I Took A 52-Hour Overnight Train Across America
(upbeat music) - Hello friends, and welcome to another video. This week, we're gonna be taking a 52 hour overnight train across the country, and yes, we're on it right now. Welcome to the train. "A Murder On The Orient Express," "Snow Piercer," that one guy on TikTok. What do those three things have in common? It's train content, baby. Big, steamy, honking locomotives making their way through the countryside or the city, or an icy frozen wasteland.
And I don't know how, because I didn't even really like "Snow Piercer" that much, but somehow I have landed on the train side of YouTube, and surprisingly, I love it over here. There's just something about those overnight passenger train videos, checking out the accommodations from cozy, to crowded, to super luxury, seeing the sights sweep by, seeing people chilling in their little compartment while being transported to a new location. I find it oddly soothing, and I'm also fascinated by the impressive variety of trains that seem to exist. You have expensive trains, Arctic trains.
Hello Kitty trains, spa trains, even Canadian trains, and after watching hours upon hours of this content, I developed a burning, churning, steam-powered desire to ride on one myself. Now admittedly, the US isn't at the forefront of desirable passenger trains to ride, but there are a few long distance lines that exist, including a 52 hour overnight Amtrak train that goes from San Francisco to Chicago called the California Zephyr, where you can sleep, eat, and journey through the varied landscapes of the American Mountain West through seven states and across 2,400 miles. And since I am from Chicago, I figured what a great excuse to drag my husband Tyler along on a cross country train ride. I'll disguise it as a filming trip where we will visit my parents at the end.
It's all coming together, so here we go. All aboard, people, because this train is leaving the station. So we'd been in San Francisco for a few days filming leading up to our train trip. I got a robot makeover from an eyelash extension-applying robot, and a nail polish robot. We took a ramen making class, we stayed overnight in a giant pine cone, and the night before boarding the California Zephyr, we stayed up late into the night recording voiceover for our glass igloo video, which was maybe not the best choice.
Tyler also ordered some super late night bananas foster cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, which was also maybe not the best choice. - [Tyler] That's what I'm talking about. - [Safiya] You're not gonna make it on the train, are you? - [Tyler] No. - You're gonna sleep through it tomorrow. But the morning of our trip finally arrived, and we woke up bright and early to head over to the Emeryville station across the bay to catch our 9:00 AM departure. All right, so here we are at the Amtrak station in Emeryville, California waiting for the California Zephyr to arrive.
It is pretty early in the morning, early for us anyway. We were up late last night recording some audio and eating some cheesecake, but we've checked in some bags, and now we're basically just waiting for the train to get here so we can board and start going. - [Tyler] Start chugging. Start chugging. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. And right on time, we spotted the Zephyr herself on the horizon. I see her coming around the bend, round the mountain, round the corner. What a beaut. And once she pulled up, we scurried on board meeting our train car attendant, Curtis, who is gonna be with us for the whole trip. - There's some coffee upstairs.
- [Tyler] Oh, sweet. Speaking my language. - [Curtis] It's not strong, it's not weak, it's just right. - [Safiya] And then hauled our luggage up the stairwell to our sleeper room. - [PA] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Amtrak's train number six, the California Zephyr.
- Whoa, this is fun. - [Tyler] Yeah. - This is fun. Hello friends, and welcome to our room. And we barely had a moment to put our stuff down before– - [Tyler] All right, train's moving.
- Whoa, that was speedy. - [Tyler] Yeah. - I was like, "Oh, we'll film, you know, when it starts moving," and then it immediately started moving. (gasps) So with the train and our butts eastbound, we wanted to get the lay of the land starting with our room. Why, hello there. Here we are at our accommodations for the next 52 hours.
For our trip, we decided to get the bedroom. As you can tell, it's not huge, it's not giant, but we got some stuff in here, which is supposed to be able to sleep like, two to four people. Your first question might be where? Well, the couch down here folds out into a bed, and this thing up here also folds down to make a second bed. Maybe you could do it. (laughs)
- [Tyler] They might teach us how to do it. - [Safiya] They might teach us how to do it. - [Tyler] Yeah. - Luggage management in our train compartment was certainly a question, a skillset we had not yet fully honed. Obviously we have all of our luggage piled in this corner here, and then we have another seat over here.
This one slightly swivels. - [Tyler] It does. - And besides this little seating area, we also have, drum roll please, an en suite bathroom.
