Let's Go Places: The Texas Eagle

 

Friends, it is time to get into every last detail of the trip that you've been dying to hear about and that I've been dying to tell you about!  Choo-choo and All Aboard!!!  We are going to take the Texas Eagle, which is Amtrak's Chicago to Texas route.  It's a 30 hour trip, so we will be sleeping (and showering) on the train, and we're doing a round trip.  We are Team Princess so we will be riding in a private roomette.

What Amtrak Travel Is and What It Is Not

Let's start off by level setting expectations:

• If you are looking for a luxury travel experience, Amtrak is not for you.
• If you are looking for 24/7 premium internet, Amtrak is not for you.
• If you need room to move around, Amtrak is not for you.
• If you are looking for the fastest way to get from point A to point B, Amtrak is not for you.
• If you are looking for a guaranteed on-time departure and arrival, Amtrak is not for you.
• If you are looking for budget travel, Amtrak might or might not be for you.

However:

• If you are looking for a unique travel experience, Amtrak is for you.
• If you want to be somewhat offline, Amtrak is for you.
• If you want a way to travel that is in some ways a step back in time, Amtrak is for you.
• If you think that train travel is cool and you want to be around like minded people, Amtrak is definitely for you.
• If you want a travel situation that gives you the option to be very alone or very social, and also to be able to flip back and forth between the two extremes, a private room/roomette on Amtrak is definitely for you.

Now let's do a run down of the options.  I am a stranger on the internet with a grand total of one round trip Amtrak joureny under my belt, so you may want to defer to doing your own research or asking anyone else, but here is what I believe to be true.  The two ways to ride are in coach or in a private room.

• Coach: budget friendly, but no access to the sleeper side of the car or to the showers.  Amtrak's staff is on high alert for coach passengers trying to roam the train, and you will be (politely) put back in your place if you cross the line between the observation car into the dinning car.  Meals are not included but there is a cafeteria car where you can buy food and drinks.  You have full access to the observation car.
• Roomette: this is what I did.  You get your own tiny little space that is two seats by day that converts to upper and lower bunks by night.  There is a maximum of two adults per roomette.
• Rooms: you get a larger but definitely not a large space, possibly with an in-room sink, maybe with an in-room bathroom, and maybe even an in-room shower.
• Roomette and Room passengers get the same perks.  They are allowed to go anywhere on the train.  Meals and one alcoholic drink per day are included, and if you need more food/drink you can buy it.  There are showers.

The thing that I benefited from the most in preparing to take an Amtrak trip was watching YouTube videos of other folks' rides.  There are no shortage of these videos out there, but here are a few of my favorite peeps.  I picked one video from each, but all of these folks have a wealth of Amtrak videos for your falling-down-the-rabbit-hole pleasure:

• Rob and Allie, winner of the "most helpful information" award.
• Chloe and Sometimes Ludwig, winner of the "most fun" award.
• Sojournies, winner of the "video that gave me the specific idea for this trip" award
• Jeb Brooks, co-winner of the "just because I don't have a specific call out doesn't make his videos any less good" award.
• Adam, the other co-winner of the "just because I don't have a specific call out doesn't make his videos any less good" award.
• Miles in Transit.  Full disclosure, I have not watched this video yet, but Miles is great for giving the full nitty-gritty, such as bathroom reviews.  Plus this video has a guest appearance by Adam, so it's the winner of the "video that I will be watching immediately after finishing this post" award.

Enough chit chat, let's ride the train all ready!

The Boarding Process

The Texas Eagle departs from Chicago's Grand Central Station, which is one of the largest train stations in the country.  Unlike the airport, there is no TSA and you don't have to show up two to three hours early.  I arrived around 12:30 for a 2:10 departure.

Sleeper tickets include station lounge access, so I headed straight for the lounge.  I checked in with the attendant, who told me to listen out for the boarding announcement, and then I snagged a drink and a bag of chips from the goodie pile.  I sat down at a table and mindlessly browsed the internets for what felt like five minutes, and then they called us to start boarding.  So if you're wondering why I have no lounge pictures, the abrupt departure is the reason.

