I've never used one but imagining to go by night train from one part of Europe to another gives me a feeling of travelling somewhere as experience instead of it being a chore where being-en-route rather feels like not-being-there-yet.
For my next vacation I’m planning on taking the train from Seattle to San Francisco, for exactly this reason. I’ve told people about this and they all think I’m crazy: “It costs as much as flying and takes 22 hours, why would you do that?“ But they’re not getting that the train ride is the point.
Do it! The coast starlight is great. I have taken it a few times from Los Angeles to Oakland. It is so relaxing, the diner car is great and so is the observation car which is a fantastic place to camp out with a book. I've been meaning to take it up to Seattle. I'm sure it's beautiful going through Oregon and Northern California. When you take it to Los Angeles you go right by vendenberg air force base and the Space X and Nasa hangers.
Another upvote for this plan. I'm from the East Bay, in Seattle now, train is great to get down there. The time can be productive too. And the view is great.
another point is that by having to use more time for long distance travel, the relation between the substantial energy cost and the travel time becomes more reasonable from a "what if everyone uses the possibility to travel long distances for cheap" perspective