Comment by lapetitejort

3 days ago

How about a nice trip on a train?

Depends. How’s the Amtrak chess bot?

I don’t have 5 days to travel across the country.

  • - it’s 3 days not 5 (e.g leaving NYC Wednesday morning arriving SF Saturday evening)

    - the internet connection is excellent (even in most tunnels) so you can work, have video meetings, etc, not to mention play chess online

    • That's 4 days traveling. Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday. Arriving in the evening doesn't mean you didn't spend that day traveling.

    • Let’s be realistic. I love long distance train journeys, but mainly for recreation. Being on a train for 3-5 days is pretty exhausting no matter how comfortable. I’ve done the 30 day Amtrak pass before and it was fantastic but I wouldn’t be looking forward to that if it was a work trip where I want to fly in and then get back to my family as fast as possible. There’s no way that can compare to a 5-6 hour flight+2 hours at the airport.

    • I did this once from Seattle. It was a good experience, but the internet connection was nonexistent along large parts of the route.

      Also one way cost like $1,200.

    • - the internet connection is excellent

      I mean, maybe you had a different experience. In my experience in the northeast , the internet service is about as reliable and consistent as the trains themselves (ie not consistent, garbage fire)

    • I was rather disappointed by the internet connection on the Cascades line (going Seattle --> Portland and back). As far as I could tell, they use T-Mobile for backhaul. Who are headquartered in Seattle. Yet the connection barely seemed to work for about half of the journey

      3 replies →

  • This wouldn’t bother me as much but it’s really like 5-7 days depending on freight use of the lines and they can’t tell you ahead of time what it’s going to be somehow?