Originally Posted by BarracksSi

Now you know why nobody wants to take the train over long distances.

One of the last long train trips I took in the US was a family vacation, between 25-30 years ago, riding from San Francisco to Seattle.

Riding overnight in a smelly, messy car with broken air conditioning sucked balls. I've got no reason to ride Amtrak again, at least nowhere besides the overpriced ride to NYC (and I don't even see when I'll want to go there, having visited often enough through my job).

Originally Posted by mike

Yes, this is a major disappointment with Amtrak. I went by Amtrak to Whitefish, Montana. We were 16 hours late arriving and 20 hours late returning. These were jouneys that were only supposed to be about 20 hours, but that time doubled.

That kind of lateness is hard to deal with. I still don't know how even third world countries can get you accross their continents reasonably on-time and in the USA, it is nearly impossible to travel by train and have predictable arrival times.

Originally Posted by Machka

Yeah, I had the same sort of experience. I was dropped off at the train station at Sacramento, Ca at noon ... it was the only ride I could get ... my train was set to leave at about 11:30 pm, so left my luggage and I puttered around Sacramento for several hours, and then returned to the station to wait.

11:30 pm came ... and went. We all set up for the night in the station, and slept draped over our luggage. About 5 am the station staff came in, and a line-up of people formed to ask the same question, "When is the train coming??" Instead of making a general announcement, which I would have thought would be common courtesy, they reacted with surprise that we wanted to know ... and they didn't seem to know or care.

Finally at about 6:30 am we were informed that the train was coming, and we could line up ... and we ended up standing in line for about half an hour, being told every 10 minutes or so that the train was coming, before the train finally pulled into the station and we were boarded. It was about 7:30 am before the train pulled out of the station.

The train was supposed to arrive at Eugene late morning, and I had a rental car booked for when I arrived to take me to a relative's place, but since we didn't get underway until about 7:30 am, there was no way we would arrive in time. In fact, the train lost 2-3 hours along the way, and we didn't get into Eugene until about 10 pm. I had to make arrangements for a hotel there, so I could make the bus to continue my trip northward.

So the lateness of the train basically ruined my plans for that part of my trip, and added to the expense.

However, I will say, compared with the US Greyhound, Amtrak is a luxurious method of transportation!!