They had us line up in the lounge, and an Amtrak employee guided us to the departure zone.  From the get go they made a point of separating the coach and sleeper passengers - not to be mean, but because the groups board the train on different cars.

Soon enough, it was go time.  The train starts underground, hence why it's pitch black in the afternoon.

You don't have to worry about going to the wrong place or messing up, because there are Amtrak staff along at every step of the way to do your thinking for you.

I got on the train and found my room.  The one thing that YouTube did not prepare me for was how small the space was.  Sure, I knew that it was small, but the reality was much smaller than I was capable of imagining.  Luggage wise, Amtrak tells you to keep it down to the equivalent of two carry on bags (anything larger can be checked), which is what I had.  At first I was stumped on where to put my luggage.

Eventually I figured it out.  Bag and purse on the "stair" side of the car - yep what they are resting on is the stairs that go to the upper berth.

Suitcase tucked on the other side of the room

Amtrak's most outdated technology is their cupholders.  I had no choice but to Live Dangerously the night that I brought my dinner wine back to the room, but I learned pretty quickly to keep my water bottles wedged in the space between my bag and the wall.

My other "least favorite feature" was the tray table that slides out between the two seats.  I have no picture of the tray table in action because it was too awkward to photograph.  I am not a large person, but with the tray table down I could not comfortably rest my feet on the opposite seat.  On the pro side, I can confirm what I saw on YouTube that the table has a grid so that you can play checkers or chess if you are so inclined.

Once I adjusted to the space, hanging out in the roomette was dandy.  IMO the seats were perfectly comfortable when fully upright, and you can recline them if you need a more plush riding experience.

Another callout that I've seen in so many videos is that there is only one power outlet in the rooms.  Since I am one person, it was adequate for my needs, but with more than one traveler you would definitely need a power strip or adapter.  The one thing that I didn't know going in is that the motion of the train is not 100% compatible with a Macbook plug.  I decided that I did not want to risk having the plug come out and fall on me during the night, so I didn't use the plug overnight.  Other than that, my philosophy for when I was in the room was ABC: Always Be Charging.

Security wise, you can lock your room from the inside but not the outside.  Plenty of folks left their doors open when they were out of their rooms, but thanks to Rob and Allie's videos, I had the hot tip to close the door anytime that I left my room.  From this view, you can't tell whether someone is in the room or not, so you're not going to want to barge in and find out.  My "security" precautions were that when I left the room I always put my electronics away so that there was nothing enticing in plain view, and I always carried my purse with me.  The only people who have access to the sleeper cars are the other sleeper passengers and Amtrak staff, so it felt reasonably safe.

I had two very different situations with the room doors.  On the trip out, the motion of the train tended to dislodge the door lock, so it was very much not a Fort Knox level of security.  At least the door was heavy enough that it did not slide open.  On the return trip, there was a trick to having to push the door in to get the latch to release, so the first time that I left the room, I thought that I had gotten locked out.  The car attendant helped me get back in.

The Overall Amtrak Ride Experience

You can get views for days from your room.

You can get even more views for days from the observation car.

On the trip down, I made a point of taking regular reading/staring out the window breaks in the observation car.  On the way back, I steered clear because there was a group of passengers who were very chummy and talking loudly.  It just wasn't the vibe that I was looking for, and I had a great view from my room.

The views on the Texas Eagle are not as iconic and the views out west, but we did OK.

Springfield, Illinois.  So close that I could almost touch it...one day I will.

St. Louis:  I don't think you will be surprised to hear that I moved Missouri up on my travel bucket list.

