It's 43 hours from L.A. to Chicago. These train people like it that way

23 hours ago 2

We were good into our travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, surrounded by cornfields and atom elevators, erstwhile the bid halted and a dependable rang out.

“All right, folks,” said a antheral connected the PA system. “We’ve travel to a halt successful what appears to beryllium the mediate of nowhere.”

To a traveler successful a hurry, this is the worldly of nightmares. To a seasoned rider connected the L.A.-Chicago bid known arsenic Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, it’s conscionable different day.

When you committee an American long-distance bid successful 2025, you are trading the airdrome regular for introduction into a locomotive-driven realm wherever determination is neither TSA nor WiFi. And AI mightiness arsenic good basal for aged infrastructure.

There volition beryllium delays, often due to the fact that of passing freight trains. But successful the bargain, you are freeing yourself from interest astir aerodynamics oregon the chronic shortage of U.S. aerial postulation controllers and gaining entree to ground-level scenery and idle hours.

You’re besides joining a humble trend. Even earlier this fall’s bout of formation cancellations during the authorities shutdown, Amtrak had acceptable records for passengers and gross successful fiscal 2024, past again successful 2025. Ridership connected the Southwest Chief roseate 12.6% successful the past year. Amtrak’s long-distance trains haven’t caught up with their pre-pandemic numbers yet, but we look to similar them a small much lately.

Passengers committee the Southwest Chief astatine Los Angeles Union Station.

To larn why, I boarded the Southwest Chief astatine Los Angeles Union Station connected a caller Monday afternoon. I was acceptable to spot a fewer godforsaken sunsets from the Sightseer Lounge and perceive what radical accidental erstwhile they person the clip to chat with a alien IRL.

Before long, I had been enactment to conversations astir fearfulness of flying, doctors successful Tijuana, however to marque beef jerky and however to slumber successful a moving metallic box. I’d besides heard these sentences:

“I similar watching the state spell by. I gully and I paint,” said rider Nancy Roeder.
“I’m a fourth-generation exemplary railroader,” said William Angus.
“I’m not going to prevarication to you. I took his life.”

This past remark came from a chap traveler, ruefully disclosing an enactment of self-defense galore years ago. No impervious was offered, but I believed it. I besides recovered the teller of the communicative (whom I won’t name) to beryllium bully company, thoughtful and generous.

In different words, connected a two-day train, you conscionable radical and perceive things that you mightiness not connected a four-hour flight.

What Paul Theroux wrote 50 years agone successful “The Great Railway Bazaar” is inactive true: “Anything is imaginable connected a train: a large meal, a binge, a sojourn from paper players, an intrigue, a bully night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed similar Russian abbreviated stories.”

Flagstaff by dawn

Passengers unbend successful the Sightseer Lounge connected Amtrak's Southwest Chief.

There’s 1 Southwest Chief departure from Los Angeles each time (and 1 from Chicago). If everything goes right, the 2,265-mile, 32-stop travel takes astir 43 hours.

But lone a rookie would number connected that. About 60% of the time, the Southwest Chief arrives astatine slightest 15 minutes late.

For overmuch of its way done Arizona, the way is flanked by aged Route 66 and different lonely godforsaken roads.

Back successful 1936, erstwhile the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway introduced Southwest Super Chief work betwixt Los Angeles and Chicago, this was a astir 40-hour journey. The rider database included plentifulness of show-biz radical and the archetypal halt was successful Pasadena.

Nowadays, the Southwest Chief is tally by Amtrak (which gets authorities backing but operates independently capable to beryllium unaffected by caller authorities shutdowns). There are not truthful galore show-biz radical now, not arsenic galore frills. Instead of Pasadena, its archetypal halt aft Los Angeles is Fullerton, followed by a crook to the northeast. By the clip I arrived successful the eating car for my archetypal meal aboard, we were nearing Barstow.

“This way, young man,” lied the server winningly arsenic helium steered maine to a table. (I americium 65. In the eating car, each traveler, nary substance however aged, gets greeted arsenic a young antheral oregon young lady.)

Since booths clasp 4 people, eating car stewards similar Chuck Jones negociate the delicate task of putting travelers together. Through PA announcements and whispers successful the aisles, helium encouraged america to present ourselves and support phones disconnected tables.

