Riding Amtrak from PDX to LAX

21 Oct 2024 by cthos
2916 words

I've always wanted to travel the slow way across the country, taking a train somewhere overnight. Watching the scenery go by the window when I'm in no particular hurry to get anywhere. I had the opportunity to do just that this past week riding on the Amtrak Coast Starlight down to LA to visit the in-laws. Obstensibly, I can call this a research trip, as my in-progress TTRPG Nix Noctis (working title maybe permanent title) features a post-post apocalyptic train line that encompasses the southern half of the route. What better way to ensure I've crafted an "accurate" half-passenger half-freight half-military rail line.

Regardless of justification, it was quite the experience. I booked a roomette with Amtrak months in advance (probably too far in advance as I don't think I got the best rate. Oh well, experiences are worth it). Since my wife wasn't making the trip with me, I had plenty of space to stretch out in the sleeper, though I do wonder if there'd be a good enough space for the both of us in here for 30+ hours. I suppose there's always the observation car, but it was full basically every time I visited it.

Now, I've ridden Amtrak a bunch of times in the past, but this is my first time on an overnight journey. The longest trip I'd ever taken was to Vancouver BC, at just over 10 hours due to multiple delays. Thus, those trips were always in coach. This time, since I was going to be on this thing for over 30 hours and ideally I'd like some sleep that isn't surrounded by other people, I figured this was the best time to do a sleeper car journey.

Right when I boarded the train I was greeted by our car's attendant. He informed me that I should promptly drop my stuff off in my roomette and head to the dining car so I could grab some lunch before they closed it down. I took his advice and headed that way. Since I was traveling alone I was paired with another solo traveler for the meal, which was something I was mentally prepared for but not exactly expecting initially. I decided to have a Beyond burger since I was kind of hungry, but knew dinner would be coming up pretty soon. I managed to finish my meal just as we were started to pull out of the station. Eager to start getting some writing done, I headed back to my roomette and did a little bit of setup.

But I totally forgot my burger came with a brownie, so I missed dessert! The dining car attendant offered to make me one but I politely declined as I knew dinner would be sooner rather than later.

Back in the room I set up the little fold out table into a small workstation. It's basically the perfect size and distance away from me for a 13" laptop, but I think a bigger laptop would require some adjustment or simply using it from your lap. I watched the familiar sites of 99E roll by as we followed along the highway I prefer to take when heading down towards Salem. It's both weird and comforting to see those sights when I'm not in control of the moving conveyance. Relaxing almost, but with a sense of being out of place.

The room itself is fairly small, but comfortable for me (I also really like micro hotel rooms where there's not a lot of space). The main downside to the train car is there's just a single 120V outlet, which means I had to be a little creative. Thankfully, I have a high capacity Anker battery pack which I can use to charge both the phone and the laptop for a bit and then charge the battery pack from the outlet when I'm out of the room. The other bit is there's no way to lock the room from the outside so really you just want to keep your belongings either well hidden or with you.

That said, when you're not at a stop there's not many places you can go and there are only so many people who are going to be in your sleeper car.

I sat and enjoyed the views while typing out several posts and story revisions that I'd set aside from the trip, before dinner my word count was sitting at right around 3000 words, not bad for about 3.5 hours of writing and exploring a train. As a writing nook, I give the roomette a solid A+. It was very comfortable on my back and wrists, and I felt very relaxed and productive. As the sun started to lower, I had to switch to facing the other direction so that I wouldn't have it directly in my eyes, but a quick move from one side to the other was all that I needed to keep on writing.

As we left Eugene and headed into the moiuntains, the scenery became quite lovely and the cell signal dropped well out of view, just in time for me to step back into the dining car and make some new friends.

Like lunchtime, I was seated with some strangers: a couple and an older gentleman. It was a fine time, and I ordered the steak. Unfortunatley I forgot to snap a photo of that before I started sawing into it (I was hungry, okay?). Each dinner meal comes with a complimentary alcoholic beverage, so I paired the steak with a glass of cabernet sauvignon. The steak was impressive, well cooked and juicy. Paired with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was tasty and filling. For dessert I opted for the cheesecake, which was also quite good.

