On the Trak in the USA

Last year, as my faithful readers will recall, I toured the two major rail routes running across Canada from Halifax to Montreal, and from Toronto to Vancouver.

This week I am going to sample, for the first time, the long distance train services offered in the United States by Amtrak, the National Passenger Rail Corporation.

The history of Amtrak is similar to that of VIA Rail Canada -- the establishment of a government-sponsored entity to keep passenger rail services alive when privately-owned railway corporations were trying to shut them down, and the subsequent ongoing budgetary battles as penny-wise and pound-foolish politicians tried repeatedly to slash funding to the trains.

In practice, both systems carry most of their passengers along heavily-travelled "Corridor" routes connecting several major cities with multiple trains requiring only part of a day to complete their journey.  Amtrak's main "Corridor" is the route Boston-New York-Washington; other "corridors" operate in half a dozen assorted states.  Both systems also operate a much smaller number of long-distance trains equipped with sightseeing lounge cars, sleeping cars and dining cars

At this point the similarities stop, because the demographic and geographic factors of the two countries are so different -- although there are some superficial similarities.

My interest as a traveller is primarily in the long distance overnight services.  VIA Rail has only three, including the Winnipeg-The Pas-Churchill route in Manitoba which I have yet to try.  Amtrak operates fourteen such trains, twelve of which operate daily (VIA's trio are all operating 2-3 times a week).  Here's a complete route map taken out of the Amtrak timetable.

One of Amtrak's roster is the nightly Auto Train, said to be the longest passenger train in the world, which runs from Lorton (Virginia) to Sanford (Florida) with a roster of coaches, sleepers, dining cars (in the plural!), and twenty or more double-decked car carriers.  All patrons of the Auto Train miss out on a whole day of boring freeway travel on congested I-95 and sleep the night away with dinner and breakfast included while their cars travel right along with them from the metropolitan Washington DC area to central Florida, just outside Orlando.

Also on offer are two daily trains from New York to Miami, daily services from New York and from Chicago to New Orleans, daily services from New York and Boston or from Washington to Chicago, and from Chicago to Dallas and San Antonio.  West of Chicago there are three daily trains to the coast, serving routes to Los Angeles, to the San Francisco Bay Area, and to Seattle and Portland.  The west coast carries an overnight service from Los Angeles north through the Bay Area and Portland to Seattle.

As well, there are two trains that operate 3 times weekly: from New Orleans to Los Angeles, and from New York and Washington to Chicago by way of the Virginia and West Virginia mountain country.  On all of these services (except one of the New York-Miami trains) the sleeping car passengers have meals included in the fare, similar to VIA Rail Canada's practice.

As the map shows, Chicago is the common terminal point of the majority of these long-haul trains, and schedules are organized to allow for numerous connections through this busy hub station.

The great distinguishing mark of the majority of Amtrak long-range trains is the use of double-decker Superliner cars, originally built in the 1970s, which include coaches, sleepers, lounges, and dining cars.  These cars are configured so that the walk from car to car through the train is all on the upper level.  Unlike VIA Rail, every single coach and sleeper includes accommodation for handicapped travellers (and a few other passengers) on the lower level.

The only long-distance routes not using the tall Superliners are the five overnight trains which operate to and from New York, where the tunnels in and out of Penn Station aren't big enough to accommodate those taller vehicles.  There, Amtrak uses a new generation of single-decked cars called Viewliners, built in the 1990s.  Again, every Viewliner sleeper has a handicapped room. The unique feature of the Viewliner sleeper is the double row of windows, which means that each upper berth -- for the first time ever -- has a window of its own.  And now you know why it's called a "Viewliner"!

The other key difference from VIA Rail's long-haul sleepers comes in the roomettes.  These are compact private rooms where the bed, when set up, takes up almost the entire space.  Unlike the older VIA Rail sleepers used on trains to Vancouver and Churchill, the Amtrak Viewliners and Superliners all have upper berths in each roomette as well as in the larger and more expensive bedrooms.    Thus, the Superliner sleeper can carry up to 44 people, and the Viewliner as many as 30 -- in contrast to the maximum capacity of 22 in the Canadian sleeper cars.  Due to this greatly-increased carrying capacity, Amtrak long-distance trains (except for the Auto Train) are much shorter than their Canadian counterparts, even in the peak seasons.

So which route will I be using?  I'll be travelling west from New York on the "Lake Shore Limited", a 19-hour run to Chicago via Buffalo and Cleveland.  In Chicago, I'll have a 4-hour stopover, and then board the "Texas Eagle" for the 24-hour journey down to Fort Worth in (where else?) Texas.  Another 4-hour wait, and then the final leg of my trip is on a 4-hour train with Superliner coaches running from Fort Worth north to Oklahoma City, called the "Heartland Flyer".

Does it really "fly"?  Time will tell.  But certainly, many parts of the Amtrak system are rated for much higher maximum speeds than corresponding lines in Canada.  That fact alone explains why any of the major cross-country routes can get you from New York or Washington to the west coast in 3 nights, whereas VIA Rail's Canadian takes 4 nights from Toronto to Vancouver or vice versa.

On the other hand, Amtrak -- like VIA Rail -- incurs chronic delays due to sharing tracks for the long-haul trains with their owners, the profit-driven freight railroad companies.  I've been tracking the daily performance of the trains I'm going to be riding, and delays of 2 hours or more are not uncommon.  But let's be fair; there are also days when trains arrive anything up to 45 minutes early!

I'm looking forward to this trip as a chance to really compare the services of the two systems, and of course I'll be reporting in detail on the pluses and minuses of each one once I have finished my Amtrak journey.  

Beyond any doubt, I've been seduced by the siren song of these long distance train trips.  I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy myself.