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Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I did this several years back, New York to Chicago to San Francisco, and it really was a wonderful experience.

But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle. It's worth it, really.

And that's even though we spent little time in our compartment almost the whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by.

One highlight of the trip was when storms over Helper, UT, washed out some of the ballast from the tracks. We had to wait three hours for someone from the railroad to come inspect to see if it was safe to pass. While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.

It's just a great way to see samples of everything America has to offer.

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> While waiting, there was a guy with a guitar in the observation car, and we had a nice sing-along.

That bit sounds like hell to me but I'm glad you had fun! In the UK we have special carriages where you're not allowed to make a noise so you can avoid that kind of thing.

After 14 hours of silence you might think twice!

Spending 14 hours alone in silence is the sort of day I fantasize about.

Amtrak has quiet cars, at least in the Northeast. I often take Boston-NYC and there seem to be a lot of business travelers. People who are riding in a train across Utah are probably in it for the experience.

Capitol Corridor also has a quiet car but all it means is you are assured of having to inform some bozo of that fact because the fraction of riders on their first train ride ever is very high.

The line in the Pacific Northwest that I've been on also had quiet cars.

Thats because there is a cultural difference between how americans and europeans see trains. For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation.

I once saw a large party of school children going on a trip on the Caltrain. Turned out they weren't going anywhere... it was just going on the train that was the activity. A commuter train running alongside a highway through urban sprawl. They were whooping when it pulled into the station.

I've taken the train in Minneapolis from the mall to downtown several times, purely for the novelty of it. We have a lot of freight trains in Iowa. Passenger, not so much.

I live a few blocks from that train, so I wind up taking it all the time to get to the mall or downtown. The novelty wears off, and you wind up mostly worried about having to share your ride with packs of unruly teenagers, or sports fans heading downtown who can't resist saying racist things about our various African immigrant neighbors. It's a pleasure or a drag, depending on the manners of those who share the ride.

One Iowan to another: you didn't ride a train in Minneapolis. You rode a streetcar (tram in British). And yes, only the southeast corner of Iowa is served at all by passenger rail. Would be nice if they extended the Hawkeye Express to CR, or better yet, Amtrak service from Davenport to IC to DSM. Alas, not enough $$$ to make it worth doing.

The Northstar line north of Minneapolis is a "real" train that run on normal tracks:

https://www.metrotransit.org/northstar-line

The lines that goes between the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, and St Paul are light rail, and are faster than what would normally be considered a "tram" or "streetcar".

I'd think it still counts as being a train. Obviously it's short-distance light rail, but it's still got all the main feature's of a train.

I mainly mentioned it since the parent comment was about a group of girls getting on the train purely for the experience of being on the train, and my experience seemed pretty similar.

Don't know that it terribly matters one way or the other though I guess.

If you really want to get technical, the key defining characteristic of a train is that it consists of multiple connected railway vehicles that move together. A railway vehicle is of course a vehicle that runs on tracks.

So there are some tram/streetcar/light rail systems out there (like the one in New Orleans) that consist of individual railway vehicles, and are thus not trains.

Amtrak is heavy rail - that's light rail, which is kinda different.

Ha my children both did that in preschool (aged about 3) here in the UK.

I don't think it would have been many children's first trip either, just a cheap morning's entertainment for the nursery...

>large party of school children going on a trip on the Caltrain.

Haha when I took Caltrain daily to mountain view this was my nightmare. Bluetooth headphones and a white noise app were a requirement.

Those field trip days, and the rides home on baseball game days... I do not miss that commute.

Knowing I was going to miss the last "Baby Bullet" out of SF to San Jose because a meeting ran late was one of the biggest kick in the guts. I do not miss that commute at all.

I take the Caltrain almost daily to mountain view, and I feel the exact opposite. Usually I look around and everyone has their bose headphones on while working on their macbook pro. It feels like were all drones, working 24/7 waiting to die. Where as game days/school trips are the highlight of my commute, it feels more human IMO.

I grew up in the eastbay, and at least while I was growing up, the bart train was a friendly environment of people interacting with one another. Obviously it came with some not so pleasant things (i.e. homelessness and unwanted touching) but more human none-the-less.

If you don't mind me asking where did you move to ?

Downtown SF

We did a school trip to ride the surfliner from Ventura to Santa Barbara a few times. Also once to ride the historic train in Fillmore. Good times.

While it's fun for the kids it's also important for them to get used to and respect trains. I've found that kids who grow up in places where trains aren't as popular don't develop a healthy fear of them. When my son saw train tracks for the first time at 2 yrs old his first reaction was to run towards them. So trips like these can teach kids how to properly act at a train station.

