Taking a train?

PharCyDe · Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 64 Location: Tennessee, USA

Has anyone ever been on a train? I was wondering what its like. It seems to me that it would be kinda slow for some reason but thats just me. I was also wondering how much a train ride would cost on average. Im sure its cheaper than gas or a plane ticket but was still just curious.

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

Depending on route, it's not actually cheaper to take the train. For example, a cross-country air ticket might be more than a coach train ticket, but it's a three night trip on the train. Do you really want to be in coach on a train that long? If not, and you upgrade to a sleeper, it starts getting quite expensive in comparison. Also, the food on Amtrak isn't that great. It's not bad, but it's only marginally better than airplane food and you have to pay for it in addition to your ticket.

I took a train from Washington DC to Emeryville California via Chicago a few years ago. We planned the trip to stop in Chicago for a few days, for Denver for a few days, and Reno for a few days. It was nice to sit in our tiny compartment and watch the scenery go by. I'm glad I did it once but I'm not itching to do it again on Amtrak.

I hear from one of my aunts that the Canadian National Railway, Via, is much nicer than Amtrak. She's taken a train across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto. The scenery must be incredible. Maybe I'll try that one day.

There are luxury train trips that are as expensive as cruises. One I find enticing is taking the "Garden Route" in South Africa from Cape Town to Durban. Another great one is going from Bangkok to Singapore. Maybe I'll try these today, but they're not high on my list.

When I lived on the East Coast I used to take the train from Newark, New Jersey, to Rockville Maryland to visit my parents. Doing that sort of thing was worth it, because at the time it didn't cost too much and it was much easier than driving.

The best trips are the ones out in the countryside. I bet a trip from Nashville to Washington DC would be nice (if there's actually a train that even does that route). Denver to Salt Lake City is also great, especially coming down the west side of the Rockies. Supposedly Seattle to Oakland is beautiful.

I'm going to be taking a couple of overnight trains on my trip to China, going from Beijing to Xi'an (15 hours) and Xi'an to Suzhou (13 hours). I'll let you know what I think of Chinese trains. This will be interesting!!!

PharCyDe · Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 64 Location: Tennessee, USA

Come to think of it...I could never stay on a train that long lol. I would get so bored and nearly drive myself insane. I am interested to know how your china train experience will turn out. It should be pretty interesting...hopefully in a good way!

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

Train travel can be a great way to see the countryside, but if you're riding a super-express, it can be rather expensive.

Check out the Eurail Pass if you plan on doing any extensive travel in Europe.

Japan also offers a pass, which I have used several times and makes good sense as a trip from Tokyo to Hiroshima could cost $400 one way.
Passes are available for 5 days to up to 2 weeks and must be purchased in YOUR COUNTRY, then validated in Japan. The Japan Rail Pass can be used on all JR(Japan Railways) local trains as well, and even some buses and ferries.

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

The French Rail company has just announced that it was banning smoking on all high-speed trains (TGVs) from mid-December. Apparently the decision was based on a greater sensitivity to smoking by TGV passengers, in addition to the decrease in the number of smokers(visit France, though, and you'll find the latter hard to believe!).

squirrel · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 74 Location: Bucharest, Romania

We usually go by train in Romania... and some of the rides are long!
But the plane tickets are very expensive here... so what can we do?!

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

I just got back from China where I took two rather long train trips. One was from Beijing to Xi'an, which took about 12 hours, and the other was from Xi'an to Suzhou, which took a whopping 16 hours.

Chinese long distance trains generally seem to have four classes of travel: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. We took the hard sleeper. On one train our carriage was two levels, and on each level were "alcoves" of four bunk beds: a pair of uppers and lowers, separated by a very small table. There are no doors to the alcove in the hard sleepers, the bunks open to the corridor. The corridor has some tiny tables (basically drink rests) and chairs that fold down from the wall. Each bunk has a reading light. There's a wash room and a bathroom at each end of the carriage. Our other train was similar, except that it was a one-level carriage and the bunks were three high in each alcove rather than two high. The uppermost one was rather difficult to climb in and out of!

When I told my friends living in China that I had travelled by hard sleeper they were all aghast and felt sorry for me, but it wasn't bad at all, other than being time-consuming. Each bunk had a very thin pad on it (hence "hard sleeper" covered with a sheet. A clean pillow and duvet were also supplied. There were thermoses of hot water in each alcove, and there were hot water heaters with more water at one end of the carriage. Various vendors with pushcarts came through the carriages, selling magazines, drinks, food, and even little kid toys. Drinks were warm...but the beer was cheap by American standards, 5 yuan (about 60 cents) each, and our group drank a lot of them....The lights go out at 10pm and come back on at 5am, accompanied by music, to wake everyone back up again.

