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Tribune News Service

We were well into our journey from Los Angeles to Chicago, surrounded by cornfields and grain silos, when the train halted and a voice rang out.
“All right, folks,” said a man on the PA system. “We’ve come to a stop in what appears to be the middle of nowhere.”
To a traveller in a hurry, this is the stuff of nightmares. To a seasoned passenger on the train known as Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, it is just another day.
When you board an American long-distance train, you are trading the airport routine for entry into a locomotive-driven realm where there is neither security check nor Wi-fi, and AI might as well stand for aged infrastructure, not artificial intelligence.
There will be delays, often because of passing freight trains. But you are freeing yourself from worry about aerodynamics or the chronic shortage of US air traffic controllers and gaining access to ground-level scenery and idle hours.
You are also joining a modest trend. Even before this autumn’s flight cancellations during the US government shutdown, Amtrak had set records for passengers and revenue in fiscal 2024, then again in 2025.

To learn why, I boarded the Southwest Chief at Los Angeles Union Station on a recent Monday afternoon. I was ready to see a few desert sunsets from the Sightseer Lounge and hear what people say when they have the time to chat with a stranger IRL.
What Paul Theroux wrote 50 years ago in The Great Railway Bazaar is still true: “Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed like Russian short stories.”
One Southwest Chief departs from Los Angeles every day – and one from Chicago. If everything goes right, the 2,265-mile (3,645km), 32-stop trip takes about 43 hours.
Back in 1936, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway introduced Southwest Super Chief service between Los Angeles and Chicago, it was a roughly 40-hour journey. The passenger list included plenty of showbiz people and the first stop was in Pasadena.
Nowadays, the Southwest Chief is run by Amtrak. There are not so many showbiz people now and not as many frills. Instead of Pasadena, its first stop after Los Angeles is Fullerton, followed by a bend to the northeast.
My dinner on the first night was a happy surprise – a fairly tender and flavourful flat iron steak. There was a vase holding flowers on every table in the dining car, along with a white tablecloth.

Still, nobody should expect a Michelin-star meal in an Amtrak dining car. It is common for servers to bring out dessert before the main dish – to avoid running behind later – and at one meal, someone forgot my order and I had to start over half an hour later.
By the time we crossed into Arizona that first night, I was back in my roomette nodding off, lulled like a baby atop a washing machine.
We were near Flagstaff when I blinked awake, glad to catch sight of the sunrise and grateful to have a sleeping area of my own.
Of the three ways you can travel long-distance on Amtrak, the fanciest option is a private room that is about 50 sq ft (4.6 square metres), including a private bath. The roomettes are about half the size of a private room, with dining-car access and upper and lower berths that allow two travellers to lie flat (or one to spread out). These share toilets and showers.
The third option was coach class, which means sleeping in your seat. It is a sensible choice if you are travelling only a portion of the route.
All classes get access to the Sightseer Lounge, where armchairs and couches face big windows. I have heard of lounges getting pretty crowded and ripe on heavily booked trips, but our train seemed less than half full. A few coach passengers dozed in the lounge overnight – which is officially forbidden – and nobody seemed bothered.

That first morning, with coffee in hand, I tiptoed into the lounge, sank into an armchair and watched the desert sprawl while wispy clouds clung to the horizon under a brightening sky.
This postcard – or rather Instagram – moment came somewhere between Winslow and Holbrook. If you like deserts, the Chief is hard to beat.
As Arizona yielded to New Mexico, the dirt seemed to get redder and the ridges rose to form buttes. Along rivers and creeks, bright yellow cottonwood trees congregated in bursts of yellow.
“Living in LA, you forget all this space,” said Kim Rinauro, a nurse from Los Feliz. “When you come out and see how vast this is, it really gives you a different perspective.”
“America is so ginormous,” said Jeanine Bass, a softball coach from Costa Mesa who was on her way to see family in upstate New York.
Meanwhile, one end of the observation car had been filled by several women in white bonnets, joined by men with straw hats, foot-long beards and no moustaches. Occasionally, I would hear a sort of clapping sound. Amish families. Playing dominoes.
Amish travellers have been using this route for decades, one of the men told me, on their way to and from doctors in Tijuana. Seeking medical treatment that is more affordable and easier to schedule than in the US, they take trains to Southern California, then continue overland across the border.

Just before we made a 45-minute stop at the station, which is surrounded by a grim neighbourhood, an Amtrak staffer took the microphone to sternly address the coach class travellers.
“Coaches: no alcohol,” she said. “If you bring alcohol, you can stay and spend all night here with the transients.” For those in rooms and roomettes, she continued, booze in private rooms is OK, but not in public spaces.
Further into New Mexico, we passed the other Southwest Chief train, carrying passengers west.
Between Raton, New Mexico, and Trinidad, Colorado, amid a gaudy sunset, we crept past a herd of elk, then plunged into a tunnel. Emerging, we caught a last bit of sunset, some of the most gorgeous miles of the trip.
Eventually, I tried the shower. It did not go well. First, I saw that someone had stolen the shampoo dispenser. Then, I could not find a way to cool the scalding water. I stood as far back as I could in the snug compartment and grimaced my way through it.
On arrival day, I woke just as we reached the station in Kansas City, another gritty neighbourhood along the tracks.

Soon, we were crossing the Missouri River, roaring through forest and skirting naked farmland where this year’s corn crop had just been cut. Then came Fort Madison, Iowa; the Mississippi River and the beginnings of Illinois. Water towers and grain silos.
I zipped my bags shut, tipped the roomette attendant and dining car team. Soon, I would be stretching my legs at the Art Institute of Chicago, walking through Millennium Park and along the Chicago River, checking out the skyline from Navy Pier.
We pulled into Union Station within an hour of our target time.
Was it a perfect trip? No. But it was full of humanity, scenery and comforting clangs and rumbles. I even liked the lurching way you had to walk down the corridors, adjusting balance as the train shifted.
And then, to step off the train after two days into a brisk Chicago afternoon, 2,265 miles from home, having never left the ground? That is almost magic.
Christopher Reynolds


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Desert sunsets, delays and dining car treats on a 43-hour train journey from LA to Chicago

Passengers on the Southwest Chief train relax in the Sightseer Lounge on the trip between Los Angeles and Chicago. Photo: TNS

Passengers board the Southwest Chief at Los Angeles Union Station. Photo: TNS

The meal served in the dining car of the Southwest Chief was surprisingly good. Photo: TNS

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Ernie Haecker is a regular passenger on the Southwest Chief. Photo: TNS

All passengers have access to the Sightseer Lounge. Photo: TNS

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Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train route runs between Los Angeles and Chicago on a 43-hour trip, with a dining car and a great viewing carriage


Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train route runs between Los Angeles and Chicago on a 43-hour trip, with a dining car and a great viewing carriage.


US travel

Desert sunsets, delays and dining car treats on a 43-hour train journey from LA to Chicago

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train route runs between Los Angeles and Chicago on a 43-hour trip, with a dining car and a great viewing carriage

Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train route runs between Los Angeles and Chicago on a 43-hour trip, with a dining car and a great viewing carriage