Amtrak's California Zephyr passes a plateau during its daily 2,438-mile trip to Emeryville/San Francisco from Chicago, which takes roughly 52 hours.

East of Colfax, California, the route of the California Zephyr curves around a mountain at a place called Cape Horn on a ledge hacked out of rock in the 1860s. If you’re aboard the eastbound Zephyr, look out to the right; you’ll see the North Fork of the American River about a mile away and 1,300 feet below you.

A century ago, the railroad promoted this canyon view as one of the scenic splendors along its route through the Sierra Nevada. Trains paused here to allow riders to drink it in.

Although trains no longer linger at Cape Horn, the view from the window is still the best reason to hop aboard Amtrak.

I’ve ridden Amtrak all over the country since I was a teenager in the 1970s. When friends find out that I’ve spent days at a time on a train, they often ask me to tell them what it’s like. When gasoline is expensive, like it is now, curiosity usually deepens.

Beyond the scenery, riding long-distance trains is a novelty. It’s time off the grid, a chance to mingle if you feel social (or hole up with a book if you don’t). The trains have sleeper compartments with four types of rooms, coach seats larger than what you’d find in first class on a plane, a lounge and food service. 

The Coast Starlight runs near the Pacific Ocean south of San Luis Obispo, March 2014.

There are setbacks. Much of the food is prepackaged or microwave fare, the schedules are unreliable, service is uneven, some of the railcars date to the 1980s and trains are sometimes delayed for hours. As it recovers from the worst of the pandemic, Amtrak is enduring equipment and staffing shortages. This adds to the unpredictability.

But if you can accept the limits, then the ride becomes something special. It’s like a slow meal instead of fast food.

If you decide to try Amtrak this summer for something more than a day trip, here’s my sense of how to make the most of it, especially if it’s your first time aboard.

Amtrak, which operates most of the intercity trains in the U.S., has 15 long-distance routes. The Bay Area is served by two, the Seattle-to-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, and the Emeryville-to-Chicago California Zephyr. 

The Starlight presents great views along the Pacific Ocean and in the Cascades, and the Zephyr’s scenery excels in the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies.

That’s not to overlook the Nevada desert, Midwestern farmland, the routes through cities and neighborhoods and the sensation of blasting through small towns.

Amtrak has stopped producing its own guides to the scenery — which makes me wonder how deeply it understands the appeal of its own product — but you can find guides from 2014 online, like these posted by Upgraded Points for the Zephyr and Starlight. The information is dated, of course. Just keep your eyes open and watch for wildlife.

Patricia Johnson makes up a bed in one of the rooms in a sleeper car on Amtrak's California Zephyr.

The Starlight and Zephyr use bi-level Superliner cars, with most of the seats and rooms upstairs. Each coach and sleeper has one-person bathrooms, like those on a plane. Sleepers also have a shower. The most expensive rooms, the bedrooms, include private bathrooms with showers.

Two people can share a roomette, if they like each other and at least one is agile enough to clamber into the top fold-down bed.

The sightseer lounge offers the best viewing on the train. It has large windows that curve into the ceiling, with chairs and tables on the upper floor. You’ll find tables and a food counter selling snacks, drinks and microwave items downstairs.

Food should be a major selling point for train travel, along with the scenery and the freedom to move around onboard.

Until last year, I would have said the onboard food was mediocre at best, but last year, Amtrak upgraded its meals in the dining cars on its western trains. The menu is limited, but the dozen meals I ate in the Zephyr’s diner in 2021 were good. This trend is positive.

However, coach riders can’t currently use the diner. Instead, they may buy food in the lounge or bring food aboard.

Excluding coach passengers from the diner began in 2019 on some of Amtrak’s eastern trains, as part of a general downgrade of dining car service, then spread to the western trains when the pandemic hit. Amtrak has now rebuilt its dining service on its western routes, at least regarding the quality of the food. First-class passengers get meals in the diner as part of their ticket, so they have priority. It’s not clear when diners will reopen to all passengers.

Mark Hunter serves breakfast to Bill Squier and Julie Blethen on Amtrak's California Zephyr during its daily trip to Emeryville/San Francisco from Chicago.

I haven’t met any other train rider who prefers this first-class-only policy. Enjoying a hot meal while the world passes your window is another part of the experience that Amtrak underplays.

Amtrak posts its menus: “Traditional dining” applies to the Zephyr and Starlight, and “cafe” means lounge.

A few major stations include places that sell food. Denver Union Station, remodeled and expanded a decade ago, has full restaurants and a hotel. If the timing works, you can use these stops to load up on food before returning on board.

