…on a cross-country train trip

In September, we took Amtrak trains 421 and 422 on the Texas Eagle route from St. Louis to San Marcos, Texas to visit family. The full route runs from Chicago to San Antonio (flex dining options only during that time, which means a set menu and heat & eat meals), and at San Antonio cars from the Sunset Limited are added as it proceeds to Los Angeles. This is considered a cross-country route and is the longest offered by Amtrak. Let’s break down our trip!

• Planning & Seat or Room Types

  Planning to book the family room can be tricky, and it’s good to be able to be flexible with your dates. Because there is only one family room per sleeping car on this route (From Chicago to San Antonio), it may not show during the dates you want if another family is in it for any part of your journey. The site may offer options to bus you to another station to then get on that train where the family occupying the room is getting off, or it just may not show an option. So be flexible if you’re planning the family room.

  For other planning, I would first look at the different routes and where they go. You can plan a trip based on the route and where it goes, or you can have a destination in mind and then find what route services the nearest station. I would just simply google all of this first before booking, or explore the different routes and maps on the amtrak site. There is also an Amtrak Vacations option to explore.

  Basically, if your destination doesn’t have a station, the site will suggest taking multiple routes or buses to get you to the nearest station. And that may eliminate some of your ticket options, if the bus to get you there doesn’t leave until after the train leaves. So if you’re not that far from the station, save yourself the headache and just uber directly from the station and put your departing location as that station so you don’t have to mess with buses and transfers. Basically think of it like if you put you were leaving from Marion to Chicago, it would probably try to bus you from Marion to Carbondale or not even show you routes, etc. If you put Carbondale in, and just uber from Marion to Carbondale, you would be fine.

  So rooms. The family room is for families of 4. It has 2 long benches and two short (these face each other with a table in between) that fold down into a bed. The two short benches make one bed with one bunk folding down above it, the two longer benches both recline and fold completely down to form another bed, and then they have a bunk above as well. There is a cargo-type strap on the bigger top bunk to prevent you from rolling off during sleep. There is a small closet that fits a ladder to allow access to the top bunks, and the closet is big enough to hold a sweater or two. I would not count on putting luggage in here, there is a central storage area at the base of the sleeper car stairs where most folks put their larger luggage. We were able to store our car seat base and stroller here, however on the way back we had to store all of our luggage in our room to make space for the stroller. You really only want the family room if you have small kiddos. It is pretty pricey, and while meals are included as I mentioned for the leg we were on it was flex dining only, which was reheated frozen meals. Routes with dining plans have actual chefs - we want to try this.

  On the Superliner, there are roomettes downstairs near the Family room (they sleep 1-2) that have the two small benches and table with an upper bunk, and then upstairs there are bedrooms which are much larger and have bathroom options. These sleep two or so, and the bedroom suites connect two of the bedrooms I believe. When the girls are older, we would do a suite, but for now with their age we had to do just one big room. We’d like to do the bedrooms because they are upstairs, and our experience in the observation car was that the view was better from the second floor.

  Coach and business class are seats that are in a car together, they do not have their own rooms. They also do not have access to the dining car, their meals may be purchased from the cafe which is in the bottom of the Observation car. Many of the Coach passengers stayed in the Observation lounge booths all day to spread out a bit. The coach seats are significantly cheaper than a room and do recline, but keep in mind there is no privacy - you are sleeping in a reclining vehicle chair - and you are subject to the noise, sounds, and environment the other passengers create. However, for a day trip this is the best option in my opinion. For a 24-hour trip one way with a newborn and toddler, it was not the way to go.

• Tips and Tricks

  We watched many, many, many videos and read blogs to prepare for our trip. Here are the tips we used that worked, and what we would recommend:

  • Bring painters tape to secure the closet door and other areas that may jiggle and make annoying noise…but also bring ear plugs if that doesn’t work

  • Ear plugs and white noise machine

  • Snacks, food, etc. While meals are included, we worked through trying the menu pretty quickly and if I was staying on the train for more than two days I would want more variety

  • Power strip or plug that has multiple inputs. There is one plug in your room. Not one outlet, one PLUG. We secured the power strip with the painters tape to make a charging station

  • Some kind of slide on shoes for middle of the night bathroom runs

  • Download your shows because our train did not have wifi and we lost signal completely in spots. While this wasn’t a big deal because we were engaging with each other or looking out the window, at night I do like to wind down with a show or scrolling and we did not have signal in the rural parts of Missouri and Arkansas

  • Have a carry-on bag in case you need to store your big case in the storage outside of your room. Be sure to have your toiletries bag, pjs, and change of clothes for the next day in this carry on. If you’re going with a roomette, you’ll want to save on space and have your suitcase outside of the room

  • Sometimes it is easier to get through all the cars (if coming from the sleeper) and go to the cafe, dining, or observation car by waiting until a fresh air stop and then getting off the car and walking down the platform to the specific car you are looking for.