When I first read fear I thought you meant of the terrible infrastructure of trains in the US :)

I mean, my 4 year old son begs me to go on the train all the time.

I used to like to ride the Staten Island Ferry in both directions in the middle of the night just for the peacefulness of it. That and long 3am walks through midtown east/UES were fantastic ways to clear my head.

Trains can also be pretty quaint in Europe today now that low cost airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer cheap flights to most major cities. I live in Berlin and even domestic trains are far more expensive than domestic flights to medium and large cities.

Ignorant American question. Why is this the case? What are the costs that railroads are having to pay that makes them more expensive?

This video does a pretty good job of explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA

So long as fuel is reasonably priced, planes can take more people farther, faster it is simple economics. Trains are still preferable for local trips and even some medium range trips, but to go all the way across Europe by train would be terribly expensive compared to taking a cheap flight.

That doesn't really answer the question. What about planes is cheaper? For simple economics to apply, they have to do something cheaper than trains, and it's not obvious what that is. As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile.

Planes most likely benefit from the economies of scale, simply for the huge number of riders they service in comparison with trains for longer stretches.

The complicated area of railroad tracks probably doesn't help either. Someone is paying for them and the maintenance is frequent judging by the business my friends working on the railroads get.

There are several reasons why flying can be so cheap in Europe:

1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.

2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance.

3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is that they've become giant malls that want to get people through them, so landing fees have steadily gone down (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).

4. Some airlines (more specifically Ryanair) fly to cheaper/more outlier airports. If you take a Ryanair flight to Paris, you're landing in Beauvais Airport, which is almost halfway to the english channel. You'll then have to take a bus. When in europe, I usually prefer Easyjet for the reason that though they're more expensive, you're landing at an airport with decent transit to the city you're visiting.

5. There's no frills at all. If you're just flying with no luggage, you won't believe how cheap it can be (I flew from madrid to london for 25 euros). But the fills aren't cheap. Checked baggage is more than the cost of the flight, food is a rip off, etc.

Also, trains in europe are still often state-owned (not the case everywhere, I know), so they're forced to run uneconomical lines for political purposes, etc.

So in short, European flights have doggedly cut all ancillary costs while rail has not done so quite as heavily/aggressively?

Airlines are able to externalize costs that rail lines are not able to.

> (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).

Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.

My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.

I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.

[1] https://www.corriere.it/economia/17_marzo_18/cento-milioni-a...

> 1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.

As a european who moved to the US recently, this was mind boggeling the first time I boarded a plane in the US. I arrived at the airport expecting a typical 10 minute boarding time, but kept getting more surprised at how inefficient they managed to make boarding a plane as time passed. Just the time spend waiting in the plane at the gate before they let you get out seems to be longer in some cases than the typical turnaround time for euro flights.

Not having to maintain thousands of miles of rail seems like a big cost savings right up front. Trains should have lower fuel costs, but fuel really isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. People are also willing to give up some creature comforts if the trip is short which helps airlines. Trains also have a lower throughput of passengers compared to employee hours, so salary costs per passenger are higher.

The simple economics is in passenger volume. A plane can carry more people, to more destinations within Europe, several times a day.

Your statement that "As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile" definitely has some merit, but... trains are only more fuel efficient per passenger if they are as full as planes. An Airbus with 180 passengers might beat a train in per passenger miles if the train is not loaded.

Considering that, trains definitely are cheaper for highly utilized routes (commuting routes, for example), but for a leisurely trip across Europe, an Airbus packed to the gils could be cheaper.

I'm also an ignorant american, but I've traveled Europe for months by rail and air.

By american standards, both methods are dirt cheap.

Ryanair cuts every cost you can imagine. No free water or pretzels, tiny seating area, no first class, outskirts airports, no checked or carry on, tarmac boarding.

On trains you get sufficient space to stretch your legs, a power outlet, wifi, unlimited baggage etc. and you get to arrive and depart in the city center.

I think the pricing is based upon consumer value more than service costs.

This is worth your 8 minutes of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ I love trains, but the economics of rail travel in the USA can't be overcome. Until robot trains.

I have seen that and agree that country-wide train service is indeed expensive, but there really should be better offerings on the east coast that could compete against bus service. Being on a train with plenty of room has a huge quality advantage over buses and the scaling of their carrying capacity means that companies can be more free in allowing luggage and seating space than the economics of planning the layout of a bus.

