There’s a Boston to Chicago route that is pretty cool. I took it to Chicago from Albany for less than $100 a few years ago.

The only problem is that the schedule is kinda of aspirational. The train from NYC attaches in Albany, and the times often don’t line up.

When the economy is good, the westward tracks are busy with frieight traffic so you wait.

I enjoyed the trip though and got a lot of work done.

The Late, Slow Limited (Lake Shore Limited). Cool route through the rust belt. The shitty thing about the two East coast-Chicago routes is they dropped dining car service. Until recently sleeping car passengers got an actual on board full service restaurant prepared meal included in the ticket. They dropped this due to costs. Now there is just the cafe car and these airplane style meals included with sleeping car tickets.. not the same at all.

That is too bad. My experience was a few years back.

I’m built like a gorilla and airplane seats are often pretty tortuous for me.

The train experience is pretty cool in many ways, despite with the problems that exist. Even in NYC, I can show up 5m before the train leaves and be good to go, while airports have all sorts of bullshit to deal with. It’s a shame that the circumstances of the mid 20th century prevented us from having good, integrated transportation for passengers.

The Trump 2019 budget cut over $600 million from Amtrack's budget, and Amtrack was already not in great financial shape.

If there's a change in leadership and some changes in US mentality regarding trains vs cars/planes, there might be hope for Amtrack in the future. If not, then I would expect more services being eliminated until there's nothing left.