The N-Judah Chronicles

Last week I had a chance to return home from Washington DC by train. I chose to do so because I was going out there for an awards ceremony/trade show, and my plane ticket costs were reimbursed. I paid the difference on the return trip, and decided to see what it would be like. I’ve taken two road trips via car to and from DC (one lasted 2 weeks and I made stops all over the place, the other was a 3 day nightmare from DC to Seattle*), so I figured I’d see something new.
Overall the experience was pretty good. I’ll talk more about specifics of the trip in another post – here I’ll just throw out a few thoughts if you’re considering such a journey yourself.
First, if you’ve ever ridden a train in Europe or Japan, the TGV in France, seen “The Orient Express,” or “Strangers on a Train,” take those beloved memories, put them in a safe place, and temporarily forget about them. You simply cannot compare Amtrak to any of those systems. That doesn’t mean Amtrak sucks – it’s just not the same. So put that aside and be open-minded.
Next, remember that to compare costs, you can’t compare with an airline ticket price. An airplane can fly over any and all traffic, flies about 500 miles an hour or so, and so on. If you compare taking the train to driving a car, then you have a more apt comparison. When I drove across the country both times, I was driving alone, so I would have to stop at some point and find a Motel 6 or something and get some sleep. Add to that the cost of food along the way, and of course gasoline, oil, etc. and you start to realize driving such a long distance isn’t that cheap.
Sure you could do all sorts of things to tweak the price, but here’s something to consider – in a car, if you doze off or look at scenery, you can get killed. On the train, you can walk around the train, have a beer and look at scenery in the observation car, play cards, watch a movie, whatever you want to do. Also, if you do as I did and get the sleeper car, all of your meals are paid for.

Continue reading →