Train service in the US Northeast is pretty good at least for the cities it services. It's not price-competitive with Megabus but is train anywhere competitive pricewise with discount buses?

at least for the cities it services

And that's the catch. I've been told that years ago it was better, but try to catch a train to a secondary city in New England and you'll often find that the only offering is an occasional Amtrak branded bus.

Fair enough. It's mostly the coastal corridor that's good with a couple on inland spurs from NY/New Haven up to St. Albans and Montreal that aren't terrible. But otherwise, there's something of a gap between commuter rail systems (which are pretty hub and spoke in any case) and what Amtrak covers.

As a former vermonter... The St. Albans service is terrible, trains go into Essex Junction (basically, Burlington) once a day and the train leaves NYC at 11:33 am and gets in at 8:18 pm, eight hours for what is a five hour drive with a single train a day.

I don't disagree that some other services might be alright, but that's clearly not one of them.

I haven't kept up on those services. I know they've come and gone over the years but I was being charitable. I used to semi-regularly take the train from White River Junction to Philadelphia but I pretty much only use the Acela/Northeast Regional these days and that's really the "good-ish" part of the service I'm aware of. (Where good-ish is defined as preferable to driving, the bus, and plane--so long as not doing the whole length.)

New Haven? Ugh. Connecticut fucks with Amtrak relentlessly. Take a look at how Acela slows to a crawl out there.

Part of it is fuel tax (which planes don't pay in Europe). I'm speculating, but I'd guess that the maintenance on the tracks is pretty significant. Planes don't have that issue.

Trains need a lot of infrastructure, meaning maintenance and construction costs (i.e. tracks and stations). Also, as they are slower, wage costs can be higher than planes.

In no particular order:

1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity

2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.

3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).

4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.

Railways also have the externality of stopping all traffic.

More of an issue for lumbering freight trains than passenger trains though.

This came up in something related: the Dutch Greens have been campaigning recently to reduce or eliminate flights to and from Schiphol within a 750 km radius, in favour of trains.

Answering your question, on the issue of price they note that no fuel tax is is paid on airplanes fuel and no VAT (21%) on flight tickets.

I think it’s a clever win/win play: reducing short haul flights in favour of railways not only reduces emissions and noise pollution, but it also frees up some capacity at Schiphol.

And there’s been some success already: the house has accepted a motion to eliminate the Schiphol-Brussels route.

Are they?

Düsseldorf-Munich for 26,70€ including reserving a seat.

Kiel-Düsseldorf 29,90€. To get back, 26,90€.

Kiel-Munich and back for 53,80€.

Not even Ryanair is that cheap, especially when you consider that with trains you don’t have to go through security, have none of the check-in times and other bullshit, and can take luggage without paying a 60€ surcharge.

None of those are to or from Berlin. Munich might have cheaper rail options than Berlin, especially since Munich is a more traditional hub of industry. Flights Berlin to Köln are definitely cheaper than trains. Generally in my experience flights in Europe are less expensive than trains YMMV.

Düsseldorf-Berlin is available for 19,90€, I doubt flights are much cheaper than that.

You just have to check sites like https://bahn.guru/ to find the cheapest connections.

I wouldn't say that difference holds for all americans. The trains in northeast corridor, which serve ~50 million people (~15% of us population) also have no-talking cars. But to your point, train service is treated as a basic form of transportation there.

That's a wild generalization, based on a lack of experience or knowledge. A number of passenger railroads in the United States also have quiet cars. Metra comes to mind, but I know I've seen others.

For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation

You're either repeating outdated cliches from the internet, or you must not live in a large metropolitan area with passenger train service.

In America, "large metropolitan area with passenger train service" is the exception, not the norm.

I don't think this is actually true.

Looking at the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas in the US, you're already at nearly half the population of the US. And I know from the experience of having ridden commuter rail in most of those that most of them have commuter rail, i.e. passenger train service.

You've got to go pretty far down the list to find one without commuter rail or even a subway/light rail system (which I'm not counting as passenger train service).

If it isn't the majority, it's at least a normal experience for a huge swath of the population.

I'm reminded of the three panel meme comic.

"Yeah, we have passenger train service"

"good passenger train service?"

"Hey, lets not get ahead of ourselves"

Fortunately, that should suggest that it's OK in the other carriages.

The observation car is a special car you can visit that has better visibility. Nobody is forced to go there.

But some people might want the observe the sights and not have a lot of noise around them, right? Not really sure it's fair to pollute a public space with your music when not everyone might like it, or have the confidence to say when they don't like it. Not very nice to say to people you're going to subject them to music and if they don't like it their only option is to leave. Doesn't really sound right does it?

