TrainJam 2023

Yep was thinking of you Brian as being adjacent to the train start!

Yeah for sure! Just a short leg up from Portland, then hop on at Seattle. :100:

:raising_hand_woman:t2:

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I’d love to get in on this.

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“The car was acquired by Webb Rail in 2018, and is currently stored in New Orleans, LA awaiting restoration”

Can’t wait for Strange Train 2023. Is there anything I can do to help move this along so I can organize things around it?

wait I think we lost some of your text. both private train cars…

Sorry, fixed it up.

Looking at these screens for registration there might be $1300 bulk sleeper rooms available? We can’t tell through the website, so next step is likely getting on a call and/or finding a travel agent to help investigate.

Just piping up to say I’m still interested. I’d still be up for the whole 90-hour shebang from Seattle. Should be some gorgeous views. I’m equally up to fly across to ORD/NYC and take the train from that end.

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Great. We’ll keep updating this page. Once we have something concrete (like availability of N sleeper berths), we’ll coordinate getting things booked and committed.

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Yay, for once my originally hailing from the midwest gets to come in handy to talk trains!

I’ll note from past experiences taking the NYC to Chicago route that it runs dreadfully late most times, so pad the 30h estimate out a bit for safety :slight_smile: But that’s also likely to be true on the Empire Builder run SEA to CHI…

The southernmost route you highlighted is also tricky in its own way: the Cardinal runs just three times a week (this is subject to change in a few years, but not by this fall: Amtrak Applies for Federal Grants to Improve Long Distance Network). A few cool views through WV and southeast OH though (nothing like out west, but still forests!)

For my own part, I’m slightly partial to taking the train the whole way over from Seattle for scenery’s sake, but flying into Chicago or New York are also fine plans - I’ll go wherever fun folks are going to be!

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Sweet. Great to get some first hand feedback.

Another candidate for the ideas list: spend an hour or three hacking on someone else’s project, while you have them personally on hand to answer questions.

We could even do swaps. Hack on each other’s projects, answer each other’s questions.

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I’m in, too! What a great set of folks to spend time hacking with.

Yeah, great ideas!

Also interested!

Hey Andrew, I have a “reserved” spot with your name on it via Jack :slight_smile: I’ll be in touch by email.

I just finished riding the Coast Starlight from San Francisco to Portland, and wanted to share a couple of observations.

The observation cars have nice large tables (four people, possibly more) for sitting around and chatting or playing a game. I’m planning to bring a Fluxx game, and I think Sushi Go may be coming on board as well.

The coffee on the train is not great. Probably worth bringing some beans and coffee making equipment. I’ll bring an AeroPress, and I think @boris may bring a french press. Hot water was available on the train.

The Amtrak site is a bit difficult to navigate for determining delays and estimated times of arrival. A fellow traveler introduced me to a site that pulls data from Amtrak and makes it easily digestible:

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Ha, I just found out there’s another TrainJam out there.

oh I’ve known about quite a few. Waterloo to Montreal corridor has done some!

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