I recently had the pleasure of riding both ways on these trains.It was a first time experience for me.Ihave always wanted to try train travel overnite and was pleased by the accomadations,service and on time performance.Iam sure this is not always the case,but these trains were clean,left on time ,arrived on time and served a need for distance travel in a reasonable amount of time.It ,the sleeping car,was well used.IT is showing its age.The wear and tear on the doors,bunks,sinks,and bathrooms stand out.The cost was tolerable considering what a plane ticket would have cost.I actually had time to read a couple of news paper articles and some magazine stories while heading down the tracks at 60MPH +.I would do it again and plan to in the near future.
Welcome to the forums, and glad you had a good ride. Well used, but in good repair?
You screen name is interesting – Lehigh Valley, Delaware and Hudson, Reading.
Good ride,good food and yes equipment in need of some corrective maintance.
Favorite Fallen Flags…All anthracite coal haulers from the east.
I like riding trains it is a really fun thing to do and you get to see some really neat stuff. As you go rolling by at 70mph or even faster who knows. But anywho I really hope to go ride on an amtrak train sometime in the next year or two. And the one I really want to ride on is the empire builder all the way to the end which. Is I think is Oregon or even Washington but oh well that’s about it for now.
Go for it!
I just rode the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle this past August, right after the refurbishing and service enhancements. All I can say is it was definately what I would call first class rail travel. The cars were clean and looked freshly redone. My wife and i had a bedroom from end to end, the train was travelling at what seemed to be track speed most of the time (I believe 79 MPH). And meals were included for Sleeping Car passengers in a Dining Car that could easily rival the best restaurants. Comfortable, civilized travel. Plenty of room to stretch out, walk around, actually see the country and a lot closer than 30,000+ feet above it. A real step up from the flying sardine cans with an inch of pad on the seats that make you pay for the meals.
BTW, westbound, the train splits at Spokane WA with one part going to Seattle and the other going to Portland OR. It rejoins on the eastbound run. Currently the only Amtrak train that does this.