Amtrak Adventures – Getting to Chicago

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

So far I haven’t actually said too much about the Amtrak trains themselves and they did play a pretty big part in this trek… When Martina and I had been plotting our route through the vastness of America we had all sorts of different ideas and places we wanted to stop off. It soon became clear that Amtrak wasn’t perhaps the transport of choice for many Americans. Whilst the quality of trains looked promising, the quantity did not. And as we started the journey it became very clear that passenger trains are a poor runner up to freight trains. But don’t let this put you off – Amtrak is a leisurely and relaxing way to travel, if you have the time.

Everywhere takes a while to get to and the trains don’t exactly exert themselves.

The journey from Washington DC and Chicago was one of the sections of our trip made by necessity rather than desire. We wanted to head south, and as quickly as possible. But due to the ridiculous Amtrak network, the quickest way to head south is to, um, head north. So Chicago was a cursory stop in our schedule, so we could jump off and catch the train south to St. Louis. (This was not because we wanted to snub Chicago but I had been before and so wanted to experience new places and made us move on.) The train journey was the most beautiful so far, particularly through West Virginia. We also notched up four more states (West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois). The Capitol Limited route took us seventeen and a half hours to reach Chicago so there was plenty of time for us to amuse ourselves!

If you’ve never caught an Amtrak long-distance train before, here are a few words of advice:

1. Don’t eat any of the warmed up food from the cafe car. It’s yukky. Stick to the soft drinks and crisps.
2. Curling up and sleeping across two chairs (although a rare luxury) is more comfy than sleeping upright.
3. Unless you really hate sleeping around others there’s no real benefit to the sleeping car.
4. The staff are generally very lovely. Be nice to them.
5. The train is often delayed because of giving priority to freight trains. So leave an hour or so spare if you’ve got something important to get to.
6. Take a good book.
7. Be prepared to chat to strange new people.
8. The lounge car has some beautiful views so take advantage of it if you’re on that train for a while.

On the whole, we loved our train journeys. We played battleships, we listened to music, read trashy American magazines and enjoyed the surrounding landscape.

After our longest journey o date, we arrived in Chicago sleepy but keen to make use of the six hours we had in the city. So, um, we went to an internet cafe. (A sad statement about the techno-crazy generation I represent). Thanks to my travelling chum Martina’s dad we knew of a good cyber cafe but it was out of the city quite a bit… Efebos provided all we needed – a calm space to read emails, check BBC news and facebook whilst eating yummy sandwiches and sipping on healthy smoothies. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we lost track of time and very nearly missed our train on to St Louis.