ritesa

The California Zephyr from Denver to Emeryville/SFO is indeed a great experience! Fantastic scenery, interesting people, and lots of time to wind down.

Reindeerflame

I'm glad you had a good experience.

Train travel in the U.S. can be a great experience. There are also bad experiences, involving such things as bad crews, poorly-maintained equipment (with rattles and the like), and late trains. When there is a crisis, things are particularly bad, as on many routes there are no alternatives, or there is no extra equipment available. Then it takes awhile to sort out, and people get frustrated.

Those of us who have traveled regularly for many years are perhaps most frustrated by the apparent inability for regular problems to be addressed and solved, and by inconsistent service levels.

Miesque

Glad to hear your thoughts. I am one who has done many short hauls on the Northeast corridor from Charlottesville to NYC and Richmond to NYC and in the process have tested out the sleeper cars for the long distance routes that also travel that route in addition to the Northeast Regional. That said, I have never done an overnight trip, but I have my first overnight trip planned for next weekend. Taking the Cardinal from Charlottesville to Chicago and then the Capitol Limited to DC (the Cardinal only runs three days a week and I wish it was daily) then a four hour layover before catching the Regional back to C'ville. The Capitol Limited will make my first trip in a Superliner versus the Northeast Viewliner and my bedroom is upper level. Regarding the Wi-Fi on the long distance routes, my iPhone hotspot has done as good as being on a train with Wi-Fi. I realize as I go out through lesser populated areas that will likely not be as reliable, but at least the timing of the Cardinal and Capitol Limited are during times where there is limited time when I have to accessible for the office, with the vast majority being non-business hours. On my daytime short-term jaunts up the East Coast I do really enjoy the fact that you can leisurely enjoy a nice bottle of wine in your own stemware as the trip unwinds. I have to say I am glad to read this positive thread because the reason I looked at this part of Flyertalk this evening is because I was concerned about service on this route as my trip is next Wed and the stretch between Philly and NYC is part of the Cardinal route.

Miesque

I am on the return portion on my trip, via the Capitol Limited (my first time on the Superliner versus the Viewliner, and my bedroom is upstairs). I am very used to the Viewliner and Superliner has some quirks if all you have ever been on is the Viewliner. First, its does sway a LOT more if you are upstairs. I was taking some pics since someone asked and while doing so the trained swayed such that my wine glass that was sitting on the table went airborne and I have never had that happen on a viewliner (fortunately it was almost empty).

I am on my return trip so I am not sure if this will also be the case, but, I have to say that I arrived in Chicago on the Cardinal the most relaxed I have ever arrived on a trip after my evening trip

kmersh

I had ridden AMTRAK a few times between New York and Washington, but had never though about using them for anything more than a few hours, that is until my wife had surgery and the Surgeon said absolutely no flying for 4 weeks.

Ordinary, that would not be much of a problem as we are happy to just chill at home when needed, but we had to attend a Wedding in Chicago, so we settled on AMTRAK due to offering fully flat beds and depositing us downtown Chicago and thus not necessitating a car as the wedding was being held at the hotel we were staying at.

All in all what I would say is this, it was perfectly fine and the Employees were uniformly good, but it is not the most efficient mode of transportation and if one needs to be somewhere quickly flying is still better. Our entire trip was close to on-time, but it felt long, now that is not AMTRAK's fault, but we just had no idea what to expect and found ourselves looking for things to do.

My wife commented that we should have packed a board game or two to keep us entertained as we could only read our Kindle's for so long before even that got boring. Also, we had no idea that we could bring along some of our own alcohol as we both would have enjoyed a few beers or a nice bottle of wine, but c'est la vie, if we even take a Long Distance AMTRAK train again, we now know better.

Regarding the food, we were actually surprised that it was not complete garbage (which my few experience with the Cafe card between New York and Washington have been) and my Wife said it was better than her last American Airlines First class meal, so that was a plus. Our seatmates (that was a surprise at first as we have never been seated with other random people for a meal before) for dinner were an Elderly couple who lives just a few streets away from us and this was our first time ever meeting (small world), which was neat, plus they gave us some great restaurant recommendations both at home and in Chicago.

All in all, AMTRAK was fine and if needed we would use them again, but flying is still faster and we if able will probably still fly whenever we can vs. taking a train, which is not a condemnation of AMTRAK, but probably more telling about ourselves and our ability (or lack there of) to entertain ourselves.

CDKing

Oh your not supposed to do BYOB on Amtrak? I've done the NE regional a few times. Second time I saw a well dressed guy take out a beer and drink it. On my last trip I brought my own beer and drank it. Had the open container sitting in my tray when the conductor checked my ticket.

I'm looking forward to trying out the roomette on the Coast Starlight. I'm sharing a room on a 6.5 hour leg and bought my own on a shorter 4.5 hour leg. I normally wouldn't do it but thought what the heck since everyone else in my group is doing so.

Armani

I have to agree that I prefer Viewliner roomettes and bedrooms over those on Superliners. The high ceiling and window make the top bunk much more bearable. The only problem is there is no baggage storage in the car, as there is in a superliner. The absence of a real diner on the Cardinal reduces the value of 'free meals'. Breakfast on our recent trip was horrible. Our table tried three different hot options and all were inedible. I would prefer the Jimmy Dean microwaveable sandwiches over any of these, but it is not offered to sleeper passengers. I guess I will have cereal the next trip.

CMK10

If you're in a sleeper you are encouraged to BYOB. My Dad and I always do and it makes the trip all the better. In coach I believe you are not allowed to.

kmersh

I really wished we had known we could have BYOB as my Wife and I would have enjoyed a nice bottle of wine or two and I would have appreciated a few decent beers, there is always next time, I guess.

The stuff I learn from FT, I swear it is a compendium of extremely useful facts.

seat38a

Yup you sure can. And if you have a nice dining car staff, they will even let you bring it to dinner.

P1000066 by Brian H, on Flickr

FYI, bringing it to the dining car is at the discretion of the dining car crew.
P1000220 by Brian H, on Flickr

Boraxo

Great review, I'm looking forward to my first sleeper trip.

jobtraklite

I've taken hundreds of overnight trips; but talked my brother, a train fan, into taking his first Amtrak trip with me, Topeka to Lamy on the SW Chief. His comment next morning at breakfast was "I see how you can become addicted to this"

bitburgr

Me too. I had no idea.

Oddly, I've been sitting near Amtrak employees on [a regional train outside Philly] who seem to have a daily/weekly event of drinking their own hard liquor, wine and beer...even sharing with a select few random passengers.

Alpha Golf

Me too. Really enjoyed my trip on the CoNO, despite the very poor food, so I just burned most of my points on the Coast Starlight in a couple of weeks.