- Ta-dah. Here it is. - [Tyler] And then is there a shower? - This is the shower. - [Tyler] Oh, okay, so it just, we just stand on top of the toilet. - Did you miss it? Yes, it is a shower toilet combo, but for a train compartment, it's pretty convenient to have your own bathroom.
Obviously it's pretty compact, but, you know? Shower test incoming a little later in the video. Then we also have a sink and mirror over here featuring the only thing I will complain slightly about. Our soap dispenser. This is the worst part because it doesn't even have like, a cup holder. - [Tyler] No, it's flying.
- It's literally just flopping around. Which did in fact flop around and fall into the sink a lot during our trip. (soap clattering) That was our soap. I thought someone was like, attacking.
And then finally, there was also a secret coat closet tucked away in the corner over here, which we did not discover until day two. Look at that. Look how civilized we are. - I know.
- Now, after giving you guys a tour of our room, we figured that the best next thing to do would be to give you guys a tour of the rest of the train. I'm nervous. - Go for it. - We'll be okay? - [Tyler] Yeah.
- Just to show you guys the digs. - [Tyler] It's kinda like being between two tectonic plates. - Now these first three cars up here are all different variations on sleeper cars, and our producer, Melissa, was staying in the sleeper car next to ours in a roomette, which can sleep up to two people. I would say come on in, but there's not a lot of space for you to come into. It's pretty well suited for one person. - [Tyler] How about stay right there? - You, why don't you stay right there? Apparently, the chairs turn into a bed, but there's also a bed up here.
Oh, cool. And besides bedrooms and roomettes, these three cars up here are also filled with some more bathrooms, luggage, drinking water, and tons of coffee stations at every corner. They really plow you with coffee.
It's the best. Risky pour. After these three, the next car down the line is the dining car, which we will circle back to in a bit, but it's pretty cute, and has kind of an old school train vibe with its banquette seating and flowers on every table. And then after the dining car is the observation car, which has truly floor to ceiling windows instead of walls, and is obviously optimized for lounging and looking at stuff.
Hot dogs or legs. The California Zephyr does pass through a pretty scenic route, so the observation car is pretty popular. Early on day one of our trip, we were mostly looking at cows and rocks. Ooh, rocks. Rocks. - [Tyler] I have made a deal with Safiya that I will film every good rock we see.
- And you guys know I like rocks. So I was pretty pleased. Now beneath the observation car is the snack area.
Snack bar. Snack city. Which I had actually been looking for because I was ready for a snack, and they basically offer a variety of things you can put into a toaster oven, as well as an assortment of booze.
Hello friends, and welcome to the snack. Welcome to my snack. We decided to grab a couple of egg sandwiches. They look magnificent. - [Tyler] They actually really do. - [Safiya] Which were truly delightful.
- [Mike] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Mike in the snack bar. Ladies and gentlemen, our snack bar is open and serving. The snack bar is located center of the train, and our sight-seeing lounge car on the lower level. - And after that brief snack interlude, the last three cars of the train are sort of like the normal cabins, which included what we thought was kind of a hidden gem that we didn't really discover until day two. The caboose.
It's giving Wiley E. Coyote vibes. - [Tyler] 100%. - From which the view is pretty picturesque actually. There's no place to like, sit.
It's not like a designated, like, actual viewing area. - No. - It's just like, the back door. But it's definitely worth coming back here.
Okay, so we're winding back to day one. Now the California Zephyr does make a number of stops, 35 in total, but most of them are very brief. In fact, only nine of the stops over the entire route are longer than a minute or two, and we quickly arrived at our first longer stop in Sacramento.
- [Tyler] Do you wanna get off? - Yeah, why not? - [Tyler] How long do we stop for? - 10 minutes. - 10 minutes? - Yeah. - [Tyler] Let's do it.
Capital city, baby. - And we wanted to get off at all of the stops that we could just to see what every station was like. All right, so we're here in Sacramento. It's our first stop that's longer than like a minute long, but I feel like we've already burned a bunch of minutes trying to figure out how to get off the train. - [Tyler] Yes.
- So I don't think we have time to do anything in Sacramento. - [Tyler] No. - In fact, I feel like we might not even have time for the check-in. We'll get better at this. One of our goals for the trip is to not be left behind until at least Iowa. - [Tyler] Yes, until at least Iowa.
