Long distance train travel in the US

[athena1277]

In light of all the TSA craziness, I am considering more and more traveling by train. I would love to take the kids to visit my parents for a week, but the train trip would be about 24 hours long. If I did it, I would have to pay for the little train room where you have a bed and room to let the kids move around. I'm wondering if we would be miserable by the end of the trip. I would love to hear about any experiences traveling with kids by train. I need some perspective. Thanks!!!

[LibraryLover]

I love trains, but they are $$.

[i.love.lucy]

I checked the Amtrak website recently. For me to go from TX to CA I have to go through IL. The shortest trip was 49 hours. It's slightly cheaper than flying but not by much, maybe $300 for all of us. Maybe I need to play with it and go into and out of bigger cities, maybe that's the problem, I don't know. But I was like :001_huh: and :glare:.

[athena1277]

I checked the Amtrak website recently. For me to go from TX to CA I have to go through IL. The shortest trip was 49 hours. It's slightly cheaper than flying but not by much, maybe $300 for all of us. Maybe I need to play with it and go into and out of bigger cities, maybe that's the problem, I don't know. But I was like :001_huh: and :glare:.

 

Thankfully I can go from DC to Louisiana directly, it's just a long trip. I wonder how often the train stops?

[Murphy101]

I think it could be great IF you treat the journey as part of the vacation.

Kind of like a road trip without you having to drive.

 

Also, what do the tickets include? Food or "lodging"?

[wulfbourne]

One thing I loved about Germany while I was there was their train system. I miss that so much here.

 

Trains tend to be more expensive and take a lot longer than planes here. They're talking about doing high speed rail to some parts of the country, but that will be years.

 

How long would it take to drive there? Is that completely out of the question? What if you rented a bigger vehicle or even a small RV for the trip?

[FaithManor]

Train travel is fun. DD came home from Arizona with her aunt by amtrak. They had a sleeper car and all meals were included. This was not like the nasty snack cars on the commuter amtrak trains. Children 15 and under are 1/2 price with a full price adult ticket. It took them 40 hours to get home as opposed to the four or five it would have taken by plane (they would have had a two hour layover some where that I can't remember right now) but they saw some exquisite countryside, played cards, read books together, knitted and embroidered together, etc. It was a wonderful bonding time. Much like a good road trip but without the insanity of doing the driving. Their sleeper berth was comfortable and the food was amazing. DD ate steak and snow crab one evening. Because of dd's half price ticket, it cost $150.00 less than flying the two of them home.

 

I am glad she had the experience. If they had booked a vacation route, they would have had stopovers in historic or scenic places for getting out and seeing the sights. But, this was more of a business run. They loved it.

 

We take the amtrak to Chicago every couple of years with the kids. It is not more expensive than driving because parking is $30.00 a day or more in Chicago. The public transit system is very good. We bus to the museums for piddly sums of money and if Dh and I go for our anniversary, we do splurge for taxi's when we are all dressed up. But, no hassle of spending long periods of time and lots of money trying to park the vehicle and usually then having to park several blocks away and walking anyway. The train and bus are so much easier. We are treated very, very well by Amtrak employees and usually the conductor takes the time to come around and converse with the kids, tell them some facts about train travel, etc. Our kids were forever popping out of their seats to go ask something. The employees never seemed annoyed by this. When we had the babies, they always helped load the luggage, stroller, etc. Lovely, lovely service.

 

I think you can get on the "route" maps for Amtrak on their website, find the name of your "line" (ours is Bluewater") and then find all of the stops made on that route. In our case, most stops were fairly brief but the Bluewater doesn't go through anything bigger than Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Mi. on the way so it's quite possible to have all the passengers boarded and seated in 15 -20 minutes.

 

Faith

[Parrothead]

I was looking into the Amtrack to get to my parents house. Unfortunately I'd still have to drive at both ends - 6 hours to the station from home than 4 hours to my parents house once getting off the train.

 

I'm almost hoping trains become more of an option again due to the TSA thing.

[Jen500]

We took a trip on Amtrak this summer. Luckily, the route was pretty direct for where we wanted to go. With 1/2 price kids tickets, it was much cheaper for us than flying. The sleeper cars would have made it much more expensive.

I was amazed at how relaxed and much more casual the train ride was compared to flying. MUCH more seat room, storage, peaceful, and we were free to wander around the train cars, use the (clean!) bathrooms whenever we wanted.

The only part I hated was trying to sleep in the seats. (We were on an overnight trip). And the weird hours (like arriving at 4am or something)

 

My kids had a blast.

[milovany]

Forgive me if this is repetition -- I haven't read the other replies. We are hoping to take a train trip from Seattle to Chicago, which is a 48 hour trip. We have seven kids and are NOT going to get the sleeping cars; that's where much of the expense lies. I traveled by train without the benefit of a sleeper car when I was in college and I figure we'll make it work. Some of us will be able to sleep in the regular chairs since they lean back a little bit, and then someone told me if you go to the view and other cars you can stretch out more there. Then we'll crash when we get to Chicago!

