Ask Lemmy

It's funny that you should ask, as I just completed the 2nd portion of an almost-complete cross-country Amtrak journey last week.

In 2012, I bought one of those USA Rail passes, and for the first segment went to Glacier National Park, then to Seattle, Los Angeles, backtracked to Emeryville, then Phoenix (via LA), Houston, and finally home via Chicago. The train was already late getting to Columbus, one of the first few stops out of Chicago, and achieved epic levels of lateness on the way. We had record-high temperatures across North Dakota and Montana, so the rails expanded and buckled. The train could only go 65MPH instead of the normal 85MPH. As others have noted, freight trains had priority, so we sat on sidings to let them pass. In one Montana town, a grizzly bear in the area meant that the railroad workers couldn't get out of their truck to switch us back onto the mainline for almost an hour. We got to the station in Glacier 6 hours late, at 2AM, so I ended up sleeping on a bench on the platform rather than finding accommodations.

The lateness trend continued, such as when the locomotive of the Coast Starlight lost power while climbing the Cuesta Pass, and we had to return to San Luis Obispo and wait for UP to rouse an engineer to come down and hook up a standby locomotive to get us over the mountain. On the Emeryville to Phoenix portion, the Coast Starlight was late getting into Los Angeles, so they had to hold the Southwest Chief for passengers making the connection.

Don't get me wrong, though, it was a fabulous time. The only place I needed to be was "here," and the only schedule for getting places was "when I get there." The scenery was great, the crews were friendly and competent, the trains were in decent condition. The coach seats recline enough to sleep, there's legroom for days, and a leg rest that can be raised. The onboard WiFi was a cellular service, and out west, there were plenty of portions of the journey with no network coverage. That was fine, I had a Kindle if I didn't feel like taking in the scenery.

Last week, I took the Lake Shore Limited eastbound to Massachusetts, and it was like the polar opposite of the western trains! The scenery was mostly active industry, or decaying Rust Belt hulks. It was interesting to see, but far from beautiful. The train follows almost the entire south shore of Lake Erie, but at night, so I didn't see that. However, Amtrak has control of the rails, or priority, on much of the route. On the way out, the train was on-time for every single stop out of Chicago, until we entered CSX territory just before Pittsfield, MA. We had to wait for a freight train, and that put us 8 minutes behind schedule. On the way back, we were maybe 15 minutes late into Albany, but that's a long stop where the hook up the cars from NYC, so we rolled out on time, and had no more delays. That was good, because I had to make a bus connection to get home to Madison.

In summary, the western trains seemed designed (and suitable) for pleasure rides, while the eastern train felt like all business. In comparison, I'd say fuck the bus. Either type of train journey is ten times better.