After dinner, I grabbed another (paid) beverage from the cafe car, located just past the dining car under the observation deck. Then I headed back to my room to watch a movie and play a few games on my Aya Neo Air before bed. Once I was ready to sleep, I pulled on the little "call attendant" button in my room to have our cabin steward friend come set up the bed. The whole process took just a few minutes and then we were in "sleep mode".

The bed setup and linens were quite comfortable, though in a roomette the amount of space you have to maneuver when the bed is made is... limited. Basically just a small square at the front of the room. But I did have enough space to pull the tray out and set my iPad Mini on it to keep watching my movie. That was cool. After the movie was done, it was time for some light reading and sleep.

I did not sleep well at all on this ride. There were a lot of issues with the sleep process. The first: the hallway lights do not turn off and the curtains do not block all of the light. No problem, I packed my manta sleep mask (which I love, it's amazing) so if I couldn't block the light out at the source I'd just block it out at my eyeballs. The second problem was the sound of the announcements. The room does have a knob to turn down the volume that I used, but near as I can tell the "ding" of the call attendant button isn't covered by that setting and several someones pulled that knob throughout the night. Finally, temperature control: the comforter that was provided was amazing. Felt wonderful, but I was unable to properly thermoregulate with it on so I wound up pulling it on and off throughut the night, and this is with my room set to the lowest temperature setting on the dial.

_{Curtains, but not blackout curtains}

Either way, I did manage to get some sleep; I didn't particularly mind the rocking back and forth though there were some times where it felt like the train was going full tilt and hitting some bumps along the way. Every creak and groan you hear during the daytime is more noticeable when you're half-asleep.. We stopped for a long period in Redding around 6:00 AM, but I went back to sleep until my regular alarm at 7:30.

After I got up and smelled coffee brewing in the hallway (or more accurately the coffee had been brewed in the dining car and brought to our sleeper) I got dressed and went to check out the shower area. Blessedly, the shower was presently unnocupied and hadn't been used today so I took full advantage of it. They provided soap, conditioner, and body wash as well as towels. The shower was great, had hot water and everything. Just what I needed to refersh after a night of poor sleep.

After that I made sure that my door was left ajar for the cabin attendant to see so he could make the room back up into chairs and headed to breakfast. Like every meal before it, I was seated with some nice folks this time who didn't know each other. We exchanged some plesantries and enjoyed some amazing views off of the right side of the train.

It's worth lamenting at this point that my side of the train faces inland, so I do not get to enjoy the wonderful costal views from my train car. I tried to get a spot in the observation lounge, but alas it was full.

For the meal, I opted for the French Toast. This turned out way better than I was expecting, it was delicious. The fruit on it was particularly fresh. I don't know if I was just super hungry or what, but it tasted great.

After breakfast, I headed back to my room to get started on some more writing and to recharge my battery pack. This is when I learned the horrid truth: my charger brick wouldn't stay plugged into the provided outlet. Since I'd charged my phone overnight the battery pack was sitting just over 55% charged and presently have no way to recharge it. Fortunately, I didn't need the power because I'd brought the Macbook air with me and after a day of heavy usage it was only sitting at 65% battery. I still had plenty of battery left to do the writing I wanted to get done and probably watch another movie on it if I so desired. Even if not, the battery pack was charged sufficiently to top it up. Since I was only on the train for another 11 hours at this point, I figured I was in pretty okay shape.

Plus I carry a backup magsafe phone battery for phone emergencies.

Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful journey working on some more blog posts and thinking really hard about how to and if I even should revise my second fantasy short story (an additional 2000 words written from 9) when I break for lunch back in the now-familiar dining car.

Though apparently they oversold coach and there weren't enough seats. Whoops?

Just before I was called in for my lunch reservation time, an announcement came over the intercom. Apparently, just ahead of us there had been a high tide and we had to wait for the water to recede and a quick track inspection to ensure nothing was going to go kerploof when we went over it. As such, the view from my dining experience was, well, this:

Regardless of the view (which did improve shortly after we got rolling again), this time I went for the patty melt which was just as brown as my surroundings.

