Travle by train

Hi I would like to take a train from Detroit to Huston next Autumn. It will be nice if the train starts in the morning so I can see the countryside as much as possible as I go across USA. Does anyone have any idea of this is possible? Or do you recommend the Grey Hound Buses?

Thanks for your help

Travle by train

You can certainly travel by train, check out Amtrak.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/national.pdf

Looks like they have an early and a late morning departure. You%26#39;ll need to travel through Chicago and then it looks like a train change somewhere in Texas.

Travle by train

Yes, there is a change in Longview, Texas (east of Dallas), but it is to a bus, not another train. You would leave Detroit in the morning, arrive in Chicago around noon (Chicago time), change trains in Chicago and leave at 1:45 p.m., arriving in Longview, Texas at 9:00 a.m. the following day. The bus to Houston meets the train and you would get to Houston at 1:45 p.m.

A longer way to go would be to take the same train from Detroit to Chicago, then change trains in Chicago and go to San Antonio, Texas (essentially running diagonally across a very large state. There is another train from San Antonio to Houston.

Thanks, I will chk that out! Does anyone have any experience with travelling long distance on train in the USA. Pls share your experiences. Thanks

You should also note that Amtrak is noted for being late, so your trip could take much longer than scheduled.

While it%26#39;s too early to say what prices will be in the autumn, keep in mind that you may be able to fly for the same amount of money or less. In May, a one-way ticket on Amtrak is around $140. Southwest Airlines, has find one-way fares of $109 and Northwest/Delta has a one-way fare of $106. These don%26#39;t include taxes, but it will give you an idea of the cost to make a comparison.

Train trip looks like $280 and 31 hours of travel each way. The countryside will most likely consist of corn, cows and maybe the occasional trees - not much exciting terrain in that part of the country.

Plane trip looks like $320 and 3 hours of travel each way. This was for a random week in June.

Train travel in the US is not very good except in a few areas where population density is high and distances are manageable in 3 to 8 hours. Even then, we don%26#39;t have any high-speed trains comparable to what may be found in Europe or Japan. As a general rule, train travel presently is more often used along the eastern seaboard, especially in the Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia-New York-Boston corridor where service is relatively frequent. The Detroit-Chicago corridor has only 3 trains per day in each direction.

Aside from those who elect to drive (and make multiple stops enroute) most long-distance travel in the US is via airplane. Sitting in a train for more than 30 hours isn%26#39;t something most people relish and it definitely would not be comfortable unless you paid the extra charges for sleeping accommodations on the train.

On option, if you want to see the country from the train window, would be to visit a few of the cities along the way. That would be more expensive, of course, as it would mean spending the night in the cities selected.