Take. The. Train.

[KmH]

No being herded by TSA like a farm animal (moo!), to be stuffed into a long round aluminum can like a sardine.

In the spring I'll be taking Amtrak's California Zephyr (CZ) from Osceola, IA (OSC) to Sacramento, CA (SAC). In SAC, after a 10 hr layover (if the trains are on time), I get on the Coast Starlight (CS) and continue to my destination - Eugene, OR (EUG). Many say the CZ is the best long distance train trip in the US.

I leave OSC on a Thursday evening and arrive in EUG around mid-day Sunday.
I'll be in Eugene for a week and reverse the train trip leaving EUG on the CS Monday afternoon, switching to the CZ Tuesday morning in SAC, and arriving back at OSC on Thursday morning.

Today the westbound CZ was 2 hours late getting to OSC.
That would shorten my layover in SAC by 2 hours, if the CS out of SAC is on time.
Today the CS was 37 minutes late departing SAC.

 

[tirediron]

Train travel is THE way to go... when I used to spend a lot of time in San Diego, I always hopped an Amtrak north to visit friends in Los Angeles on weekends. Cheap and soooo much more pleasant than air travel!

 

[480sparky]

........In the spring I'll be taking Amtrak's California Zephyr (CZ) from Osceola, IA....

Stop by on your way down and we'll have lunch.


Or breakfast.



Or supper.

 

[waday]

That sounds like a trek!

I love taking the train! Used to live in the Philly suburbs and take the train into the city all the time.

My wife lived in Brooklyn all her life until we married. She took the train pretty much every day.

Unfortunately, we now live in an area with essentially non-existent public transportation.

 

[limr]

Love trains. Love love them. I take the commuter train all the time, and I can even take commuter trains all the way to Philly. The end of the PATH (NJ transit) trainline meets the end of the Philly commuter train line.

I used to take Amtrak from NY to Pittsburgh, a route which features the very very cool Horseshoe Curve: Horseshoe Curve (Pennsylvania) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The only bad train ride I ever had was an overnight from Istanbul to Ankara. It's a long story that I won't tell here, but let's just say the words "chicken," "chain-smoking Turks" and "One more time and you lose a testicle" are involved...

 

[KmH]

Amtrak has the CZ timed so we cross the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada mountains during the day.

The CS leaves SAC at midnight and it will be an hour or so after dawn when we go by Mt. Shasta.
A few miles later the CS route veers away from I-5 and follows US 97 to Chemult, OR, then veers northwest and follows highway 58 through the Willamette National Forest to Eugene.

I rode the CZ from OSC to Grand Junction, CO a few years back. The climb out of Denver up into the Rockies is pretty nifty. The east side of the Rockies don't have much in the way of foothills, so it's a pretty steep climb.

You can follow train routes here, but you have to zoom in to see the tracks if you want to see the switchback curves on grades:
Railroads of North America - Google Maps Gallery

Some of the sights in the Rockies west of Denver:
Gross Reservoir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Moffat Tunnel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Glenwood Canyon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[pgriz]

Love trains. Love love them. I take the commuter train all the time, and I can even take commuter trains all the way to Philly. The end of the PATH (NJ transit) trainline meets the end of the Philly commuter train line.

I used to take Amtrak from NY to Pittsburgh, a route which features the very very cool Horseshoe Curve: Horseshoe Curve (Pennsylvania) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The only bad train ride I ever had was an overnight from Istanbul to Ankara. It's a long story that I won't tell here, but let's just say the words "chicken," "chain-smoking Turks" and "One more time and you lose a testicle" are involved...

Ok. That last one really needs a fuller description. I can image the context for uttering it, but one's mind can conjure all kinds of scenarios in which that would be an appropriate response. I'm assuming that the concept of "personal space" just doesn't exist on such a train.

As for trains, love them too. Spend years of my life commuting into the city and smiling smugly going by the inbound parking lot that was euphemistically called a highway.