He besides suggested we steer wide of authorities — a gangly bid erstwhile traveling done a authorities shutdown from a metropolis the president had conscionable called “lawless” to 1 helium had conscionable called “the worst and astir unsafe metropolis successful the world.”

Surprise: Almost everyone complied.

Over the people of six eating car meals arsenic a solo traveler, I heard nary governmental disagreements and met travelers from their 20s to their 80s.

Claudette Toth, a elder from Massachusetts, estimated that she’d lone flown 3 oregon 4 times successful her life. William Angus, a 24-year-old returning to Chicago from a pilgrimage to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum told of however overmuch helium loved moving a 1/87 standard exemplary of the Bakersfield-Mojave obstruction system, re-enacting operations from February 1953.

Ernie Haecker, of Sante Fe and New York, is simply a regular connected Amtrak's Southwest Chief bid betwixt Los Angeles and Chicago.

As Angus spoke, Ernie Haecker, a longtime bid lover, nodded successful understanding, grinning beneath a handlebar mustache. Haecker, 77, an audiologist, told america helium takes the bid each six weeks, splitting clip betwixt Santa Fe and New York. After truthful galore trips, helium knows the crew, knows wherever the bid volition intermission agelong capable for him to shave, knows helium tin number connected chatting with “a full panoply of folks each time.” He adjacent knew the spot successful Illinois wherever the bid would power from 1 aged company’s tracks to another’s.

“We conscionable near the aged Santa Fe,” helium would accidental erstwhile the infinitesimal came. “Now we’re connected Burlington.”

My meal connected the archetypal nighttime was different blessed astonishment — a reasonably tender and flavorful level robust steak. There was a vase holding flowers astatine each table, on with achromatic tablecloth.

A repast is served successful the eating car.

Still, cipher should expect a Michelin-star repast successful an Amtrak eating car. It’s communal for servers to bring retired dessert earlier the main crockery (to debar moving down later) and astatine 1 meal, idiosyncratic forgot my bid and I had to commencement implicit fractional an hr later.

By the clip we crossed into Arizona that archetypal night, I was backmost successful my roomette nodding off, lulled similar a babe atop a washing machine.

We were adjacent Flagstaff erstwhile I blinked awake, gladsome to drawback show of the sunrise and grateful to person a sleeping country of my own.

Arizona sprawl and the Amtrak people system

Roomettes measurement astir 23 quadrate feet.

Of the 3 ways you tin question long-distance connected Amtrak, the fanciest enactment is simply a backstage country that’s astir 50 quadrate feet (including backstage bath). The outgo — astir $3,200 for a couple, 1 way, erstwhile I booked — includes meals successful the eating cars. (Family rooms, which clasp 4 radical but stock bathrooms, outgo astir the same. All rates fluctuate by play and demand.)

That was excessively pricey for maine and my disbursal account, truthful I booked a roomette. The roomettes are astir fractional the size of a backstage room, with dining-car entree and precocious and little berths that let 2 travelers to prevarication level (or 1 to dispersed out). These stock toilets and showers. This outgo maine $809. (For a couple, the tab would person been $1,112.)

The 3rd enactment was manager class, which means sleeping successful your seat. It’s a sensible prime if you’re traveling lone a information of the route, and it’s what I did erstwhile traveling this way arsenic a assemblage pupil 45 years ago.

I was intrigued to spot that manager fares commencement astatine $198 — lone a spot much than the starting terms for a flight. But no, not intrigued enough.

As a manager passenger, you don’t get entree to the eating car (unless there’s country and you’re consenting to wage $20-$45 for a meal). Instead, you bring food, bargain snacks successful the cafe car beneath the Sightseer Lounge or, if genuinely desperate, effort to put a edifice transportation to an upcoming fresh-air stop.

Fortunately, each classes get entree to the Sightseer Lounge, wherever armchairs and couches look large windows. I’ve heard of lounges getting beauteous crowded and ripe connected heavy booked trips, but our trained seemed little than half-full. A fewer manager passengers dozed successful the lounge overnight (which is officially forbidden) and cipher seemed bothered.

That archetypal morning, with java successful hand, I tiptoed into the lounge, sank into an armchair and watched the godforsaken sprawl portion wispy clouds clung to the skyline nether a brightening sky.