Most of the ride the observation car was quiet. The sing-along was a welcome diversion from the anxiety and ennui of sitting for hours waiting to see if the train would be allowed to proceed.

The train was stopped, so if someone left the viewing car they weren't missing anything.

A bit more of the story. Where we were stopped was the the side of a mountain. On the uphill side was a similarly-stopped freight train, with an oil tanker car right next to us. Below us was a raging, flooded, river (on account of the same storms that washed out the track). And up above was a cliff, with a boulder on top that seemed maybe a little precarious.

So we were sitting there wondering if the same storm that eroded the tracks had maybe eroded the cliff around that boulder, allowing it to tumble down through the oil tanker to send us plunging into the flood waters below.

Brooding over that was less fun than the distraction of the sing-along.

Maybe, but having to view the scenery from your own seat instead of from the observation car is pretty far removed from “hell.”

Seems a bit selfish that you leave people the only option of moving to avoid noise.

Again, “a bit selfish” and “hell” are worlds apart. I was just addressing the latter.

The observation car is a specific car for socializing and community gathering. If you want less noise you just don't need to go there.

Even if the guy was really good?

I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience.

I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acoustics and a room full of drunk people singing along to the Eagles or Sublime or maybe even Weezer...

Now, it helps to have a professional level acoustic guitar and, of course, a professional lead singer to hide everyone's mistakes, but it can be a magical, cathartic experience when the room all sings at the top of their lungs...

Great memories.

I guess I’m just a grump who doesn’t like being subjected to music no matter how good they think they are.

I think Brits find public singing embarrassing, and even more so if the person doing it is right next to you, and a complete stranger. It gets worse if it involves a guitar.

Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved.

I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance awkward; we try to sit quietly and pretend it isn't even happening, eg. not even looking at the person making the disturbance. eg. some people arguing at the back of the bus probably won't make people at the front of the bus turn around or tell them to shut up.

In the US observing someone showcasing a skill in public is usually not enjoyable but there is less of an emphasis on decorum and politeness and more of that good ol'libretarian individualism so going out into public and demonstrating how heart stoppingly amazing you are is a pretty common occurrence.

I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.

Opting in to that experience is one thing. I would hate it if someone I couldn't get away from started a sing-along.

> Even if the guy was really good?

Yes, even if the guy is really good. You can stand not being the center of attention for a few hours.

I am viscerally repulsed by public music playing in places where I can't reasonably escape. The absolute worst that I'm frequently stuck with is busking in NYC subway cars/stations. The music is usually terrible, although sometimes good, and on rare occasions great, but I don't think it should be allowed at all.

I don't have as much of a problem with street-corner busking, in large part because it can be avoided, but even that drives me nuts when I can't get away from it (outside a place I work, for example).

I love music, and when I'm in the mood, I'll seek out a street performance. City parks are great for this, and I think they're an appropriate venue. A rail car is not even remotely appropriate, and a subway station during your unavoidable morning commute, with loud brass instruments and a shitty PA system, echoing off the walls, ought to be a crime.

> That bit sounds like hell to me

Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire

Hey, the moaning bit IS the fun.

This is why all our greatest comedy is people moaning... Life of Brian, Holy Grail, Fawlty Towers, Little Britain, the list goes on...

I’ll quote Jerry Seinfeld here: “I can’t watch a man sing a song.”

Jerry and I share sentiments on this.

Are you Carl?

I am not now nor have I ever been Carl.

I think the USA doesn't do silence.

The regular passenger cars do have noise restrictions. It's only in the meal and observation cars.

At least in the northeast corridor (basically the only place in the US where trains are usable as transportation), there are "quiet cars" as well.

>That bit sounds like hell to me

John Belushi concurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqpNQ9AJYgU

I once was headed to MacWorld at the Moscone Centre on business with my partner. We flew from Toronto to Chicago, where we took the California Zephyr to Oakland.

After MacWorld we did a little sightseeing, then took the Coast Starlight to Portland, where we changed to the Empire Builder back to Chicago.

Except what actually happened was that an avalanche in the Cascades held us up until a work train called "Snowball" showed up to clear the tracks. It had a massive snowblower, a plow, a flat car, a crane car, and a couple of coaches full of workers and equipment.

We then missed our connection, so they loaded us on double-decker buses that raced to catch up with the Empire Builder. It was very memorable.

I'll take economic umbrage at "don't sit with the cattle". When I traveled from Chicago to SF on the California Zephyr (40-ish hours), a seat was $100 and a sleeper car was over $1,000; for reference, a flight between the two is about $200. Being able to afford such a sleeper car is the sort of luxurious expense that most vacationers will likely prefer to spend on going to a more exotic destination by plane.

