mlm59

4 of us are thinking of a girl-friend get-away to Reno in early June. 2 in our group are going there for a bowling tournament, that's the reason for going to Reno. 2 of us have been to Reno and 2 haven't. One of our friends thinks it might be fun to take the California Zephyr to Reno instead of flying. We live about 3 hours from Northern Indiana, where we would leave our car and take the train into Chicago Union Station. We would take the train to Reno and then fly home.

I have checked out the trip, which is about 40 hours. 2 of us think we would have to get a sleeping compartment, the other 2 think they could manage with a reclining seat. I have read lots of reviews of the Zephyr and a lot of them are negative. We are late 50's-early 60's and think this might be a new adventure in our lives. I'm all for a new adventure, but I don't want to make a trip in which I will be miserable and exhausted when I get to Reno.

Any input from anybody who has made this trip that I could share with my friends would be appreciated.

november_moon

If I were to do this, I'd get a sleeper car. That way you can sleep lying down, use the shower facilities, have a secure place to leave your things when you go to the dining car, observation car, etc. No way I would choose to take that trip in a seat in an open salon.

MichelleY

I agree with November moon. However, I am in your age group and would fly. Rent a car when you are in Reno and check out Lake Tahoe and Truckee.

thursdaysd

I took the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco a few years back and enjoyed it very much. I did have a sleeper (roomette), all to myself. Note that the sleeper fare includes meals.However, although my train was on time, that is not always the case.

For details see: https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...fornia-zephyr/

janisj

I would NOT take it unless I had a sleeper. I haven't actually ridden it over night but I live near Sacramento and have ridden both it and the Coast Starlight several times on daylight portions so I've experienced the reclining seats. Fine for 6 or 7 hours but NOT for overnight.

There are negatives of course but IMO it would be a fun girl's trip (as long as you have real beds). It is sort of one long party - not in a bad way. I'd rent a car after you are in Reno and see Tahoe/Truckee/Donner

MmePerdu

I took the train from Denver to San Francisco (Emeryville) and and enjoyed it very much. I wouldn't have enjoyed it, I don't think, if I hadn't had a room to myself (or with a friend). I can't imagine doing it sitting up. The steward would bring my meal to me if I didn't want to go to the dining car which was a nice alternative. I'd recommend it with a compartment for the privacy & flat bed and do keep in mind, as mentioned above, you should give yourself some wiggle room time-wise. I think we got in about 4 hours late.

pat

Another thing to keep in mind is the train is often not on time, but hours late. The last time we went, it hit a cow that was on the tracks, and we ended up cancelling the train and driving. It was a girl`s trip between Reno and Oakland. One way on the train is plenty! Could you fly in and take the train home instead of the reverse?

MmePerdu

Third time's the charm.

marvelousmouse

I think a lot of it depends on the individual. You don’t all have to do the same thing. 2 of you could do reclining, 2 if you could do roommette. 1 could fly, 3 could ride the train. Most of the time, I’d rather spend 30 of those 40 hours at my actual destination. I like the train, just not enough to sacrifice that much time.

I don’t sleep well on trains. A roommette on Amtrak is not worth the extra dough to me. I don’t take valuables except my purse, and that stays with me. I wouldn’t say no to train food, but I’d rather take my own. Amtrak is not terrific when it comes to maintenance so that roommette might have a malfunctioning toilet or shower. You would get a refund but since there are few roommettes, you’d get stuck in coach anyway.

I will say that 75% of the poor reviews for Amtrak are from people who don’t appear to do their research. They have expectations that do not in any way reflect reality, and probably wouldn’t even in a country with a better rail system. Maybe another 20% are from international travellers who know what rail travel is supposed to look like and Amtrak falls short (so more people who don’t research). 5% is genuine screw ups or run ins with incompetent or rude staff. Which Amtrak does have, but so do all companies. The most common complaint is that the trains run late, so I don’t consider that at this point a problem. More like a quirk. Amtrak has a lot of interesting “quirks”.

