Reflections on family travel on Amtrak

I've been off the train for many hours, and my body still feels like it is swaying. I stick to my original assertion, that traveling with the family via Amtrak train was worth trying once. And I still wonder if being in sleeping cars would have made it more enjoyable. Hard to say. It may cost that much more that taking the train would not have been less expensive than flying. Being more environmentally friendly was part of the decision, but cost has to be factored in.

There were highlights. The kids loved pushing the doors open as we walked from car-to-car. We were seated in the caboose during one leg of the trip and enjoyed watching it snow in the southern Oregon mountains. It was fun to eat in a dining car. The observatory train was quite beautiful as we rambled though California on the first leg of our trip. My six-year-old said it was much more fun that flying simply because the wheelchair-accessible bathrooms were so roomy.

Naively, I figured taking Amtrak would be similar to the times I took the train while living in France. That jaunt to Barcelona. Several hours on a bullet train between Paris and Marseilles. Among normal, middle-class, well-dressed riders. Efficient, polite conductors. Priority over freight and commuter trains so that we arrived and departed on time. Well, with Amtrak I was wrong on most counts. Highly disillusioning. About the riders. There is a subset of the American population that chooses to take the train, and people, let's just say that "well-dressed" or "middle-class" probably does not describe them. There are people who stated they are afraid to fly or are just so over the security issues of air travel. There are people who have extensive medical histories encompassing cancers, bypass surgeries, kidney stones, lap-band procedures, adverse reactions to medications and lawsuits -- and who describe each and every point in their medical histories to total strangers ad nauseum while we tried to get our kids to fall asleep. Then there was the senior citizen who threw a hissy fit when we boarded the train home in San Jose at 8:30pm Monday night when she realized that the empty seat next to her was actually going to be taken and that she couldn't stretch all of her crap over two seats. I kid you not: she started throwing things and swearing (the f-bomb, if you must know) about how she's "just an old lady on a fixed income and it's not right and she needs her sleep." Of course, we got front row seats since one of the members of our party was the lucky someone who was assigned the seat next to her that set off said tantrum. I told her there was no call for profanity and reminded her that I had a child listening to every blessed curse to no avail. My husband went and got the conductors who threatened to throw that old mama off the train if she didn't hush up. Amazingly, she did. Although it was far from an auspicious start to the last leg of our train adventure, it did lend a wonderful teaching moment for our family. I got great joy in loudly telling my 4-year old how sad it is that some grown-ups never learn how pathetic it looks to fail to outgrow temper tantrums.

Our train ride did not finish on the train, however. As we pulled into Eugene, Oregon (several hours outside of Portland, and many from the end of the Coast Starlight route), suspiciously happy sounding conductors announced over the PA that the dining car, lounge and cafe would now be closing and that everyone would need to disembark at Eugene, where we'd be met by awaiting (drumroll please) buses... Urgh. The seats the buses offered looked like veal-fattening pens in comparison to the roominess and ability to move around that the train offered. Most passengers decamped with a few grumbles and it may have been juvenile but when "crazy lady" stayed on the train remarking how odd it was that everyone was getting off in Eugene and how roomy it was all of the sudden, most of us failed to inform her what was going on. That'll learn her for throwing a hissy fit, disturbing everyone's sleep and burning her bridges with her fellow passengers in the Amtrak caboose...

All told, my husband calculated the distance and time traveled, and we averaged about 38 miles per hour. The ride to San Jose was 20 hours (one hour late) and we arrived on time on the leg home despite the bus transfer. It could have been worse. I'm so thankful to EnviroMom readers for letting us know to bring our own pillows/blankets and picnic meals.

No question, trying to sleep overnight on a reclining train chair (even with footrests) was the worst part. I did the best I could with the two reclining seats we had. My 4-year-old and I slept sideways like spoons instead of reclined and got something resembling sleep (Although I'm open to recommendations for a good masseuse...)  My husband and father did not fare so well and felt it would be worth any price to pay for plane tickets the next time we travel. Happily we have no long-distance travel plans in the near future. Between now and then I may have to rethink my position on carbon offsets.