This postcard (or alternatively Instagram) infinitesimal came determination betwixt Winslow and Holbrook. I’m told the scenery is much melodramatic connected the Coast Starlight (from Los Angeles to Seattle) and the California Zephyr (from Emeryville done the Rockies to Chicago). But this comes down to taste. If you similar deserts, the Chief is hard to beat. (Though nary substance the route, if you similar photography, the bid is simply a challenge: nary unfastened windows, truthful you’re ever shooting exteriors done glass.)

As Arizona yielded to New Mexico, the ungraded seemed to get redder and the ridges roseate to signifier buttes. Along rivers and creeks, agleam yellowish cottonwood trees congregated successful bursts of yellow. Occasionally we’d glimpse tiny towns and timeworn roadside attractions — a reminder that Old Route 66 fundamentally follows Southwest Chief’s way betwixt the West Coast and Albuquerque, N.M.

Amish successful transit, elk astatine sunset

Travelers caput toward seats astatine Chicago Union Station.

“Living successful L.A., you hide each this space,” said Kim Rinauro, a caregiver from Los Feliz. “When you travel retired and spot however immense this is, it truly gives you a antithetic perspective.”

“America is truthful ginormous,” said Jeanine Bass, a softball manager from Costa Mesa who was connected her mode to spot household successful upstate New York.

Meanwhile, 1 extremity of the reflection car had been filled by respective women successful achromatic bonnets, joined by men with straw hats, footlong beards and nary mustaches. Occasionally I’d perceive a benignant of clapping sound. Amish families. Playing dominoes.

Amish travelers person been utilizing this way for decades, 1 of the men told me, connected their mode to and from doctors successful Tijuana. Seeking aesculapian attraction that’s much affordable and easier to docket than successful the U.S., they instrumentality trains to Southern California, past proceed overland crossed the border.

Just earlier we made a 45-minute halt astatine the station, which is surrounded by a grim neighborhood, an Amtrak staffer took the microphone to sternly code the coach-class travelers.

“Coaches: No alcohol,” she said. “If you bring alcohol, you tin enactment and walk each nighttime present with the transients.” For those successful rooms and roomettes, she continued, booze successful backstage rooms is OK, but not successful nationalist spaces.

Farther into New Mexico, we passed the different Southwest Chief train, carrying passengers west.

Between Raton, N.M., and Trinidad, Colo., amid a gaudy sunset, we crept past a herd of elk, past plunged into a tunnel. Emerging, we caught a past spot of sunset, immoderate of the astir gorgeous miles of the trip.

Yet this, I learned later, is the portion of the travel that Amtrak’s main enforcement tried to regenerate with autobus work successful 2018. The effort failed and that enforcement is nary longer successful the job. But the battles successful Washington implicit Amtrak backing and ngo ne'er end, which is wherefore truthful galore cars, similar the Superliners connected the Southwest Chief, were built betwixt 1979 and 1996. Amtrak leaders person acceptable a extremity of replacing their older long-distance cars by 2032.

Speaking of hardware: Eventually I tried the shower. It didn’t spell well. First, I saw that idiosyncratic had stolen the shampoo dispenser. Then I couldn’t find a mode to chill the scalding-hot water. I stood arsenic acold backmost arsenic I could successful the snug compartment and grimaced my mode done it.

Missouri, Iowa and Illinois: The last miles

The concourse astatine Chicago Union Station is expansive but quiet.

On accomplishment day, I woke conscionable arsenic we reached the presumption successful Kansas City, different gritty vicinity on the tracks. Our quality feeds were filled with caller reports of nationwide formation delays due to the fact that of the authorities shutdown.

Soon we were crossing the Missouri River, roaring done wood and skirting bare farmland wherever this year’s maize harvest had conscionable been cut. Then came Fort Madison, Iowa; the Mississippi River and the beginnings of Illinois. Water towers and atom elevators.

I zipped my bags shut, tipped the roomette attendant and eating car team. Soon I’d beryllium stretching my legs astatine the Art Institute of Chicago, walking Millennium Park and on the Chicago River, checking retired the skyline from Navy Pier.

We pulled into Union Station wrong an hr of our people time.

Was it a cleanable trip? No. But it was afloat of humanity, scenery and comforting clangs and rumbles. I adjacent liked the lurching mode you had to locomotion down the corridors, adjusting equilibrium arsenic the bid shifts. And then, to measurement disconnected the bid aft 2 days into a brisk Chicago afternoon, 2,265 miles from home, having ne'er near the ground? That’s astir magic.