Crossing the US by Amtrak

2024-12-15 / blinry / CC BY-SA 4.0 / travel

Crossing the USA by train

I took Amtrak trains to go back to New York City from Los Angeles which took 73(?) hours in total. Here is the route. Amtrak Map Route

First Segment:

Los Angeles to Chicago
47 hours

I like this segment the most because there was less people, lots of great views, great trains, and great crews.

The capacity rate of our cabin was less than 30% (until we got to Kansas). Since there was less people, I could use diner car without making reservation! I had breakfast, lunch and dinner there and it was greaaat!! Dinner on the rails

Since this train was a “Superliner”, it had a second floor where my seat was located, all the bathrooms and the luggage room was in downstairs. And the two greatest things about this Superliner are the lounge and the bathroom!! Chicag Union Station Submarine-look-like the minimalist Buthroom

The view from the train was amazing!! 1st day, it was sunny and I saw lots of great canyons! The most suprising thing was the view didn’t change more than 30 hours!! This country is ginomous!! canyons

After ?? hours, we took a 40 minutes stop at Albuquerque. I watched all Braking Bad episode, so this meant a lot to me. I walked around the station and went shopping. As you can see in the picture, there were so many Armish people on board.

After the train depart Albuquerque, the scene had been changing little by little. It gets more forest-ish and river-ish, and the tempereture was also getting cold outside. view_snow view_snow2 LV_in_MN

Finally, arrived in Chicago! Since the Motocompacto was super heavy, I asked to carry it with the mini-taxi! It was fun to ride it in the station, especially the driver honked a lot, such a great experience! Chicag Union Station Chicag Union Station inside mini taxi

I had 4 hours here,so I walk around the station (sadly, it was rainning and I was super tired, so I didn’t go further…)

Second Segment:

Chicago to Washington D.C.
20 hours
Lay over at Chicago: 4 hours

This time the train did’t have a second floor which means they doesn’t have a cool bathroom… And the dining menu was limited, they had fewer options. But sisnce the kitchen was also in the same floor, I could see it! It was very cool to see the shef cooking while the train was super wobbly.

wrong_board kitchen Diner