A random cool view from the Dallas station:

Somewhere in Texas:

As far as how to pass the time on a train, I did not find that to be difficult.  You can:

• Chill and stare out the window.
• Do stuff on your electronic devices.  This route does not have internet service, so I got spendy and upped my Mint Mobile Plan from the $15/5GB per month plan to the $20/15GB plan so that I wouldn't have to keep an eye on my data.  There were large patches where there was no connection, so heads up about that.
• Read!
• Any other activity that you can imagine doing while sitting on a train.
• Hang out with people!  You'll see folks across the hall from you, in the dinning car, in the observation car, and out on the platform during the fresh air breaks.  Talking with random strangers on the train is similar to chatting with other bloggers.  None of you are there because train travel is convenient: you're there because it's your first time and you're curious, or because you're a seasoned veteran and you like it.  In other words, everyone on the train has something in common.
• Get off the train at the fresh air breaks and get some movement in.  The stops ranged from 5-10 minutes to 30-40 minutes.  St. Louis, Dallas, and Longview stick in my mind as places with longer stops.  They tell you not to go very far from the train and specifically not to leave the platform, so you're pretty much stuck there.  Heads up that the term "fresh air" is relative when you're standing next to a train.  I made a point of walking up and down the platform every chance that I got, and I definitely felt pretty grimy by the end of my train days.  Also, they yell "all aboard" when it's time to get back on, but the train platforms are noisy so you can barely hear it.  I always got back on the train when I started seeing other folks getting back on.
• As I said before when I wrote about my quest to get 10,000 steps on a train day, getting physical activity on the train is somewhat challenging.  In order to walk down the train corridor, I had to hunch my shoulders in a bit so that my arms wouldn't hit the walls as I walked.  There's really no room to move around in the roomette.  The best that I could manage from my routine of body weight strength exercises was to do dips and squats.

As far as how you know what's going on, there is a loudspeaker where the staff makes announcements, but that system is not Amtrak's best feature.  Sometimes it was impossible to hear.  Amtrak staff will come to your room and knock on the door if they need you.

From 10 PM to 7 AM are quiet hours on the train, and there are no announcements during that time.  There are stops and fresh air breaks during the night, and the staff will get you if you have a stop.  You have to figure out when the night time fresh air breaks are on your own, and since the only thing that I'm doing at night is sleeping, I didn't need to know about those.

As far as what life is like in coach, I got a taste of that from the announcements that were being made.  Several times the staff reminded passengers to use headphones for their devices, and made some choice comments about behavior.  I'm just going to throw this out there: I would be very reluctant to do an overnight trip in coach.

The Amtrak Food Experience

Most of the YouTube videos that I had seen praised the food, with a few hints that there was a catch.  The two entrees that stood out to me the most were Amtrak Steak and a vegan curry meatball dish.

The first catch is that the Texas Eagle has limited food service, so there was no Amtrak Steak.  It was premade food that was reheated and served on disposable plates.  From what I've seen on YouTube, the food is nicer and served on real plates on the longer rides.

The first meal of my trip was dinner, and the dinning car attendant stopped by everyone's room to get our orders.  You have the choice of having your meals delivered to your room, or to eating in the dinning car.  If you're eating in the dinning car, they give you an assigned meal time and an assigned seat.

I'm not saying that I will never eat a meal in my room, but I wanted to move around and to get the full Amtrak experience, so I was all in on the dinning car.

At the appointed meal time, I walked to the dinning car and found my seat.  My dining companion was already there, and turned out to be a frequent rider and a kindred spirit...a semi retired accountant who lived in Oak Park.  As you may recall, I am a fully retired accountant and the thing that brought me to Chicago was a Frank Lloyd Wright event in Oak Park.  Dinning Companion was going to Dallas, and it just so happened that he came back on the same day that I did, and by coincidence we were always in the dining car at the same time, so it was the first of many meals together.  I will presumably never see Dining Companion again, but I enjoyed talking with him.

That's the background, let's dish on the food deets!  The outgoing trip served dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the return trip served breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, and lunch.

Outgoing Meal #1: Dinner

All of the dinners started with the world's tiniest salad and a dinner roll.  The veggies were in good condition and the roll was warm and tasty.

My entree was my #2 favorite meal that I had seen on YouTube, the Pan-Asian Meatballs.  This meal is vegan.  I know that it's not very photogenic, but it was delicious and lived up to the hype.  I had a beer alongside.

