Also, this guy documented his trip from Vienna to Pyongyang, North Korea: http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/
One tip: if you're thinking of making the journey, bring a small hose with you so you can hook it onto the sink and have a little shower. Also, there are companies that will arrange home stays if you want to get off in Yekaterinburg or a few other towns and kick around for a bit.
Several hours before midnight, the coach I was in started morphing. Normally people didn't really talk to each other. That night, seatmates started talking, impromptu cardgames were started, I was certainly not the only one with hidden alcohol, and the bar was providing plenty for those without. By midnight the car I was in, and the adjacent car with the bar, were in full party mode. It was simultaneously one of the most surreal and awesome trips I have ever taken.
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As for the Amtrak writer program - very cool. As a young serviceman, I would frequently catch a Friday night Amtrack away from the military town I was stationed in, picking a random location that I could spend Saturday in, and then ride back Sunday afternoon. I didn't write about or photograph my travels (wish I had), but I can't image a writer worth their salt not being inspired by the scenery, events, or people met on such random jaunts.
It was an interesting experience but not one that I would repeat. It is by no means a smooth ride, and even with the bedroom I found it quite difficult to get any sleep. Between the horn constantly going off, the bumpiness of the tracks, and the hourly stops/starts, I basically ended up staying awake for 2 days straight.
While I was initially able to get some work done during the trip, after the first night I was way too sleep deprived to be able to continue programming.
But then again, I am a light sleeper, and I have trouble falling asleep on planes too.
To give an idea just how big freight traffic is in the U.S., freight by rail is something like 1.7 trillion ton-mile (39.9% of freight by ton-mile). The total across all modes in the EU is 1.4 trillion ton-mile, of which rail makes up 17%, so only about an eighth of the U.S. in freight. This has led to fairly different rail systems.
Edit: looks like this is coming along, http://theenergycollective.com/parthvaishnav/287406/icao-dea...
I'm genuinely curious because I've always been told that flying is worse, and it would be nice to feel less guilty about flying.
Coming to think of it maybe planes are worse because of the fact that, even if driving is worse for the same distance, people are willing to go much further with planes because they are so much faster, and therefore end up polluting more overall.
Air planes require much less personnel and have no tracks. Trains are still in 60ies with fat unions and zero innovations. Also how is 50 ton airplane less efficient than 5000 ton train?
And if train takes 5 days instead of 5 hours, you should also count in the foot print of person who is traveling. In one sleeping coupe you could fit 6 aircraft passengers...
Sure airplanes do make traveling easier, but that does not make them less efficient.
These aren't controversial numbers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati... . And really, a plane is more like a bus than a car, where planes lose by a lot more still.
But it's silly to compare to cars as if matching cars would be ok - car co2 emissions are also very bad.
Sleeping in a bedroom has never been a problem for me on a train. The swaying sort of lulls me.
Sleeping in a chair in coach is very difficult for me, though I eventually catch naps that way.
I wrote a lot of the early bits of Hecl ( www.hecl.org ) on trains between Padova and Rome.
Yes. But what would make traveling by train more attractive for regular people is making trains smell less like a cesspit of urine and vomit.
But sending a bunch of hipster writers on a PR tour is probably a bit cheaper.
The primary problem with Amtrak is that they rarely compete with air travel in terms of price/speed. I prefer them to air travel anyway though because I rarely care about speed and the (effective) absence of the TSA more than makes up for it. (Also last-minute (literally, purchased minutes before departure) Amtrak tickets are more affordable than last minute plane tickets.)
I think that romanticising train travel is a good approach to attacking their speed disadvantage (though I think that working on reducing fares and increasing coverage are also essential).
The NRE is more like what flying business class used to be 15 years ago. Plenty of space, clean, relaxing lighting, a snack bar, etc. Most airplanes these days are filthy (they scrimp on cleaning between flights), don't run air conditioning enough on hot days, not to mention cramped.