Amtrak Trip to Michigan

Last year, I went to Michigan to visit a friend during holiday season. But why not spending the time with my family? Well, plane ticket back to my hometown costs too much. And for the same reason, I choose to take a train to visit my friend.

Ah, the Amtrak, so infamous that I heard about it before I came to the US. But still, I like going on a trip with trains and this is the first time that I take a train that last more than a day. However, as I am traveling alone and I do not have the money for a roomette or any kind of sleeper, I was stuck with coach class. How nice, two days to spend on a chair😄. However, this even I am traveling in coach class, the ticket price still isn’t cheap, probably because it is holiday season. The total for a round trip from Riverside to Ann Arbor was $506 via Southwest chief and Wolverine line.

According to the schedule, my train departs at 19:13 from Riverside and of course it delayed. Well, I am not complaining about the delay since the track around this area is probably owned by Union Pacific. Therefore, Amtrak would need to wait for Union Pacific’s freight trains to pass. What I am having problem with, is there were no information about the delay, no signs about which platform should I be waiting for the train, no nothing. Thus, I was waiting in dim light, praying that the platform I was on is the right one. Though eventually I found someone to ask which platform will the train arrive, it still was not a great experience. Compared to trains that I have taken before, Taiwan and Japan railways, there always exist a clear sign of which platform this is, what kind of train will arrive and probably a display showing when the train will come.

When the train finally arrived, I was greeted by the train’s crew, who checked my ticked and assign a seat for me. To my surprise, seating is not predetermined. It seemed like they sorted the passengers by their destinations and order them when boarding. I wonder why it could not be decided automatically when ordering the ticket. I suspect this has something to do with their old ticketing system.

48 Hours of Train

Amtrak superliner. The train is large, double decker with one diesel power car at the front, not what I am used to (most of the newer trains in Taiwan and most of the trains in Japan have distributed power). The sleeper cars are in the front, followed by one dining car, then a lounge car. Finally, there is two coach class car.

The coach class seat is large (for my standard) and quite comfortable, it will be horrible if it is not nice as I am going to spent 40 hours with it. Power plug works normally (great). However, it is only available on the window side. So as my seat is on the aisle side, I have no access to it, at least not in a convenient way. But the good news is, there is a sightseer lounge car and there are plenty power plugs.

Sightseer car is great, not many people stayed there at night so there are many seats and spaces. I would say, even if the seat is not as comfortable as in the coach class car, but without the people, it is even better than staying in the back. With such a nice environment, I stayed here with my notebook until very late. I left only my duffle bag, filled with clothes, back in the coach class car and carried all the valuable things with me in my backpack as I am not interested in getting stolen.

The network is … not good. There was no WiFi or any kind of network service on the train. So you could only depend on your celluar. What’s worse, as the train gradually travels towards nowhere, or the Rocky mountains, I could not get good connection. It had been some time since the last time I was cut out from any Internet connection. The good thing is I have my kindle with me.

Sights of the Rocky Mountains

I woke up at dawn, just when the sun start rising. The orange light of the sun shines at the large red dirt plain covered with some snow. It is a beautiful sight that I have never seen before.

Then there are some places that looks just like movies set in the wild west.

It really feels strange for me to see places like this, where there is just nothing. I spent most of my life in a island country, people could travel from the highest mountains to the ocean in a few hours. And everywhere is crowded with people. Seeing place like this makes me feels tiny and insignificant, probably a bit lonely.

Eating on Amtrak

I have a feeling that eating on train would cost me quite some money, therefore I packed myself some rice balls with salmon, trying to depend less on whatever they sell on train. And gosh it did cost me a lot. As I have mentioned before, there is a dining car, however, they are for those in sleepers. If people in coach class wanted to try out their food, it think you could also make a reservation (and pay extra money).

Rice balls that I packed did not last long. I remember it disappeared before lunch. Without an option, I ordered some food at the first floor of the lounge car. It cost about as much as a meal in a fast food restaurant, but the content was abysmal. Here is a picture of it:

Yes. It is some microwaved stuff. The tea also tastes abysmal. I missed those excellent train bento you could find in Taiwan or Japan railways.

Chicago Union Station

After many many hours on the train, I finally arrived at Chicago Union Station. From here I made a transfer to wolverine line to Ann Arbor. The station is what people would expect from an old style European / American central station. The lobby is large and clean. In contrast, the waiting area for the train is small and crowded. They would not allow people to be on the platform before they started boarding passengers.

Before arrived at Chicago, I had a chat with a lady who sits beside me. I talked about that there are high speed railways in Europe, Japan, Taiwan and America probably should also have one. Even if high speed rail is not profitable, there should be a effort to electrify the existing railroads to provide better services. However the lady replied that it would not be possible as it would cost too much as an infrastructure, America is simply too big for these kind of projects.

Although I knew that there are many problems that hinder any railway related projects, such as many part of the network is owned by different private companies, city plannings are mostly car centric etc. But I would not consider cost to be a major factor, as Americans could spend billions of dollars on highways and more to maintain them. What’s more, they are spending it without any doubt. By contrast, California high speed railway project has become a focus of media for its budget. I would argue that blaming on costs could only serve as an excuse for not liking to make a difference. There was a time that railroads are the backbone of the states, with all the benefits that it could bring. But after private cars and planes started to dominate transportation, trains began to fell out of American’s favor, even though trains are by no means, inferior to cars and jets. Take Taiwan as an example, though the magnitude is vastly different, there was a time that highway and regional airlines formed how people would travel to different places. But after high speed railway was built, it obliterated regional airline companies for its convenience and speed, even though the whole project cost 16 billion dollars. No one complained about it afterwards.

Wolverine

Back to Amtrak. I am probably going write some more about trains, but not now. Wolverine is far better than Southwest chief in terms of speed. The seat is also large and comfortable. If Amtrak started to consider electrifying any route, I would say this is the perfect line for that. (reference to a great video on this topic: The 3 Amtrak Routes that can be Electrified Tomorrow ) The trip from Chicago to Ann Arbor took me around 5 hours. I got better internet connection along the way, far better than Southwest Chief.

After 48 hours from I stepped inside the train, I finally arrived at Ann Arbor. It was almost midnight when I walked out of the station. Luckily, it was only a couple hundred meters to my friend’s place. To sum up this trip, though Amtrak is not very great, it is still quite an experience. Next time if I am traveling to east coast, I’m probably taking California Zephyr. :)