The Goat Pen

eCat wrote:I've been wanting to do a train trip for awhile. I think I'm seriously over romanticizing it - my mom did the same trip 3 years ago and said it was just a greyhound bus on rails. She went during the summer.

At any rate, I'm thinking about driving over to Champaign, IL, after Xmas, my wife and I take the train to New Orleans 11:00pm to 3:00pm, stay down there for a couple of days and then take the train back on New Years eve. Champaign is the closest Amtrak station to our house for New Orleans/Chicago Route.

I wonder if the New Orleans to Chicago Amtrak is a party on New Years eve or if the train steward just walks thru with a little confetti popper at midnight and everyone goes back to sleep?

The train trip is kind of a bucket list thing for me.

Owlman wrote:

eCat wrote:I've been wanting to do a train trip for awhile. I think I'm seriously over romanticizing it - my mom did the same trip 3 years ago and said it was just a greyhound bus on rails. She went during the summer.

At any rate, I'm thinking about driving over to Champaign, IL, after Xmas, my wife and I take the train to New Orleans 11:00pm to 3:00pm, stay down there for a couple of days and then take the train back on New Years eve. Champaign is the closest Amtrak station to our house for New Orleans/Chicago Route.

I wonder if the New Orleans to Chicago Amtrak is a party on New Years eve or if the train steward just walks thru with a little confetti popper at midnight and everyone goes back to sleep?

The train trip is kind of a bucket list thing for me.

I want to take a train trip as well. There is supposed to be a nice one through the Rocky Mountains and another one through Alaska. Amtrak doesn't own it's own tracks. It has to use freight tracks and they have priority. I wanted my oldest son to be on a train so we took the New Orleans to Houston train. It took 9 hours, because we sat on the track outside of Houston (east) for over 4 hours waiting for freight trains. Up North, Amtrak has more freedom. Make sure you get a sleeper car.

Saint wrote:I planned a train trip from where we lived in Emeryville (the area "between" Oakland and Berkeley) with my wife (girlfriend at the time) to Monterey. We got on the train and rode it about 3 miles to the main Oakland depot, where we were told to disembark and board an Amtrak bus, which took us the rest of the way (95% of the trip) to Monterey. This was in 2000 or so.

That was pretty much my last train ride.

AlabamAlum wrote:It's the grandpa off Family Guy.

hedge wrote:I'm sure she was as impressed with your train trip planning skills as your letter writing tormentor is with your sports reporting skills...