[Faithseed]

My husband has to travel to CA, and in light of these new policies, is traveling via train as a boycott measure.

 

Amy- he'll go from TX to CA. It will take 2 days each way ( for a one day meeting! grrrrr) He did get the one person sleeper car, and therefore has all of the meals included. For him, he'll start in NE TX, then stop in SA, and from there they stay along the Rio straight to CA.

 

We looked into making it a family thing, but the family cars only hold 4.

 

A friend recommended this option instead of driving as a safer alternative. It's about the same time-wise as driving, and about the same costwise as flying.

[kokotg]

We've done the trip from Atlanta to Boston twice (and from Boston to Atlanta once; the other time we took the train up and flew back). The first trip we did it without a sleeper; the second time we had one. If I could get a sleeper every time, I'd pick the train over flying without a second thought. I hate flying. The sleeper was great, the kids loved it, and the time flew by, BUT it's much more expensive than flying. Without a sleeper....I don't regret doing it once, but I'm not eager to do it again. I'd do it if it weren't an overnight trip, though.

[Tarreymere]

You pay extra for a 'roomette' (sp?) and there is no room in the roomette for kids to run around or play. It is very small. I do not recommend the roomettes. I would probably even want to kill my husband if we shared a roomette for any length of time. They are basically just a private sleeping area, and you get access to a shower that I'm sure not too many people actually use (yuck). If you get a roomette then the meals in the dining car are included. The food is actually very good.

The regular passenger train seating is very comfortable and the seats are larger than airline seats. There is a dining car where you can buy meals and sit down to eat them (they have seatings for meals, like some cruise ships), and another car with a snack stand and a big open room with windows and sometimes a tv for relaxing. This is a better place for the kids, more room to move around and play and it is included in the regular seat rate.

Trains are slow and do stop often but usually not for long enough for you to get off and buy a snack, for example. If the snack bar is closed and there is no meal service you had better bring snacks and drinks because you won't be able to get anything. Nada, not even a pop machine.

Sometimes you end up with a 'layover' type wait in some train stations too, which can be more of a problem than a layover in an airport where you know you will usually have a restaurant or something. Some train stations are in the bad parts of some cities and have minimal services available or may not even be staffed at some hours.

Overall, I have enjoyed train travel just because air travel pisses me off so much. It is not exactly efficient compared to flying. It is better than driving because you never need to stop to go to the restroom, and you don't have to watch the road, and you can entertain the kids. Don't expect wifi and don't expect your cell phone to work the whole way (not sure why but they don't).

[alpidarkomama]

We love trains, except when it gets stuck on the track for one reason or other... Squeezing into a little sleeper room is no big deal, since when you're not sleeping you can walk all over the train. :)

[Wheres Toto]

We took the Amtrak Auto train from Virginia to Florida when ds was 2 years old and I was 9 months pregnant with dd. We did not get a sleeper car/roomette.

 

The kids (including older dd - I think up to age 16 counts as a child) were free (they run frequent specials), we were able to bring our own car/car seats, had no luggage restrictions (since most of it stayed in the car - not sure what it may be otherwise). We were able to get up and move around a lot, the bathrooms were pretty clean, the food was better than airline food with more options, we had seats with a plug so dd could plug in her laptop and they watched movies a good portion of the trip. The seats are very roomy, they recline as much as a good recliner at home - all of us could stretch our legs out all the way and still have space. DS slept in his car seat on the floor in front of dd's seat (she always sleeps curled up) and sat on the floor playing whenever they weren't watching movies or walking around.

 

We would take the train again in a heartbeat. Definitely over driving a long trip since ds gets car sick if he does anything but watch movies in the car - no reading, no Leapster, no coloring, nothing. For us it was cheaper than plane fare and renting a car or driving our Suburban that far (we were able to take our smaller car on the train since we wouldn't be in it for hours and hours at a time).

[MaMa2005]

Yes it takes longer but I had a lovely ride from Portland to Seattle a few years ago. No long lines and the staff was pretty helpful (I was 8 mo. pg. and needed a hand getting on and off) We stopped at Vancouver and Tacoma in between. I could get up and go to the food car and bathroom as needed and the view was lovely. The seat room was not quite as cramped at a plane and the people seemed more relaxed. There were some areas where rows of seats faced each other and people were eating and playing games.

 

For short distances it is for sure the way I would go. Considering that you have to get to the airport hours early, the time isn't much different in some cases.

 

We just did the Seattle to Portland trip in September and loved it. Nice family time. I liked it so much that I was trying to get DH to continue the trip on to San Francisco (instead of driving that leg.) Just too much last minutes booking to make that happen.

 

We are planning on doing the ATL to DC trip soon. Much less hassle than flying.

[Bug's Mom]

We LOVE Amtrak. Dh, dd & I just went from WI to WA in Oct. We've done that trip several times. We splurged on a family room going out, but were in coach coming back. It's not that bad. You can spend most of your time in the lounge/observation car, if you want. It gives the kids a bit more room. You can also try to get the seats in the front of the car, as there's a bit more leg/play room there.

[*lifeoftheparty*]

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