Amtrak tips from a man who’s traveled by train for 50 years

Though trains now not linger at Cape Horn, the view from the window continues to be the most effective cause to hop aboard Amtrak.

I’ve ridden Amtrak everywhere in the nation since I used to be a teen within the Nineteen Seventies. When mates discover out that I’ve spent days at a time on a practice, they typically ask me to inform them what it’s like. When gasoline is dear, like it’s now, curiosity often deepens.

Past the surroundings, using long-distance trains is a novelty. It’s day without work the grid, an opportunity to mingle for those who really feel social (or gap up with a e-book for those who don’t). The trains have sleeper compartments with four types of rooms, coach seats bigger than what you’d discover in firstclass on a aircraft, a lounge and meals service. 

There are setbacks. A lot of the meals is prepackaged or microwave fare, the schedules are unreliable, service is uneven, a few of the railcars date to the Nineteen Eighties and trains are generally delayed for hours. Because it recovers from the worst of the pandemic, Amtrak is enduring gear and staffing shortages. This provides to the unpredictability.

However for those who can settle for the bounds, then the experience turns into one thing particular. It’s like a gradual meal as a substitute of quick meals.

In the event you determine to attempt Amtrak this summer season for one thing greater than a day journey, right here’s my sense of easy methods to profit from it, particularly if it’s your first time aboard.

The Zephyr and the Starlight

Amtrak, which operates many of the intercity trains within the U.S., has 15 long-distance routes. The Bay Space is served by two, the Seattle-to-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, and the Emeryville-to-Chicago California Zephyr. 

The Starlight presents nice views alongside the Pacific Ocean and within the Cascades, and the Zephyr’s surroundings excels within the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies.

That’s to not overlook the Nevada desert, Midwestern farmland, the routes by way of cities and neighborhoods and the feeling of blasting by way of small cities.

Amtrak has stopped producing its personal guides to the surroundings — which makes me marvel how deeply it understands the attraction of its personal product — however you will discover guides from 2014 on-line, like these posted by Upgraded Factors for the Zephyr and Starlight. The knowledge is dated, in fact. Simply hold your eyes open and look ahead to wildlife.

The Starlight and Zephyr use bi-level Superliner vehicles, with many of the seats and rooms upstairs. Every coach and sleeper has one-person bogs, like these on a aircraft. Sleepers even have a bathe. The most costly rooms, the bedrooms, embrace personal bogs with showers.

Two individuals can share a roomette, in the event that they like one another and not less than one is agile sufficient to clamber into the highest fold-down mattress.

The sightseer lounge presents the most effective viewing on the practice. It has giant home windows that curve into the ceiling, with chairs and tables on the higher ground. You’ll discover tables and a meals counter promoting snacks, drinks and microwave objects downstairs.

Restricted entry to the diner

Meals must be a serious promoting level for practice journey, together with the surroundings and the liberty to maneuver round onboard.

Till final 12 months, I might have mentioned the onboard meals was mediocre at finest, however final 12 months, Amtrak upgraded its meals within the eating vehicles on its western trains. The menu is restricted, however the dozen meals I ate within the Zephyr’s diner in 2021 had been good. This pattern is optimistic.

Nonetheless, coach riders can’t presently use the diner. As a substitute, they could purchase meals within the lounge or carry meals aboard.

Excluding coach passengers from the diner started in 2019 on a few of Amtrak’s japanese trains, as a part of a normal downgrade of eating automobile service, then unfold to the western trains when the pandemic hit. Amtrak has now rebuilt its eating service on its western routes, not less than relating to the standard of the meals. First-class passengers get meals within the diner as a part of their ticket, in order that they have precedence. It’s not clear when diners will reopen to all passengers.

I haven’t met another practice rider who prefers this first-class-only coverage. Having fun with a scorching meal whereas the world passes your window is one other a part of the expertise that Amtrak underplays.

Amtrak posts its menus: “Conventional eating” applies to the Zephyr and Starlight, and “cafe” means lounge.

Just a few main stations embrace locations that promote meals. Denver Union Station, reworked and expanded a decade in the past, has full eating places and a lodge. If the timing works, you need to use these stops to load up on meals earlier than returning on board.

As soon as after I was passing by way of Albuquerque, New Mexico, my brother and his spouse met my practice on the station with a bag of burgers. 

I haven’t used DoorDash or Uber Eats for trainside supply, however I’ve thought of it. Coordinating with the practice’s arrival could be iffy. Most station stops are quick, and the timekeeping is a shifting goal.

