I had high hopes riding on my first train ever with Amtrak was going to be amazing. I was going to Philadelphia for the first time and this train ride was going to take over 18 hours if all things went well. That turns out is quite a long train ride to hope things will go well on.
For quite some time I’ve watched a few videos on train travel. Admittedly most of those videos were about trains in other countries and not Amtrak in the USA. Most of those people also had a roomette while I’d be riding dirty in coach for over 18 hours.
I was also quite nervous about this train ride. So much so that I more or less read every single article I could find by Amtrak. Along with lots of other sites. I thought I had a good grasp of the rules that would be onboard, what to expect, and how to have the proper manners while riding. Turns out there are zero fucks unless you piss off an employee. I’ll be getting more into that later on.
Train Station
The station I’d be leaving from was quite a tiny one. You can’t have a car here for a day or two. So we had to get a ride to it. Despite how small it was it ended up being one of the bigger stops for people getting both on and off that I noticed on this ride.
While I already had my boarding pass on my phone I decided to check in with the one lady running the entire station. Turns out I did not need to do so but since I did they did not check my boarding pass to get onto the train since the lady said “I already knew everyone getting on.” When that time came.
She more or less just asked if I needed to check any bags. I did not want to and was told I could carry all my stuff on. She also provided me with some tags to put on all my baggage.
One of the reasons to ride with Amtrak is they have quite an insane baggage policy. According to their site, I could bring 2 carry-on items to not exceed 50lb each. Along with two personal items not to exceed 25 lbs each. I could also check a further two bags not to exceed you guessed it 50 lbs into storage. There were also some size limits.
I’m just going to say this now. While they might have a scale and a way to check the size of a bag at each station. There were ZERO FUCKS given about bags. People hauled such massive bags onto this train they had to push them through the center of the train with force to get them down the aisle. They were too big.
Some people’s bags were so massive and heavy that they just put them in the seat next to them or used them as footrests. While a staff member did come around asking if those people needed help storing their bags when they did that. They were NEVER again bothered again at least on the way up. On the way back down they cared a little more and made someone store a bag.
50lb weight limit? I would not be shocked if some people were pushing 100lb bags on the train. It was a sight to see some of these people trying to get their bags down the aisle to their seats. I thought I had it rough wearing a backpack and dragging a 35lb bag on.
I’ve been told train people are very chatty. While sitting at the station many were thrilled to not only find out I was going to Philadelphia for the first time but it was my first train ride. Everyone told me I was going to just love the train like they do.
Then it was time for the train. I did not get any photos of the train coming in. The plan was to get it leaving once I got to Philadelphia. I was quite nervous and had my boarding pass pulled up on my phone and with my other hand, I was dragging my bag.
The train was also already late. So Amtrak seemed in a rush to get everyone on board fast. I was not going to be the one slowing them down trying to get a single photo of the outside of the train.
The person I was with and I were one of the first to get on the train. They asked for people who were riding together and that got us right to the front of the line. Instead of checking my boarding pass that I had at the ready on my phone. They just asked for my name.
Once I was on board I was given a number. While online the Amtrak site claimed you had assigned seating you could get beforehand. I found out after that I would not be given a seat number till I got on board. There were just many things the website and in person were different on.
The guy yelled a seat number and pointed down one of the train cars for me to go. Turns out the next car over would be the café and that would create all kinds of issues later on. At first, I thought it was great I was that far back on the train.
The Signs
So I went to my seat number and I was a bit confused. There was no one in that seat at the time. There was people's stuff in it. The person next to us was kind to quickly point out there was a second seat with the same number. It was written in Sharpie over where the seat number plate used to be.
This should have been my first sign this train ride was going to be rough. It was however still daylight and I was still so thrilled about being on the train for the first time I did not think anything more about it.
I then went to store our bags and realized the train car we were in was nothing like the nice welcome photo Amtrak sent. The storage was not compartments that were closed It was just an open overhead rack to store stuff where ever.
This is also how people got away with not following any of the baggage rules. As you did not have to fit your bags into little compartments. If you had so much stuff it did not all fit over your seat that was fine as people would just jam their stuff into the next open overhead area they could find.
This is when I started to feel a bit uneasy. I was hoping my bags would have been in something with a door I had to shut. Someone could just come along drag them a little out of my sight and take them without me even noticing if they were careful enough.
While my bags did not get messed with. It was in the back of my mind for the remainder of the trip as we stopped at over a dozen stops. There were always people getting on and off again. There were also a lot of people that came through our part of the train as the next car over was food and booze.
Shortly after that the train headed off and picked up some speed. I took a quick photo out of the window. Some of these photos would turn out great while others were a bit blurry since the trees were often rather close.
That is then when I found out how antiquated the train system is in the USA. A staff member came around not looking for boarding passes. Instead, he just asked what stop I was getting off at. I told him Philadelphia. The staff member did a double look at me as if I was crazy. He then said something like “LET’S DO THIS!!!!.”
He wrote down PHL on a piece of paper and put it above our seats. That is when I noticed every other seat had a piece of paper already that stated where someone got off. It also looked like the car they put us in were all the long-haul passengers that were going to be on the train for quite a long time.
This is when the thought popped into my head that I sure hope I like everyone around me. As many of them were getting off just before or after us. It also looked like no one in coach was exactly going to Philadelphia at that time despite how massive that stop is. Like everyone had the brains to book much better seating for such a trip.
For a while, I stared out my window. The real star I was hoping for taking a train ride was going to be the views. Sadly for the most part we were e going through a path in the middle of a forest so you did not see much. Most other times you were going through a city and just had city views. That was till it got dark and you could not see anything anymore till daybreak.
This did not mean the entire trip was without some kind of fun views. Once in a while, we would come across a farm or something that opened things up. If however, I was ever going to ride the train again for the views I’d need to do a lot more research and pick a location that advertised having that. As this was not that kind of trip it turns out.
One thing I was expecting was for the train to be a bit bumpy. I had no idea just how bumpy it was going to be and I don’t mean just the train either. There might be a few short rails where you hardly noticed any bumps. Most of the way however we were rocking back and forth and it was like going down the bumpy part of a highway. You know the part they install to wake up a driver if they fall asleep and drive off the road. Ok, it was not that bad but it was like 60% of the time like that.
For quite some time, however, I did not mind it at all. I had zero need to be getting up anytime soon. I just wanted to chill in my seat and look outside my window.
One thing that ended up working out quite well for us was my plan with my backpack. I had brought along a backpack and it was our treat, drink, and food bag. Since it was a backpack they did not care about bags being down with you. I kept that treat bag next to my feet for the rest of the trip.
I also got to say now just how much legroom you get on a train! Between all the bags we could bring and the legroom. If it was not for everything else I’d be willing to only travel by train. Even a tall person like me had more than enough legroom it almost felt like too much room for traveling around with.
The photo above was not my seat. It was however one that was empty for a short while next to us. So I took a photo of it to show just how much legroom there was. I blocked out the person's stuff they were keeping down on the floor.
Final Thoughts
Every so often I’d snap a random photo. Sometimes I’d look up on Google Maps to see exactly where we were. Other times I did not care. It was just cool to see something other than the same tree line over and over again.
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Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.
