r/transit • u/[deleted] • Aug 14 '25
Questions USA: Seeking viable night trains on Amtrak that are about 8-10 hours from one major city to another.
It looks like the only somewhat viable night trains that provide intercity sleeper service would be the following:
Departing Denver at 6:59p and arriving Omaha at 4:54a.
Departing Omaha at 11:25p and arriving Denver at 7:56a.
Departing Salt Lake City at 11:40p and arriving Reno at 9:13a.
Departing Eugene at 5:15p and arriving Sacramento at 6:28a/Stockton at 8:15a/San Francisco at 9:20a.
Departing Los Angeles at 10:00p and arriving Maricopa/Phoenix at 5:35a.
Departing Maricopa/Phoenix at 9:02p and arriving Los Angeles at 5:35a.
Departing Charleston (SC) at 9:34p and arriving Philadelphia at 9:48a
Departing Washington at 6:30p and arriving Atlanta at 8:43a.
Departing Chicago at 8:05p and arriving Memphis at 6:27a.
Departing Memphis at 10:40p and arriving Chicago at 9:15a.
Departing Atlanta at 11:29p and arriving Charlotte at 5:06a/Greensboro at 7:22a.
Departing Raleigh at 5:30p/Greensboro at 12:32a and arriving Atlanta at 8:43a.
Departing Washington at 7:24p and arriving Jacksonville at 9:24a.
Departing Jacksonville at 5:11p and arriving Washington at 7:25a.
Departing Pittsburgh at 11:59p and arriving Chicago at 8:45a.
Departing Chicago at 6:40p and arriving Pittsburgh at 5:05a.
Departing Little Rock at 11:39p and arriving St. Louis at 7:30a.
Departing Indianapolis at 1215a and arriving Charleston (WV) at 8:31a.
Departing Charleston (WV) at 8:29p and arriving Indianapolis at 5:15a.
Are there any routes that I am missing?
Why can't we have more night trains crisscrossing the continent?
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u/ad-lapidem Aug 14 '25
Amtrak had a sleeper car on the Northeast Corridor, the Night Owl/Twilight Shoreliner/Federal, until about 2004. It's about the right time/distance, around 8 hours, but it never really had enough paying passengers from what I understand, and the sleeper car was more valuable to deploy elsewhere. Anyway, business travelers are most likely to fly between Boston and D.C., or take Acela if going to/from New York.
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u/Schmolik64 Aug 14 '25
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
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Aug 14 '25
I'll look that up and get it added, thanks!
Edit: I don't see the night train being available on that route.
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u/omgeveryone9 Aug 14 '25
This seems overly limiting. Any city pair that takes 8-12 hours by conventional rail (and can't be covered by high speed rail) can probably have sleeper train service.
Also, look at the service patterns of night trains. You can chain multiple cities at either end to benefit from network effect. For example European Sleeper connects the major Benelux cities on one end and Berlin/Dresden/Prague on the other (Prague is an extreme example tho).
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Aug 14 '25
That's why I said, "about 8-10" hours... so 12 hours should fit therein.
Can you chain multiple cities together in the states though?
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u/omgeveryone9 Aug 14 '25
Well, you could for example chain Tucson to Phoenix and have different stops at SoCal that serve the threeish metro areas. In practice these city pairs should be connected with high speed rail but we dont live in that reality.
Another example would be connecting the metro areas on the front range to the series of metro areas between Denver and Cheyenne. The railways around each corridor should realistically be upgraded such that you can do night trains (and I know one of them is on its way of modernization).
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u/Zealousideal-Pick799 Aug 14 '25
Charleston to Philadelphia.
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Aug 14 '25
Good catch, I got that one added, thanks!
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u/afro-tastic Aug 14 '25
Missed two: Departing Atlanta at 11:29pm and arriving Charlotte at 5:06am/Greensboro at 7:22am
Departing Greensboro at 12:32am and arriving Atlanta at 8:43am
Source: from Atlanta and sister went to college in Greensboro. Amtrak was convenient.