 

[limr]

Ok. That last one really needs a fuller description. I can image the context for uttering it, but one's mind can conjure all kinds of scenarios in which that would be an appropriate response. I'm assuming that the concept of "personal space" just doesn't exist on such a train.

You are correct!

January 1999: Two friends and I were going to Kapadokya for winter break. A Turkish friend helped us get train tickets. We didn't realize that the tickets were for the section with unassigned seats (this was an old-style train with compartments) and by the time we got to the train, all the seats were taken. Not only that, but most of the hallways were taken as well - people were lining the hallway sitting on their "luggage" (plastic bags) and some were carrying chickens. We opted not to sit in the hallway since this was a 12+ hour trip. Instead, we snuck into a reserved compartment that was empty and stayed there until we got kicked out a few hours later.

We moved to the dining car, where we ended up chatting with some people. When the dining car closed, we were invited to sleep in the compartment. We got there and realized the 6-person compartment was packed with at least 10-11 chain-smoking Turks - one guy was even hanging out on the luggage rack. The three of us squeezed in and asked to open the window since they were all smoking. Now, these old Turkish trains were heated from the engine so they would get hot, but the Anatolian plain is quite chilly in January, so we were either really hot and coughing from the smoke, or we were freezing.

People started falling asleep and we turned the lights off. My friend Jenny was sitting by the slightly cracked window and I was next to her with my other friend, Ken, on the other side. Jenny seemed kind of restless and eventually we decided to switch seats so she could be warmer and I could be cooler. Not long after, I realized why she seemed restless - the man sitting across from me kept trying to creep his foot up my leg. At first it seemed like he just brushed it as he shifted, but then it was pretty clear what he was trying to do. I kept pushing him a way or moving, but he his foot kept coming back. Finally, I sat up, stomped as hard as I could on his foot and yelled that if he tried it one more time, he'd lose a testicle.

He stopped. And actually apologized the next morning!

The train stopped over in Ankara at about 6am and we couldn't stand staying on the train for the rest of the ride, so we got off the train and took a taxi to the bus station to take a bus the rest of the way. The next bus was hours away, so we became very well acquainted with the Ankara Otogar.

 

[pgriz]

Wow... Hadn't had that kind of experience, but was told by female friends who traveled, that being forceful and loud was one of the survival tricks they learned. Apparently, lack of resistance is seen as "yes".

 

[limr]

Wow... Hadn't had that kind of experience, but was told by female friends who traveled, that being forceful and loud was one of the survival tricks they learned. Apparently, lack of resistance is seen as "yes".

Yup. Be outraged and make a fuss so that other people start noticing. Often, the embarrassment of being called out in front of others will stop the behavior rather than anything I actually say.

 

[runnah]

I've been on subways and monorails but the only normal train I've been on had Thomas pulling it.

 

[The_Traveler]

KMH, why not start traveling by train thread?

Your picture, your meme.

 

[NancyMoranG]

Another train person here.
When our son was 9 I took him from Tampa, Fl to D.C., then over to Chicago. We slept in our chairs and had a TON of fun. We had such a good time we did again a couple of years later.
Have a great trip.
Nancy

 

[KmH]

........In the spring I'll be taking Amtrak's California Zephyr (CZ) from Osceola, IA....

Stop by on your way down and we'll have lunch.
Or breakfast.
Or supper.

I changed my ticket and will board a bit earlier in Ottumwa.
It turns out Ottumwa is a little closer to me, has a staffed station, I can take the 'back roads', and surprisingly the fare doesn't change even though I get to ride on the train an additional 160 miles (round trip).

I have been to Osceola before, but have never been to Ottumwa.
As a bonus, when I get back to Ottumwa it should be close to lunch time and I should get a chance to eat at the famous Canteen Lunch In The Alley restaurant.

 

[480sparky]

.....
As a bonus, when I get back to Ottumwa it should be close to lunch time and I should get a chance to eat at the famous Canteen Lunch In The Alley restaurant.

That's one helluvan assumption. ..... that the train is On time .