Planning for future Amtrak trip

[stlouielady]

Hi. I am planning a future trip, and I'm looking for opinions on the best direction to go on each route that I'm going to be using. I don't know when I'm going to go, but, I know which routes I want to take. Any and all suggestions and thoughts would be appreciated.

Here's the trip I want to take. I know that I will be starting and ending in St Louis. From here, I've got two basic route choices.

1). St Louis to Chicago on a Lincoln Service train, connect to the Empire Builder to head to Seattle, on to Los Angeles on the Coast Starlight, then to Kansas City on the Southwest Chief and home to St Louis.

2). St Louis to Kansas City, on to LA on the Southwest Chief, up the coast to Seattle on the Coast Starlight, to Chicago on the Empire Builder, and then back home to St Louis.

Any goods/bads for either of these routes? I've been St Louis to Chicago, as well as St Louis to Kansas City several times, so, the 'scenery' aspect of these routes aren't that exciting to me. I'm just unfamiliar enough with the EB and the SWC to know which direction is better on these. I know that all the suggestions might be for nothing if the train is running late, but, what's everybody's thoughts?

Thanks for the help....

 

[Guest]

Remember that because of time zones, the westbound one will gain 2 hours, following the sun, and the eastbound one will lose two hours.

 

[AlanB]

I don't know when I'm going to go, but, I know which routes I want to take.

Here's the problem with not knowing when. A routing that might work for the summer, might not work during the winter. One of the perfect examples of this is the Cardinal, during the summer one hits the most scenic part, New River Gorge, in either direction during daylight hours. The rest of the year, you can only see the gorge if you ride the eastbound train. I do realize that you're not considering that train, but the point still stands.

Now while I'm not an expert on the routes that you've selected, I would probably suggest that #2 is the correct choice, since I believe that year round that has the best chance of providing your seeing the best scenery. I did this routing myself last June, but I've never gone the opposite direction. If you were going during the summer, then it might not matter which routing you chose.

And of course all of the above assumes that things are on time, although of the trains you've picked only the CS is a real worry. The rest are pretty decent time keepers and even when late, are generally not more than a few hours.

I'm sure that others who have taken all of these trains in both directions can cast some better light on things.