- After Sacramento, the train started climbing up the mountains towards the Nevada border, and we made our first official stop in the dining car. Now the dining car serves three meals a day, and though the menu is pretty limited, I thought the food was decent. It was definitely better than airplane food. I got the burger for lunch all three days, and I was not mad about it.
A scenic shot of me opening my mustard packet. Struggling to open the mustard packet. - [Tyler] Yeah.
- Now I will say though the menu is pretty small, Amtrak really lays it on thick with the condiments. Like, I had more mustard and ketchup than I could ever need in front of me at all times, and they also really bring the rain with the desserts at every meal. For example, here is Tyler's lunchtime butter cake. - [Tyler] I think it was like a tactical nuke on my body. - Cheesecake last night, butter cake this morning basically. I don't know what you're really doing.
On our way up to Sierra Nevadas, we also ran into another staple of the California Zephyr. Long delays. As the train kind of came to a stop right in the middle of our lunch for about an hour. Apparently, it's normal for the Zephyr to be delayed anywhere from a few hours to an entire day, but we quickly developed the perfect solution. Napping. - This is like, the most comfortable I've ever been.
- [Safiya] You have to make room for me. (laughs) Where am I supposed to go? Because between the like, ambient rail noise, the slight rocking of the train cars, landscape zooming, or crawling by, the nook vibes of the train compartments, the atmosphere of the train is just really conducive to sleep. It's like a sleepover. - A little bit. - Except we're married, and we sleep in the same room every single night. So we conked out for a couple of hours, and woke up at much higher elevation near Lake Tahoe.
There's a nice juicy rock. Hello. Hey, how you doing? And after passing by some ski resorts, a trio of red, blue, and green kayakers. We saw the Power Puff girls kayaking down a dangerous river.
- Exactly. - [Safiya] And trading in the snow for some nice classic rocks, we crossed our first of six state borders. - [Tyler] Oh, I think I kind of got it actually. We are in Nevada. - Whoo-hoo! Which then brought us to our next stop, Reno. We got 10 minutes in Reno.
We're gonna... I don't know what I'm doing here. - Use a slot machine. - We're gonna party it up. Now, originally, we had wanted to try and do something in each longer stop like maybe get a key chain or a themed souvenir.
But in reality, there isn't really like a souvenir shop just waiting on every platform, and I was way more nervous to get left behind than I thought I would be. Reno, here we are, it's Reno. - [Tyler] This is the full Reno experience. - This is the full Reno experience. - [Tyler] All right, we're dashing.
We're just going. All right, don't go through any like, turnstiles. That's the key. - [Safiya] And unfortunately, we did not see any stray slot machines within playable distance. - [Tyler] Ooh, little museum.
- This is about as far as I dare go. - [Tyler] I just got texted. Could be Melissa. She said four minutes. Okay, we better go. - [Safiya] So we booked it back to our train car with a minute or two to spare.
- [Tyler] Go, go, go, go, go. We're close? - [Curtis] You're back on board. - [Tyler] Okay. - I feel like that was our first like, taste of what 10 minutes is like. - [Tyler] Yeah. - You know, it's not that long.
- [Tyler] No. - [Safiya] After all of that excitement, dinner was shortly upon us, - [PA] This will be the last call for those passengers holding a six o'clock dinner reservation. - That's us.
- [Tyler] Ow. - Oops. That's us. And once again, there was condiments aplenty. From the large packet of salad dressing. I like this Paul Newman in like, a Tudor Shakespearean outfit.
To the balsamic glaze for the chicken, and an entire bowl of butter packets. Sorry, did you need butter? - I can't believe you needed butter. - [Safiya] I can't believe it's this much butter.
And once again, the dessert came in like a wrecking ball. - [Tyler] It's actually pretty artful. - Like, look at the chocolate drips. As we ordered this massive slice of chocolate cake that rivaled the size of even Guy Fieri's cheesecake challenge in Vegas. Wow. Wow.
- [Speaker] I take it it's good. She's telling me. - Oh my god. That's really good.
And honestly, it was pretty damn good. The Amtrak chocolate cake challenge. - [Speaker] Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I'm not going there with you though.
(Safiya laughs) - So as you could probably tell by the atomic nap, we were pretty tired. And after one more stop in Winnemucca Nevada, whose claim to fame is that one time, a bank here may have been robbed by Butch Cassidy himself. And the Sundance Kid.
