[logfromblammo]

Only if they're running on time. And they're never running on time over the longer routes.

I once took the train from Chicago to Denver and back.

On the return trip, our train was delayed 24 hours total. We spent an entire extra day stuck on sidings in the middle of nowhere, as freight cars passed us by.

Ofttimes in those situations, the passengers are offloaded onto coach buses, but there were no paved roads nearby.

The U.S. just doesn't do passenger rail well. This wasn't the first time I had a bad Amtrak experience. I have, in fact, never been on an Amtrak train that has arrived at my destination before 150% of the scheduled travel time has elapsed.

[CWuestefeld]

I went NY->Chicago->SF, the reverse of the route in the OP. We were held up for about 3 hours in Helper, UT, due to a washed out track. It was a really positive experience. Many passengers were gathered in the observation car, and one guy had a guitar with him. We spent much of the time having a singalong.

And once we got past the washout, the train was positively flying - we made it into SF only about 1/2 hour late.

I loved pretty much the whole thing. High points were watching the scenery, and also interacting with other passengers - both in the observation car and, as the OP notes, at meals. But I'm really glad we did it "1st class" - that is, with a sleeper cabin. This was comfortable and quiet, and provided a way we could make it "our experience" when we didn't want to be stuck with the rest of the crowd.

The sleeper car is much more expensive, but includes meals. All told, I think the price of the three day trip including sleeper cabin and meals, works out similar to airfare plus hotels and meals for a similar time period.

[phlakaton]

Countering anecdata: I've taken the CA Zephyr from Emeryville to Grand Junction twice, and arrived on-time with the first and I think 30 mins late with the second. With a mobile phone as a hotspot, and sone snacks in the bag for lunch, it was a very nice trip!

[logfromblammo]

I have two words for you:

diaper rationing.

30 minutes late on a 24 hour trip is not horrible. That's only 2% late. But 24 hours late on a 18.6 hour trip is 129% late. That's packing a lunch, eating it, then eating the snacks you packed because you know Amtrak runs late very often, then having another five meals on the train that you didn't plan for, because you never expected even Amtrak to screw up this badly. And this was before mobile hotspots. It was finishing your book, then finishing all the puzzles in your GAMES Magazine, then rereading all of yesterday's newspaper, down to the obituaries from a city you don't even live in, then staring out your window at the featureless nothingness of the Great Plains.

Your traveling companions go from "what an adventure!" to "maybe air travel with a baby over a holiday weekend wouldn't have been so bad," to pandemic cabin fever, to plotting the violent overthrow of the conductor with the guy you just met in the next car.

A ranking executive of Amtrak would literally have to kiss me on my literal ass and hand me a free first-class private sleeper cabin ticket before I would even set foot in another one of their siding-idlers ever again.

I did the math later, and determined that, while it would not have been accurate to say "it would have been quicker to walk", a professional touring cyclist would have been able to beat the train in a race, even including an 8-hour rest break, if he was taking all the performance-enhancing drugs and riding a faired recumbent bike.

[FireBeyond]

And as soon as they're off schedule because of any hiccup, they're never getting back on it.