Longest trip in coach

[TraneMan]

Allmost 24 hours for me on the Empire Builder to Whitefish MT. On the way home, my parents upgraded to the roomette, I stayed in coach, but mom couldn't handle the small room, so she switched spot with me half way into the trip.

Don't think I can do it now that I am older, I'd rather have the comfort of the room to lay down and sleep.

 

[neroden]

SYR-CHI / CHI-SYR.

Interestingly, it was fine SYR-CHI.

It was no good CHI-SYR because they'd replaced one of the Amfleet IIs with an Amfleet I Business Class, and the car attendants directed us to that car. To sleep overnight. Which was not OK.

I should have just moved to a different car, but I was too rule-abiding at the time.

 

[railiner]

Riding in coach is no problem for me. Even at my age, I can still get very comfortable and sleep well. My longest trip was also on one of those marathon 30 day Railpasses, back in 1979, criss-crossing the country back and forth, mainly to take in all those soon to be discontinued routes, and using many other's as well to connect them....

 

[railiner]

Coming back from Nam November 1971: Went Oakland to Alexandria VA, without a break, but by sleeper Denver to Chicago.

Oakland to Denver: At that time was on the UP across Wyoming, then pulled backward Cheyenne to Denver. The train length essentially doubled east of Denver. Had a UP dome which I spent a good bit of time in across the Sierra. A Burlington dome was added at Denver.

Chicago to Alexandria on the James Whitcomb Riley or George Washington, forget which name was being used. Fast down the ICRR tracks to Kankekee, then very slow and rough on the PC tracks across Indiana, then a nice ride, much of it in a dome across West Virginia. The dome was taken off in Charlottesville.

I don't believe Amtrak ever acquired a UP dome car....most of those went to the old Auto Train Corporation, other than what UP kept. What you probably rode was one of those "Three quarter length" SP dome lounges, with a lower profile. I believe at the time, was the only domes the SP permitted on their Donner Pass line....

From Denver east, they added regular Vista Domes, as well as Slumbercoaches to the consist.....

The dome car on you rode into Charlottesville went on with other cars to Newport News. The train was 'split' at Charlottesville.....

 

[xyzzy]

In terms of a continuous one-way trip in coach: 1977, Seattle-LA then LA-New Orleans then New Orleans-Birmingham then B'ham-Montgomery. Two hour layover at LA, and the Sunset was so late getting into New Orleans that I stayed awake five hours in the station to board the Southern Crescent at dawn. So my trip had 4 nights. I confess that I did "cheat" by buying a day-occupancy roomette between New Orleans and B'ham for the princely sum of $12. Still have the ticket receipt.

 

[blueman271]

My longest coach trip was from Newark to Miami back in 2004 when the Silvers were combined into one train. It was a pretty neat trip, although I have never been particularly good at sleeping sitting down.

 

[tim49424]

Tomah, WI to Holland MI and back (nearly two dozen times) which amounts to about 450 miles. My two long distance trips (Tomah, WI to Portland and back) were in sleepers.

 

[JamesI]

Albany to Chicago, about 17 hours is my longest.

 

[Ziv]

I went from DC to CHI (Cap Lmtd) then to GGW (MT) on the EB, stopped for a week. Then from GGW to Seattle. Then I flew to Singapore and took a sleeper to Bangkok and later took coach to Aranyaprathet. Then I went by bus and boat and plane to Saigon where I got on a soft sleeper to Hanoi, then soft sleeper to Kunming, then soft sleeper to Yangshuou, then coach to Beijing, where I stayed for a month. Then Trans-Siberian to Moscow, Red Arrow to St. Pete and couchette to Berlin. Then coach ICE to Prague for a couple weeks. Then couchette to London and coach to Lands End/Penzance. Flew into JFK, then got a Regional home from NY TO DC.

Admittedly, most of the miles were in one form of sleeper or another, but a lot of it was in coach.

 

[jphjaxfl]

My Dad, brother and I travelled from Little Rock to Los Angeles on the former Cherokee Imperial passenger train on the Rock Island-Southern Pacific in coach in 1962. The sleeping car and dining car had already been discontinued. We left Little Rock around 3AM. The train was mostly mail and express cars with 2 older streamlined coaches on the end. We traveled across the flatlands of Oklahoma during the day going through McAlester, Oklahoma city and El Reno then into Texas panhandle stopping at Amarillo at night. The train made numerous regular and flag stops along the way. We were in the through coach and local passengers were in the forward coach. At Tucumcari, NM, our coach was switched to train 39 from Chicago and Kansas City. We

continued on through NM to EL Paso where we stopped at the same station Amtrak uses. It was the second morning and El Paso was a meal stop for breakfast. We continued west back into NM and AZ bypassing Phoenix like Amtrak now does, but then there other Espee trains through Phoenix. Finally on the 3rd morning, we reached LAUPT. With no dining cars, food was through meal stops or box meals. We wanted to experience Rock Island's Choctaw Route and I am glad we did since much of the route has been abandoned. We return on a Sleeping Car that was through from LA to Dallas via SP/T&P and change to a T&P/MP coach from Dallas to Little Rock.