Once when I was passing through Albuquerque, New Mexico, my brother and his wife met my train at the station with a bag of burgers. 

I haven’t used DoorDash or Uber Eats for trainside delivery, but I’ve thought about it. Coordinating with the train’s arrival would be iffy. Most station stops are short, and the timekeeping is a moving target.

Due to freight traffic, equipment problems, weather, unavailable crews and “trespasser incidents,” intercity trains often run late.

For example, in the early 1980s, I was aboard the short-lived overnight Sacramento-Los Angeles Spirit of California when it was blocked in Jack London Square by a truck parked too close to the tracks.

Amtrak is a tenant on most of its routes. If a freight train on the same track breaks down or has a crewing problem, the passenger train often has to wait.

To track a train’s progress, see ASM transit docs, which pull data from Amtrak. Amtrak also tweets train status notices at @AmtrakAlerts, but it doesn’t post every delay. You can sign up for Amtrak text alerts when you get your ticket.

Amtrak no longer creates timetables that show a route and schedule at a glance. The Rail Passengers Association maintains an archive of past timetables that can at least tell you where your train is going.

This is the best of train travel. The Colorado River in Colorado, as seen through a window on the California Zephyr in June 2021. No billboards, gas stations, crowds or traffic.

The Starlight and Zephyr usually operate daily, but for now, the Zephyr does not originate on Sundays or Mondays. The reduced schedule is a pandemic staffing holdover. There’s no word on when it’ll go daily again.

The Zephyr leaves Emeryville in the morning and reaches Chicago in the afternoon two days later. It covers 2,438 miles and takes about 52 hours.

The Starlight takes 34 hours to travel 1,137 miles from LA to Seattle. From the Bay Area, the ride is about 24 hours to Seattle and 10-12 hours to LA.

Amtrak uses yield pricing, so fares are lowest when you buy early and travel offseason. Check for sales or deals. As I write this, a one-way trip from Emeryville to Denver for one adult on June 1 costs $118 for coach, $703 for a roomette and $1,679 for a bedroom. For two adults, it’s $236, $891 or $1,867, respectively.

Amtrak is short on equipment and staff this year, and backup capacity is scarce if an engine conks out or a car develops problems. The Superliner cars used on the Zephyr and Starlight date as far back as the early 1980s and have problems associated with age. Some veteran riders in the sleepers bring old towels to wedge against a rattling door or binder clips to hold room curtains shut when the fastener has worn out.

Jean and David Bartlett enjoy their sleeper car on Amtrak's California Zephyr.

In the passengers forum at rail site Trainorders.com, it’s easy to find complaints about canceled trains, unexplained delays, faulty equipment and reassigned accommodations. I’ve run into all of this, although I’ve had no problems with the people on Amtrak’s customer service desk when working out a problem. And I’ve generally encountered friendly employees on board during the last several trips.

When you’re on board, if you’re feeling extroverted, head to the lounge. No one’s in a rush. You’re all shipboard companions. On different trips before the pandemic, when diners were open to all and passengers were required to share tables, I met a jockey, a retired military base commander, Mennonite farmers and a Canadian Mountie.

I’ve also spent trips lost in a book or catching up on sleep.

A man rides an Amtrak train in April 2018 in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

The Zephyr and Starlight don’t have Wi-Fi, and some parts of the routes are too remote for cell service. You tell me if that’s a feature or a defect. (Many Amtrak routes do have Wi-Fi, including the Capitol Corridor and other California regional trains.) 

The views vary with weather, time of year and plain luck. The variety keeps things interesting.

One more word about the view from Cape Horn: You usually see it only from eastbound trains. Westbound trains typically use a parallel track that goes through a tunnel at that location.

The ride above Donner Lake is a favorite, but my peak moment came while barreling through the desert. I had passed through Nevada dozens of times by then, but one evening after a summer storm, we paced a rainbow for dozens of miles.

In Colorado, the Fraser, Glenwood and Gore canyons stand out. Further east, at a spot called Plainview where the eastbound train begins its descent into Denver, you can see the city for an hour ahead of your arrival.

Perhaps the best view on either train is of the Pacific Ocean south of San Luis Obispo.

A passenger takes in the sights as Amtrak's California Zephyr passes through a town in March 2017.

If the Starlight runs late, you’ll nab daytime views of Mount Shasta. But one of my best trips in that region was lit by a full moon on a cloudless night.

My other favorite viewing location onboard is the window at the rear of the last car. If it isn’t blocked, you can watch the countryside recede.

And maybe get lost in your thoughts, wondering at everything that’s out there.

Utah, viewed from the rear of the California Zephyr, October 2017.

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