Thread:Boo110/@comment-29701559-20161108195805/@comment-32738051-20161111130017

Glad you are feeling better now, Boo! 😻💕👻😷😝☕☕☕☕☕🌈

Since I'm on Windows, I'm still waiting for the train to arrive. But last Christmas I did take a long journey by train...on Amtrak from Atlanta to Boston...it's about 25 hours with one change in trains. I don't know what Amtrak was like decades ago, when people still had romantic notions about train travel in the U.S., but nowadays at least the east coast routes are nothing to write home about. Atlanta to NYC (and back again) is overnight with most of the view worth watching shrouded in darkness and the rest stretches through mostly the industrial and poorer sides of cities and towns. The dining car was like a bad diner, the food was okay but way too expensive for the quality, and the service was really slow. Don't get me started about the bathrooms. I rode in coach and the seats were hard as rocks so it was a very uncomfortable ride both ways. The sleeper options are way too expensive and all you get are tiny, cramped options even in the deluxe accommodations, which are shared. The route between NYC and Boston is better, both for views and seats but that's one of their fast trains and covers only a very small portion of the trip. I won't do the trip again ever. Ugh! Greyhound is more affordable and about the same duration with more comfortable seats and the views are SO much better (just as long as you don't get stuck with a driver who gets lost...don't ask!).

But that's not to say there aren't still good experiences to be had on trains today. Just not that route and maybe not on Amtrak at all. But elsewhere maybe. For example, the Orient Express doesn't exist anymore but there is a company that uses the name and does operate leisure travel service, a couple routes of which I believe cover the same route as the original, for those who can afford it. It's called Venice-Simplon Orient Express. I wouldn't mind that trip sometime. 😉