THE STEAMPUNK'S GUIDE TO TRAVELING ON AMTRAK
For all its warts and hiccups, I love Amtrak. There’s just no better way to travel in America. Your other options are 1) genital photography and fondling before boarding a fart tube cartridge of death in which your bottle of water is considered terrorism and screaming babies are inescapable, 2) a bus full of ex-prisoners and pre-prisoners on Greyhound, or 3) driving there yourself, which costs you lots of money and requires you to be awake and sober the whole trip and there’s no bar in your car. But Amtrak will drop you off smack downtown in most major cities in America so long as you’re willing to give or take four hours for your arrival time. Sure, there’s babies and convicts aboard but there are places you can move to if you need to avoid them (the bar). And Amtrak offers a number of additional benefits that you may not be aware of (the bar). For this reason I have written my guide to Amtrak travel, with all of my secrets included herein.
Amtrak was born out of the Penn Central bailout, one of the earlier examples of a poorly run company getting cash from the taxpayer as a reward for the pilfering of corporate profits by crooked men. It is run by the Department of Transportation and has never, ever, made a penny of profit. At the time, the crooks convinced the Feds that the nation would collapse without a passenger rail network. Nowadays that idea sounds absurd. Sure, the nation’s Mennonites would be affected, but other than that, Amtrak could go away without anyone under 65 noticing. Still, its subsidy is so microscopic compared to the airline subsidy that it survives even the most stingy of Republican administrations. Plus, I have a theory that because countries like France and Japan have nice shiny trains with five star restaurants onboard, America feels that if it had no passenger rail whatsoever it would be an admission of finally slipping into Second World status. (Note to self: Investigate suspiciously strong correlation between horsemeat consumption and quality of passenger rail service).
The main reason it’s such a great way to travel is the relaxed attitude. Amtrak could increase ridership 20% if they just adopted the slogan “Amtrak: We won’t photograph or fondle your genitals”. The fact that America has sunk to this level where genital examination (electronic or manual) has become de rigueur in order to visit another city, and that this fixation upon genitalia is part of a theatrical performance that not only has caught no terrorist and makes no person safer but actually has led to the arrest of over 400 TSA agents for (among other crimes) saving and sharing said genital photography, is part of a larger body of evidence that we are living in an era that our future descendents will refer to as The Stupid Ages.
Yet on the Amtrak things remain caj. When you take the train, you arrive right smack downtown in every major city, often in a Union Station of glorious construction. No city’s airport is closer than an hour away from downtown, and in fact, for train trips less than six hours you will likely get there quicker if you count the time you take getting to and from the airports, going through security, and so on. I have in my personal experience entered Chicago’s Union Station no more than one hundred and eighty seconds before the train’s departure time and still been comfortably settled in my seat when the train pulled away. Just last month I was trying to board at Salt Lake City’s double-wide-mobile-home “station” (motto: "Now 17 years behind schedule without breaking ground!“) with two very heavy bags, one of which was a plastic tub full of exactly 49 pounds of tools gleaned from my ancestral home in Alabama and designed to comply with the restrictions of all six of the modes of transportation I would take during my 28-hour trip from Foley Al to Elko NV via Mobile, Atlanta, and Salt Lake Utah. I actually went to the Home Depot, took a measuring tape from the tool aisle, and found the tub in the storage aisle with the closest demensions to Delta’s cutoff point between the $25-per-checked-bag limit and the $100-per-checked-bag fee so I could pack it full of files, taps, dies, mini-anvils, and scuppernog wine and leave out the fatwood I’d been given by my survivalist friend, and then returned the measuring tape to its origin (I’m not a freakin animal). I successfully negotiated Salt Lake’s clean and underused public transit light rail to get from the airport to the train station, waited out the five hour layover with some light Chomsky reading and a flask, and upon the California Zephyr’s arrival the conductor told me "last car” so I started down the platform with my burden, stopping every 50 feet for a break. One of the train crew actually volunteered to watch my suitcase while I shlepped the tub of tools down to the end of the train. Can you even imagine that happening on an airport jetway? "Here, I’ll guard your suspiciously heavy suitcase"? Not in a million years. Yet I was able to hoist my burden into the superliner car before the call of ‘all aboard’ and drink myself to sleep with my handy-dandy flask listening to the dulcet tones of a Salt Lake juggalette explaining to a black Oakland couple in their 60s how the gang signs for the Bloods and Blood Killas were different. THIS is why I choose Amtrak.