 

[the_traveler]

Back in the 1980's, I rode coach on the entire transcontinental SL (as far as JAX) and then up the east coast, I forget where I started - maybe San Diego. If so, it was SAN-LAX-(SAS/NOL)-JAX-NYP-ALB.

 

[Railroad Bill]

We have ridden coach on the Pennsylvanian from PHL to PGH and it was a nice ride in BC on a daytime ride. Also ride coach from CLE to CHI. But that is about as long a ride that we would do now that we are older. No sleeping in coach if we can avoid it.

 

[tim49424]

My mom rode in coach when she was in high school from Holland, MI to Denver and back in the early 1950s.

 

[Eric S]

Back in the 1980's, I rode coach on the entire transcontinental SL (as far as JAX) and then up the east coast, I forget where I started - maybe San Diego. If so, it was SAN-LAX-(SAS/NOL)-JAX-NYP-ALB.

I thought the Sunset Limited was not extended east of New Orleans until the early 1990s, but I could be mistaken.

 

[gwschenk]

1982, Los Angeles to St. Louis on the Southwest Limited and Ann Rutledge. It was not so crowded in those days, before Reagan really had an impact on Amtrak. I had two seats, so sleeping was not so bad.

In those days, the Southwest stopped in Pasadena, at what is now a Gold Line light rail stop. The Kansas City station was in its pre-rehab condition, just before they closed it and moved operations to the Amshack.

 

[chakk]

Had a 30-day pass on the B&O/C&O back in the last year or so before Amtrak where I traveled their entire combined system all in coach, with only a few days off to attend college classes and sleep in my home bed. Did splurge and took one journey from Cincinnati to Washington DC in a standard roomette sleeper on the Norfolk & Western "Pochantas", which were being sold to customers for a very small "up charge", similar to the Slumbercoach, from the regular coach fares.

By the third night of this adventure, I would sleep quite soundly in coach under a home-made Afghan blanket provided by my mother.

 

[railiner]

All of these stories of 'bravely' enduring coach travel by many in this thread (myself included), makes me smile when I recall my Mom relating what she endured as a young newlywed in 1942....she took a train from home in New York all the way to Biloxi, Mississippi to visit my father going thru training at an Army camp, but she did it STANDING!!

And she was glad to even get to do that.......

 

[jphjaxfl]

My Dad talked about how crowded the trains were during WWII. Many had to stand or use their suitcases for a seat.

 

[SarahZ]

Yup. My dad was in the Army during the early/mid 1960s, and he used the train to travel from North Carolina to Detroit (back when Michigan Central Station was still in operation... /whine). He told me the seats weren't nearly as "posh" as they look today, and they didn't have air conditioning. Yuck.

 

[RCBev]

1984; on a 14 day railpass (which I believe was like $150 for the pass):

1st leg: Seattle to Chicago to Ft Wayne

2nd leg: Ft Wayne to Chicago to Las Vegas NM

3rd leg: Las Vegas NM to LA

4th leg: LA back to Seattle.

All In Coach cuz I was a poor Navy enlisted E-4.

 

[George Harris]

Coming back from Nam November 1971: Went Oakland to Alexandria VA, without a break, but by sleeper Denver to Chicago.

Oakland to Denver: At that time was on the UP across Wyoming, then pulled backward Cheyenne to Denver. The train length essentially doubled east of Denver. Had a UP dome which I spent a good bit of time in across the Sierra. A Burlington dome was added at Denver.

Chicago to Alexandria on the James Whitcomb Riley or George Washington, forget which name was being used. Fast down the ICRR tracks to Kankekee, then very slow and rough on the PC tracks across Indiana, then a nice ride, much of it in a dome across West Virginia. The dome was taken off in Charlottesville.

I don't believe Amtrak ever acquired a UP dome car....most of those went to the old Auto Train Corporation, other than what UP kept. What you probably rode was one of those "Three quarter length" SP dome lounges, with a lower profile. I believe at the time, was the only domes the SP permitted on their Donner Pass line....

From Denver east, they added regular Vista Domes, as well as Slumbercoaches to the consist.....

The dome car on you rode into Charlottesville went on with other cars to Newport News. The train was 'split' at Charlottesville.....

You are correct about he UP dome versus SP dome. I should have said SP dome car. We were way late into Charlottesville, so they had run the Newport News section without the through cars, or so I was told. Presumably to get the equipment in place for the train back. (OK, "way late" meant about 3 to 4 hours, which is almost on schedule by the standards of some trains since then.)