I'd love to take Coach on an Amtrak train BUT...

[MikefromCrete]

Strange to see someone fondly remembering the days when we were all choking on cigarette smoke. Those were not the good old days.

 

[Twinkletoes]

You're right. Smoking is bad. I hated being around smoking (even in the Smoking Toleration Age of of fancy ash trays and cigarette boxes on
the coffee table), have never smoked, and scoffed at the fantasy of the coach smoking "section." I was trying for using fewer words and ended up being misunderstood. My fuller meaning was that I didn't recall the lounge car as a place particularly or preferentially used for smoking because people generally smoked everywhere as the preceding commentator had mentioned. I just had a thought. Has any train system ever had shower space in coach cars?

From my observation in both coach and sleeper cars, the attendants seem mainly to be absent. This affects trip comfort. They typically do not patrol to make themselves available or to look after things such as soap or toilet paper running out in the coach toilets or asking about the time one would like to have their sleeper bed prepared. One hates to have to go hunting them down.

 

[Skyline]

Strange to see someone fondly remembering the days when we were all choking on cigarette smoke. Those were not the good old days.

Even tho I was a chain smoker myself back then (quit cold turkey, 1996) I agree -- it was not a golden era. Between the demonizing of smokers and the exorbitant cost today, I'm really glad I don't have the habit any longer. I don't understand how some of the poorest people in the nation continue to afford cigarettes.

I have some sympathy for those I see trying to get every last desperate puff in at the rare (if any) smoke stops along a LD pax route. It's a horribly addictive "hobby" without much benefit, really hard to quit. I tried off and on to quit for 15 years before I did. But folks, you gotta find the best reason that works for you, and try until you succeed.

(My reasons: (1) anger and hatred for the tobacco industry that absolutely exploited their ability to make their products extremely addictive and (2) I discovered a new obsession -- backpacking the entire Appalachian Trail; and the awareness I could not hike up and down steep mountains carrying 40 lbs. of weight for 8-12 hours per day while continuing the smoking habit. My new obsession beat the old one!)

 

[Qapla]

I was a chain smoker myself

I've always wondered how people kept those chains lit so they could smoke them ...

 

[NEPATrainTraveler]

I slept in coach last year and it wasn’t the greatest. Got like two hours of sleep. If I did it again I would bring a neck pillow and Dramamine. It was October and the heat was cranked up really high, so I would bring shorts and a light weight t-shirt and change into those before bed if you’re traveling when Amtrak turns on the heat. Maybe I would try business class on the LD trains that offer it?