Scheduling suggestions and fare expectations

Attributable to freight site visitors, gear issues, climate, unavailable crews and “trespasser incidents,” intercity trains typically run late.

For instance, within the early Nineteen Eighties, I used to be aboard the short-lived in a single day Sacramento-Los Angeles Spirit of California when it was blocked in Jack London Sq. by a truck parked too near the tracks.

Amtrak is a tenant on most of its routes. If a freight practice on the identical monitor breaks down or has a crewing drawback, the passenger practice typically has to attend.

To trace a practice’s progress, see ASM transit docs, which pull knowledge from Amtrak. Amtrak additionally tweets practice standing notices at @AmtrakAlerts, but it surely doesn’t publish each delay. You’ll be able to join Amtrak textual content alerts while you get your ticket.

Amtrak now not creates timetables that present a route and schedule at a look. The Rail Passengers Affiliation maintains an archive of previous timetables that may not less than let you know the place your practice goes.

The Starlight and Zephyr often function each day, however for now, the Zephyr doesn’t originate on Sundays or Mondays. The lowered schedule is a pandemic staffing holdover. There’s no phrase on when it’ll go each day once more.

The Zephyr leaves Emeryville within the morning and reaches Chicago within the afternoon two days later. It covers 2,438 miles and takes about 52 hours.

The Starlight takes 34 hours to journey 1,137 miles from LA to Seattle. From the Bay Space, the experience is about 24 hours to Seattle and 10-12 hours to LA.

Amtrak makes use of yield pricing, so fares are lowest while you purchase early and journey offseason. Test for gross sales or offers. As I write this, a one-way journey from Emeryville to Denver for one grownup on June 1 prices $118 for coach, $703 for a roomette and $1,679 for a bed room. For 2 adults, it’s $236, $891 or $1,867, respectively.

Amtrak is brief on gear and employees this 12 months, and backup capability is scarce if an engine conks out or a automobile develops issues. The Superliner vehicles used on the Zephyr and Starlight date way back to the early Nineteen Eighties and have issues related to age. Some veteran riders within the sleepers carry outdated towels to wedge in opposition to a rattling door or binder clips to carry room curtains shut when the fastener has worn out.

Within the passengers discussion board at rail website Trainorders.com, it’s simple to search out complaints about canceled trains, unexplained delays, defective gear and reassigned lodging. I’ve run into all of this, though I’ve had no issues with the individuals on Amtrak’s customer support desk when figuring out an issue. And I’ve usually encountered pleasant workers on board over the last a number of journeys.

While you’re on board, for those who’re feeling extroverted, head to the lounge. Nobody’s in a rush. You’re all shipboard companions. On totally different journeys earlier than the pandemic, when diners had been open to all and passengers had been required to share tables, I met a jockey, a retired army base commander, Mennonite farmers and a Canadian Mountie.

I’ve additionally spent journeys misplaced in a e-book or catching up on sleep.

The Zephyr and Starlight don’t have Wi-Fi, and a few components of the routes are too distant for cell service. You inform me if that’s a characteristic or a defect. (Many Amtrak routes do have Wi-Fi, together with the Capitol Hall and different California regional trains.) 

Cascades by moonlight, a rainbow within the desert

The views fluctuate with climate, time of 12 months and plain luck. The range retains issues fascinating.

Yet another phrase in regards to the view from Cape Horn: You often see it solely from eastbound trains. Westbound trains usually use a parallel monitor that goes by way of a tunnel at that location.

The experience above Donner Lake is a favourite, however my peak second got here whereas barreling by way of the desert. I had handed by way of Nevada dozens of occasions by then, however one night after a summer season storm, we paced a rainbow for dozens of miles.

In Colorado, the Fraser, Glenwood and Gore canyons stand out. Additional east, at a spot referred to as Plainview the place the eastbound practice begins its descent into Denver, you’ll be able to see town for an hour forward of your arrival.

Maybe the most effective view on both practice is of the Pacific Ocean south of San Luis Obispo.

If the Starlight runs late, you’ll nab daytime views of Mount Shasta. However considered one of my finest journeys in that area was lit by a full moon on a cloudless evening.

My different favourite viewing location onboard is the window on the rear of the final automobile. If it isn’t blocked, you’ll be able to watch the countryside recede.

And possibly get misplaced in your ideas, questioning at all the pieces that’s on the market.