Thursday, November 12, 2015
Taking the train
The Coast Starlight would take us from Los Angeles to Seattle in 35 hours, at $763 for a Superliner Roomette. Food and entertainment were included. Free wine and cheese, I kept noting, as if the promise of a few glasses of wine would be enough to offset the cost of the trip.
Not that the cost was really the deciding factor. After all, $763 total is really $381.50 per head, about the same as it would cost to either fly or to take a long weekend and drive the Pacific Coast Highway. It was more the thing of the thing, a vague phrase that in this case meant: This trip isn’t about moving. It’s about something else.
We both figured out what it was really about at the same time, and Mike was already dumping our names and birthdates into Amtrak’s interface by the time I sent over the words “XXXX IT BOOK TRAIN.”
“We are going to have an adventure,” I wrote. Then I sent Mike a Facebook sticker of a sailor and a mermaid sharing a bottle of Champagne.
Via Instapundit, What it's like to take a 36-hour sleeper train from LA to Seattle / Boing Boing
While it's not in the same class as a private railcar, it is way cheaper and doesn't appear to be that bad. And unlike modern airtravel, you actually get real food.
Too bad the destinations are limited.
