Posted on 4 Comments

Arjen is going to catch a train (in the US)

Yes, apparently it’s quite unusual to use a train in the US. But consider this… for a trip of upto a few hours, it might even be faster if you take into account having to be at the airport early, etc. Much less hassle, more seat space, and with a business class seat you even get an AC socket so you can plug in your laptop! And it’s definitely cheaper.

I’m travelling to Portland next week, for OSCON. My trip from home in Brisbane, Australia will take me via Auckland (New Zealand), and then into San Francisco. When going to the US I always start a few days early, so when an event starts I’ll be past my jetlag… I’ll first stay in Cupertino (Silicon Valley) for a day, visiting our US offices there. Then fly up to Portland. I already had that booked. So why the train?

Well, Brian just invited me to visit Seattle for the few days before OSCON. It appears that various MySQL people will be there, actually, and that’s a great opportunity… some of my colleagues I don’t meet very often at all!
So, I just moved my flight from San Francisco to Portland, and booked a train ticket from Portland to Seattle on Amtrak.
We’ll see how Amtrak matches up to the Dutch, German and other European train services… it should be an interesting experience, anyway.

Posted on 4 Comments

4 thoughts on “Arjen is going to catch a train (in the US)

  1. Strange you don’t mention .. how it matches up to the Austrailan train services 🙂

    When travelling back from LCA last year we booked a train from Canberra to Sydney … only to arrive at a trainstation the size of matchbox and being transferred to a Bus because there were some problems with the railway.

    🙂

  2. The airline industry is heavily subsidized in the States, and trains are given very little in comparison. Anything around a 6 hour drive is probably the same time given airport waiting times; if it’s close to home I’ll drive instead of taking the train or bus. Most of the time, either it’s the plane or the bus. The train is very expensive in comparison…

    compare, Boston -> New York City. $40 round trip on the bus, $80 on the train, $100-120 on the plane. Travel times round trip: bus – 9 hours, train 11 hours, plane 8 hours (including waiting at the airport and travel to and from the airport).

    I will be at OSCON Tues. evening and all of Wed. We should do dinner on Tues., maybe?

  3. I was unclear if this posted or not.

    I once traveled from California to Louisiana. Looked like
    it would be ok, but got boring fast, and train food was
    pretty bad.

    Should I try again?

    Don
    http://www.donaldjduhon.com

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