So here are my tips and tricks from my decades of Amtrak travel:
First of all, I’m sad to say that the greatest train experiences available on our continent are Canadian. They have us beat hands down. If I were in New York and needed to get to San Fran and wanted a lifetime of memories rather than a genital-fondling/fart-tube experience, I would take the Royal Canadian via points continental. If I could afford it. I’m sorry Uncle Sam, but there exists a rail service that approximates the 20th Century Limited experience, and the bacon is round. Seriously, just do an image search. Even their national rail service is like Uber to our Greyhound, and that’s including the risk that the driver’s a serial killer. Canada has acknowledged the fact that they are a fat, wide country and dressed accordingly. America is a husky lass in a second-hand dress that her skinnier aunt bought in the Nixon administration. I don’t want to type anymore about how awesome Canadian trains are, I’m getting angry.
Befriend the Attendant. As soon as you get on the train, after you’ve settled in with your bags and stuff, go to the cafe car and buy yourself a beer and tip the attendant with a $5 bill. This is the best investment you can make. That Customer Care Attendant is your best friend on the train. You wanna be friends with benefits. Befriend them. Keep buying what you need, and tip well (my usual strategy is to bring a flask and buy soda on the train, because it comes with ice, and I can’t exactly pack a bunch of ice). There used to be a flamboyant older gentleman on the Zephyr who went westbound Mondays and eastbound Thursdays who had been an Air Force flight attendant on Air Force One during the Johnson-Nixon era. I would always plan my trip to coincide with his and sit down there and listen to his stories. None of them were extremely shocking (Lady Bird was a lush, Nixon was an asshole, big surprise) but it was great to talk to the guy.
Later on, your upgraded status with the Attendant may lead to perks ranging from being able to chill in the cafe after hours to (in the most extreme example), chiefing big bowls of marijuana in the cafe car which I have done against my will and do not recommend (see below). Needless to say, someone gets beligerent in that car every single day. Sometimes they get put off the train in some place like Winnemucca. When that happens, you want the guy or gal behind the counter to be on your side. They used to just push people out the door where-ever, now federal law requires that they eject the passenger at an actual stop where they won’t die of dehydration. I’ve seen it happen many, many times. Do not fuck with the train staff. They WILL put you off the train, and there ain’t another one coming for 24 hours.
Don’t Bug The Conductor. There is a very busy person on board wearing a pillbox hat who is legally responsible for the safety of everyone onboard. This poor mensch has to walk up and down the train to check tickets, which means that every needy dowager and one-notch-above-the-Dirty-Dog tweaker who is six months above their bottom bugs them about whether there will be a smoke stop at Lexington Nebraska. They are not here to tell you where you can get a cup of water. They are so important that the law requires the train to stop every 12 hours and replace them with a fresh and rested Conductor no matter where it is, even a hundred miles out in the desert. Other people have jobs driving those Conductors to their crew change just so you can be safe in the hands of a non-fatigued Conductor. Do you understand? If there’s somebody trying to keep you alive who has another person whose job it is to drive them to work so that the person trying to keep you alive isn’t sleepy, that means you shouldn’t bother that person about can I get a pillow. But the general public has lost the ability to recognize the language that used to be conveyed with hat shape and style, so they no longer pay attention to hats. It’s not that they can’t read the language of hats, it’s that they don’t realize that hats are a language. It’s not their fault. The social technology that was hat style died and we are in the stage where we still think it was about class oppression and not about conveyance of role. So a casualty of the Stupid Age is that the Conductor has shit to do but people bother him.
Here’s some minor tips: Bring a deck of cards. They’re available onboard but may be sold out. On day one you may not be interested in playing gin rummy with strangers in the cafe car. On day three you will be. My favorite pasttime is to sit in the cafe car and try and build a house of cards. On a bouncing train it’s a good way to ensure that the most interesting person onboard will come up and talk to you. If you’re really into trains, get a device that will let you listen to the engineers’ radio. It’s cool to get the inside scoop as well as know the temperature of the bearings as you pass over the hotbox detectors. By the way, if you ever see a red hot train wheel going by, call the number listed on the box by the crossing. Also, on Amtrak, if you really can’t fall asleep, go to the last car and lay down behind the last row of seats. It’s the poor man’s Roomette.