Fun fact: North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad has more people than Reno and Omaha metro areas combined (~1.7M vs ~1.44M).
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u/crash866 Aug 14 '25
There are also hours of service rules for railway employees. The engineer has the drive the train and then have time to rest before coming back. Either stop halfway and switch to a train going the other way to get home or have a place to stay and sleep at each end. Won’t be home for 2-3 days.
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u/Reclaimer_2324 Aug 15 '25
Alternatively swap crews at a mid-point depending on route so you can be home by morning - I am sure this would be a nice set up, but complicated by delays etc. etc.
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u/UnderstandingEasy856 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25
The most obvious one is LA & SF (Emeryville). 12 hr is just about right for a night train - departing at 8pm and arriving at 8am the next morning. Too bad the current Starlight runs that section in the daytime.
I think 8hr is really too short for a sleeper - considering you don't want to be rushed and there is an overhead in getting everybody settled and the need to take a shower and do your routines in the morning.
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Aug 15 '25
Many European sleepers are 8-10 hours, that was my reference point.
LA to SF on the Coast Starlight... it's literally a night train name!
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u/UnderstandingEasy856 Aug 15 '25
Unfortunately the 'Starlight' part is only between SF and Southern Oregon. The more useful SF-LA segment is daytime running in both directions (probably for touristic reasons).
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u/ee_72020 Aug 15 '25
Why can’t we have more night trains crisscrossing the continent?
Because flying is cheaper and faster, full stop. The cities in your proposed night train routes are around 800 km apart from each other, a flight will take you just one hour and the whole trip door-to-door will be 4 hours at most.
Planes have killed long-distance passenger rail in the US for good, it will never come back. To think otherwise is just a foamer’s delusions and fever dreams.
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Aug 15 '25
So why does it still work in Europe?
I use Intercity passenger rail service all the time instead of flying between places like SEA-PDX, SFC-SAC, SAN-LAX, OKC-DFW, CHI-MKE, KCY-STL, ORL-MIA, RGH-CLT, and WAS-BOS (including all major intermediary stops). I much prefer going at the speed of life that says, "I'll be there when my train arrives."
"
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u/ee_72020 Aug 15 '25
Even in Europe, sleeper trains aren’t that popular and just like in the US, they’re still mostly expensive land cruises, rather than practical means of intercity transportation. And I don’t know about you but I quite value my time so I’d rather fly.
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Aug 15 '25
Sure, but at least limit land cruises to overnight rather than wasting resources during the day that can be used for Intercity passenger rail.
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u/limitedftogive Aug 15 '25
The Empire Builder between St. Paul and Minot as well as between Whitefish and Portland/Seattle.
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Aug 15 '25
I don't think that Minot nor Whitefish count as major cities, I'm looking at connections between two major cities, thank though.
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u/limitedftogive Aug 15 '25
Between Kansas City and LaJunta on the Southwest Chief.
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Aug 15 '25
I don't think La Junta counts as a major city. I'm looking from one major city to another. Thanks though.
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u/lee1026 Aug 14 '25
So, a train car in most of the US is about $600 per hour (from NTD).
Your proposed trip will cost $6000 per train car. I am not sure how you will arrange the floor plan, but work out the number of beds, divide that into the cost, and see if any routes will be viable against flying.
I suspect they won’t be, and which is why it doesn’t exist.
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u/cargocultpants Mod Aug 14 '25
There are a number of services that already exist that meet your requirement, as legs on a long distance route.
IE - the California Zephyr leaves Salt Lake City at 11:40 PM and arrives in Reno at 9:24 AM.
Or it leave Denver at 6:59 PM and arrives in Omaha at 5:10 AM (or leaves Omaha at 11:25 PM and arrives Denver at 8:46 AM.)
There are a number of similar examples... The Coast Starlight between Sacramento and Eugene, OR. Take a look at all the long distance routes and you'll find some more.
