you go to the information booth in the station for this. If you can't, you can just check in at the car. There's sometimes no indication that early seat assignments are happening: you just have to know. So far, I've been able to request a window at seat assignment, and they're glad to seat me there. The next thing that happens in any case is you get a little slip of paper on which is written some combination of your car, seat, and destination city. You go find your seat, then jam the paper into the space between the carpet headliner and the steel edging. Then you sit down. Sometimes the conductor comes through later to scan your ticket. The slip of paper stays with you for the trip. When your city is coming up, the conductor will crease it upwards and wake you up if you're asleep. Once you're off, they snatch up all the folded slips and toss them. I think the slip of paper might be called a "destination check". The one I just got here in LA doesn't actually have my destination city on it, but the information booth dude said the conductor will take care of that when I get my ticket scanned on the platform.
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Oct 8, 2023 00:51
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I've done down the west coast and cross-country with a sleeper, but for my next I want to try riding VIA rail in Canada
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Oct 9, 2023 20:07
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Starting another trip. There's a little pub in the Lamy station, and the train is 30m late. One of the things I didn't realize at first is that the train can actually make up time. We're still scheduled to get in to Los Angeles 40 minutes early. They shave 5 minutes off of some of the cigarette break stops and we've made up whatever time's lost. I feel like their on time performance has actually improved in the last few years since I last took a trip. This might be just good luck on my part. Not sure. cruft fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 21:08
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