Pre-COVID, myself and my bf at the time went to an anime convention outside of Chicago. His grandma lived in St. Louis, so we decided to take the train from Chicago to St. Louis because it was cheaper than flying (we lived in CO at the time and had flown to Chicago for the convention).
Neither of us had ever been on an Amtrak train, so we had no idea how it all worked, that seats weren’t assigned, that there were different prices on different cars, etc, we’d just gotten 2 of the cheapest tickets and assumed we’d have a seat.
Well, there were no seats by the time we boarded. People had spread their shit out even though they were traveling alone, and refused to move it even when we asked. So we said fuck it, let’s see if there’s room in the next car up on the line.
We get to the next car and it’s completely empty except for 3 kids, the oldest one was maybe 12. We’re like cool, we’ll just sit in here.
A full hour goes by and an AmTrak employee comes by to collect tickets. We hand them over and she says, and I quote: “You can’t sit here, this car doesn’t go to St. Louis”.
Immediately in my head I’m like, how the fuck can this car “not go to St. Louis” when we boarded in the car BEHIND IT and THAT car IS going to St. Louis?? Is this the fucking Hogwarts train??? Did the cars uncouple and reattach to a separate engine car in the 1 hour that’s passed and we didn’t realize it??? So I ask her what she even means by that, and explain that there’s no room in the car behind us so we came to this one because no one would move, and all she kept saying is that the car we were in didn’t go to St. Louis, and we had to go back to the other car now.
Luckily, she came with us into the first car and forced a single person to go sit with another single traveler, which was very nice of her, so me and the bf got to sit together, but the seat was uncomfortable as hell (springs might as well have been up your ass), and the rest of the ride sucked because of it.
Maybe the fancy cars with the nicer seats and panoramic view windows are great, but I don’t give a fuck. Never again.
I regularly went between urbana and chicago and have never encountered this different cars to different destinations thing you encountered. Actually would often hang out in the food car just for a change of pace.
I will never ride AmTrak again. Here’s why:
Pre-COVID, myself and my bf at the time went to an anime convention outside of Chicago. His grandma lived in St. Louis, so we decided to take the train from Chicago to St. Louis because it was cheaper than flying (we lived in CO at the time and had flown to Chicago for the convention).
Neither of us had ever been on an Amtrak train, so we had no idea how it all worked, that seats weren’t assigned, that there were different prices on different cars, etc, we’d just gotten 2 of the cheapest tickets and assumed we’d have a seat.
Well, there were no seats by the time we boarded. People had spread their shit out even though they were traveling alone, and refused to move it even when we asked. So we said fuck it, let’s see if there’s room in the next car up on the line.
We get to the next car and it’s completely empty except for 3 kids, the oldest one was maybe 12. We’re like cool, we’ll just sit in here.
A full hour goes by and an AmTrak employee comes by to collect tickets. We hand them over and she says, and I quote: “You can’t sit here, this car doesn’t go to St. Louis”.
Immediately in my head I’m like, how the fuck can this car “not go to St. Louis” when we boarded in the car BEHIND IT and THAT car IS going to St. Louis?? Is this the fucking Hogwarts train??? Did the cars uncouple and reattach to a separate engine car in the 1 hour that’s passed and we didn’t realize it??? So I ask her what she even means by that, and explain that there’s no room in the car behind us so we came to this one because no one would move, and all she kept saying is that the car we were in didn’t go to St. Louis, and we had to go back to the other car now.
Luckily, she came with us into the first car and forced a single person to go sit with another single traveler, which was very nice of her, so me and the bf got to sit together, but the seat was uncomfortable as hell (springs might as well have been up your ass), and the rest of the ride sucked because of it.
Maybe the fancy cars with the nicer seats and panoramic view windows are great, but I don’t give a fuck. Never again.
I regularly went between urbana and chicago and have never encountered this different cars to different destinations thing you encountered. Actually would often hang out in the food car just for a change of pace.