LET'S TAKE A TRAIN RIDE.

Yahoo creators Kara and Nate rode the Lake Shore Limited and Empire Builder from New York to Seattle.  The verdict?

Despite the flaws we may have noticed during our cross-country train journey, we would definitely recommend that you try out one of the long-distance Amtrak trips if you ever get the opportunity. One of our biggest concerns with a train trip this long was that we would get bored and have nothing to do but the views along the way were genuinely so stunning that we never had the opportunity to feel bored.

They made a video.

On both legs of the trip, they noted a lot of duct tape to keep stuff from rattling. The cars on both trains are fortyish.  As sleeping car passengers, they had meals in the dining car, which have been upgraded from those Noodles and Company boxes I've groused about. The showers work.

We tried out the shower in this compartment and would rate it a solid 8/10. On other train showers (oddly, we’ve tried out so many train showers now that we can consider ourselves train shower experts) it’s common to run out of hot water quickly or have to push a button every minute to keep the water going. We did not have a problem with either of these things this time around!

Every once in a while we were granted ‘fresh air breaks’ as we stopped at various stations to get out and stretch our legs. The rest of the daylight hours were split between the dining car and the observation car.

Washington Post contributor and illustrator Christine Mi rode the California Zephyr and Lake Shore from Oakland to New York City. The illustrations that go with the article tell a lot of the story, including the joys of attempting yoga in a Superliner roomette and the people-watching along the Colorado River.  If you want to understand the mood of the country, riding a train and eavesdropping on conversations is still the thing to do.  East of Chicago, she opted for a coach seat, and that's a different experience.

Most train enthusiasts will recommend traveling across the country from east to west. I quickly understood why. Taking the California Zephyr before the Lake Shore Limited was like eating a scrumptious dessert before a much blander dinner.

I boarded the train at night and immediately tried to get some shut-eye. As it turns out, a coach seat is not very conducive to sleep. It is, however, quite conducive to overhearing your neighbor’s conversations … at all hours of the night.

The communal experience on planes, trains, and (when you can find one) intercity buses probably sells a lot of motor vehicles.

In neither travelogue did anything about train speed or Chinese trains or European trains come up.  Go long distance for the experience, and the opportunity to switch off and interact with people who might know nothing at all about where you worked or the sort of things we fret about and who have their own stories to tell.