With the right crowd, it would be a blast. But with folks who have no Amtrak experience and/or are high maintenance, it would be NOT FUN.

So first, find out what your friends are expecting. They should at least be aware of the fact that Amtrak does not own its own track, cargo trains have priority, and delays are very common. So an important consequence is that your friend shouldn’t be attached to any particular scenery. It may be dark when you pass through!

janisj

Ain't that the truth

tomfuller

On our last trip on the CZ, we had coach seats from Chicago to Omaha (10PM) We then switched to a Roomette which we had all the way to Glenwood Springs Colorado. We went back to coach seats from Glenwood to Winnemucca where our car was parked for 11 days. Yes we were 7 hours late getting back to Winnemucca. It was in no way Amtrak's fault that we were late. A sleepy truck driver dumped a load of cattle feed on the tracks in the early morning hours in eastern Colorado.
At least I got to take a shower while the train was not in motion. Some of the bedrooms on Amtrak have a shower and toilet in the room. There is one shower and 4 bathrooms on the lower level of the sleeper cars and one bathroom on the upper level for the roomette passengers.
If you are on the top bunk of a Roomette, there is not room to sit up. I did manage to use my CPAP for several nights while sleeping in the upper bunk. When I first started with Amtrak and ViaRail, in 2001 my travels were only in coach.
Amtrak travel is certainly not for everyone. If you want to avoid a night trying to sleep from Omaha to Denver, fly to Denver and then take the CZ through the most beautiful part of the trip through the Glenwood Canyon and Ruby Canyon.

marvelousmouse

That has been the sort of delay I’ve encountered mostly. I agree that it is not usually entirely Amtrak’s fault but 7 hours is still 7 hours.

one of the things that I don’t like is that they pretty much expect to get you there late. And either they’re too short staffed to clear the tracks promptly or it’s low priority. At least with airlines (and trains elsewhere for that matter) there is some kind of pretense at customer service.

I still enjoy it. It’s an experience. It’s just that if you look at it as transportation, it kind of sucks.

i liked the suggestion to take it home. Fly to Reno, take the train back. A good way to unwind and socialize without the pressure of enjoying Reno.

thursdaysd

I had no trouble sleeping on the Amtrak trains.

dwooddon

I have done that trip several times in both direction and thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree with the previous comments about people who have unreasonable expectations or who are high maintenance having difficulty with AMTRAK. I have done the trip both in coach and with a roomette. When I was younger and more resilient (and broker), I used coach. Once I reached my fifties and had a few more dollars, I have used a roomette and would never go back to coach. I have one suggestion that might make your trip better if you're not the type of people who really enjoy AMTRAK: take the train back between Reno and Denver, hop off in Denver and enjoy that city for a bit, and then fly home from there. From a scenic standpoint, the best part of that trip is the passage through the Rocky Mountains. After Denver (eastbound) it is pretty flat and the scenery is not nearly as good.

Nelson

We took the train last year from Denver to Sacramento, and in general thought it was kinda fun. We got a sleeper roomette, which at this stage of the game (a tad older than you guys), we thought was the only way to go. However, the sleepers are on the upper deck and my wife got severe motion sickness. We have ridden trains on four other continents and this never happened before. She is a special case, suffering vertigo from inner ear nerve damage due to an accident. The upper deck of an Amtrak superliner has a particular swaying cadence that triggered her condition. Be aware just in case anyone in your group is prone to motion sickness.

If not for that we might consider doing another trip under the right circumstances, it's indeed quirky and you meet interesting people from all of the States and the world. I like dwooden's idea of doing the Reno - Denver stretch so you can test the waters through arguably the best part.

