I moved across the US by train

Three months ago, I took the Amtrak in coach from Chicago to San Francisco, and I loved it so much that when I decided to move to San Francisco, I decided to do it again. I flew out to SF in mid-November with half of my stuff, but then had to move my bike. And since the other options were either risking the bike on a plane + buying a $400 (?!) plane case, or driving cross-country, which wasn’t worth it with so few things to transport, I decided to Amtrak in coach again.

Taking the cross-country Amtrak in December was a bit different from taking it in September. For first-timers, I’d definitely recommend the summer-ish time, because daylight lasts longer. It was strange leaving Chicago in the already late-afternoon light and arriving in San Francisco in the dark. Since I’ve already done a writeup of the trip as a leisure trip, this one will primarily focus on the logistics of moving two suitcases and a bike, for those of you who might want to do the same.

The logistics!

Since I’d done the trip a couple months before, trip planning for my actual time on the train was easier (my packing list is on the bottom of this post). I did make the rookie mistake of forgetting to pack slip-on shoes in my carry-on backpack, but that ended up being okay.

To check luggage on at Union Station in Chicago, you need to arrive 45 minutes early. I nearly missed this, so make sure to get there early. Like airplanes, there’s a 50 pound limit on your two free bags, but unlike airplanes, if you go overweight you have the option to take it as a carryon, which goes on the lower level of the train. You’re allowed two free carryons and two free personal luggage pieces, so four full-size suitcases and two personal items total. An airplane definitely can’t match this.

For bikes, you pay $20 online (since I forgot to do this, I called Amtrak after booking, they were very helpful) and you can check your bike all the way to California. You don’t do that at the same location as bag check in Chicago’s Union Station, though; you have to bring the bike all the way to the train when you board, and then hand it off to the conductor.

Since the Emeryville-San Francisco transit is actually a ~30 minute bus ride, I called the Emeryville station in advance to ask if my bike could go in the bus at the end. They said there was usually room in the bus but it wasn’t guaranteed, but they would hold the bike for me to come back the same day if there wasn’t a bus. While coming back to Emeryville and BART-ing the bike over to San Francisco would’ve taken a bit longer, they Emeryville attendants were helpful and I felt reassured that my bike would make it to San Francisco.

The journey to Emeryville was obviously easy, since me, my bike, and my luggage were all on the train. At Emeryville, the Amtrak and bus attendants helped me load my luggage and my bike into the bus. However, they did tell me that since there’s no longer an SFC station, the Chicago people shouldn’t have printed SFC tags for my luggage. So in the future, it seems you’ll only be able to officially book luggage to Emeryville, though unofficially you’ll be able to load it on the bus to San Francisco.

At San Francisco, they drop you on the side of the road in the Financial District. There are bike racks all around in case you need to come back for your bike there. But thankfully, I was able to hire a Lyft XL, made sure to call the driver immediately to ask if it was okay to take two suitcases and a bike, and it all fit! She was great; I made sure to call in advance and tip a lot because bringing two suitcases and a bike is going above and beyond for a Lyft.

A huge thanks to all the Amtrak staff, conductors, and train attendants who made this move possible!

The journey!

I already gave a play-by-play of where the Amtrak goes in my last post, so I won’t do that again, but suffice to say it remains beautiful! I was a little disappointed that there was no snow – they told us going through the Rockies that this has been the most consecutive days without snow since the late 1800s – but this time I knew what sides of the train to sit on to get all the lovely Colorado river views. The observation car was also much less crowded than in September.

Another cool thing this time was the train arrived super early to Denver, so we had over an hour to go out and stretch our legs. I got to eat big breakfast with salad, which was exciting. I also got to see Denver Union Station in the early morning, and it was beautifully decked out for Christmas.

I found this piece about homelessness in Denver, interviewing the people who stay at Union Station, written a couple days after I transited through. While it doesn’t quite fit with the tone of this post, I wanted to share since I think it’s important to understanding this station.

There was a little bit of snow at Fraser!

Finally, as compared to last time, the Sierras and the rest of California were less smoky, so it was nice to see the clearer views.

Since I landed, I’ve joined the Facebook group Friends of the California Zephyr and seen some wonderful snow photography of and from the Zephyr, including the beautiful blog cover photo taken by Derek Brown at Tolland. I’m hoping to take it in the winter sometime, maybe next year or even later this year!

The bad!

Unfortunately, I would be remiss to talk about this trip without talking about my negative experience. At about 7 am on my second day, we were going through Nevada when I was woken up by the conductor. Confused at being woken up early, I saw he’d also woken up the guy in the chair across the aisle from me, who’d gotten on somewhere in the middle of the night. The conductor then said he was the new conductor, the car smelled like marijuana, and if the car didn’t stop smelling like marijuana by the time we reached Reno, he would kick us off at Reno. It was confusing to be singled out like this given that there were at least three other people in the car and the conductor had zero evidence it was either me or the random guy. The car did smell like weed, but it had smelled like weed since the previous evening – whoever had made it smell like weed could have very well gotten off in the middle of the night. The accusations were completely baseless. I was not carrying marijuana.

Based on the advice of a woman sitting nearby, I immediately filed a customer complaint. However, since Amtrak takes a few days to respond through the online form and I was worried about being kicked off the train at Reno, I also sent them a Twitter DM. Whoever runs the Twitter DM responded very quickly about escalating the complaint, which I appreciated, because I felt that I at least had some recourse if I were to get kicked off the train at Reno.

The conductor, maybe an hour later, came back in the car. Then things went downhill fast, as random guy got belligerent with the conductor and started calling him offensive names. I took my things and moved to the observation car to avoid the altercation, and they stopped the train in this little town in Nevada and removed the guy from the train “with the assistance of law enforcement ”, as they announced to the train. All and all it was a bad couple hours.

About a week later, Amtrak responded to my official email detail with a form letter apologizing for my experiences, entering the concerns into the customer database, and assuring “that information has been shared with the responsible managers for review and any necessary corrective action”. I then asked for compensation due to “the inconvenience and loss of sleep” and they stated: “We understand and appreciate your desire for compensation; however, it is not Amtrak’s policy to offer compensation for this type of issue. Therefore, we must respectfully deny your request”. I was disappointed, given the unpleasantness of this experience and anxiety it had caused me – what would I have done if I’d been dropped off in the middle of Nevada? I reached out to Amtrak this week to see if they had further comment and am happy to post their response on this blog.

For those of you who know me, I am very low-maintenance while traveling; I’ve traveled alone all over the world and experienced many stressful and unexpected situations. I don’t get bothered by most things. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly called out a company before for anything, and I also would not want anyone to lose their job – having to deal with belligerent passengers would put anyone on edge. However, I felt compelled to speak out so this negative experience doesn’t happen to other innocent people on the train; and I recommend Amtrak offer some sort of compensation for passengers who go through such experiences.

Overall, would I do it again? Yes, because it was still much cheaper than the alternatives, my bike was happy, and the vast majority of Amtrak staff were great, and I could not have done the move without them. Would I recommend others to do it? With reservation, due to my experience in Nevada. That said, I hope more Americans choose to experience the beauty (and generous luggage allowance!) of rail travel, even while moving. Until next time!