Dessert was a choice between butter cake and a brownie.  I went with the butter cake, which won rave YouTube reviews.  It was a bit much to eat then and there, so I took it back to my room and had it later.  It was up my alley.

Outgoing Meal #2: Breakfast

I stuck with the breakfast sandwich option for all of my breakfasts.  It was on the smaller size (IMO correctly sized), and was a bagel with egg, cheese, and sausage.

On the outgoing trip there was a coffee urn in the hall, so I was able to get self serve coffee before breakfast.  On the return trip, coffee was only in the dinning car.  Amtrak coffee is....uh...well, it's not the worst.

Folks who have read my travel posts know that I always travel with my own coffee, a pour over filter, and an electric kettle, so you may be wondering why I drank Amtrak's coffee instead of my own.  The reason is a tip that I picked up in a Rob and Allie video that it is a big no-no to use an electric cooking device on the train.  From what I saw on the internets, I couldn't tell if the electric kettle would have blown the room circuit, but it was not a risk that I was willing to take.  Also, the motion of the train was enough that I would not have wanted to mess around with pouring boiling water into my pour over filter, so I played by the rules. Look at me drinking subpar coffee for two mornings out of all of the mornings of my life.

Outgoing Meal #3: Lunch

Cheeseburger.  There was nothing wrong with it, but it did not float my boat.  I've heard raves about Amtrak's meatless burgers, but those were not an option on this train.

Outgoing Meal #4: Dinner

The butter chicken.  My dining companion raved about this meal, but it was my least favorite.  The chicken was very "chicken-y" and I picked most of it out.

I had the brownie for completism purposes.  It was nothing special.

Return Trip Meal #1: Breakfast

I skipped the first meal of my return journey.  I wasn't clear on if breakfast would be served, so I had already eaten at the hotel.

Return Trip Meal #2: Lunch

I wasn't very hungry, so I went with the lightest option, which was a Greek salad.  It did the job for an "I am not hungry" meal.

Return Trip Meal #3: Dinner

I was torn between having the curry meatballs again or trying the only other entree that I was intersted in, which was beef paprikash.  I went with the new experience.  It was "surprisingly good for what it was".

I enjoyed Amtrak wine with dinner, and ended up buying an extra glass (aka a single serve tiny bottle) to take back to my room.  I chased it down with another round of butter cake.

Return Trip Meal #4: Breakfast

An unpictured breakfast sandwich.

Return Trip Meal #5: Lunch

An unpictured ham sandwich.  The train was due in at 1:30, but the staff needs more time than that to clean up, so in order to get lunch you had to be in the dinning car no later than 10:30.  I wasn't hungry at all but knew that I might be before the train got in.  It was after 11 by the time food was served, so it ended up not being so obscenely early after all.

Thoughts on Amtrak Food

The longer you are on the train, the more repetitive the meals become.  Luckily there are more food options for longer rides.  With that said, the dinners ranged from pretty good to not bad, and the breakfast sandwiches were very similar to my normal non-train breakfasts.  Also, the dinning car staff was very attentive on both rides, which made dinning a pleasant experience.

If you get peckish between meals, you can go down to the cafeteria car and buy more food.  I was not hungry, and never got around to checking out the cafeteria car.  Also, you are allowed to get lunch for dinner and dinner for lunch if you want to mix things up.  You can get extra snacks at meal times for free as long as they have it.  The only thing that I saw get shot down were requests for two meals at one mealtime.

You're allowed to bring your own food, with the limitation that you're not allowed to use any cooking devices on the train.  You're not allowed to bring alcohol, but the word on the street is that Amtrak employees will not get into your business as long as you don't blatantly BYOB.  As it was, I did just fine without bringing anything extra with me.

The Amtrak Sleep Experience

Around 9:00, the car attendant makes the rounds to make the beds.  Once you've seen it done, you can do it yourself if you wish.

The bed was comfortable for what it was, and ample for one person.  There is no way that two people are going to lie side by side in one of those beds.

That's the positive, and now we will talk about everything else, which is the negative.