Were they real? - [Tyler] Yes. Yeah. - Okay, together they did it? We were pretty much ready to retire for the night, which meant that we needed to set up our room for sleeping. Hello, and welcome to our bed situation. It's kind of a situation.
Curtis helped us out with this since it wasn't necessarily the easiest. Pulling the top bunk bed down from the ceiling, and pushing the lower seats down to make the bottom bunk. I have been slowly staking my claim. I've been making it very clear that I want the top bunk, and I think Tyler's gonna let me have it. - [Tyler] I will oblige.
- [Safiya] And as much as I was impressed with the transformation, this left us with even less floor space than before. Yeah, that little choke point, it'll get you. So rather than try and squeeze in together next to our little sink, we went to a larger communal bathroom in the train car next door to get ready for bed. - The challenge is the lefty filming.
- You're doing a pretty good job. Here, let me support your arm. - Thank you, this is really helping actually. This is what they call teamwork. - Which to be honest, was definitely the right call.
Face washed, teeth brushed, retainers in, ready to ascend. And after hoisting myself up to my lofty accommodations, I discovered some strap like-contraptions on my bed. Why are there these hooks up here? To like, seatbelt myself in? - [Tyler] Maybe. - Not sure I'm loving that.
Apparently, these are for making a safety net next to the bed so you don't get yeeted off the top bunk during the night. - [Tyler] Are you comfortable? - I will be, I'll make myself comfortable. - [Tyler] Do you want me to strap you in? - No. Which makes sense, but at the time, we had no idea. - [Tyler] All right, ready? - Goodnight.
- Three, two, one, oooh. - Now we passed out pretty quickly, but we did have to wake up at 5:00 AM so we didn't miss our stop in Salt Lake City. Here we are.
Salt Lake City, baby. 5:00 AM in Salt Lake City. I can't say we saw any salt or any lake because it was pitch black, but I was pretty proud of us getting out of bed and continuing our streak of hitting every stop.
- [Tyler] How'd you sleep? - I'm sleeping pretty well. I refuse to accept... Sleep. I haven't slept.
I'm sleeping currently. I'm lucid vlogging in Salt Lake City. But once back on the train, we promptly pass back out again for another five hours. Sleeping straight through breakfast, and all the way to the Colorado-Utah border.
- [Tyler] Look how rocky it is, Saf. - I like rocks. I slept pretty well, actually.
The mattress is a little hard, but I was tired enough, it didn't matter. - [Tyler] Rocked to bed? - Yeah. Now at the state border, the train passes by the Colorado River, which is also known on the Zephyr as Moon River, as the kayakers will when they see a passing train. - [Tyler] Hey, they're waving. - [Safiya] Drop trow and moon the train. - [Tyler] Oh my God, they are.
They're mooning us. Oh my God. That was their asses, two asses. - [Safiya] This was by far the most surprising part of the trip for me.
I had no idea this was even a thing. - [Tyler] They're mooning us, Curtis. - [Curtis] 40 years they've been mooning us. - [Tyler] The question is, when do we moon back? - [Safiya] Although apparently, Curtis has tried to moon back before.
- [Curtis] I had two bald guys, I was downstairs, and I had 'em put their heads together. - Oh yeah. - I opened the window and they were like, ah. - [Tyler] I thought you were gonna say two bald guys, hairiest asses. (Curtis laughs) - But after recovering from the shock of it all, we arrived at our next stop, which notably had a small convenience store next to the platform.
Okay, so we're in Grand Junction, Colorado. Apparently, there's a store here. We're low on contact solution so let's if we can find some. This was actually a pretty high stakes situation.
Like, we really needed some contact solution. - [Tyler] Well, they got stuff for sure. - [Safiya] Contact solution. - Our savior. - Yeah! And we actually were also able to realize our dream of a themed souvenir at the stop, which was very exciting. Contact solution is a-check.
(train horn honks) Oh shit. - [Tyler] Go, go, go, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. - Like I said before, 10 minutes goes faster than you would think, and it wasn't Iowa yet, so we were not trying to get left behind. I'm actually not sure that was our train that honked, but that train honk set a river of adrenaline through me.
- [Tyler] But that other lady that was with us, she thought it was ours too. - She ran too, right? - Yeah. - [Safiya] Yeah. But, at least we had our haul. - [Tyler] That's the precious cargo. - [Safiya] This is it.
