I took an Amtrak yesterday from NYC to Indianapolis. Direct flights are 2 hours, but they are expensive, so I always get connecting flight trips, and these trips ~10 hours. This is bad because 10 hours of airline travel is 10 hours of extreme discomfort.
The discomfort part is why instead of air travel I decided to take Amtrak this time. At 22 hours the same trip with Amtrak is significantly longer, but if it is more comfortable this makes it worth it. In the end I found the Amtrak was more comfortable, less stressful, and this made Amtrak worth the additional 12 hours. That being said, travelling for 22 hours sucks no matter how comfortable the trip is. So in total I would say it is only a little bit better than flying.
I will describe some details of the trip:
Boarding: Boarding was fast and easy. You simply get on the train, and once the train is moving a conductor comes around and checks everyone's tickets. No checking IDs, no going through security, no standing in line by boarding group, no staff forcibly and unexpectedly seizing your carryon from you and shipping it to your final destination. Amtrak involves none of this: you simply hop on the train. There are no assigned seats, and finding a seat is easy since there are 3 or 4 times as many seats as there are passengers. You don't have to sit next to anyone because there are so many seats available, and you are perfectly free to hog two seats.
Station quality: It varies. Moynihan train hall in NYC is spectacular, beautiful, and clean. Passengers looked like decent people. The station in Indianapolis was a dump - it was basically the hood, packed with crazy drug addicts, complete with a rude condescending Amtrak police officer in riot gear who didn't like that after entering the lobby I wanted to go back to the track area. This Indianapolis station was the worst part of the trip.
COVID enforcement: In Moynihan train hall there was an audio message being played that said things like it is federal law that you must wear a mask, and that passengers without masks would be banned. This made me think they would be very strict about mask enforcement, but they weren't. When I flew with American Airlines, the flight attendants were aggressive about making sure passengers didn't just wear masks, but wore them properly, and were wearing the right kind of mask. There was none of this aggressive monitoring of mask usage on Amtrak. Passengers all had masks, but often their masks were not covering their nose and mouth and the Amtrak conductors didn't seem to notice or care.
Service: Amtrak conductors are mainly just there to check your tickets when you first board, and they are courteous and polite when doing so. After that you don't have to interact with them. They don't make you do stupid stuff like put up your seat backs and tray tables like flight attendants do.
Physical comfort: The seats were very comfortable and the area was clean. The seats reclined significantly more than airplane seats, and you can make the legs of the seat go up so that you can stretch your legs out. The seats are significantly larger than airplane seats and you get much more leg room. There were no seat belts.
It is comfortable enough that you can work on work on things without being distracted by how uncomfortable you are (like planes).
I must note though that even though the seats were comfortable, and reclined, and the legs went up, it was still not a bed, so I was still tired after the trip. I got some sleep on the train, but not much, maybe this is because I am just a very light sleeper. After my trip was over and I arrived to a bed at 7am, I slept for another 7 hours.
Getting needs taken care of: I had to walk over to their convenience store cart and buy things like bottled water and coffee. They also sold food but it didn't look great so I didn't get it. I would recommend bringing your own food and water. There is no free water that I know of, although to be fair I never asked.
The bathrooms resembled airplane bathrooms and they were a dump. Make sure to clear your bowels before boarding the train - I was very thankful that I did this.
There are outlets on every seat where you can charge your laptop. Mine wasn't working, so I just moved to a different seat since there were so many available.
Pricing: Pricing is a little cheaper than cheap airline tickets. Amtrak was $88 as opposed to $130 for a cheap airline ticket with connecting flights. It is true that if you look now you can find airline tickets cheaper than Amtrak, even for direct flights, but these tickets never seem to be there when I actually want to buy a ticket.
Also the pricing is consistent. It is always $88, with a few exceptions such as Christmas. You don't have to hunt for the cheapest deals or shop on the right day of the week or anything like this.
Amtrak's pricing also makes sense. The longer the length of your trip, the more expensive your tickets will be. The cheapest Amtrak ticket between two locations will always be the direct ticket. This is unlike airline tickets where the only thing that matters for pricing is how miserable you will be. If you want to fly direct to a nearby city the price is extremely high, but they will sell you a ticket for cheap that involves flying to the other end of the country as a connection.
Overall: I think Amtrak is a little bit better than flying with connections, for the distance I travelled. Anything longer then flying is really your only option. I would highly recommend Amtrak for shorter trips.
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