Amtrak Southwest Chief

We booked a bedroom car that was dropped with notification only four days prior to our departure. We ended up in a roomette. The person on the phone did not even change the price until we brought it to their attention. The car attendant Justin was helpful in every way however, overall the train was dirty, with trash still left in seats and on floor in the observation car. The dining car started running out of the main courses for lunch and dinner halfway through our two day trip. They even ran out of water! Then we were delayed and missed our connection on the scenic coast starlight train and were diverted by bus to the Joaquin Valley train. Whew! This trip isn’t over and getting worse all the time. I will never book with Amtrak again and never recommend it to others.

This was my fourth round trip West Coast Amtrak journey, two on the Empire Builder to Seattle, once to San Francisco on the California Zephyr, and now to Los Angeles on the Southwest Chief. Eight trips. I will speak generally here. Amtrak does a great job with customer service. On most journeys, I had a roomette. On two I had a bedroom, which has a bigger bed, toilet, shower, and sink. The bedroom is by far the better option, although it is usually twice as expensive as a roomette. All meals are included, and the food is very good. Each sleeper car has its own attendant, who provides customer service to that car's passengers if needed. There is always fresh coffee, bottled water, and orange juice, which are complimentary, in each sleeper car. Out of the three destinations, it is my opinion that the Empire Builder provides the best scenery, although the other two are very good in that respect. I have two complaints: 1) The coach passengers tend to hog the observation car all day and night, leaving scant room for anyone else. 2) These trains have no WiFi, so if your laptop or tablet is not connected to your network, you're out of luck for internet service. Otherwise, this, in my opinion, is the best way to travel. You can be as public or as private as you want, no driving, great "behind the scenes" scenery, you can drink, sleep, do whatever you want. Caveat: the sleeping, at least for me, was not great. The ride is a bit bumpy, and the train horn sounds continually, although, if you have a benevolent engineer, he will sound it more quietly than during the day.

We rode this train for 31 hours and 1659 miles from Flagstaff to Chicago and were satisfied with all that happened. The car attendant, Richard, even though he was quite busy at times was always pleasant and helpful. We had a bedroom and he made it up and kept us informed about upcoming items of importance. While on the train, we had five meals in the dining car. All were reasonably good and the dining car attendant was very efficient and friendly. The meals were good sized and good. We chose from a menu of about five options for each meal - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hopefully these are changed periodically. The train ride was enjoyable and stress free. If there is time, riding a train is much better than going by plane. The accommodations are much bigger, the food is substantially better, and the train personnel are more friendly. In this area, trains are way above planes! The trade off involves limited locations and longer travel times. Trains - a great way to travel.

We took the Southwest Chief between Chicago and the La Posada Hotel in Winslow Arizona. We had a roomette accommodation for my wife and me.

I'll tell you right now don't travel by train if you are in a hurry or have very tight plans. The Amtrak trains run on the freight carriers tracks and must adjust their speed and stops sometimes to allow freight traffic to pass. Delays happen. But the scenery, pace, and restfulness of train travel is worth it.

The accommodation was snug but comfortable. The food was good, even for Covid cutbacks, The service by our car attendant Doris was very good and she did anything to make us comfortable.

Go Amtrak!

We spent 2 weeks sight seeing from the trainwe were on the Southwest Chief for our return journey. Sleeping is a little difficult but you don't sleep on the train every nightthe food was excellent.seeing the landscape of the US west & midwest was excellent from the train! I don't recommend this for the elderly, disabled or not very fit person.

The scenery and service were phenomenal. The December 2022 Amtrak Southwest Chief trip was my first train ride. I thoroughly enjoyed it in large part due to the exceptional service of the attendant T.B. T.B. provided extraordinary service with professionalism and warmth. I felt special but in fact, I observed T.B. deliver the same professional, warm service to my train mates. I hope that this comment gets into the hands of the supervisor and head staff trainer. A roomette provided the perfect privacy to unplug and enjoy the ride. Thank you T.B. and Amtrak for a very special first train ride!

Months ago I bought a ticket online to travel east from Gallup, New Mexico to Albuquerque. Then several weeks ago I got an email saying that the trip had changed by a few minutes. No problem. But when I went online to check the new schedule, I was told the train had been canceled. I also received numerous phone calls ( robo calls) telling me that it was canceled. I could find no alternate trip on the day that I needed to travel. So I finally, reluctantly bought a ticket for a Greyhound bus that did not work well with my schedule. Yesterday, too late to change my plans back to Amtrak, I received an email saying that the train was running after all. By the way, I had tried telephoneing them but was told that I would be put on hold for 3 hours or longer. I could have tweaked that loan. A total waste of time and money!

This was my first trip since beginning of pandemic. Previously I've taken almost EVERY long distance route (some more than once). The DINING experience for first class passengers has taken the biggest hit.

Instead of meals freshly prepared by on board chefs, white cotton tablecloths, real silverware and tasty well seasoned food, what one gets now is akin to a middle school cafeteria lunch, maybe worse. Pre-packaged meals served in plastic packages, plastic silverware on bare tables. The food is bland, tasteless, not even uniformly warmed by the ovens. Passengers must ASK for condiments which come in small plastic or paper packs.

This trip I was on the Southwest Chief (Chicago to LA). Other aspects of the trip were fine.

Paid for complete package but many bookings, hotel and tours, where not left out. Had to pay for these when we showed up. We are in dispute with them now but they do not respond. Two couples that nicknamed it The Tour From Hell. So many other mistakes I will post them another time. Strongly will not recommend it to others.

Myself my husband and our 2 daughters 15 and 12 took the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles for a short vacation. We started off horrible. We were supposed to depart at 2:50pm and we did not board the train until 3am!!! Everyone on the trains that day understood the delays because of the weather. (The tail end of the polar vortex) However what we did not like was the fact that they kept telling us the delay was only going to be 1 1/2 hours. They knew darn well it was going to be longer then that, especially since we didn’t depart until 12 hours later. Cold or notif we knew it was going to be a long delay we would have been able to explore some of Chicago. Apparently the Employees on the train were in the same situation as the passengers. When we finally boarded at 3am the staff had only boarded a few minutes before us. Needless to say the train was not ready and a mess for the passengers.

After the fiasco in Chicago, once the train started everything was amazing. The staff, the food, the passengers and the scenery made us forget all about Chicago. Because we were off schedule we did miss out on some of the stops to shop at but we also got to see parts of the country that are not usually seen on that train in daylight. We did make up a few hours and arrived in Los Angeles at 6pm instead of 8am.

We stayed in a family suite with 4 beds that turned into a sofa and two seats during the day. Our room was located in the 1st floor of the train and took up the entire width of the train. The room was located down the one side of the hall with 2 single Roommates on either side. On the other side there were 3 bathrooms a shower and another family room. The room was Small and cozy but we all slept comfortably. We spent most of our time in the dining car and the Observatory. Breakfast was 1st come first served and if you were a party of 3 or less you could be sat with other passengers. Lunch and dinner were through reservation. All meals are included when you book a sleeper car on Amtrak. For the most part the coach passengers and the sleeper car passengers are separated. At least this was my observation. It could have been different because of our delay and the fact that or our train was not very crowded.

Again the staff, our sleeper car attendant, and dining car server especially were the best. It was great talking to the other passengers and seeing all the amazing scenery throughout the US.

The train is a wonderful relaxing experience as long as you have the time and expect delays.