(I do recommend the California Zephyr, and second the parent's suggestion of spending the whole of it in the observation car, but skip the part of the route between Chicago and Denver; Denver and onward is where the real action's at.)

If you're buying a sleeper car ticket, you should be comparing it to an international business class flight with a lie-flat seat. Not a domestic flight in economy.

I'd agree only if our benchmark of comparison is "I want to travel while sleeping", but the value of flying is that you get there so fast that you usually don't even need to sleep. The journey from Chicago to SF is eight times longer by train than by plane, and, price aside, the only value proposition is a (very) scenic view; considering price, you can either spend half the price of flying in exchange for two rough nights stretched diagonally across two train seats, or five times the price of flying for two nights of decent sleep.

I did Denver -> SF this past summer and it was absolutely unreal. I was extremely happy I did it, the sights were gorgeous, and it was an awesome time to just sit and think while some of the West's most gorgeous scenery passes by.

> whole trip we were up in the observation car watching the American landscape roll by

My family went by train from Flagstaff, AZ to Trinidad, CO for a wedding and the observation car was amazing, it was part of the Southwest Chief route [1].

Even through what you'd think would be boring stretches of New Mexico not one scene wasn't awe inspiring. We got to see landscapes out of westerns and mostly away from roads/main bustle, but you'd be surprised how there is always something to see and almost always people living out there. We had to go through the Rockies in historic coal mining country Colorado and had to stop once for freight trains to go by, but the views were amazing. It is fun to lookup what you are going through on Google maps and finding lots of interesting stuff. Trinidad, CO was a nice little interesting historical town, once a border town, where Fishers Peak was a guiding landmark for settlers on the Santa Fe Trail, with Native American, pioneer and Spanish history, that has a Masonic cemetery, old limestone masonry buildings and underground tunnels for coal, once the sex change capital of the world, and today it is now a cannabis hot spot [2].

Best part of the train is the view and you can get up and walk around unlike on a plane, the rides are longer of course but more flexible to move while traveling which is nice. I brought my laptop to work but the views were too good to pass up.

If I had more time I'd love to take the train all across the US. I wish there were more trains simply to see the less busy areas and interesting viewpoints you can't see from the road.

Amtrak does leave lots to be desired in terms of technology, price, the food (dining car wasn't good) and general areas like maintenance, but the observation car was difficult not to be up there the entire time.

[1] https://www.amtrak.com/routes/southwest-chief-train.html

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/health/trinidad-colorado-smal...

In Europe there has historically been an "Interrail" ticket, aimed to allow backpackers to travel in EU countries outside of their own with a single, dirt cheap pass, valid for a month or so on each country's rail network (of course, cheapest seating and class).

I did two of them and they are some of the best travel experiences I had in my life.

Yep, and it was also a sort of "rite of passage" that every 18 year old took or wished to take.

I never did it (though I have taken quite a few trains in Europe) but in the 70s or thereabouts spending a summer after graduation or whenever traveling with a "Eurail Pass" (whatever the proper name was) was almost a chiche.

I can confirm that it was still a thing in the '80's.

And it still exists (just for the record):

https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass

But of course the times have changed.

The huge thing about this was that for most young people at the time the 18 years birthday meant a lot, in most EU countries that was (is) a "threshold" you become to all effects an adult and getting an Eurail ticket was the first "totally independent" travel experience without the family, and you got for an all in all affordable to everyone amount of money "freedom", you met a lot of other young people doing the same, you could try to start a conversations with someone (a "peer") in (actually usually much improvised) other language, you could visit places you had only read about in books, etc.

It was a great experience.

One thing I've noticed that makes it such a wonderful experience is that the trains still use the old tracks (not literally the same metal, but the same paths) that were laid down decades or even centuries prior. So as you roll through these small towns, you are often seeing the old parts that are full of character and charm, not the strip-malls or Wal-Marts. I love that.

Agree. I did a round trip about 12 years ago: Boston-DC-Chicago-Sacramento-LA-San Antonio-Chicago-Boston. Ten days on the train over 14 days. It was awesome. I brought lots of electronic entertainment and never used it. I spent endless hours just looking at parts of the country I've only ever flown over and met many interesting folks.

I’ve done Shanghai to Urumqi before in a hard sleeper. I don’t think I really saw much outside (no observation car, monotonous farming fields), but the people on the train were really interesting (eg Pakistani traders using the train to get back home).