First Class: It is my professional opinion that you should never travel first class on Amtrak. Because you will never want to go Steerage again. Not only are you granted access to another part of the train, a part of the train with free coffee and juice, free papers, and sometimes your own lounge, but you also get free meals, which means you can have a steak dinner every night. For all that it falls short of what it once was, the food on Amtrak is good. I wouldn’t say it’s fantastic, but it’s the best meal I’ve had on any form of commercial transport. I don’t know how they do it but they do it well. If your party is smaller than three you will be expected to dine in a booth with a stranger or strangers. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Interesting people choose Amtrak for interesting reasons.
Don’t Fuck With The Staff. Seriously. Do not fuck with them. They will put you off. The place they put you off will not have open business establishments or taxi service. You gonna shiver on a bench for a full day and then pay for another ticket. Don’t fuck with the staff. Don’t try to smoke in the bathroom. I suggest if you’re addicted to tobacco that you invest in some Snus and endure the trip. They used to have a smoking car and it was the place to meet the cool folks but some asthmatic caught a whiff and sued and that was the end of that. The craving cycle of that particular drug is too quick to allow it to be managed well on the train. Other drugs, not so much (see below).
Bikes on the Train: I never intended this, but I’ve made a career out of bringing bikes on Amtrak, and not just bikes but huge, weird, heavy, oversized choppers. The reason is that you can ride to the station in California, board with your bike, and get off the train on the east coast somewhere like New York and ride your bike to your destination. It’s such an amazing convenience I’m surprised they treat bikes like they are infested with cholera. There are requirements, but if you negotiate these, you can pull it off. Firstly, the bike has to be in a box, and you can buy a box at any station that will accept cargo. But I usually just go to a bike shop and ask for one or grab it out of the dumpster.
It’s worth it to go visit the freight desk the day before. Befriend the freight clerks. You want this part to go smooth. You don’t want them to find an excuse not to take your bike. I have often taken apart my chopper and sent the frame in one box and the fork in another due to weight (limit 50 lbs for any luggage). Your bike will NOT be accepted if you don’t have a ticket. Bring them fresh donuts and you’re golden. Some trains have an actual bike rack in the baggage car, but that’s an east coast thing.
By the way, it’s super cheap to ship freight on Amtrak Express (like $60 a pallet compared to $600 a pallet on a truck) but you have to be going from major station to major station and pick it up yourself. Still, the train is going there every day anyway, so they price it accordingly. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to move a pallet cross country but it’s expensive and they’ll stack shit on top of it in a truck.
Last bike tip: If you’ve missed out on the freight loading/bike box thing, ask the conductor nicely if you can put the bike in the “rear vestibule”. On the east coast they’re sticklers but anywhere else they might be down. This is the hallway that leads to the car behind the last car that’s not there. Some conductors are cool, others are assholes. It would be worth it to find out which days the cool conductor works and schedule your trip accordingly.
Bring Booze, But Not Too Much: Booze is essential for a three-day train trip. You don’t want to be buying six dollar Heinies in the bar car. Your own supply is tolerated as long as you’re subtle about how you consume it. I like the ice and mixers method, but you may prefer to nip at a flask at your seat. However, the train does rock back and forth, and so extreme drunkenness can be bad. One time me and some friends headed down on the Chickenbone (what the crew calls the City of New Orleans due to the nature of the litter the passengers leave) and we had one gallon of lemonade. We drank ¼th of it and filled it up with whiskey. At this point we had a concoction that was ¾ lemonade, ¼ whiskey. Add a little honey and you have what is known as “Uncle Grandpa’s Secret Juice” or just “Uncle Grandpa”. This hooch was so common and revered in my circles that we had a patch that was awarded if it made you do something stupid. Here’s what I did: After that jug got down to ¼ full, we filled it back up with whiskey. Now, unbeknownst to us, we had a concoction that was ¾ whiskey, ¼ lemonade, but that ¼ was ALSO ¼ whiskey. Bad idea. The train got to rockin and a rollin and we all had a terrible time barfing in the downstairs restroom.
