What It’s Like Traveling In An Amtrak Viewliner Roomette During A Pandemic

For obvious reasons, 2020 is not shaping up to be the year I suspect any of us predicted. Instead of flying around the world in first class, I’m galavanting around the US and trying forms of transportation I never would have dreamed of, such as going down the east coast in an Amtrak Viewliner Roomette.

The goal was to get from Connecticut (where I was spending 3 weeks helping my cousin) back to Georgia. I had originally driven up the coast with my Mom, but was on my own for the trek back. I looked into the prices and pandemic risks of various forms of travel – ruling out planes based on the anxiety inducing time I had flying across the country in October, and contemplating renting my own car.

However, I quickly discovered that renting a car and dropping it off across the country is (understandably) expensive. I also don’t have a lot of experience driving. I don’t own a car and the longest I’ve driven in recent memory was the 4 hours it took to get to Hilton Head in late October. That itself was a challenge so I didn’t think I could beast a 13-15 hour trip in one day by myself without losing my mind.

Just out of curiosity, I went to the Amtrak website to see what they had to offer. Usually Amtrak is not really on my radar because it seems to be usually more expensive and not as quick as a plane, but in pandemic times, everything is on the table – especially a mode of transit that would allow me to be in my own bubble away from other people.

Surprisingly, booking my own Viewliner Roomette cost about the same as renting that car:

My very own sleeper car cost $503 while renting that car would have been about $490. For an extra $13, I was totally willing to give up possibly falling asleep at the wheel and trying to navigate through all the east coast major cities by myself 😉 .

For a second, this actually sounded too good to be true so like the cautious nerd I am, I reached out to Amtrak to confirm that if I booked this roomette I would be the only person in it – even though it can hold 2 people. Obviously being locked in a small room with a random stranger is not a pandemic experience I am open to 🙂 . Luckily, their live chat was quick and helpfully confirmed that the roomette was all mine:

So I booked it and this helpful pop up came up:

COVID Concerns

As I mentioned, one of the reasons I chose to ride on a train was because of COVID concerns and wariness of other forms of travel. I read about the protocols Amtrak has instituted to combat COVID, including requiring face masks, blocking all but window seats to encourage social distancing, deep cleaning and sanitizing surfaces and having an onboard air filtration system that exchanges the air every 4-5 minutes.

I also did some research on the general COVID danger around train travel and felt confident that the hour or so I was in a car with other passengers on my train from CT to NYC, would not pose a large risk. Also, as with the above warning, Amtrak gave me at least 5 more reminders that face masks were required on their train and that they were taking this pandemic seriously so going into the journey, I was feeling pretty solid about their level of seriousness.

The Trip

When I was booking this trip, someone asked if I would live tweet the adventure. After doing a poll on Twitter, it seemed like more than one person was interested so that’s exactly what I did. I took y’all on the journey with me. Here is the thread on Twitter if you’re interested:

THE "SLEEPER CAR TRAIN ADVENTURE" THREAD:
I'm going from CT to GA today. Pre-COVID I wouldn't have taken a train, but their protocols look legit and it's shockingly about the same price as renting a car. By popular demand I'll be live tweeting this experience. Let's do this🙌🏾! pic.twitter.com/pZvDNRisr0

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) November 22, 2020

Now I’ll dive more in depth into this sleeper car experience and if I would do it again.

Packing

I was in Connecticut for three weeks and found it shockingly easy to pack for this (relatively long) journey after getting rid of most of my belongings in July. I just grabbed about a third of what I owned, put it in the shockingly affordable 40L backpack below and I was good to go!

For the journey, I also brought a tote bag which was…basically filled with snacks 🙂 . Gotta be prepared.

Connecticut Station

The first step of my journey was finding the train at the station in Connecticut. I was expecting to have to go through an actual station to find the right terminal and be able to see if Amtrak was all talk or if they were as serious as Sea-Tac airport with their COVID protocols. Unfortunately, I never got to know because this train station didn’t have an actual…station. It was all outside and didn’t have clear signage or directions.

Luckily, I arrived about 15 minutes before the train was set to arrive so I had the time to go up and down the stairs to be able to see the electronic sign at each track to determine if it was the right one for me. It did not help matters that the signs were not using the same information Amtrak had provided me (a train number) and instead seemed to reference one of the Amtrak stops and use that as the train identifier.

With the help of Google Maps’ public transit feature on my new Moto G Stylus, I was able to determine that I was in fact in the right place. For most of this exploration, I was able to avoid other people, but once I found my correct track, there were several others on the (outdoor) platform and some were not wearing masks correctly. At least one wasn’t wearing one at all. I quickly tried to move to keep my distance after accidentally drifting too close to someone while looking down at my phone. I decided to head to where the front of the train would be because I assumed that was where Business Class would board.

Unfortunately, when my train arrived, all the train cars I could see said “Coach.” A train attendant stepped out in front of me and I asked them where Business Class was – he said the last train car. I had seen how quickly trains approached and left while waiting on the platform so I booked it down to the other end. Outside of a pandemic, I would have just boarded in any car and walked to the back, but I didn’t want to do that in this situation.

Business Class

Fortunately, I made it, found my assigned seat and settled in before an attendant came and scanned the ticket on my phone (woohoo contactless)! I looked around at my seat neighbors and was happy to see everyone was properly masked up and that the business class seats were huge – so much so that the seat backs almost touched the ceiling and the seats were so wide that with the non-window seats blocked, there was about 10 feet between me and the other person in my row. All was well. So I looked out the window, sent some live tweets about the experience, and watched NYC come into view.

