Great company! (Amtrak (USA))

Member Name: Holidaying

Product:	Amtrak (USA)
Date:	11/09/08 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice scenic routes, inexpensive, comfortable.

Disadvantages: The food.

I like Amtrak, the rail service in the USA.

I chose to travel with them to get from New York to Chicago, a journey, by train, of about 18 hours.

There are two brilliant things that I remember about this journey, and one (serious) negative.

Let me get the negative out of the way first! The food. I was not expecting the food to be brilliant, or to be cheap. It was reasonably cheap, but it was awful! I had a burger and chips, which being from the UK, I expected to be French Fries. They were, of course, what I would call Crisps. Ok, my mistake. Still, I have never had a burger served with Crisps before.

The Crisps were ok. They were ready salted flavour, and they were fresh and crunchy and there was lots of them.

I do not know how to describe the burger. It was vegetarian, but I have no idea what it was made of, so awful was it. If you are going to travel with Amtrak (and you should), then I would bring your own food!

Now, on to the positives!

Firstly, the scenery was amazing, and the train travelled slowly enough that one could appreciate it.

Secondly, the train was very comfortable. I was surprised at how clean it was and at how big the seats were!

A couple of other points that might be useful to someone- there was a power point so that you could plug something in, for example a mobile phone or a laptop computer; secondly the train is staffed (and the staff were polite and helpful); thirdly, there are bathrooms on the train (which were clean to start with but started to smell after a while); fourthly, you can book online (search Google for Amtrak).

One final and important point- I was surprised at how cheap the ticket was- around 100 USD if my memory serves me correctly. That was about fifty pounds at the time.

Summary: If you bring your own food, youll have a great journey!