Waking up in Syracuse was a weird experience, but that's how our day began on the Lakeshore Limited. Will we eventually make it to Boston?? Spoilers: Yes.
I love it when Graham hides the camera in some nook and then edits it so that it looks like the camera was always there and Graham essentially discovered it already in place for the shot. The absolutely contrived nature of it always amuses me for some reason.
TrainerTips here on youtube does that a lot too, and they are always nice shots, you just wonder how stupid they look going back and forth putting their camera down, walking away, and going back to pick it up lmao
I'm reminded of the Las Vegas vlog he did where he and Alex enter their hotel room and Alex is the one to go "Hey Graham, why is your camera already in here?"
You know, it never really occurred to me that the name "Beej" would sound weird to people not in the LRR fan base. It's sounds so strange to hear Graham refer to Beej as "Brendan"
Honestly I could listen to a podcast that's just Graham talking about things, like travel (or anuthing he wants, really) for forever, his voice just has some quality to it that makes it wonderful to listen to, at least for me.
Graham, sadly, "choosing Amtrak" doesn't mean over another passenger rail service. Because there isn't. It means, "Oh, thank God you didn't choose to fly or take a Greyhound Bus!" Needless to say, I'm doubly Jelly after seeing all those shots in the video. Sadly, they also won't let me in the cab of the Diesel Electric Locomotive. (Most likely one of GE's Locomotives, if GE hasn't sold off that unit yet.)
I am thrilled you enjoy Amtrak! I feel like they're a hidden gem of American culture. Even most Americans have no idea how rad it is to ride the train long-haul. The coach cars are great too, and honestly you meet more people that way (in exchange for slightly worse sleep). The people you meet along the way are probably the best part of riding Amtrak.
When Graham said I've been watching this RU-vid series called... I went, huh, it'd be funny if it was Brave Dave's Big Fat Freight Hop. and then he said it and it's 10:30 PM and I just lit up :D
Amtrak is probably the best way to take a long distance vacation with lots of luggage. Sleeper cars are surprisingly comfortable, and meals on a train are surprisingly tasty. My friends and I did the Chicago -> Denver trip on the California Zephyr and it was a good time. I would say that if you're not on the sleeper car, it's not quite as nice an experience. But still. Good times.
If nothing else, meals on a train will taste better than meals on an airliner because the raw physics differences between the forms of transit means there's less stuff disrupting our senses. There's an explainer video around these here youtubes somewhere, but the short version is: We didn't evolve to eat things in a pressurized metal tube 10k feet above sea level, and surprise surprise, as a result being in a pressurized metal tube 10k feet above sea level affects how we taste things.
The detail and vision that you must have in advance to shoot these vlogs combined with the quality you get in the editing will never cease to astound me. These are great and I hope you're still enjoying making them as much as we are watching them!
Yup, that's upstate NY. Also, I live in Syracuse! Been on that platform for a few different trains. It's not the best view of Syracuse, but it's not awful either.
This kinda made me want to try a train the next time i go on a trip. But there are no trains anywhere near me, and getting to a train would take as long as jsut flying.
Like this make me want todo this train travel. But also I am nostalgic for long train rides as I did Stockholm to Verona (About 2000 Kilometers if google is right) with my family when I was tweleve and it is my most memorable travel ever.
For train travel I can highly recommend the overnight sleeper from Paris to Barcelona, if one is headed that way. *Amazing* food, excellent comfort, leave Paris in the evening in time for dinner, arrive in Barcelona just after breakfast (with a long stop near Perpignan to give folks sleep time and not arrive in Barcelona at 05h00.) The direct flight YVR->CDG makes getting to Catalonia that way quite painless.
When you asked Beej “What river do you suppose that is?” I related greatly because I love geography, and every time I’m on a trip and I see random rivers I’ll sometimes ask my dad that and half the time in his head he’s probably like “How the hell am I supposed to know?” XD (Also I love these train vlogs. Traveling on a train looks like a lot of fun.)
If that was west of Springfield, it was likely the Westfield River, if east of Springfield, it was either the Chicopee River or the Quaboag River. Most likely the Quaboag River, since the tracks follow it for quite a ways between Springfield and Worcester,
Nice job on the time lapse! Also I hope you all come back to Chicago! The Publican is but only one of our city's many very fine food and drink establishments! Good to see you at C2E2!
I did Vancouver to Washington DC earlier this summer but I’m a big train fan, so it’s interesting to see a take from someone who actually chose the sleeper for practical reasons and not because train obsession LOL
Ah yes, happy memories. I took that train maybe ten years ago, it was my first time to the US. Just a seat, though, a bottle of water and a bag of dried mango. And a thick book. And boy was I happy once we were in the state of New York because it felt it couldn't be much further to Boston. Was I ever wrong, that thing is big. And US trains are very ... leisurely.
It turns out traveling by train (at least for 1ish day) actually looks super sweet and not as terrible as I have been told??? Also; I was extremely surprised that y'all were rolling right up to East after getting off the train, then remembered East starts on a Thursday, and now I feel Tired (TM).
