Amtrak Travel

It's timed so that you go through the less interesting parts of the country at night. The sun comes up as the train's going through Montana, or at least that's how it was a few years back when I took it last.

 

when deciding whether to travel by train, you gotta factor in the downtown-to-downtown factor

there's something to be said for walking 5 minutes to the marriott instead of lugging bags to a shuttle bus, waiting in line for a rental car, trying to figure out how the hell to navigate your way out of the airport, getting lost driving downtown, then figuring how and where to park

 

Took the Crescent/Sunset Limited from Atlanta to New Orleans to El Paso .... had the sleeper car, not cheap but a vacation us and the kids are still talking about how much fun we had. No driving, no traffic, no cell phones, no TV.

Also recommend the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams to the South Rim.

 

I took the Crescent from Hattiesburg to Atlanta one year for the SEC basketball tournament. It was pretty cool. I had two of the big-ass seats to myself, but I would not take that train if I had a meeting I had to get to that day. We were an hour or so late. I'm sure it's different in the northeast corridor, but it's more leisure travel down in this neck of the woods.

 

OK, three pages of thread and no mention of a train going into a tunnel?

 

The train kept a rolllin alll night long

 

The amazing/scary thing about Amtrak is the complete lack of security. Nothing. No metal detectors, bag search, anything. I have to satisfy more security requirements to get into a ballpark where everyone knows me.

 

That's always amazed me too. Its strange. You have to go through scanner at major stops - NY / DC but you could just hop on train in Baltimore.

 

I just saw this thread for the first time. After reading all of it, I'm still wondering if he'll do her in the caboose.

 

I've never had security searches at Penn Station in NY or Union Station in Washington.

 

Every time I've taken a train from Penn Station, I haven't been searched.

 

That's why I was curious about the scanners Boom mentioned.
International trains, maybe? Anything to Canada? Just throwing that out.