Hacker News Reader

Comment by cdrini | Hacker News Reader

I've taken the California zephyr a few times over the last few years and it's a phenomenal experience. I'm hoping to do the Chicago-San Francisco trip in the coming years.

My fear is that some influencer/personality is going to start posting about the train system, and then it's going to become a crowded mess :P It feels a bit like a well kept secret right now. I think one of the things that makes it so enjoyable is that it's so uncrowded most of the time. I almost always get two seats to myself every time I take it (in coach). And there's somehow always a table available in the observation car whenever I decide to go there. Or you sit with someone and make a new friend :P

Would highly recommend!

View on HN

I live next to Denver Union Station and coincidentally I took the California Zephyr for the first time yesterday (Saturday). I wanted to experience the train going up into the Rockies and back. I was surprised that seats were assigned; I got an aisle seat. I could mostly catch the scenery anyway, but that was a downside. They were passing out tickets to give more people a turn in the observation car, but they weren't switching until after I was scheduled to get off. I went up to Granby, CO and back. It was a beautiful day (maybe the last one for the season?). Friday, near Oakland, the train that was taking me back was stuck waiting for a bridge malfunction, so it was 4 hours behind. By the time it got to Granby, it was supposed to be 2.5 hours late, but as the day went on the timeline got pushed back until it was 3.5 hours late. It picked me up as it was getting dark after sunset, and the ride back was in the dark. The trip was amazing and disappointing at the same time.

Wow, that's really unfortunate. As I just wrote in a top-level comment, Denver to Salt Lake is definitely the highlight. You get to be up high above some of those creeks and passes where the road doesn't go. I hope you're able to try again in the future and sit in the panorama car.

It's definitely feasible to go almost any time I want, so I will do that!

Ah that's a shame! Haha yeah, I've found I've got to be a bit more flexible with timings, I've only taken the train a handful of times, but have already experienced a cancellation, and, separately, multi hour delay. But when the train is kind of the destination, a delay isn't too bad, tbh.

I wonder if I've gotten lucky with emptier trains because I generally tend to travel early in the morning? Not sure, it might just be luck; I hope you get to experience another train trip with fewer problems!

I've taken the family on the California Zephyr a few times — Emeryville to Omaha. On one trip when the (three) girls were older and we had a foreign exchange student the wife and I gave them their own sleeper cab.

Riding the train when I was I young was a memorable experience. I wondered if it would even be around when my daughters were older so wanted to give them that experience too.

We enjoy it every time.

As far as influencers, I love this guy on YouTube that has done a lot of train travel videos: https://www.youtube.com/@DownieLive

There are a lot of transit focused “creators” already documenting their trips - the one I tend to follow on YouTube is Miles in Transit but he often intersects with other creators as well

It's less the transit creators I'm worried about, since that's pretty niche. It's if a general influencer starts sharing aesthetics of train travel on eg Instagram which I think would cause its usage to boom.

I understand where you're coming from, but in the long run it'd be a great thing to see this kind of boom in the U.S. If only a tiny fraction of the gobs of cash that are being shoveled into political ads right now were going to some of these influencers to promote train travel instead...

Though most people really aren't in a position to take the train instead of flying for anything other than a vacation. Good luck with your 4x expense account for taking an extra day to travel from NYC to Chicago--much less anything further.

What you're missing is that it's a chicken-or-egg problem.

Trains aren't that expensive, at least in coach. Eg a trip from San Francisco to Reno for Jan 15th is $69 flying, or $72 by train riding coach. If you get a private room, then it's expensive, $430 !

And I've also found you don't have to book as far ahead with trains. Eg for tomorrow, that same trip is $287 by plane, or $60 by train.

Well, yes perhaps. But I’m not taking a coach seat on an 18 hour trip from NY to Chicago.

Ah I see what you mean; I agree, for longer travel, you'd be budgeting the train more as part of your vacation as opposed to travel towards a destination.

Personally, I want to take the Chicago to SF train, and do a few day stops in various cities instead of getting the sleeper car. So it would probably be about ~1w of travel.

Yeah I get that sentiment. My concern is that the ways in which the train system would grow to handle the new scale might be non-ideal. Eg it would probably be higher prices, more packed trains, smaller seats, long before it's what I imagine is what you're hoping for which is more trains, better trains, more tracks. Although long term that might be the better approach!

Trains have been all over social media forever. The only reason they aren’t packed is because the logistics of taking an Amtrak long distance are miserable.

The zephyr is a destination, not a mode of travel.

This is true, 100% agree. But I do think with more people being remote now as compared to five years ago, zephyr as a destination might resonate with more people now, since folks can be more flexible with their timing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com