- [Tyler] Everything else is moot. - Now, the elephant in our room was certainly the shower because we had promised to at some point try it out. And that point was now. Right, wish me luck.
- [Tyler] Good luck. - All right, we're rolling. Let's see.
Oh, oh, my god. I almost just fell over. Ah, okay, it's coming out.
Oh, okay. Now I think part of our concern was the fact that not only was the shower directly over the toilet. Not warm yet. Oh, it's getting warm. Oh, okay. We got warm water, people.
Oh yeah. Look at that. Water pressure's not so bad. But the entire contraption was moving and swaying with the train. (Safiya shouts) Cleanser down.
Cleanser down. So it just seemed like a precarious situation. There is a thing here that says you may find showering easier while seated, but they mean seated on the toilet. The worst part by far for me was the fact that the shower head would tilt and sway with the movements of the train. (Safiya shouts) So the water stream would swing abruptly from one side of the shower to the other. This is hard.
There's just a lot of moving pieces. Oh my God! And the train is also literally moving. Moving pieces all around. And even though I had been trying to avoid showering directly over the toilet, it seemed like the shower head just had a mind of its own. Okay, the shower head wants to swing this way, so I'll just come this way. Why fight it? Why am I even trying to fight it? I was glad that I never took a tumble even though my toiletries did.
And even though I didn't, I could definitely see the advantages of literally sitting on the toilet. - [Tyler] How was it? - That was a wild ride. I did it though.
I washed all the things I wanted to wash. Oh my God. Where are those mooners, those moon canoers? I mean, give 'em a taste of their own medicine.
And I'm ready. But I would say we did successfully shower, and interestingly enough, the toilet paper survived to tell the tale. So up until this point, the whole train experience had been a bit of a whirlwind, but feeling refreshed and with a new lease on life, I feel like we could really gather our thoughts and give you a bit of a review of our experience so far. Now besides trying to figure out how to rearrange our luggage so that it didn't take up our entire room, and our skincare products slightly exploding because of the elevation. - [Tyler] What is that? - Wrinkle stuff.
You want some? - This is some exploded wrinkle stuff. - Our only real complaint with the whole experience was that our sleeper car specifically did have a bit of a smell. Like, whenever anyone flushed the toilet in their room, there was an odor. The lack of space is kind of like a consideration.
The smell is just like kinda unfortunate. - It's a no-brainer. - Yeah. - If there was a blind smell test, you could identify our cabin. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I think it had to do specifically with the age or state of disrepair of our train car specifically because the other two sleeper cars on either side of us didn't really have this problem.
You think this one smells good? - [Tyler] This one smells good. - [Safiya] Yeah. - [Tyler] It also has air fresheners.
- But on the positive side, as we've mentioned, the train itself is quite cozy. There isn't a ton of cell phone service so you are kind of unplugged and almost on your own little planet for a couple of days, which I did find pretty relaxing. So there's not a lot of service out here. - [Tyler] No. - There's no TV. - No. - So we're kinda like watching the window like it's the TV.
- [Tyler] Sort of. Yeah. - We do have some movies on our iPad, but right now I am content with window TV. - [Tyler] I prefer this. Yes. - And kind of because everyone's stuck on the same train together and it's a long journey, people are sort of down to talk and hang out, which is pretty fun. There was, for example, a grandpa who was convinced that we were mooing during dinner. - [Passenger] Were you just mooing? Somebody mooing when we went past the cows? 'Cause it wasn't me.
I thought it was you. (Safiya laughs) - [Safiya] And pranking him, trying to convince him that the cows outside were just super loud. - [Tyler] I would tell you, I'm not gonna lie about mooing. - [Passenger] It's nothing to be embarrassed about. - [Tyler] No, no, no. - [Passenger] The only solution is the cows.
- [Tyler] It could have been. - [Safiya] And I have to say, slightly later on in the trip, I think we did run into the phantom mooers. - [Tyler] Did you hear the moo? - [Safiya] They're so loud. - [Tyler] Dude, that's what that guy heard yesterday. - Yeah.
As I mentioned hearing a super loud moo in the observation car, and then a group of people in the corner started laughing conspiratorially. So I think that grandpa was right. It seems like a guy was mooing. - [Tyler] Yeah. - I'm so- - People prank with moos.
- Okay, oh there's more cows. Besides grandpas and mooers, you also run into some people on the train who take the Zephyr every year as like a tradition. - [Passenger] This is the prettiest part of the whole trip. - Yeah, it looks great.