I did the Shanghai/Beijing bullet with some friends who had never been to China, it was great perspective for them and me to see all the massive cities in between that are not known outside of China but the size of New York City

I went Shanghai to the Yellow Mountains on a very old, slow sleeper train. It was basically a dormitory, with bunks three high. And you don't want to know about the bathrooms - it's really just a hole in the floor, falling onto the tracks.

But even so, it was a wonderful experience. The Chinese landscape is nothing short of awesome. And the culture that unfolded was completely unknown to me, so constantly interesting.

One thing that really made me take notice was the wide range of people. On the way to the Shanghai train station, we had walked by a Lamborghini dealership (I don't recall ever having seen even one of these in the USA) - there's a not-insignificant population of filthy rich people in and around Shanghai. But on the train we saw people peasants using an ox to plow a rice paddy of only a fraction of an acre. The degree of inequality was hugely wider than America or any other nation I've seen.

EDIT: the Shanghai airport maglev train was an interesting experience just to say I've gone 300+mph on a train, but otherwise totally boring.

Yes, that is what we call a hard sleeper :). A soft sleeper in contrast is usually four bunks in its own room.

I’ve also done Shanghai to Changsha and Changsha to kunming like that. It gets interesting west of hunan.

There's some amazing scenery at the Urumqi end. E.g. I took this photo somewhere around there: https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/m3Wh2REpqnPIjHxe5FKNZQ...

One of the most memorable ride was a trip from Vietnam to Kunming in the 90s. I hope this old line is still running. The train travels along a canyon. The view is incomparably stunning.

China rail have pretty bad hygiene at that time. The passengers freely throw their trash on the floor and out of the window. The attendants swiped the floor every few hours. Every time they pushed a mountain of peanut husk away. There was a peasant family on board with a baby. The baby needed to relief. So the parents held him up to have him shit on the floor. The attendant saw it and really lost it. She scolded the hell out of the family.

I heard about that rail line, it was supposed to be very slow given the gauge of the line put in by the French who built it. Passenger service stopped in 2005 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming–Haiphong_railway.

Sad. I thought I saw it coming.

That reminds me of the song America, it's about a bus ride, but similar idea about the journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM

> But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle.

Cattle?

"Economy class, also called scum class, steerage, standard class or cattle class, is the lowest travel class of seating in air travel, rail travel, and sometimes ferry or maritime travel."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_class

"Cattle class" is a kinda faux-pejorative term for economy/coach/whatever the cheapest cabin is in some mode of transport.

Faux-pejorative indeed. Cattle are required to be given more space when being transported, than humans are, in Europe. Human class is below cattle class.

I don't think that's true. Have you seen how they move cattle in trucks? Maybe more space than a human because they take up more space, but they stacked right next to each other.

Have you seen the commuter trains in some larger European cities, like London, Paris, Brussels (I think)...?

People sometimes aren't just stacked, they're squashed.

India produces some real champions in this sport, the euros don't stand a chance. They have leagues up to "super-dense crush load", 14-16 people per square meter. It's still hard to believe this is possible...

"Cattle class" is an established joke, best employed by those actually riding in it.

"Don't sit with the cattle" is (IMHO) pretty harsh, and unnecessary.

And, for the record, cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats, in the days before the bed capsules. It's not a cabin but it might be the least-cramped train seating you will ever encounter.

cattle class seats are (or were) about the size of first-class airline seats

This is true, they're FAR better than standard airline seats. On the other hand, if you're going NY to SF you're going to be sitting in them for 3 days, so they better be comfortable.

> But get a sleeper compartment, don't sit with the cattle

But then you have to ask why the train is stopped in the middle of a crossing, rather than just knowing it's so the train police could remove the dude a few seats over.

If I were going with a partner, a sleeper seems compelling. But alone, the back is more than fine.

> It's worth it, really

How much does it cost?

An absolute fortune. I've looked into this, and it isn't economical in any way, shape, or form. Flying across the continent is MUCH cheaper, and with your number of vacation days usually being limited, gives you a lot more time at your destination. The only reason to do this is because you really want to spend your vacation time sitting in a train watching rural American scenery go by in states like Montana. It's sort of like taking a cruise ship, except a lot more expensive and the food isn't as good (or even included in the price I think) and there's not much to do on the train except watch the scenery and talk to people.

If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights, it'd be more comfortable than an airplane's economy seats, and the ridership would probably be higher (which would lead to lower costs). As it is, long-distance rail travel in the US is an expensive disaster.

$2k is hardly an "absolute fortune". For the typical hackernews software developer this is something like a week's worth of work for one of the most unforgettable experiences of their lives.

I totally agree with you.

But compared to a one way flight, which can be had for as little as 100 bucks it's still pretty steep.