Overall, Business Class was quite spacious and nice. I could see myself being comfortable there for a longer journey than the one I was able to embark on. There was an outlet, foot rests, tray table and ample storage above my seat and by the train car entrance. COVID wise all was well, though I did see a “dickmasker” (aka someone with their nose out of their mask like a dick hanging out of your pants) further down the train car as I was leaving.

Penn Station

Now onto the most stressful part of this journey: Penn Station. I had expected that it would be a different place than the chaos filled waiting room I was used to from my 4 years living in NYC, but was disappointed to see that it was not. Instead of any type of signage or directions for how to behave differently in an enclosed train station with a million other people, there were just periodic announcements over the loudspeaker about masks and social distancing with no enforcement to be seen.

In fact, it was often the people that worked there that came out of the lounge without masks and construction workers that were working on the tracks and walking through the station without them as well. The section of the station I was in was relatively small so I basically just tried to avoid people for an hour while crossing my fingers that my train would arrive and the track would be announced soon.

I have no idea why Penn Station, while in the middle of a pandemic, didn’t change their protocol to be more like an airport (telling people a track/gate and then just updating them if it changes) instead of having everyone wait together in huddles around a track update screen before quickly going to one location. Seemed super inefficient and dumb. Oh well, I survived. Rant over.

The Viewliner Roomette

In case you couldn’t tell, I was super excited to get out of the station and into my own little sleeper car bubble. When the track was announced 15 minutes before we were set to leave, I quickly went to the train track and was happy to see that no one else was around, despite it being a Sunday.

I saw an attendant and asked where I could find my roomette number – he surprisingly quickly found my name and I discovered that I had accidentally arrived at my exact train car – SCORE! He directed me to my car and I closed the door, wiped everything down, took off my N95 mask and breathed a sigh of relief. I had found my home for the next 17 hours.

The room was lovely – just what I would need for one person. I have been in a roomette one time before with a friend of mine and that felt cramped at times. Being in a roomette without leaving for a day with another person would not have been as relaxing I think, but riding in it alone was wonderful.

The roomette has 2 large seats that recline and together form a surprisingly comfortable bed. Next to these chairs is a fold out table, a fold out sink, a hidden toilet and any other random amenities you might need, such as electric outlets, a trash can, temperature controls, audio controls for the announcements and various places you can change the lighting. Above the seats is a twin bed and a storage area to put your bags. Getting up there requires some monkey-like climbing that I really enjoyed 🙂 .

To see all of that in action, I made a quick video. It’s the first video on my Purple YouTube channel (I’m not starting a real YouTube channel – don’t worry. I’m way too lazy for that 😉 ) Turn your sound on and check it out:

Room Service

About two weeks before my train trip I received an alert from Amtrak that I could pick my roomette meals in advance. Meals and one alcoholic drink are included in the price of the room. Based on the prompts, it seemed like I was to be served lunch, dinner and breakfast. However, upon arriving in my room, I was told I would receive dinner (I guess it was too late for lunch since we boarded at 2:15pm) and that my attendant would be back to get my order…so not sure why I chose online in advance then 😉 .

Pre-pandemic Amtrak roomettes provided access to an exclusive dining car, which I tried out the only other time I’ve been in a sleeper car…and I hated it 🙂 . As I mentioned, previously, I traveled with one of my friends and in the dining car, all the tables have 4 seats so you were assigned a bench with another couple and had to talk to strangers throughout dinner…not my idea of fun 🙂 .

But there is a small silver lining in this pandemic because now all sleeper car rooms have room service and I loooove that. I told the attendant my dinner order and chose the time I wanted it to arrive (5pm) and then he delivered it right on time. Here was my dinner of Red Wine Braised Beef:

After setting out on my journey, my partner texted asking if I could get off the train at an earlier stop than planned (I’ll go into that more below), but one consequence of that was that I did not think there would be enough time to eat breakfast (and this girl loves breakfast). Luckily however, the attendant was very accommodating and offered to get me something quickly so this is the fast breakfast I chose (a warm Banana Nut Muffin and Coffee). I quickly demolished it before leaving the train early that morning:

The Attendant

I had forgotten when booking this sleeper car that it comes with an attendant, which is basically a butler who is there to help you with anything you need. Similar to an airplane, your room has a call button to request their presence at any time. I did use it once to request that mine turn my chairs into a bed earlier than scheduled so I could get a head start on sleep after agreeing to get off at an earlier than planned train stop.

Speaking of that station change, I mentioned it to the attendant not thinking it would be a big deal, but it turns out it was – maybe they weren’t planning to stop at that station or something, but he said he would take care of it and that he would make sure I was awake 15 minutes before my stop – thanks dude!

Overall, having an attendant was very helpful and an added perk to this fun adventure. My only negative with the experience was that when I was about to disembark, I saw him go into the in-between car (that has open air between train cars), move his mask down and then sneeze….Yikes! Kinda defeats the purpose of a mask though I understand the impulse. Luckily, I left the train shortly after and basically poured sanitizer over my whole body. Being a neurotic germaphobe during a pandemic has its drawbacks 🙂 .

Georgia Station

I arrived at a random train station in Georgia early in the morning and actually didn’t even go inside. It was so small that I was able to easily see the parking lot from where the train dropped me off and just went around the station to avoid any shenanigans. As a result though, this train trip had a lot less train stations than I originally anticipated 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that was my experience in a sleeper car during a pandemic! Despite a few moments spiking my anxiety, (I’m looking at you Penn Station!), it went better than I could have imagined. There was very little contact with other people, I feel like I can substantiate Amtrak’s air exchange claims based on how much they were blasting the HVAC, and I really did have a lovely time. I’m considering taking another overnight train in the spring 🙂 .

Have you ever traveled in a sleeper car? What did you think?