Photo Review: Amtrak Travel Experiences

As many of you might recall, I traveled across country by train last September by myself.  It was a very interesting experience to say the least!  I am not the most outgoing person in the world, and I was nervous about interacting with complete strangers over the 4 days I was on the train, each way, all alone.  I managed, though :)

Let's just say, my parents (in particular my mother) was very nervous about me doing this by myself.  I had constant texting contact, however, and checked in multiple times a day, sometimes even at 4am because I couldn't sleep.  There she is below, waving goodbye to me; prior to me boarding, she even offered to pay for my flight if I would just fly to Florida with the rest of them...she is so nice :)  But I really wanted to experience the train!

Your sleeping schedule starts to change around the 2nd/3rd day on the train, or at least it did for me.  You should note before reading further that I did not pay for a sleeper car, but for a regular seat.  I noticed that I had a very hard time sleeping at night (around 3am-7am) and so I would usually be awake at this time reading a book.  I read a lot of books...hehe.  When I finally felt exhausted I would sleep.  Then during the afternoon I would nap several times.  Doing this actually helped me feel like I was getting enough sleep each day.  Another nice thing about being up at 4am, unable to sleep, means that there is generally no one trying to use the restrooms or the larger changing room/rest room.  Below you can see some pictures of the slightly larger changing bathroom.  Some of them had stools you could sit on in front of the mirror, some did not.

I will say this, try and look for the handicap restroom and use that on your car.  The regular bathrooms are TINY.  I found them very uncomfortable, but the handicap ones were larger and more comfortable to use.  I'll just come out and say it: the toilet seats are too small, or at least that is my opinion.  I didn't think to take a picture of the toilet...lol.

The seat itself was very nice...unless you sat too long.  I felt like there was something really hard right in the center; this is probably where the foam on the seats wears down fastest, and you can feel the seats hard framing underneath.  Other than that, I have no complaints about the seats.  There was plenty of leg room and the seats were very wide feeling.  They also reclined substantially more than airline seats, or even most car seats in my opinion.

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of the other parts of the car.  I am a quiet person who kind of minds their own business, so I didn't move around a whole lot.  And I never once bought any train food like I originally had planned.  I had more than enough snack food with me, and when I switched trains in the big cities, I bought food at the stations (which were giant malls, really).  So I had Jamba Juice and McDonalds in Chicago, Taco Bell and Einstein Bagels in DC, and at a slightly longer layover in Denver I went to another bagel shop and a SmashBurger.

The two pictures above are like places you can eat your food after you buy it; they are not the dining car, but I think rather the sightseeing or lounge car.

Below is the sightseeing car on the California Zephyr.  I apologize for picture quality!

Below is where you could buy food that wasn't in the dining car...he wasn't open when I went here.  They also have several stations on the train car where you can get water, as you can see below.

Lastly, above your seat they put a little slip of paper that marks where you are going.  I noticed that they tended to group people going the same places in the same area of the car.  So I had many people traveling to Chicago near me, and people who were traveling less distance on the line were typically in another car sitting with those people.  I was lucky to have my own 2 seats to myself all the way to Chicago!  After that, I always had a seat mate for the journey East.  You are allowed to try and request a certain seat, but if it's full then there is not much they can do.

I hope this short review helps others out there, and if you have any specific questions or comments about this, please ask me!