  • Fresh air zones aren’t so fresh - this is the only time smokers get breaks. As soon as you get off the train, you’ll get hit by the groups smoking. I don’t judge! But I don’t want my kids breathing it in, so as soon as we would exit the train for fresh air we would head away from the other cars and groups of people

  • Cafe menu items can also be ordered for dinner, and dinner/dining car is only available for sleeper car passengers. Coach has the cafe and can bring on food as well.

• The Good

  This was a really cool way to travel! I felt safer than if we were driving in our SUV on the interstate, or on a plane. Being able to be completely present and relaxed with each other while traveling is something we just don’t get on road trips or flying. Once we boarded, we were on, and we had a literal 24 hours until we needed to pack back up and get off the train.

  Some of the food was really good! I was surprised at the turkey and swiss on pretzel bun and Christian said the salmon was very good (which we had read online).

  The lounge car was incredible. I found such peace sitting with a blanket on one of the loveseats, watching the scenery whizz by with only the sounds of the air conditioning, train, and light chatter in the background. Having the sun pour on me in the early morning after breakfast was such a great way to wake up. The views and seeing the country this way is just incomparable.

  There was something really nice about connecting to this old way of travel. Despite the dated furnishings and designs, it felt a bit sophisticated to carry a suitcase on to a train, to be called over the intercom for the sleeper car to come to dinner. Working while riding made me feel pretty cool too. I know a lot of big city folks take hour or two trains for commutes, especially on the East Coast, and this kind of gave me a taste of that.

  Basically, it gave us a perspective on how others live and travel, and that’s what we’re always searching for in our own travels.

• The Eh

  It was not easy to sleep. Between the sounds of the car on the track, the whizzing past things, the doors and compartments rattling…you also could just FEEL how fast the train was going, and that pull made me a little motion sick. There were several times throughout the night we were woken because the train would jump or merge tracks and we would be thrown about a foot back. The beds had netting to catch you, and it wasn’t enough to throw us out of bed, but it did move the kids a bit and wake us. Because we were in the family room, our beds ran horizontal to the car. That meant if I laid on one side, I was riding backwards. If I rolled over, I was riding forwards. This was extremely disorienting in the middle of the night and would make me pretty sick, I would have to sit up for a second and then roll over to adjust.

  The food was hit and miss. The fettuccini tasted more like a Knorr’s chicken noodle packet than the taste of alfredo, at all. Remember, the dining cart for this portion of the route is flex menu only. When it is dining menu, there is a chef on board. But flex menu is frozen dinners in aluminum bowls that are heated. Now that is not to say they are bad, but they just vary. I also found the blueberry muffin to be odd as the whole top was a cinnamon streusel mix. While there is coffee always available for the sleeper car passengers, it does need to be doctored up so to speak to have a great taste. You could probably ask someone in the dining car to heat something in the microwave for you, but I wouldn’t bank on that. You can bring your own food on board, but that can be challenging without a fridge or heating source. Basically, be prepared to suck it up if you don’t like the food.

  As I said before, Amtrak is pretty dated looking. If you’re thinking fancy cars and luxury, you’re not going to find it here. These are basic, constantly used until they break fixtures and the time staff has to clean them before boarding is minimal. I had clorox travel wipes in my hand as I boarded and wiped down every piece of furniture before the girls sat down, as Christian was loading the suitcases.

  There is not a ton of room no matter what you book. It just is what it is. We had the right side of the room in bed mode most of the trip to lounge, hang out, have more space for that. We escaped to the lounge quite frequently so we did not feel trapped or on top of each other. I will also add that the space to park your bags outside of the rooms is also limited. If you are joining later in the trip, not at the starting point, there is a good chance there will not be room for your items and you will have to store them in your room. Since we were traveling with our double stroller and a car seat (we borrowed a family car seat at the location), plus a diaper bag, two carry-ons, and a large suitcase, we ended up storing the large suitcase and stroller in the bay and the rest up on one of our top bunks. So if we would have had to keep the stroller in our room too, that would have been super inconvenient and difficult. Just keep this in mind when packing.

