Being from the Denver Metro Area my Amtrak travels are CZ centric though I have also been on the Lake Shore Limited. Each time we have spent the $$$ for the roomette and even at 6'5" / 275 I find the room an enjoyment away from the noise and what not of coach. Since the roomette cost includes the meals we look at it as not just transportation but part of the vacation experience itself (Hotel, Meal, Rental Car, Entertainment) so the costs are reasonable travel costs.
All in all the roomette, bathroom, showers, and dining areas were always clean and the staff trying hard to make the trip enjoyable. Sure, we have had a bathroom fail on a car but things happen and they do what they can do until it can be fixed.
Darren (BLHS & CRRM Lifetime Member)
Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum (DHVM), Railroad Adventures (RRAdventures)
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NKP, My experience has been mixed concerning the cleaniless of train travel. As to sleeper accomodations I have never had a serious concern. Generally bathrooms and roomettes were acceptable. My travels using business class were usually ok with one exception. The worst experience was on the Pennsylvanian from Pittsburgh to Lancaster. We had Taken the Capitol Limited from Chicago to Pittsburgh and then the Pennsylvanian to Lancaster. We were riding in business class. The restroom was terrible. The floor was wet and the stench grew steadily worse as the trip went on. I finally mentioned the smell and mess to the conductor. She shrugged and said they didn't have the staff to clean the restrooms adequately. When I returned home I complained to Amtrak. I always carry hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and Lysol disinfectant spray. I rarely travel by coach anymore so I can't comment on the cleanliness of coach accomodations. But in the past when traveling by coach I don't recall excessive dirty facilities.
We recently finished a trip from LA to Boston and back, we took coach so I will limit my comments to that experience. Overall the coach was very clean on first impressions,
The basic problem with Amtrak and Hygiene when it comes to coaches or the toilets is that they can only be as clean as the last person who used it. Amtrak has signs in the restrooms asking people to consider other users and clean up after yourself, but of course some people are just pigs, and if they were pigs at home they will be pigs when traveling, I really feel sorry for the cleaning crews after some of these trips.
On our last trip we had a guy who brought a satchel full of junk food, set up a barrier of duffle bags in the aisle seat and proceeded to snack his way across America. At the end of the trip there was a debris field around his seat of cast off chips and coke cans, the poor guy behind him had to pick up stuff that rolled under the seats and into his area. Now luckily the piggy guy was a nice guy and OK enough to be around and even though the guy ate like a little piggy, at least he didn’t smell like one, unlike what the poor schmucks in one of the coaches had to endure, I walked thru on the way to lounge car and its smelled like a dairy farm! Wheew!
Have fun with your trains
I have pretty much given up long distance travel on Amtrak because the cost of a sleeper has gone through the roof, i.e. I can get a first class hotel for the room charge on many of Amtrak's sleepers, and I am not comfortable sleeping in a roometter or bedroom. I prefer to fly when traveling long distance and use the train for relatively short trips between destination cities, i.e. fly to New York and take the train to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, etc. So I won't comment on the cleanliness of the sleeping cars.
Over the past year I have ridden coach class between New York and Philadelphia, New York and Washington, Baltimore and Washington, Pittsburgh and New York, San Francisco and Bakersfield, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as five trips from Temple Texas to Dallas or Fort Worth and two trips from Temple or Taylor to San Antonio.
For the most part the coaches on all of the trains, with the exception of the southbound Eagle out of Dallas or Fort Worth, have been clean. Equally important the rest rooms have been clean and stocked properly. The northbound Eagle from San Antonio has been clean. It is turned in San Antonio and thoroughly cleaned before departing for Chicago. The southbound Eagle is another story. By the time it gets to Dallas or Fort Worth, it has been on the rails for nearly 24 hours. The coaches look it. They look a bit like a garbage truck.
As I noted in a previous post, I have met some nice people in the coaches. In fact, most of them are nice, and they are considerate of their fellow passengers. Unfortunately, the few bad apples are the folks that tend to stick in our minds. Having said this, however, I would not ride coach on an overnight train, although I did it plenty of times in my youth. If I get stuck with an unruly seat mate on an airplane, which I have on more than one occasion, the ride is usually less than three hours, so I can put up with it. Not that I have a choice. But to be stuck beside an unruly passenger on a long distance train overnight could be truly a nightmare. Moreover, sitting up overnight is not my idea of fun; not at this stage in my life.
I always take the Sleeping Car all on LD trains and Business Class on other Trains. I ever ride coaches on LD trains.
The coach riders on the Empire Builder are something else, and the main argument for riding first class. I was shocked the first time I rode Amtrak in the '90s after an interval of many years. I went coach and was shocked at the attire and deportment of the passengers. As soon as I got to Seattle (from Minot), I changed my return ticket to first class, and that has been my mode ever since. Slobbism has overtaken coach, and unless you are big and ugly enough to enforce your will on the slobs, better get a room.
I can only speak from my own experience but I have felt very comfortable with the standards I've experienced. We always get a bedroom when we take Amtrak and I have found them to be very clean and the bathrooms appear spotless. I have also walked through the coaches prior to departure and they were also clean. I will state that if you walked through them a few hours later it was a different story! I just don't believe the car attendants with all their required activities can keep up with the attitude of those riding in the coaches. Just my observations.......................
Here's a topic of interest to me and perhaps others who inhabit Amtrak's Sleeping Cars. How clean are the accommodations?
An article ("Your Road Buddies: Zillions of Germs") in today's New York Times got me to wondering yet again about the standards Amtrak uses in their regularly-scheduled maintenance.
If any member of this forum has some factual knowledge or evidence, I'd like to know about what happens behind the scenes at, say, Sunnyside Yard. I'd like to know, for example, how often the mattresses are cleaned? How cleaned? How often are they replaced? How often are blankets cleaned? How cleaned? I must say that I have always found freshly laundered linen in my room and clean towels, but let's go on.
How often is the sink cleaned? What about the shower in the bedrooms? How cleaned?
It seems to me that the carpeting, especially near the too-small sink areas is frequently moistened, no matter one's efforts. So, how often is the carpeting cleaned? How? How often replaced?
What about the mousetraps one sees, albeit infrequently, underneath the sofas in the rooms? How much of a problem is this?
Without getting too specific, what about the cleanliness of the toilets? Any statistics?
I once had a conductor advise me not to ride in Room H ( handicap room) on Viewliner Sleeping Cars. "That's where they put every sick person, all that coughing; you don't know what those people have," he said. OK, I'll grant that remark was ungracious, but is there any discernible difference in the cleanliness or cleaning of any rooms?
I suppose I'd like to hear from someone who works for Amtrak in a room-cleaner capacity. But I bet they are way too busy to read this forum; my thanks to them, nonetheless. Maybe the Vice President for Germ Control could respond, but he may have been recently down-sized. So, I'll ask other readers here. Any facts? Evidence? OK, what about anecdotal evidence?
Now, lest anyone here think me prissy on this subject, suffice it to say these concerns have never stopped me from sleeping in beds aboard trains or buying first-class accommodations. I sleep with my socks on; my wife tells our friends that, when on Amtrak, she sleeps in clothes that she wouldn't mind waking up in a ditch in! (PJ's, I assure you)
And how clean are the coaches?
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