The rooms do not have light blocking curtains, and the lights in the hallway stay on.  This was not a big deal since I always bring an eye mask with me.

Amtrak also does not have sound proof rooms.  The train has to use its whistle at every crossing, and you can hear it.  From what I gathered from the other passengers, the closer you are to the whistle, the louder it is.  I personally do not have the kind of ears that work with ear plugs, and I can still hear a lot with noise cancelling headphones, so that kind of wrecked the sleep situation for me.

A lot of the other passengers told me that they took a sleeping aid, with Benadryl being the most common one.  I stuck with my normal magnesium and melatonin combo plus sleep meditations.  I was able to sleep, but I woke up frequently.  My Garmin did not register any sleep on my two train nights.

Sleep was my least favorite part of the experience, but spoiler I will be taking another trip, so it was not a deal breaker.  For completism purposes, I climbed into the upper bunk to see what it was like.  There is less space up there and no window, but it didn't feel super creepy.

The Amtrak Bathroom Experience

The good: using the bathroom on Amtrak is exactly like using the bathroom anywhere else.  The bathrooms stayed in decent shape throughout both trips.  There are a lot of bathrooms on the train, and it was pretty rare to have to wait.

The unexpected: there is a two second delay between the time that you push the flush button and the actual flush.

The less than good: the bathrooms in the roomette cars were tiny.  Again, I am not a big person, and it was a little close for comfort.  The bathrooms in the "non roomette" cars were decently sized.

The silly: some of the bathrooms had no toilet paper holders, so the roll was just sitting out where ever.

My least favorite part: this style of sink.  The faucet is so close to the sides that it was hard to get water on my palms.  I really did not care for the handwashing experience in these sinks.

Much improved: this style of sink in the larger bathrooms.

The Amtrak Shower Experience

I knew from Rob and Allie's videos that the showers are not popular, but (in the opinion of Rob and Allie) recommended.  Having taken two showers on an Amtrak train, I agree - no one else was using them at night, and they did the job and did it well.  I saw a couple of folks there in the mornings.  There were something like 2-3 showers in the downstairs of the cars.  The water was warm and the pressure was great.

The shower on the outbound train was much smaller, but still not as small as the dreaded "tiny shower" that I've encountered in some Airbnbs.  The water got warm quickly, and in that unit it stayed until I shut it off.

The shower on the return train was larger, and the water only stayed on for 60 seconds at a time, but it was no big deal to push the button to get the water back.  The water was warm for the duration of my shower.

Amtrak provides washcloths, towels, soap, shampoo and conditioner, so every thing that you need.  There is a community laundry bag to put your washcloths and towels in afterwards.

As I mentioned, I felt somewhat grimy on my train days, which I attribute to walking around so much on the platforms during the fresh air breaks.  The showers were much needed.

I personally would not shave my legs in a train shower, but I was able to do absolutely everything else that I needed to get done and felt great afterwards, so 10/10 to the Amtrak shower experience.

Let's Talk About the Cost

The price of the ticket depends on the day.  My outbound trip was $435, and my return trip was $784.  Of course I paid $0 since I was using points, and no I don't feel smug about that or anything since I keep mentioning it.

Whatever the price is, you get meals, a night of lodging, and transportation.  If I had driven, I would have spent the night somewhere for as much as $150, and I probably would have spent a minimum of $50 for food.  Add in the cost of gas, and it's pretty easy to justify the $435 price tag.  $784 is a bit tougher to swallow, but like I said before, if I'd waited until the next day when the fare was cheaper, I would have had to spend an additional night in a hotel plus an extra day of food.

My take is that Amtrak travel is expensive, but it's not highway robbery.

Would I Take Another Amtrak Trip?

Oh come on, I think you know the answer.  OF COURSE!!!  It's never going to be my preferred mode of transportation, but it was fun and I will get the cross country experience some day.  Or at least the Chicago to West Coast experience, since if no one minds me saying so the east coast routes don't look nearly as interesting.

That's the scoop on my Amtrak experience!  Have you done an overnight trip?  Would you do one?