  As I mentioned before, there is a hoard of folks that stand near the open car doors and smoke at fresh air stops. The trick is to get out before them and as far to one end of the train as possible. I do wish we had more time at different fresh air stops, one station had a museum and gift shop, train cars to look at but we did not stay there long. Alternatively, a station we would stop an hour at wouldn’t really have much to check out. Not anything you can do about that, but just be prepared.

We boarded closer to 8pm at the STL Amtrak station. Parking was $10 per day. We could have parked at a Metro station in Illinois and connected over to the Amtrak station, but I was hesitant to leave our car in an unsecure area for six days.

Anyways, because we were sleeper car passengers we were considered First Class, which meant we got free access to the lounge in this station. Lounge passengers enjoy seating away from everyone else with a television, mini fridge, bottled water, and private bathroom. They are also the first to be called when the train is ready for boarding, the conductor personally comes and gets them.

I’m going to be honest, when we walked in this station it smelled like…poop. I’m not really sure what was going on. I can’t really give a great review on the lounge because all I can remember is that overwhelming smell, but I will say it was nice to be away from everyone. I was disappointed that the bathroom in the lounge did not have a changing table.

We had to use the elevator because of our stroller, and that older couple got ahead of us when the conductor pulled us for boarding. The woman ended up taking the elevator without us, so by the time it came the other passengers had caught up to us and we boarded together. It was a little chaotic on the platform trying to find the correct car; the car number is on the ticket but it was just a matter of finding the car itself. The sleeper car is usually located at the end of the train, on some routes it is directly behind the engine. For this route, it is the end of the train, and our attendant found us fairly quickly to get us boarded.

I had some travel clorox wipes on hand, and as Christian was breaking down the stroller and getting Olive down to our room, I ran in first and quickly wiped everything down. We left fairly quickly after boarding, so we had to unpack and prepare for bed while the train was moving. We did not head up to the lounge car just because it was dark and we would not be able to see much.

Olive fell asleep fairly quickly, Christian, Caroline and I struggled. I tried the top bunk but immediately got claustrophobic and had to sleep on the bottom bunk. We did get jolted a few times during the night when the tracks would merge or the train would speed up. We fell asleep around 10 something, waking up at midnight at the Little Rock stop. By the time we all woke up at 6 something, we were in Texarkana.

The sunrise from the lounge car was beautiful, and breakfast was fine. Many people raved about the crepes. I was just grateful for coffee after a rough night of sleep!

We spent a lot of time in the lounge car just checking out the views and letting Olive run between us, out of the way. We were able to get her down for a nap after lunch, and we just went back and forth between the lounge car and our room, occasionally stepping outside for a fresh air break at the designated stops. There was a two-hour span I think Olive got bored, so we let her watch some downloaded episodes of Miss Rachel with her headphones on.

You will need to download episodes and such, because there are plenty of no signal areas along this route…and I mean not even satellite signal options, so hotspots won’t work. There was not wifi either, so be prepared to go old school with a physically book or activities.

We arrived in San Marcos around 7:30 p.m. or so, we had dinner around 5 so we were able to eat and then enjoy the sunset in the lounge before heading down to our room to pack up.

After three days in San Marcos, we were back at the station by 7am. Unfortunately, the train was delayed and did not arrive until 9am. This stunk at this station, because it was pretty bare bones; one bench for the entire platform, the station a good distance from the platform with limited seating, no real accommodations or lounge. Due to the delay, the family we stayed with came into the station with us and had breakfast we had picked up from McDonalds, so it was nice to be able to make the most of that time.

When the train arrived we felt like seasoned pros, but because we did not get on at the departure station this time there was not as much room in the storage area and we had to put the car seat in our room. But we had the space on the top bunk, so it worked.

We pretty much did the same routine as our first stay, alternating between the lounge and room, going to the dining car for meals. We did choose to do lunch in our room so we could extend nap time, and I got some work done. We slept a little better this time knowing what to expect, but it was still fairly rough to be honest!

We arrived in St. Louis at 9am and paid $60 for parking. We decided to just get a full breakfast one the road home since the kids were still sleepy, and that worked out just fine.

Overall, this was a really exciting trip that made us want to check out the more well-known routes like the California Zephyr and the Empire!

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