Daniel_Williams

I took the California Zephyr over 10 years ago on my first trip to San Francisco (I started in Chicago), and to this day, it stands out as one of the most stunning/ breath-taking rail journeys I've ever taken in terms of scenery, which was sometimes otherworldly. In my mind, some train rides equal but none exceed it in terms of beauty. Pretty much from Denver west. And I've taken MANY trains in North America and Europe over the years. I can truly say that my eyes were opened as a consequence of this journey and in a way that trip forever changed the way I view the North American continent.

This said, Marvelousmouse stated it well. It could be a blast or it could be a disaster, depending on the personalities of you and your friends. Some people love the train like me and others hate it and that's difficult to gauge until one is actually doing it and then it's too late. If you decide to bite the bullet and throw caution to the wind and do it, I would recommend making plans assuming the train will be late on the order of several hours (you never know, though. I took 4 long-distance Amtrak trains over the holidays, including 2 sleepers and all were on-time, but I will add that when I took the Zephyr in 2006, it was 4 hours late). I would also suggest a sleeper given the distance involved, but I need to be horizontal to sleep, so that works best for me. Even with a roomette though, not everyone can sleep... some are lulled by the rocking motion of the train; for others, the train sounds/movements cause insomnia. In my experience, even those passengers who board and initially are enthusiastic and accepting of what the experience appears to be, even they, when they can't sleep, end up not happy campers by the end. Whatever you do, don't have a coffee with supper!

I tend to recommend people try an overnight train journey first to see if they like it and can sleep, before trying a several day train adventure. Nice thing about being near Chicago is you've got a lot of overnight routes to interesting destinations on the east coast, New Orleans or Texas that you could attempt some day if the train piques your curiosity but you only want to commit to a shorter journey. Also, if the two nights required from Chicago to Reno on the train sound too potentially problematic to you, but you'd still like to experience the California Zephyr, dwooddon's suggestion of Denver to Reno only I thought an excellent one.

Best wishes, Daniel

mlm59

Thanks to all of for your suggestions. Lots of ideas to consider. Of course, making 4 people happy isn't always easy. One friend is my neighbor. We talked today. She is excited about the train trip, but her excitement was a bit tempered by the thoughts of delays. We took a train trip from Indianapolis to Chicago a few years ago, a relatively short distance, and were 3 hours late. The in-coming train was late and then there were track problems as we headed north. She and another of the group are the bowlers and have to bowl on Monday morning. If the train is on schedule, it will arrive on Sunday around 8:30 AM, which would work well. She wants time to relax and enjoy Reno a bit before bowling.

I really like the suggestion of flying to and from Denver and taking the train from there. Flights to Denver from Indy are reasonably priced. How difficult would it be for us to get from the airport to the train station and back again when we return? Not really interested in spending much time in Denver, all of us have been there in the past.

We can't reverse the order of the trip due to everyone's schedules. That's why we were planning to fly back from Reno.

We will get together with all of our friends in a couple of weeks and present all of the details to them. Thanks again for all of the great suggestions, advice, and input.

tomfuller

Last year Denver completed the light rail system from the new Amtrak station/transportation hub out to the Denver airport. Flying to Denver on the red eye makes sense. When the California Zephyr is on time (sometimes), the train arrives from Chicago at about 7:15AM. It cannot leave before 8:05AM after fueling and maintenance check is complete. While that is going on there are a couple guys that wash the windows.
I don't remember ever being more than 7 hours behind schedule on the California Zephyr.

marvelousmouse

Which trains did you take over the holidays? Which is your favorite long distance train?

It’sthe movement that gets to me. To be fair, I have really terrible motion sickness/inner ear issues. Maybe if I didn’t have that problem, I could sleep. All a roommette or sleeper means for me is a chance to get away from people and stretch my back. I feel better but I’m still sleep deprived on arrival, and it’s not a great way to start a girls’ trip.

tomfuller

People with motion sickness problems should check with their doctor to see if TransDerm Scop (Scopolomine) will prevent your symptoms. It is a patch that you stick behind your ear after a shower. It usually works for at least 3 days.
In May last year We took the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to Erie PA in Business Class. We slept pretty well in the comfortable seats.