> I could have bought an economy ticket for $150, but sitting for so long was out of the question. If I treat this as a cruise, I want a good level of comfort.
As someone who's done the Crescent (30 hours) and City of New Orleans + Lake Shore Limited (38 hours + layover) on Economy, you get about the same comfort sleeping, just none of the privacy. The seats in Economy are close to the ones in the bedrooms, you just can't lay them completely flat.
What you're paying $1,000 for is privacy and access to a shower.
Also:
> You can get a bedroom or roomette on an Amtrak sleeper car. A roomette fits two people, with the second person having to sleep on a bunk bed contraption under the room’s ceiling. I was going alone on this trip, and a roomette seemed to be the best choice.
The standard bedroom also sleeps two, and all Amtrak beds are "bunk bed contraptions". The bedroom gets you an in-room shower.
Indeed, there are four types of bedrooms:
- bedroom (seat and sofa that convert to beds, in-room shower)
- bedroom suite (two adjoining bedrooms, including both in-room bathrooms)
- family bedroom (4 seats that fold to beds, using the roomette shower shared with the car)
- accessible bedroom (larger wheelchair-friendlier roomette with its own sink, using the roomette shower shared with the car)
> I didn’t care much about which side of the train I was on because the scenery is very similar, no matter which way you look. This is more important if you take a train along the coastline
If you're on a north-south route, sunrises and sunsets matter a lot, not just for viewing but also determining when you wake up and go to sleep.
> I was happy to learn that Chicago has a decent public transit system.
I mean... which one? ;) Glad he did a shot of Malört before he left though, and Union Station is beautiful.
> I immediately noticed a lot of Amish people sitting in the large hall. This is because travel by plane is considered too modern and travel by train appears to be very popular amongst them.
They might've been Mennonites or Hutterites, who are also Anabaptists but don't have Amish rules on public electrical grids or motorized vehicles.
> I had a 7pm reservation and walked over to the car right in front of mine, the restaurant car. Because space is limited, you will sit with other passengers at tables holding 4 people. ... This is why the food is surprisingly delicious.
Some context: This traditional Amtrak dinner service is very recently back after several years of being cut, especially on the west coast. Availability varies by route and ticket type. It used to be on almost all long routes and available to coach passengers too; it might be back for coach passengers on some routes by now, it's been in the works on eastern trains since 2021.
> I spent almost the entire day in the observation car
This is really the key. The observation car, if your line has one, is the best part of the trip.
> For dinner, we closed the place down. The friendly staff had a bottle of wine to empty, and we were there, talking until almost midnight.
This is the thing too, unlike planes where the crews turn over pretty often between flights, a train line's crew is often on for the whole ride and pretty regular. You can get to know them pretty well if you make the effort, and they'll often remember you if you take the same route again.