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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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What's not fun about it? I admit most of my idea of the romance of crossing the country on a train is from 1930s and 1940s movies, so I'm sure things are quite different.
The beds are too short if you're 6' or above. The food is not good. And there's really nothing to see when you're passing through the never ending nothingness of Middle America. It's not like you get to hop out and walk around any of the cool looking towns you may come across. You don't really experience anything except a mediocre, slow ass train ride.
Believe it or not, none of that bothers me. I've crossed America by car 3 times, so the Middle America part is fine with me and I'm under 5'10", so the bed would be okay, and I've had train food before on Amtrak trips from southern Illinois to Chicago and yeah, it's not great, but it's not terrible to me either. I guess after being raised on 12 years of school-made lunches, I can eat anything. I could also bring my own food.
Now I don't know that I could convince my wife or daughter to come along, but you haven't actually deterred me from the idea. I guess your mileage may vary.
Here in Europe sleeper trains went through quite a slump, DB even got rid of their whole fleet, then ÖBB started to conceptualise sleeper trains not as trains with beds but as hotels on wheels and their most expensive tickets sell so well that they increased the number of expensive seats erm cots on their train. You can also get what's essentially capsules and a seat, no more of that "four person cabin or bust" type of attitude of ole.
Yes, you could take high-speed rail and arrive the same day, then sleep in a hotel, then do what you came to do. Or you can spend actually less and stay in a maybe modest, but definitely nice hotel for one night and arrive in the morning.
And the little things matter. If your breakfast buns aren't crisp (plenty of room on a train for an oven) and your coffee is as bad as what Starbucks calls coffee don't even start.
As to distance: In principle a high-speed sleeper train could do NY to LA in one night, something like 12-14 hours. Certainly not with the current rail infrastructure, though.