>> The train was disgustingly dirty and the employees were surly and unhelpful.
> On my wife's trip the refrigeration went out at some point so cold food was no longer available, nor was food that required refrigeration before it was cooked. Fortunately they disembarked soon after that happened. The rest of the train was still a day or so from Chicago and those passengers were stuck with god knows what to eat.
Stuff like this makes it feel like the USA is falling apart from being a 1st world nation, crumbling in bits and pieces into a 3rd world one.
And even rich people in the US are satisfied with pretty terrible experiences because US culture is so disconnected from everything else that they don't get that things are a lot nicer elsewhere! Nothing like visiting someone's multi-million dollar home with worse plumbing than cheap 1-room studios elsewhere in the world.
That's exactly the wrong take-away!
Amtrak is totally irrelevant for trans-continental travel. There is a "daily" departure from Seattle to Chicago. I.e. one train per day. Probably a few hundred passengers on a good day.
I just did a quick check and there are 7 non-stop flights tomorrow from Seattle to Chicago. Average air travel time is about 4 hours. Cheapest fare for tomorrow is $262.
So this train exists for a few tourists and for a few people who can't or don't want to fly. Everyone else takes a non-stop plane and gets there in hours not in days.
It's an indication of the USA's wealth and bounty that we are willing to waste billions of dollars a year on useless vanity projects like this. Long distance Amtrak runs at a loss, the US congress provides $1.3 billion a year to make up the difference. In addition there is a $650 million subsidy for passenger trains between Washington DC and Boston. That's arguably something useful, since the route is heavily traveled. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/21/amtrak-gets-n...
It's kind of a "nature preserve" of socialism in the US.
In the US, Canada, and Mexico trains are for freight. Even if you’re in the Northeast Corridor a bus is usually a better option if you aren’t driving or flying. Europe uses trucks for freight.
Basically Amtrak has to keep to a specific schedule, if ut misses it's window it loses the priority it had.
For a transcontinental trip: drive a car or a van.
That said, Amtrak engines are also often leased to other freight companies so you can frequently see freight trains being hauled by Amtrak branded engines.
http://utahrails.net/pass/amtrak-mail-express.htm
It stopped in 2004, presumably due to declines in mail volume. (Which I wonder if it would make sense again now, due to more mail-order package shipping.)
Anyway, it's not really "freight" in the sense that most people think of a freight train. It's all Amtrak rolling stock.
They still do offer Express shipping services between some stations. It's a very cheap way to send something between NYC and Washington for same-day arrival, especially if it's a big box. You have to have someone go to the train station on either end to get your stuff, though. They move them around on the passenger trains that have baggage cars (the 'named' trains, typically at least on the East Coast).
This mentality weirds me out. As in: Why are we explicitly valuing the time of companies over the time of actual people? Companies can probably adjust to getting their shit 8 or 12 or 24 hours late (or, if they can't, they can charter a plane). It's a lot harder to deal with for people who need to be somewhere.
My wife and her grandfather took the train from Portland to Minnesota in the fall of last year. There were a number of issues with the service on the train that make it bad enough, but the speed of the train is a major problem of why these trains are somewhat worthless for travel. Freight trains get priority on the rail lines so many times the train was stopped for possibly hours waiting for freight trains to pass.
On my wife's trip the refrigeration went out at some point so cold food was no longer available, nor was food that required refrigeration before it was cooked. Fortunately they disembarked soon after that happened. The rest of the train was still a day or so from Chicago and those passengers were stuck with god knows what to eat.