As well as people who get on the train, then get off at a specific spot for a few days, and then get back on to finish the journey to kinda make their Zephyr trip into a true vacation, which would certainly solve our problem of 10 minutes a stop isn't long enough to do much of anything at all. Okay, I got off at Winter Park. It's freezing cold. It's so cold. (train horn honks) - [Conductor] All aboard! - All right, we're going.
So I guess people do seem to really enjoy it. Now, some iteration of the California Zephyr has been around since 1949, and prior to the popularization of commercial airline flights, was a crown jewel of American railroad travel. This current route is actually a relaunch of the original by Amtrak who started operating it in 1983. And to this day, it still sees an average of 350,000 riders every year. And beyond connecting major cities, it does also pass through many historical and geographical landmarks like the Donner Pass. They weren't cannibals, but they did cannibal.
- [Tyler] Yeah. Yeah. - [Safiya] That one bank that Butch Cassidy robbed, and the Moffatt Tunnel, which is one of the big events of the route. - [PA] All right folks, coming up to that world-famous Moffatt Tunnel.
The world-famous Moffatt Tunnel is 6.2 miles long, and takes us about 10 minutes to travel through. - Blasted through in 1927, the Moffatt Tunnel provided a way through the Rocky Mountains for trains traveling from Denver to the West coast, and it travels directly below the Continental Divide. - [PA] Ladies and Gentlemen, as Dr. Cody said, this is the world-famous Moffatt Tunnel. A little bit of information for you, history regarding the construction of this tunnel.
- [Tyler] They're really upselling the Moffatt Tunnel. - [Safiya] I know, they love the tunnel. They also tell you some fun tunnel facts while you're in there.
- [PA] So, if you ever find yourself hiking above the world-famous Moffatt Tunnel, don't drink the water. It's full of manure. Absolutely true story. - [Safiya] And don't you worry, there was a lot more where that came from. - [Tyler] Oh, and there we go.
- Whoo! - [Tyler] We did it! We did it, people. - [Safiya] After the tunnel, there was just a short stretch of mountain left until things started to flatten out. It's the "Emoji Movie" starring this barn. - [Tyler] Oh, it does look like an emoji, yeah. - It's some of my finest material right there.
Which brought us to our longest stop of the entire trip. A nice 30 minutes in Denver. Now I think the train is generally supposed to stop in Denver in the late afternoon, but since we were still running late from our original delays near Lake Tahoe, we arrived at the Denver station around 9:00 PM, which meant that a lot of the stuff was already closed except for the bar and what looked like a coffee shop selling even more desserts. You want even more cheesecake? I dunno about that. - [Tyler] Should I go take like a shot or something? Maybe I should get a Robert Irvine.
- [Safiya] So after taking a peek at downtown Denver. - [Tyler] This is probably the no-go zone for us. - Yeah, we probably should not stray any farther from the path than we already have. We basically just hopped back on the train.
So Tyler's sad he didn't get to take a shot at the Denver station, so he wants a drink. - [Tyler] Yeah. - [Safiya] So to make it up to him, we went down to the snack car and ordered a watermelon White Claw, and a Moscow Mule in a can.
You wanna do a little bit of this, a little bit of that? - [Tyler] This is "The Princess Bride?" (Safiya and Tyler laugh) - It's exactly like "The Princess Bride." It's actually both White Claw. I've just built up my tolerance to White Claw slowly over years and years. And after our stop in Denver, I think the crew had had enough of being behind schedule. I promise I'm not that drunk.
- [Tyler] You're hammered, dude. - It's the train. And started absolutely booking it through the night. Are you not falling as much as me? - [Tyler] No.
- I don't believe you. Causing the train to occasionally rock violently back and forth. ( laughs) - No time to joke. - And after setting up our beds for the night, we cozied up to watch a classic. "Snakes On A Train."
- I'm not sure that's a real movie. - It's not real? - No. - I mean, "Snakes On A Plane" is real. - I was so sure that "Snakes On A Train" was also part of that series. - It feels like it should be.
- So we settled for the next best thing. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Paul Newman, I love your salad dressing, man. After which, I promptly curled up and passed out. Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Snug as a snake on a train.
See you in Omaha, bitches. - Oh yeah. - [Safiya] So we hurdled through the night, and basically the entire state of Nebraska. Keeping up the breakneck speed, which was slightly terrifying.
