I love to travel but hate airports. I am also somewhat old-fashioned when it comes to adopting a lot of new technology. (I have owned a smart phone for about two and a half years now. I still don't use it much.) I am also a mostly patient guy who appreciates ample leg room. As such, I may seem the ideal demographic for traveling by train. But you'd be wrong. More about that later.
Until recently, I had not traveled long-distance by rail in the US in almost twenty years. My one and only previous experience with Amtrak left a lot to be desired. It was supposed to be an eight hour trip that took about fourteen, and on the way back, we had to take a bus for part of it because of a rail closure. Shipment of goods always had the right of way over the infrequent passenger trains, so there was a lot of waiting while freight cars passed by in the narrow mountain passages. My daughter was about six weeks old at the time, and this was one of her first ventures outside of the house. That may have contributed to the stress, although in all honesty, she probably handled the trip better than I did.
When considering my options for going back to Michigan for the past four weeks, it was actually a little bit cheaper to fly. However, once I added in the fees for baggage and leaving my car at the Denver airport for that long, plus gas for driving there and back, the overall cost would have been over three times that. Amtrak should really work that into their marketing.
I also considered driving, but ever since pulling a trailer all the way here (about 1100 miles) in my Volkswagen -- which, by the way, I do not advise -- I am not sure that it is up for the challenge in its current state. The suspension and exhaust need some work, and the turbo engine isn't as punchy since hauling a trailer that probably outweighed the vehicle. Just to reiterate, I do not recommend that. Although in defense of my little GTI, I will note that it got me here without incident, which is why now, to express my gratitude, I drive it as little as possible.
That leaves me with the train. It cost about $350 round-trip, but I had to be flexible with the dates in order to find anything that low. I suspect that early summer is probably peak traveling season outside of major holidays. I went into this knowing that a 26-28 hour trip each way, which is already pretty intimidating, could easily turn into something that took several days. And who knows what kind of weirdos take the train across the country?
The Amish. There were lots of Amish people on the train and especially at the station in Chicago. They probably made up about 1/4 to 1/3 of the travelers. The rest were mostly college students and retirees.
Then there was me. As someone who is both tall and frugal, the lack of legroom in coach is another of the reasons that I tend to dislike air travel. That said, even the cheap seats on the train had plenty of room to fully extend my legs. The cushions were ok but became less comfortable as time went on. For whatever reason, I happen to be the type of person who cannot sleep in a sitting position. Despite being on some very long flights, I have never slept on an airplane for more than a few minutes at a time. Riding the train was no different in that regard.
This no doubt made the very long trip seem even longer. While I had expected the constant rattling on the tracks to be unnerving and the train whistle to be like an alarm clock going off every time we were about to cross a road, it really wasn't so bad. I'm sure that the massive weight of the locomotive contributed to its ability to sail along the tracks, and the whistle was hardly noticeable from inside. Most of the people around me seemed to have no trouble sleeping, except and in spite of the two assholes who brought their outside voices onto the train only to exercise them in small hours of the morning on the way back. Unlike during my trip to Michigan, on the return voyage, I had various seatmates for almost the entire time, which made it a little harder to stretch out and get comfortable.
Would I do it again? Probably. It really wasn't so bad, and it is kind of nice that I was able to walk less than a mile to and from the train station and my house while my old VW remained parked in my driveway. It was wonderful to see so many of the people I love and spend time with them. Doing so was priceless, and I look forward to the next opportunity, regardless of how I get there. It was also nice to come home a month later, even if my sleep schedule may yet take a little while to recover.
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