Coach seats are the cheapest way to travel on Amtrak; the cost goes way up when you start looking at booking something in a sleeper car. Because Steve and I were going on an extended, cross-country train trip (our first train travel ever), and we happened upon an excellent deal on coach seats, we took a chance and decided to go for it, knowing it meant we’d be foregoing the privacy that comes with a sleeper-car room.
So, how does a day trip in coach compare with an overnighter?
Before our trip, we talked with several friends and family members who had made the five- to six-hour train ride from Selma, N.C., to Washington, D.C.
“It’s great!” they told us.
“So relaxing!” they opined.
“All you do is sit back and enjoy the scenery,” they said, and their eyes practically glistened with joyful tears at the mere recollection of it.
And they were right.
The first leg of our cross-country rail journey began with the very Selma to D.C. route that had so enthralled our family and friends. And we loved it, too. In years past, we’d driven from our Johnston County home to the D.C. area numerous times, and there was no denying that riding the train was preferable to the speed traps, road rage and bumper-to-bumper traffic we’d dealt with on our previous trips. In fact, when we arrived in D.C. (where we had a five-hour layover before catching our next train to Boston), we were already making plans to return to D.C. via rail for a mini-vacation at some point in the future.
Then we continued our journey, and over the course of the next few days, we discovered that there’s a big difference between a six-hour train ride and an overnighter (or, in our case, several overnighters) in coach. They are two different animals. The first is a puppy dog, all cute and furry and cuddly; the second is a lion, beautiful and majestic, but lower your guard for a second, and he’ll rip your leg off.
A funny thing happens when strangers spend a couple of days at a time confined in a space together. They start forming little cliques and communities, most of which are perfectly harmless, and, in fact, provide a pleasant way to help pass the time. Others, though, are centered around alcohol consumption — and I’m not talking about kicking back with a couple of beers and getting to know your neighbors. I’m talking about knocking back one after another after another after another, until you’ve got a group of rowdies whose loud, profane language drowns out everything else. (And lest you think my delicate ears are exaggerating the overuse of profanity, let me state for the record that I’m married to a Quentin Tarantino fan — and the language was too much for him.) One passenger became so drunk that he attempted to urinate in the aisle and was prevented from doing so only when another passenger steered him to the restroom. (Side note: This behavior got him booted off the train at our very next stop, which happened to be Alpine, Texas.)
The informal nature of train travel is certainly a factor that contributes to this behavior. When traveling by plane, it’s drilled in your head from the moment you board that you should stay seated and wear your seatbelt at all times, unless, of course, you get up to go to the bathroom. On trains, there are no seatbelts, and part of the allure of train travel is that you’re free to get up and roam around at will. You can wander from car to car, and if you’re cooped up long enough, all this wandering will likely eventually lead you to the café car, where you can purchase snacks and drinks. Drinks of both the nonalcoholic and alcoholic variety. And based on my observations, both varieties were being sold in large quantities, an opportunity some passengers took full advantage of. I had no problem with folks consuming too many soft drinks; as a soft-drink lover myself, that would be terribly hypocritical on my part. And I considered it none of my business when people chose to imbibe too much alcohol, provided they weren’t engaging in behaviors that are harmful or bothersome to others. And therein lies the problem — or problems, I should say. First, their behaviors were bothersome to others, and second, those of us in coach had no private room to escape to. We were at their mercy when they congregated in groups and became loud and obnoxious.
On any given train, the people who engage in this behavior (if, indeed, there are any) are, of course, in the minority. The majority of our fellow train passengers were perfectly nice, respectable people, many of whom we enjoyed talking with. But it only takes a few (or in the case of public urination, one) to dampen (pun intended) the general atmosphere. If it gets too rowdy, you can try calling on Amtrak personnel to tone things down (although they work several cars at a time, so they’re not always readily available). Another option is to use headphones or earplugs to drown out the noise. Or you can simply give in to it and accept the fact that it’s free onboard entertainment, albeit not the type you might prefer.
Next week: If you’re a stickler for punctuality, will long-distance train travel you crazy?
