Amtrak cross country travel?

Question

Is it cheaper to set up travel on the weekdays or weekends? Are there any coast-to-coast express trains? The amtrak website sucks eggs!

Answer 1

You can book Amtrak coast to coast, I went from Chicago to San Bernindino, CA.  If you want coast to coast you can do it with amtrak, it will take about 10 days and you run the risk of having a connection using greyhound busses.  (Amtrak pairs up with Greyhound for some connections)

Answer 2

The day of the week you book makes no difference, Amtrak uses fare buckets which generally go up as a train fills.  Frequently coach fares will not rise very much but sleepers can go up dramatically.  There are no express trains and no longer one train that runs coast to coast (service was “temporarily” suspended due to Hurricane Katrina damage).  I always use the website for booking long distance train travel and it should work fine unless you have some special need.

Answer 3

Yes, the booking engine on Amtrak's website is for simple corridor trips like Detroit-Chicago, and is terrible for planning a long-haul trip.  You need a human agent, call 1-800-USA-RAIL and they'll set you up.

It takes about 3 days to travel coast-to-coast via Chicago.

There are 4 trains that run from the East Coast (Boston-Washington) to Chicago, those take 18-28 hours depending on route.   There are 4 other trains that travel Chicago to the West Coast, those run 40-56 hours depending on route.  Generally the slower, the better the scenery.

There's also 1 train from NYC/DC to New Orleans, then another from New Orleans to L.A.

There are also north-south trains from Seattle to L.A. and from Chicago to New Orleans.

Prices totally depend on seat availability.  They tend to be highest (most scarce) during the summer and the holiday season.

Answer 4

There are no coast to coast express trains.   Figure 3 days if you are lucky.    Some actually are not trains but buses.  For example,  if you come across to San Francisco,  the last leg is on a bus as the trains no longer go into San Francisco.  

If you must ride a train,  go north into Canada and ride their train.   It may not be any faster,  but the scenery is a lot better...