But, like every other meal the overall quality of the food was solid. The bread was buttery and crisp and the meat was tasty. For dessert I had a bit of a chocolate brownie (the dessert I'd neglected to eat the day prior) and was duly impressed with it. After finishing up my meal and excusing myself from the table I headed back to my cabin where I plopped down and immediately went into "digestion mode". Which is to say, my brain shut down and I stared out the window for a good hour while I regained my bearings. The lack of sleep from the night before was starting to catch up to me.

The scenery rolling by outside is a stark contrast from what it had been at the beginning of the trip. Where a good portion of Oregon was covered in greenery, California was covered in rolling hills of short shrub grass and sandy dirt. Interspersed between those are vast farms growing a bunch of stuff. I think we passed a wine grape farm at one point. Makes sense for the part of the state we're travleing through.

Fun fact, apparently Soledad, CA has a very chill set of weather patterns, with the average temperatures in the 60s and 70s, always.

For writing, this block of time was a bit less productive than the morning due to the fatigue and digestion catching up with me, but I did manage to churn out a solid portion of a blog post while also fixing the SSL cert on one of my servers. Sidebar: the cellular connection has been pretty consistent this whole time, keeping me connected now that Amtrak no longer offers wifi.

Probably the coolest part of traveling south so far has been the very hilly region that the Amtrak goes through on its way to San Luis Obispo. It's just this winding path on the upper portion of one of the hills, a trip through 4 or 5 tunnels until eventually you wind up in the town (the last fresh air stop before LA).

I chose a relatively early dinner reservation for this evening, mostly because I wanted a lot of time to digest before we arrived in LA (and since I was getting off a few stops early that seemed prudent). I forgot to get a picture of this meal (whoops) but this time around I had the salmon entree. It was great. Not a giant portion, decent serving of vegetables and rice with it, and a nice semi-spicy lobster sauce. It was great. We hit the ocean area just as I was wrapping up my meal too, which had some stunning views of the Pacific ocean (which I didn't get to photograph as I was at the table with complete strangers and thought that would be rude).

Unfortunately, I skipped dessert because there was a medical emergency on the train, and we had to make an emergency stop in Lompoc-Surf where paramedics were waiting. I didn't hear the full story, but I hope they're okay. The unexpected stop did afford me a stunning view of the sunset.

For the rest of the evening I plotted out a little more writing, and settled on what I wanted to rewrite on my story (but I hadn't actually started doing the writing just yet). But as night fell I just wanted to turn my brain off a bit, as it'd been a long day on very little sleep.

We pulled into Van Nuys and I hopped off, saying farewell to my "home" for the past 31ish hours. It was a great trip and I'm glad I did it.

There was a lot to like about this trip. I was able to get a ton of writing done and feel fairly proud of myself for remaining as focused as I was (even though I didn't do as much as I would have liked. I'm never satisfied with my own output). The food was really good for what I was expecting. It's not a five-star restaurant but it is very solid for what it was. I wasn't disappointed in anything I ate on this trip: especially since it was a solid five meals.

The views outside were absolutely gorgeous, and while it'd have been nice to be on the ocean side I did still get some really great inland views instead. In fact, it was really great to do this route and I have some more descriptive stuff ready to go for the portion of the game where this rail line is concerned.

Really the only downside I can think of is how difficult it was for me to get to sleep and the resulting tiredness on day two of the trip. And maybe the outlet. I might bring a charger that has the ground plug next time so it'd stay in. But that's about it.

Also money-wise this wasn't too terrible. I wound up paying $620 for the roomette from PDX to LAX (though I did hop off a little early). That included 5 meals that would have otherwise been charged, totalling $165. Definitely more than you'd pay for a flight, but still under what a first-class ticket is going to run on most domestic days. Plus I got a ton of writing done in the time, and that was well worth taking the extra time.

blog trains travel