Amtrack trains can be somewhat overpriced (at least compared to a bus), and they're often delayed, because they don't own the tracks and have to yield to freight (a Portland to Seattle train was delayed for 6 hours... But that was because of ice). The actual experience of train travel can feel luxurious in comparison to air travel though. So much leg room. Multiple toilets (one per car at least) means you don't need to wait in line. The food can be expensive... But it's real food. Anyway trains are rarely the fastest or cheapest way to travel, but they're very comfy.
I'm definitely looking into a train journey for my next destination now. It does seem like a bit of an adventure seeing all the landscapes wisp by. Traveling from Manchester to Edinburgh via rail was quite fun.
My solution for feeling hungry while traveling is to carry granola bars. You can fit a half-dozen in a sandwich box and they'll fill me up if I'm hungry but they taste like sawdust so I don't eat them unless I am actually hungry as opposed to snacking on them because I'm bored.
@@sonofchlar6144 pretty sure they still do. Friday nights just isn't sponsored by wotc anymore, that was the word last time I checked. Edit: doesloadingreadyrunstillmakefridaynights.com/ Works for me.
That looked like fun. You passed right through my hometown (not sure the train even stopped at the station, it's practically unused) just inside the MA border.
I absolutely love after rewatching this that I RECOGNIZE thenspecific train cars of the Adirondack Express, as I drive by them almost every day for work.
If you ever felt the need to be on a train for longer than 24 hrs, The Empire Builder (Seattle and Chicago as endpoints) is also a nice trip. You don't get to see much of the Rockies and Cascades, but only because you are going through them.
I have a newfound appreciation for train travel. I am now curious about where these types of trains are moving to and from, and where I could plan a trip by train in the future. I also wanna know what Beej and Graham did to pass the time for the entire day, aside from naps and sleeps.
As a fan of both LRR and trains, this and the previous blog have been at a wonderful overlap of my interests. Great vlog as ever, looking forward to the PAX East episodes!
Additional news! I'm still bored and the river you asked Beej about is the Quabaog River. The building behind Graham at 13:08 is a waste water treatment plant located at 2527 Main St, West Warren, MA 01092. Google Map coords of 42.209396, -72.247543
So funny you mentioning Big Dave's freight hop, it's such an interesting (albeit illegal) concept that I've receintly spent hours on seeing videos about.
I think that shot in the beginning is near Cleveland. The train gets there around that time according to the schedule and that water tower you're passing by looks strangely familiar.
Man...all of that footage of rundown New York makes me so homesick. I grew up in that area and moved to Florida of all places 16 years ago and it suuuuuuuucks. XD
I did a 23 hour trip from Oakland to Seattle when I was moving back to Canada. I did not go for the sleeper car and 100% should have. The difference in price wasn’t much and I spent more that that at the shitty cafe on board that only sold snacks and hotdogs. So that was my meals for a day. The chairs were massive and fully reclined so that wasn’t too bad. It was neat to see what I missed out on here. Kinda makes me want to go by train somewhere again. Oh! I remember in Portland they had some park rangers get on and tell us interesting facts about the landscape between there and Seattle. That was fun.
5 лет назад
Thanks for this, Graham. Now I, in the lack of a passenger train system in Brazil for stupid reasons, can say I gregariously ridden a train.
I'm enough of a dork that I tried to locate what river it was. Looking at the line it doesn't look like you cross that many bodies of water around the Worcester stop. But I still don't have enough information to pinpoint
I think I stumbled across the solar panels seen briefly at 13:12. But that was not at the same time as the conversation and there's no guarantee all that footage was cut in strictly chronological order.
I did Edmonton to Vancouver when I was young, but I’d been spoiled by a) having driven through the mountains more times than could count, and b) the dining car on Via Rail in the late 70s both sucked, and had the most incredibly de-appetizing stench. Not odour. Not smell, but gut-wrenching stench. Pretty much decided then and there I’d be driving or flying. Or even long-haul bus, which, weirdly, would be faster and cheaper than train.
Graham, I don't remember if I asked this or not already, but do you ever check your overnight footage and find weird or cool stuff you ended up recording for your time lapses?
It's an upgrade for the 8-9 hours you're awake, but I'd prefer to sleep in the bed any day (I've never done an overnight train, but I've taken a ton of 5:30am-9pm trips). Plus on the long haul trains like that you can totally just go sit in an empty regular passenger seat if you have a sleeping cabin. They're never remotely full except within an hourish of the main cities.
Hold on, wait, we can figure out where you were when you briefly woke up. If a train leaves Chicago at 12AM heading east towards Boston at 100 miles per hour.... EDIT: But seriously, I did the math now because I was curious. Assuming you left at midnight you were somewhere south of Buffalo.
So, is it weird that I stopped and said "hey, they're at the Albany Amtrak station!" When they got there because I used to get off at that station when I went to college in Troy?