The price for the hard sleeper is really difficult to beat, the fares are based on how far you're travelling and which bunk you are in (the higher up the bunk, the less expensive it is because of the inconvenience of having to climb in and out of it). My tickets were like $35 each! The only negative about the whole thing was the toilets. Train toilets are kind of like plane toilets, and so aren't the greatest things to begin with, and these were the usual asian-style "squat" toilets -- that flushed directly on to the tracks below. The got ickier and ickier as the trip went on, sigh, but that's the way things go, you know? [/i]

Jonathan · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 185

Welcome back Laura! Hope the entire trip was great and I'm looking forward to "hearing" (a.k.a. reading) all about it! :D

wizard · Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 15

Well i have been in train numerous of times.
Takes time to reach the spot but is fun.
When i used to go , there was beds and we used to play or sit on the laptop and something.It was a lot of fun.
If you are going with your friends and so then its an good idea but when you go alone or something its freaking boring to sit for so much time alone without any company.

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

That's for sure. When I took that train ride from Xi'an to Suzhou in China I would have been bored to death if it wasn't for the scenery for part of the trip and the fact that I was travelling with a gaggle of crazy Australians. I think we were the beer vendor's favorite customers.

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

Laura wrote: That's for sure. When I took that train ride from Xi'an to Suzhou in China I would have been bored to death if it wasn't for the scenery for part of the trip and the fact that I was travelling with a gaggle of crazy Australians. I think we were the beer vendor's favorite customers.
How long was the ride?

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

16 hours! I slept for about 6 of them. And this was two days after a 12+ hour trip from Beijing to Xi'an. Long distance trains are kind of fun, actually. I loved getting drunk on cheap beer and trying to talk to the Chinese in our car who were fascinated that a bunch of foreigners were on their train. After a few beers a number of people got comfortable trying their English (and vice versa for my Mandarin).

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

Although it is time-consuming, it is far much safer to travel around China by train than by plane. China Air has one of the worst air safety records in the world.

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

It's funny you mention this, because Patrick Smith of Salon.com recently wrote an article about this. He starts out by explaining that there is no airline called "China Air." There is "China Airlines," which is the Taiwan-based carrier with a tarnished recent history, but which also does not operate in mainland China, and therefore doesn't apply to this conversation about taking trains in mainland China. Then there is "Air China," which is the mainland-based carrier, but which doesn't have the recent history of accidents that China Airlines has. In subsequent article, Smith goes on to explain that if one actually looks at the statistics, air travel is still extremely safe, and that even China Airlines' accident record isn't enough in a practical sense to make a point of shying away from.

Here are some URLs to his articles. If anyone is not a Salon.com subscriber, they can click to watch a short ad to get a free Day Pass. It's totally worth it to check out all of Smith's articles. This guy is a commercial passenger and cargo pilot who is currently out of a job due to the post 9/11 downturn in the business. He's also written a book, and is job hunting right now. I don't know him personally, but we exchange emails every now and then because I love his columns and am an airline fan girl nerd (I can recite way too many airport codes and carrier codes from memory to be considered a normal person).

Smith's article regarding Air China, China Airlines, and a bit about saftey records:
"Direct flights between Taiwan and China raise, once again, the specter of the airline that never was."
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2005/02/11/askthepilot123/index.html

Smith's article on statistics and comparing airline saftey records:
"What are the safest airlines? Why is that a dumb question?"
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2005/02/18/askthepilot124/index.html

An index to all of Smith's fascinating articles...well worth a skim if not a full reading:
http://dir.salon.com/topics/p_smith/index.html

I have flown China Southern Airlines (Hangzhou to Changsha) and Air China (from Changsha to Shenzhen) and have no qualms about flying either of them again. Frankly, I've had a worse time flying the likes of Northwest domestically than I did on either of these carriers.

A tantalizing paragraph or two from Smith's article on China Airlines' (the Taiwanese one's) saftey record:

Quote:
According to AirSafe.com, China Airlines has recorded seven crashes since 1980. Seven wrecks in 25 years parses out to 0.28 annually, or roughly a crash every four years. That's comparatively awful, sure. A perusal of similarly sized companies -- those with 60-70 jetliners -- reveals an average of one or two losses over the same quarter-century span.

Revealing, yet therein is the rub. Seven versus two, in the context of tens of thousands of yearly departures, underscores how airline-to-airline comparisons are a game of statistical minutiae. China Airlines carries more than 7 million passengers each year. Are your chances of injury or death greater aboard a China Airlines flight than aboard most others? Technically yes. Practically speaking, no. Just as your chances of winning the lottery are only minutely improved by purchasing, say, three tickets instead of one.

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

The above is the opinion of Mr Smith, and I am fine with his opinion, but it is the track record of crashes, engine trouble and just plain human negligence which has given the airlines in mainland China a bad name. Of all the travel reports I have ever read by frequent flyers, countries with airlines to avoid, in this order, are China, Russia and Africa. Again, Poorly maintained aircraft, not maintained by the standards we have in the United States, inexperienced pilots and ageing planes are to account for these poor safety records.