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I guess I can comment on my first wife (1984-2004). That was an unusual situation, because we could write our own free standby tickets on United Airlines, and more often than not go first class. But she loved train travel, as long as it was in a private room--only Bedrooms for overnight...

In our household, it's not just a competition for time, but also for vacation dollars. If we have over $10,000 to spend, it's likely we'll fly first-class to Hawaii and stay at a nice hotel. If we have more like $5,000 to blow, we'll get Bedrooms on the Coast Starlight to and from San...

The macerators were associated with spraying effluent on the tracks, which is no longer done. The vacuum system for transporting waste from the toilets to the holding tank does not involve any grinding process, so inappropriate toilet paper might indeed clog the system.

It is over $3,200 for a Bedroom from PDX to MSP in October when I priced a trip; Roomettes are over a thousand dollars.

Thanks for the detailed trip report! How was your overall coach experience? Did you have someone sitting next to you, and were the restrooms tolerable?

It fits two people in the same space which accommodates four in Roomettes.

There is soap, but it is pretty harsh and I don't like it. There is occasionally shampoo, but again I probably wouldn't use it. Towels are provided.

Bring a pillow and a blanket, ear plugs, and eye shades. You may be seated next to a stranger for none, some, or all of your trip. There is no armrest between the pairs of seats, which is great for sleeping if you have two seats to yourself but not so great if you have a stranger next to you...

Just off hand, I would say it is because the retention tanks are far from Superliner toilets, but right under Amfleet toilets. There is only space in the Superliner ceiling and floor for vacuum pipes that extend to tanks at the ends of the car, which are actually above the lower-level toilets...

When I rode the Super Continental from Montreal to Vancouver in 1975, my brothers and I spent a whole day leaning out an open upper Dutch door. We kept wondering where all the water on our faces was coming from (it was from the toilets). Dad must have known what was going on, but thought a few...

The toilets had stopped working that morning. I do not remember the status of the sinks and showers. You also asked how a problem could fix itself. It could have been a wad of toilet paper clogging the system that slowly dissolved.

I was on a Coast Starlight Seattle to Los Angeles where our sleeper had non-functioning toilets that were fixed in Oakland.

It is suspected there was a failure of the generator and it lost propulsion. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/16/us/walla-walla-ferry-aground-bainbridge-trnd/index.html

You will be seated where the on-board staff directs you, sometimes in the Portland coaches and sometimes in the Seattle coach. It doesn't matter what your ticket says, so go with the lowest fare.

They are adequate in terms of number of them, but sometimes can be very untidy.

My first train trip was in June, 1974 from Boston to Washington on the Minuteman, returning on the Night Owl. I recall that Amtrak had a problem with sandwich freshness at that time... It has been interesting watching the rise and fall of the overnight NEC train over the last 50 years. I...

I had the Queen of the Skies fly over my house the other evening (I heard it but couldn't see it through the trees). In the screen shot, the nose of the plane is almost exactly over my home: From FlightAware.com; for orientation, YYJ is Victoria, BC, on the tip of Vancouver Island and BLI is...

We had this recent derailment in our area. There is mostly oil traffic in this area, so the results could have been catastrophic...

I think one important consideration when deciding between coach and sleeper is how far one must drive after arrival. It's probably not a good idea to set off on a long drive after not sleeping in coach.

In going through some old papers, I found the itinerary for this trip. I processed the Rail Pass purchase and ticket issuance through this agency, as required by the school, and remember that the tickets were hand-written. Here's the two photos I have from this trip, one of (I think)...