A review of Amtrak rail travel in the United States (page 2 of 3)

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A review of Amtrak rail travel in the United States

(page 2 of 3)

For me the train is the most comfortable way to travel in the Northeast Corridor for a 4 hour trip (e.g. Boston - NYC or NYC - Washington DC). Traveling the entire length of the route (e.g. Boston - DC) makes for a long trip (unless you take an overnight train), and it's probably cheaper and certainly much faster to fly the Boston-DC route.

The three big cities stops along this route are in central locations (Penn Station NYC, South Station Boston, Union Station DC). Since the route is highly used, the trains are quite frequent, so you have plenty of choices. The travelers on these trains tend to be business travelers, so the number of cell phone conversations can be excessive. However, the high speed Acela trains have a quiet car where cell phone conversations are not allowed. As far as the high-speed Acela vs the non-high-speed Metroliner, I find there is little difference in speed and a huge difference in cost. The Acela arrives little more than a half an hour faster. If they'd take out some of the stops, perhaps the train would be more deserving of its designation as an express train. The Acela trains are certainly newer and more comfortable – you get a huge amount of leg room, the seats are very nice, and I think every seat has a plug for your laptop. However, the regional Metroliner train is not bad either, and I take it over the Acela when I'm traveling on my own money (i.e. non-business travel).

As far as the scenery goes, this route is beautiful. The Boston - NYC route follows alongside the Ocean for quite a while. On the return trip to Boston from NYC, you travel through Queens and have a spectacular view of Manhattan.

Pacific Northwest

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I've taken the train from Seattle to Portland, and I found the service and trains to be similar to the slower Metroliner service on the Northeast Corridor. The travelers on this route seem to be predominately tourists and locals with only a few business travelers. The route from Seattle to Portland is very beautiful; you ride alongside mountains and water for a large portion of the trip (I took the photo to the right from the train window). The train stations in Portland and Seattle are both downtown.

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One annoying thing about this route is that the seat assignment process seems to be the same one they had in 1940. You wait in a long line and at the end of the line is a person with a piece of paper from which they decide the seats to assign you (the photo to the right is the line in Portland).

Southeastern Coast

On southeastern trains, seats typically have a leg rest
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The Amtrak routes along the Southeastern Coast extend from NYC to Miami, FL. That's one long ride in a train! I've taken the train from DC to Savannah, GA with a stop in Charleston, SC. All of the trains I took on this route had very nice seats to help you sleep – there is a lot of leg room and the seat has a recliner-style seat rest to hold your legs up (see the photo on the right). They have sleeper cars too if you prefer to have a more comfortable bed. The distance between cities on this route can be quite long. However, the longer trips aren't too bad if you take an overnite train (a 12 hour train ride where you sleep 8 hours is actually quite nice). On the overnite trains the attendant normally provides a pillow and records your stop, so they can wake you up in time for your stop. In Europe, this level of personal service is only provided if you purchase a bed in a sleeper car. On Amtrak, even the cheap seats get a free personal wake up.

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