- [Tyler] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - [Safiya] Maybe I should put my seatbelt on. - [Tyler] Dude, that is not the worst idea.
- [Safiya] So much so that we actually got to our stop in Omaha, Nebraska early at around 5:00 AM. - [Tyler] Wakey wakey. - Oh my god. - [Tyler] Omaha. - That's good.
For which we dutifully arose to keep up our stop streak. - [Tyler] Hello, Omaha. - Hello, Omaha. Good morning, Omaha. - I did try and go inside the Omaha station to see what it was like. - [Tyler] Curtis says no.
He sees us, he says no. - But Curtis, ever watchful, was on to me, and did not have time for our shenanigans. He saw us, and get back here. Might try and nap for another like, 20 minutes, and then let's go get breakfast. Now I was pretty jazzed that we finally made it to breakfast on our final morning since I love breakfast food.
- [Tyler] Makeshift croissant sandwich. Inspired. - [Safiya] I am admittedly not an early morning person so you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought the dining car's breakfast hours being 6:30 to 8:30 AM were a little early. I was, however, pretty impressed by the breakfast condiment spread that they had to offer. Wow, that's hardcore, man. - [Tyler] Bringing the rain with Smuckers.
- That's hardcore. You love Smuckers. Amtrak does not and will not skimp on the condiments, people. And after a much needed second nap.
How did we swap spots? - I like it up here. - We got out at our next stop in Ottumwa, Iowa in our pajamas. - [Tyler] See they got like a little like, historic installation thing. - Yeah, it's the replica of Ottumwa's world-famous 1890s Coal Palace.
After checking out the Ottumwa station's museum display, we got back on the train and pulled ourselves together for the final stretch of our trip, as the train zoomed through Iowa and across the mighty Mississippi River to reach our seventh and final state. Let's make some Illinois. Sorry, that's really stupid. - [Tyler] I was gonna say the same thing a second ago. - Really? - So yeah.
Don't worry about it. - Everyone from Illinois was like, you don't pronounce the S. We did poke our heads out in Galesburg, Illinois, our penultimate stop, to see their vintage Pullman sleeper car that they had parked next to the platform.
(train horn honks) And this was the closest that we had gotten to actually getting left behind. - [Tyler] All right, they're waving us in, they're waving us in. - [Safiya] I know I said that I was okay with getting left behind in Iowa, and we had made it to Illinois, but I actually didn't really wanna get left behind at all.
- [Tyler] That was our closest train runners experience we've had. - I like how Tyler was like, "Oh, maybe we can get off and get a key chain at every single one," and it's like, "No, are you kidding?" Now overall, though there were a few bumps, and bruises, and smells on our journey, I thought that our first foray into train content was a lot of fun. Though the passing scenery had evolved from bay, to mountain, to great plain. Big window. Huge.
I did get to see a lot of rocks on our journey, so I was quite pleased. So I'm happy about that. - Rock city, bitch. - It was rock many states, bitch.
- There you go. Yeah. - [Safiya] And I was also quite pleased with the never ending train of sauces and condiments that Amtrak showered us with. - What is this Kraft (beep)? Where's Paul Newman? - [Tyler] Where's Paul? What the hell? - Where's Paul? And now that we've learned a little bit about getting our sea legs on the train, maximizing floor space, and knowing what these straps do, I think we're ready to take on some other trains. So let us know where we should go next.
All right, 52 hours, seven states, I'm not exactly sure how many miles, but a couple thousand miles a-check. - And we didn't get left behind even in Iowa. - [Safiya] But in the meantime, I was pretty ready to get home to Chicago. - [Tyler] Okay, I got first glimpse. - [Safiya] See a little something? - [Tyler] Sears Tower.
- Gangs all here. First Skyline sighting. So California Zephyr, it's been real. Future passengers, you'll be in good hands with Curtis.
- [Tyler] Thank you, Curtis. - [Curtis] Take care, guys. - [Tyler] See you next time. - See you next time. - Yeah. - I can almost guarantee he won't leave you behind until at least Galesburg.
Thank you guys so much for watching. If you like that video, make sure to smash that like button, and if you wanna see more videos like this, make sure to smash that subscribe button. Here are our short form/social media handles, and here's our merch website. And with that, I will see you guys a-next time.
2023-12-21 12:13