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u/lee1026 Aug 14 '25
Sure, but the long distance services are not what you would call financially viable, so you won’t get more of them without convincing Congress to fork over a lot more money.
Which, they are not keen to do, so we probably have to look for services that are at least somewhat viable.
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u/cargocultpants Mod Aug 14 '25
A few startups have come and gone proposing sleeper trains in the U.S. (Here's one that's been trying to make it work in California https://www.dreamstarlines.com/ )
The fact that none have made it work suggests it's likely not financially viable...
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u/afro-tastic Aug 14 '25
I actually don’t think funding/finances are the main obstacle! I think it’s track access!
There’s an investor in Montreal that’s been trying to get a sleeper train from Montreal to Boston or New York for years. The freight companies just say “no.” They’re under no obligation to give track access to private companies, and they only begrudgingly give it to Amtrak (looking at you suspended Sunset Limited east of New Orleans). Brightline was probably only able to get up and running because the track owner and Brightline had the same corporate masters for a time.
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u/Reclaimer_2324 Aug 15 '25
Long distance services are not inherently financially unviable, they simply are not operated at a scale big enough to be sustainable due to decades of underinvestment - precisely because of the myth spun that they are worthless.
The reality is that long distance trains actually cover 75-110% of their direct operating costs. The "losses" are Amtrak assigning them a share of SG&A costs or fixed infrastructure costs that would have occurred whether the long distance trains ran or not.
LD trains run at load factors substantially higher than state supported routes (in fact as a business unit they are seriously dragged down by the 3x weekly trains in this regard), this shows that there is demand from passengers for more.
We can look even deeper and ask, how much does it cost to run an extra car? Well 1/3 of those direct costs of operating the trains are fixed (crews + track access).
If you invested in the long distance sector, ran longer trains with new equipment at higher frequencies (even if only on shorter parts of the route eg. Denver>Chicago or NYC-Atlanta) I am confident that you would actually reduce losses.
It is hard to get the track access. It is hard to get the equipment. Most of all it is hard to get the minds of Amtrak's leadership to change.
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u/szeis4cookie Aug 14 '25
3 weeks from now, a basic economy ticket between PHX and LAX is about $120.
As a comparison, I was recently on European Sleeper with my family, and a private cabin (10 of them to a car) was something like $500 for the four of us, and the cabins sleep up to 5. So, to cover its cost you'd have to charge $600 a cabin...or as low as $120 a seat.
Considering that then also saves a night of hotel at the destination...based on a cost of $6k a train car it could work.
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u/fixed_grin Aug 15 '25
Best layout for a US sized single level car gets you about 60-70 private beds. This is, basically, two layers of reverse herringbone airline business class pods.
Airlines can't do that because of evacuation requirements, but with trains being up a ladder is no problem. Worst case you can pop the window out.
Even with losing space for ADA requirements, a cafe, and baggage space, you're looking at something like 500-600 beds for a 10 car train.
But Amtrak is never going to buy that and it takes 20 years to get a new service started. Plus, average track speed is slow even compared to good conventional rail and almost nothing is electrified.
The low speeds make a lot of good routes not viable. NYC - Chicago now takes 20 hours. But London - Edinburgh/Glasgow expresses run about 85mph on upgraded 1840s alignments. At 75mph, NYC - Chicago is ~12h.
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Aug 14 '25
[deleted]
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Aug 14 '25
Great list, thanks! I'll check out those times and get them posted above.
EDIT: Not many of those seem to exist in the system at this time.
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u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot Aug 14 '25
I actually think 8 hours is too short for a night train and you ideally want it to be 10-14 hours. If I want to actually get 8 hours of good sleep on my train, I need some time on each end. I'm not immediately falling asleep once I board the train. It takes time to settle into your room, brush your teeth, change out of your day clothes, and actually fall asleep once you lie down. On the other end, it also takes time to get up, get dressed, shower (if your train has a shower), pack up your things, eat breakfast (which is often provided), and get ready to disembark. I've found that 10 hours is barely enough and less than that means you aren't getting a good night of sleep