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HenryK

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Jul 12, 2015
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296
This story about a young lady who lives (for the most part) aboard European trains leads me to wonder if such a thing is possible on Amtrak. A 15 day Amtrak Railpass allowing 8 segments of travel costs $450. Two of those would give 16 segments of travel over a month. That's $900, not bad for a month's rent, even in coach. Of course meals and incidentals are not included.

I've encountered people who have no fixed address, just mail drops, and live aboard cruise ships. They say it's cheaper than living in a retirement center, paying property taxes, etc.

Hmm. Maybe there is a magazine article in this. Not by me, however. At 75 I'm a bit too old to Sit Up All Night in Coach for very long.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/22/how-one-german-millennial-chose-to-live-on-trains-rather-than-pay-rent/?tid=pm_pop_b
 
That's $450 or $900 for Coach. Add a sleeper for a month and the cost of living on a train for a month would be far exceed rent,including utilities, unless you are in the 3,000 dollars a month or more prices in New York. I once "lived" on a train for seven days in sleepers taking the longest way possible from Seattle to New York. I've always had that wanderlust and if the price was reasonable I could do it.
 
I have twice travelled around 12,500 Amtrak miles on the older style rail passes, which allowed unlimited "segments" over 15 days.

I am off to India in a few weeks... There one can ride the trains in comfort, with a sleeping berth, for very little money. I do expect to get off the trains, though the overnight rides will save me a lot in hotel costs.

Ed :cool:
 
benale said:
I once "lived" on a train for seven days in sleepers taking the longest way possible from Seattle to New York.
Click to expand...
The longest way possible? Seven days? I just found a genuine expedition (without going through the same place twice) that takes a total of 15 days: SEA - CHI - EMY - LAX - KCY - STL - SAS - NOL - GRO - CYN - SAV - NYP. Probably cure most anyone of the itch to ride a train.
 
This reminds me of a trip to the UK in 1990 when I spent 14 days travelling around on a BritRail First Class Pass.

After arriving in Glasgow the first day....I realized I could get an InterCity Sleeper for a very reasonable supplement to my Pass and at a fraction of what a hotel would cost me. I was aware of the sleepers but not of the extensive network that was available.

That first evening I boarded the Night Limited and headed for London and the start of my 14 nights of riding sleepers. You could usually get on hours before departure then remain aboard long after arrival in the morning.......and there was always a wake-up call with tea and biscuits.

I would visit an area for a day or hop on a fast IC125 and return by Sleeper that evening. I rode the Night Riviera to Penzance and was there only long enough to cross the platform and head right back to London.

There were still short overnight ScotRail Sleepers available. One was: Depart Glasgow at 2330 and into Inverness at 0430 in plenty of time to get the 0630 train to Thurso......an enjoyable ride as far north as you can go in Scotland. Then back to Inverness for one of the longer Sleeper journeys: Depart at 1930 and into Euston the next morning at 0640.

Another memory: After a day of riding out to Mallaig and back.....I boarded a London bound sleeper in Fort William at 1730.....Then a long climb up to Corrour while looking out onto the snow swept Rannoch Moor under a bright moon ......enjoying a Glenfiddich the Attendant had just brought me!

I criss-crossed the UK.....certainly getting the value out of my Pass and some pretty cheap overnight accommodations too.
 
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And if you want extend that previously mentioned 15 day expedition by 4 days (without using VIA Rail or going through the same place twice)) try this one on for size:

MarathonTripe.jpg
 
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Ahhh, all that's nuthin'.....If you truly want to live on the rails, and sometimes go where no regular passenger trains do....simple...just go down to Florida and

join the circus!!! :p :giggle:
 
I did five nights in a row in May (CHI-WPT-PDX-LAX-ELP-HOS) and that's when I decided that 4 nights in a row is about the limit for me.
 
Back in 2004 I did 30 Days and Nights on a North American Rail Pass (Amtrak and VIA) with upgrades to Sleepers on the Long and 2 or more Night Trains ( Western Amtrak and the Canadian).

I only spent 9 nights off the Train, 2 in NYC and 7 in Ottawa and Toronto!

Now, 2 Nights on the Train in a Sleeper is about my Limit, and if in Coach, only "Short" 1 Night Routes like the Cap or Lakeshore are all I can handle.
 
The young lady is this article does not spend the night on trains. She puts up for the night at homes of family and friends (which I imagine will get old pretty fast for the hosts), so I question whether she actually "lives" on trains. It does sound like a great way to pass the day. But doesn't she have to get off the train to go to class at some time? Of course, she could probably be attending school via the internet.
 
caravanman said:
Sadly, pretty much all those overnight sleeper options in the UK have now finished, although I did ride the London - Scotland sleeper a few years back.

Ed
Click to expand...
[SIZE=11pt]Doing a little research......I was surprised at the number of overnight Sleeper Trains you DO still have. There’s one train from London that splits in two for Glasgow and Edinburgh (400 miles) and another that splits into sections for Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William with the longest journey being Inverness at 570 miles.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]https://www.sleeper.scot/[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]There is also the Night Riviera from London to Penzance..... 300 miles overnight on the Great Western. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/your-journey/night-riviera-sleeper[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]London to Glasgow/Edinburgh.....and Penzance are all a similar distance to former sleeper routes in the Northeast Corridor that are now gone. Even VIA tried a sleeper between Toronto and Montreal (340 miles) about 10 years ago and couldn’t make it work. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]But it doesn’t look like the UK sleepers are going away anytime soon. A 15 year franchise was just awarded to an operator that plans to have 72 new sleepers in service by 2018.[/SIZE]
 
jimhudson said:
... Now, 2 Nights on the Train in a Sleeper is about my Limit, ...
Click to expand...
We discovered that's our limit, too, when we did the CS + TE from SAC to CHI. Four full days and three nights of mostly mind-numbing scenery (on the TE, of course), plus the abuse on our bodies of travel in general pretty much dissuaded us from the notion of living on a train for more than that. Two nights on and one or two off seems to be our formula now.
 

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