Alas, the experience certainly cannot be compared. It's not about getting to the destination, when you take the train. You pay for the entire experience.

I can go to Europe for 2 weeks for $2k or so, all-inclusive. Spending that much money just to sit on a train and look out a window sounds like a fortune to me. Maybe for very sedentary people it's an attractive option. Even a cruise ship is a more active experience, since there's a LOT more to do on a cruise ship, and you can probably do that for less than $2k as well if you avoid all the extras.

I just looked it up.

A sleeper for one is ~1'800$. About 300 more if you're two.

That's about half of a yearly train pass for Switzerland (2nd class). The pass allowes you to travel in virtually any mode of transportation without restrictions. Except for taxis, some boats and some mountain railways.

So yeah, that's pretty steep.

In fairness, the continental United States are over 195 times the size of Switzerland.

but only 12 times the width

A similar cross country sleeper trip could be around 50$ in India, though by Indian speeds it may take the train several days, it is common for train rides India to last more than 2 full days. The longest distance passenger train on the Indian network takes close to 80 hours one way.

Amtrak was selling Phoenix-New Orleans tickets for $79 around the new year (not sleeper though). These days you can get bargains on certain east coast routes on roomette tickets if you go on trains that they’ve pulled the dining car off of.

We can build your bullet train as soon as California finishes theirs.

As pure transit, I agree with you.

But that price includes the sleeper and meals. If you view this as the vacation itself, it's not far off the price you'd be paying for hotels and meals.

Yeah, that's why I compared it to a cruise ship. But on the cruise ship, the food is probably a lot better, you have lots of activities on board (games, casinos, gym, massage parlor, fancy restaurants, shows, concerts, swimming pool, tennis court, etc.) and lots of space to walk around, and it stops at several ports of call during the trip. With the train, you get none of that, maybe a few short stops in rural towns on the way but not long enough to get off. I guess if you want to spend your whole vacation just sitting down and looking out a window, it's ok...

I'd indeed say it costs more than most people are willing to pay.

That said, a sleeper car on Amtrak gets you: a flat surface to lie down on, your own toilet (note the toilet is just there in the roomette, next to the bunk, prison style), access to a shower (your own shower in the rooms, one per car for the roomettes), access to the first class lounges, and includes meals in the dining car.

Rooms have a slightly wider lower bunk versus roomettes to sleep 2 (skinny) people and an enclosed toilet so you don't lose mystery from your romantic or work relationships. Roomettes are too small for a first world prison cell but have the beds oriented parallel to the direction of travel, which many people find more comfortable -- the rocking of the train is more soothing and less jarring.

If you have the time, don't mind paying four-star hotel prices for a two-star experience, and hate flying or have a medical condition that makes it infeasible you should definitely consider it.

Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.

> Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.

This sounds like fun. I wonder if there are any European routes that are as long/uninterrupted that I could try that on.

Not really - the only trains taking longer than 24 hours in Europe are the sleepers to Moscow, and the longest of those (Nice-Moscow) only takes 48 hours. There are then much longer trains from Moscow into Asia though, up to the famous Trans-Siberian (6 days).

I went London-Japan overland but my longest single segment was two and a half days (Moscow-Shymkent), and that was about right - time to relax and do nothing for a bit, but by the third morning I had definitely spent enough time in the same compartment, as nice as it was.

>I wonder if there are any European routes that are as long/uninterrupted that I could try that on.

The London to Ft. William sleeper, when there's leaves on the line?

Not really within the EU - we have reasonably fast rail that prioritises passenger travel over freight - but e.g. Moscow to Beijing takes 6 or 7 nights, and you could get to Moscow itself by sleeper train if you're up for it.

This. I’m taking the train from Tucson to New Orleans in a few days and am looking forward to ~40 uninterrupted hours.

> Or, if you're on this site, it's a great excuse to sit in a small room with a view and not talk to anyone for several days, just read, write and program.

With spotty cellphone reception, so if you want to disconnect from constant connectivity that's also an interesting way.

It's a great experience, but if you're thinking of just sitting in there and programming in a room with a view, keep in mind that the scenery changes and is pretty amazing, which might distract you from programming.

>If we had 300mph bullet trains going across the country, it would make some sense because you'd get there a lot faster while still seeing the sights

You should take a TGV, you'll realize that at 300kph you don't see the sights.

Yes, you would in America. It's a question of simple geometry and perspective. I haven't ridden TGV, but I'm guessing you're talking about smaller things, probably man-made ones (e.g. buildings), maybe trees, relatively close to the train. You're not going to see anything like that when riding a train across Montana. Instead, you're going to see enormous wide-open natural spaces, with absolutely nothing really close to the train. So even at a speed 2-4x that of Amtrak's, you'll see it just fine.

