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Comment by ngokevin | Hacker News Reader

What I figured was Amtrak travelers were train enthusiasts or looking for a nostalgic scenic route. There are also some benefits such as less stress than an airport, being able to have a sleeper car, a dining car, more space, and panoramic cars as you go over mountains and through deserts (Western US).

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It seems illogical to cite being able to have a sleeper car as a reason to take a train instead of a plane, when the plane would have you to your destination the same day before bedtime.

It's also about saving a night's worth of hotel/accommodation money, especially if you happen to be a broke college student traveling across the country on a budget (like I was not too long ago).

I absolutely love overnight 'sleeper car' train journeys.

> It's also about saving a night's worth of hotel/accommodation money

How so? By flying, you can leave home a day or more later, and still get to your destination the same time.

Train case: Monday morning, leave your house and get on a train. Monday night, sleep on the train. Tuesday evening, get off the train at your destination and check into a hotel.

Plane case: Tuesday morning, leave your house and get on a plane. Tuesday evening, get off the plane at your destination and check into a hotel.

Either way, the first night you're paying for a hotel is Tuesday night. And it's not like you save on rent money by leaving home a day early.

Sometimes it's about the journey not the destination. Not everyone's in a rush.

Amtrak and trains in general are great if you can work remote. Being able to start working as soon as you get on the train if you have nothing better to do is amazing.

why not fly and get to your destination much faster and work remote from there?

So I can spend an extra 2h at the airport? No thanks. The best of both worlds is obviously high speed rail.

>What I figured was Amtrak travelers were train enthusiasts or looking for a nostalgic scenic route.

I was genuinely surprised at all the comments here from people stating they like Amtrak, but that makes a lot of sense. After a dozen or so trips on trains around Europe I now loathe Amtrak and don't see myself ever taking another ride with them outside of extraordinary circumstances.

I think most of the Amtrak likers here are comparing it to the plane travel experience, with all the hellish nonsense associated with that. It wins that comparison, even if it's mediocre for what the modern railway experience could be (not all of which is Amtrak's fault, as they don't own the rails.)

>I think most of the Amtrak likers here are comparing it to the plane travel experience, with all the hellish nonsense associated with that. It wins that comparison

I disagree, Amtrak is worse in my opinion. It has all the downsides of air travel except for TSA, but takes 2x-3x as long for most trips and cross country turns into days of travel.

Didn't Amtrak effectively do away with dining cars? Unless we want to call microwaving "dining".

> Didn't Amtrak effectively do away with dining cars?

No, though it suspended traditional dining for a while due to COVID; it was restored in June.

Neat! I was disappointed it'd been axed, as being less sensitive to amenity weight seemed a huge advantage of trains.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/amtrak-pla...

It looks like it's back on West long haul routes since June, scheduled to be reintroduced to East TBD.

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