Originally Posted by Seat 2A (Post 37585520)

I don't know that this qualifies as my favorite train ride - I've had quite a few - but it certainly was an unplanned adventure in the middle of the ride that made the journey memorable

Back in 1992, while riding Amtrak's Desert Wind between Los Angeles and Denver, I decided to take advantage of the longer station stop in Las Vegas to head into the station and buy a six pack of beer. Although we were just a few minutes behind schedule, Las Vegas was a service stop where garbage was emptied, ice and food restocked, etc. The schedule indicated a fifteen minute stop to accomplish these things.

At that time, the Las Vegas train station was located in the Union Plaza Hotel, and just off the hotel lobby was a small liquor store. The idea here was to save money. With another twenty-six hours of train travel ahead of me, I’d require at least four to six beers, Why pay $4.50 per beer plus tip when I could just buy a six pack for so much less? The potential savings were too good to ignore and so I bought a six pack of Sam Adams for about $8.00.

With a few minutes still to spare, I decided it’d be a good idea to pick up some ice because I can’t abide warm beer. An ice machine was located up on the second floor of the hotel and once I’d filled up my small plastic shopping bag, I headed back down to the train.

By my reckoning, I arrived back at the station with about three minutes to spare. Imagine then my surprise and dismay upon walking out onto the platform to see the end of the train heading down the tracks about one hundred yards away. The big steel mesh gate leading to the tracks was closed and locked, so any fantasies I had of dramatically chasing down the train with my bag of beer were quickly squelched.

It was later explained to me that because the train was running behind schedule, the normal fifteen-minute service stop was accelerated a bit. Fair enough. I’d gambled and lost. Both my backpack and my daypack were onboard the train as well, but on a positive note I did have that bag of ice cold Sam Adams with me.

Beer or no beer, I’ve never been one to panic in these kinds of situations. Things are as they are and the only way out is to move forward. Calmly. There had to be a way to catch up with that train somewhere between Vegas and Denver. I had twenty-six hours.

From Las Vegas, the Desert Wind headed northeast up to Salt Lake City, arriving at about 5:00am. I quickly discovered that I wouldn’t be able to use Greyhound to catch it anywhere in between because the train did not parallel the highway but rather took the rural route – out in the middle of the desert.

Next I started looking into flying to Denver on one of those air-only specials offered by the package tour companies for Vegas bound gamblers when I stumbled across Morris Air’s ad in the Yellow Pages. I’d totally forgotten about them! Ten minutes later, I was booked on Morris Air’s 10:00pm nonstop to Salt Lake. Total cost: $49.00.

A shuttle van to Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport only cost me about $5.00. However, because my flight didn’t arrive in Salt Lake City until a little after midnight, it was too late for any of the scheduled bus or van services offered downtown. As a result, I had to shell out about $20.00 for a taxi. Then, because the train didn’t arrive until 5:00am and the station was closed until about 4:30, I spent about three hours and another $7.00 hanging out in a nearby Denny’s until the station opened.

When I re-boarded the train at SLC, there were my pack and daypack at my seat - just like I'd left them. When I told the car attendant what happened, he said nobody would have had any idea of my unplanned side trip. He assumed I was probably up hanging out in the lounge car.

Now let’s do the math.

Had I bought six premium beers on the train and tipped accordingly, I would have paid about $35.00. Instead, in an effort to save money, I paid the following amounts for my six pack:

Six Pack of Sam Adams: $8.00
Shuttle to the Airport: $5.00
Flight from LAS to SLC: $49.00
Taxi to downtown SLC: $20.00
​​Hanging out in Denny’s: $7.00
The Overall Experience: Priceless

At $89.00, that six-pack of Sam Adams remains by far the most expensive beer purchase I have ever made.

Originally Posted by Gardyloo (Post 37585596)

the Ost-West Express from Oostende to Warsaw in 1975. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/5402494-post4.html

Originally Posted by Nagasaki Joe (Post 37588344)

. Because the train tracks in Poland and Czechoslovakia had different gauged tracks, the wheels of the Russian car I rode in had to be changed, so I sat in my cabin in a dark warehouse in the USSR for the few hours that it took. .

Originally Posted by Track (Post 37590136)

In its heyday of international sleeper services (1960s, 70s, 80s) the Soviet railways offered through sleepers from Moscow/Leningrad/Kiev to lots of places outside the soviet "empire": Madrid, Oostende, Hoek van Holland, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Tehran, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Beijing, Pyongyang, etc.. These were sleepers fabricated in East Germany that could operate on the various railway electrical systems, but, as you point out, track gauge was a problem. It was in the Belarussian border town Brest, not the Polish/Czech border, (and also on the Chinese and Iranian borders) where these cars were hoisted up and the trucks changed. The Madrid service was even more complicated, as the trucks also had to be changed at the French/Spanish border in Irun.

Originally Posted by mlin32 (Post 37590612)

I don't have nostalgia. I like the high speed rail in mainland China. Super easy and quick to make a résa (outside holiday périodes, reliably on-time; and well-priced. I remember buying a ticket for me and my father in literally 1 minute for a train departing in 40 minutes.

Originally Posted by Nagasaki Joe (Post 37590756)

I live in Japan and have the same experience with the Shinkansen. However, this thread is about enjoyable train rides one has taken, which obviously means the past, whether last week, or 30 years ago, nothing to do with nostalgia. Do you have a train ride you'd like to share, or was that it?

Originally Posted by Nagasaki Joe (Post 37590324)

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize how extensive the Soviet railways sleeper service was to international destinations, especially to non-communist nations. In the case of my train, the wheels had to be changed before leaving the Soviet Union because of the gauge difference, so you are probably right about the location of Brest, as I don't remember the towns name. I was surprised they didn't let people off the train to wait while they changed the wheels, since it took a few hours and it was very dark in the warehouse. I think I was the only person in the car at the time.