Talk To The Mennonites: Mennonites love the train because it falls within their allowable modes of transport. When you see them in the cafe car, strike up a conversation. You won’t regret it. They’re awesome people. They value relationships over possessions and have an ethical avoidance of dependency. You might find you have more in common than you think. Plus, they’re not idiots, they know people make jokes about them and they’re okay with that because they have a solid foundation. Wanna know the sexiest word in the Amish language? "Rumspringa". Rrrrrreow! Hear the one about the Amish hooker? She had two Mennonite!
Drugs: Back before 9/11 the Amtrak used to be a major conduit for drug smuggling. I had a crew member tell me that they always used to be able to tell who was smuggling cocaine because at 11 PM they’d be in the cafe car yelling “I’VE GOT FOUR KILOS OF COCAINE!”. In the good ole days the crew said they’d open up the back door and smoke joints so the smoke blow out the back as the train headed down the tracks. But after the formation of the DHS everything changed. Now they come on board and check people’s ID looking for illegals. Once on a New York bound train I saw an agent yell “WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM” and the guy said in a thick New York accent “DA BRONX”. They WILL bring dogs onboard.
Now, before all this nonsense I was once forced to smoke pot in the cafe car by a couple of biker ladies who insisted that I was going to be their friend and they were going to make me smoke pot and they wanted my goggles (which I wasn’t interested in trading) but they made me “trade”. Suffice to say that I committed this crime under duress. We got the wink from the cafe car attendant and everything was cool. I wouldn’t try it today. I’d bring edibles. Put them up in the luggage racks. Edibles don’t require that you light a fire in the bathroom with some dryer sheets in a toilet paper tube which someone inevitably does every single day. There’s also the people who walk down to the end of the platform with a one-hitter and smoke it during the smoke breaks. The staff does not care, but they are not fooled. You think you’re sneaky, they see it every single day. If you had to move weight, remember that the luggage is stored downstairs and that you can bring a bag on board without any ID on it and there’d be no way they could pin it on you. But I wouldn’t recommend any form of bulk smuggling aboard the trains as the scrutiny has gotten intense. Still, if someone wanted to put something inside their bike frame, under the seat post, and then put that bike in a taped-up carboard box that goes in the baggage car, one might notice that they don’t take the dogs into the baggage car. I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin. They have enough dumb-ass methamphibians to catch the easy way so they get their quota.
Upgrade To A Room: Once the train’s under way, any unsold first class rooms are dead weight. You can upgrade onboard by paying the conductor cash. Ask them if there are any rooms available. They discount the price some huge percentage, then pro-rate it by the hour, so I like to wait until the evening of the first day to skip the dinner price but still sleep in a bed. Remember, when pricing it out, that you’re getting three meals a day and a room as well as your fare. They have some interesting room combinations that you can really get your money’s worth out of if you know short people like kids.
The Coast Starlight: The west coast has one of America’s best train rides, the Coast Starlight runs from Seattle to Los Angeles with the system’s only first class lounge:
The Coast Starlight is unique in the Amtrak system, as it includes a first-class lounge car called the “Pacific Parlour Car”. The cars are Budd Hi-Level Sky Lounge cars, built in 1956 for the Santa Fe’s El Capitan service. Called a “living room on rails”, the Parlour car offers several amenities to first-class sleeping car passengers including wireless Internet access, a full bar, a small library with books and games, an afternoon wine tasting, and a movie theater on the lower level.
Private Railcars: If you have money to burn, a private railcar will allow you to travel in the utmost luxury to any major city in America. You’ll park smack downtown and you can comfortably sleep 15. Amtrak will tow you for about $1.50 a mile. If you’re not filthy rich, you can still rent classy railcars for excursions. I recommend the Virginia City, Lucius Beebe’s private car: http://www.vcrail.com/tourvcprivaterailcars.htm See more at railcharter.com. The San Francisco-Denver run is popular, crossing the Sierras and the Rockies.
POSTSCRIPT: Doing it on the Amtrak gets you into the Clickity Clack Club. Doing it on a freight train gets you into the Mile Long Club.
2087
prguitarman
yousharknotpass
kianamaiart
snowghoul
romaincrisis
amandla
pixelskylines