All TGVs run at 300kph in the countryside, which is (on a smaller scale), just open spaces. The speed reduces your field of vision.

According to the first paragraph in the article, it costs $1,089.

Does "sleeper car" mean you're getting a bed, or just that you're riding in that car but maybe in a seat? I'm not familiar with train travel, sorry.

You get seats in a cabin that convert into bed(s).

Coach/economy/steerage means you spend the night in your seat. Sleeper means you get to sleep (in a bed).

But you get a whole 'room' to yourself for that price or just get bunk in a room with a bunch of other people.

In the case of Amtrak, I believe they're all private. (By contrast when I took an overnight train in China a few years back it was a shared bunkroom though there were probably different options available.)

The sleepers are all individual rooms of some description with 1-2 beds. There are some larger up to 4 adults. There are no hostel style bunk cars on trains. You're either sleeping in seats or in a room.

https://www.amtrakvacations.com/blog/3-important-things-to-k... (just googling 'amtrak sleeper' gets you this info!)

Then $1000 doesn't seem that expensive really, especially if that includes in-room shower and toilet

Common showers, but this wasn't a problem at all for us.

The NY<->Chicago line had toilets in the compartment - but I mean in the compartment, not a separate bathroom. So not so great.

The California Zephyr (Chicago<->SF) has common toilets. The one in our sleeper car was broken for the whole trip, for which Amtrak only gave us the slightest nod of recognition.

There are three in every sleeper car, so the failure of one is not a huge problem.

Canada's Via Rail trains have hostel-style bunk beds, called berths, double-stacked on both sides of the corridor, with a heavy curtain covering them. During the day they are converted into open compartments with couch-style seating.

Yes. It means you get a bed. Even most people who ride Amtrak regularly aren't familiar with them. (I've never actually seen one on Amtrak in person.) They're only on long distance trains.

https://www.amtrak.com/onboard-the-train-sleeping-accommodat...

Now you're just pulling my leg...

Here's a recent article that I found that describes the sleeping cars in detail: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/trai...

That’s a pretty interesting article—I can think of a site where you can share that, people might like it.

It's very cheap to do in coach. I think I paid $300 or so. The key thing is to get off and spend some time at the major stops (Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City).

When evaluating the price, consider that it is also a hotel room and comes with free meals. Compare it to air fare + hotel room for X days + decent meals for X days and the price becomes less painful.

I'm not sure that is the right comparison. Let's take a New York to Los Angeles trip.

That would be 3 days on Amtrak, or about 6 hours by plane.

I'd guess that for most cases flying instead of taking the train doesn't mean we spend the 6 days that we would have spent on the train (round trip) in a Los Angeles hotel eating expensive restaurant meals. I think most people would simply leave home later and leave Los Angeles earlier if flying, so that the time difference is spent at home eating whatever they normally eat.

My base assumption is that one goes on Amtrak for the scenery. So it's not at all like being at home; it's more like being at a scenic resort.

Note that some people use Amtrak because they are afraid of flying. This way of looking at the prices does not apply to them.

The scenery, the experience, and (while I don't really like the term) the "bucket list" nature of it.

Personally, I sort of want to do at least a section of the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr at some point. And I'd also like to take a transatlantic liner (well, the Queen Mary 2) from NY to Southampton. But probably only once and I'm fully prepared for the idea to be more enticing than the reality.

Amtrak's been stripping meals out of the service to save money. The Silver Star [correction: not Silver Meteor also], which runs the length of the east coast from Maine to Florida and back, for example, has no meal car. You can buy the roomettes and the rooms, still for significantly more than a plane ticket, but they do not come with meals. There's a "snack" car for all passengers with a microwave where you can buy chips or a hot dog, and it's only open some of the time. The sleeper cars are also dirty and falling apart, and there is no observation car.

Quick correction to this comment as I just took the silver meteor recently from FL-NY. Meals are definitely included when booking a room. The dining car has been renovated so perhaps meals were unavailable at some point. The price is significantly more than a plane ticket and while the rooms are older I would not consider them dirty. Sleep is difficult IMO as you do stop, bump around and you’ll occasionally get some random rattling. There is no observation car but they do have a lounge car with tables and snacks. You could get microwave meals like pizza, burgers, etc. Definitely not gourmet fair. The dining car meal is a significant step up and while not winning any Michelin stars is surprisingly decent.

Silver Meteor still has one. Only Silver Star dropped it.

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