This guy made a video about his train ride using first class Amtrak service between Boston and Washington DC. It took seven hours. By way of comparison, the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto takes two hours and twenty minutes and the distance is about the same.
The first class waiting lounge is “run down.” There’s no reserved seating and the seats are beat-up. The boarding process is “pretty chaotic.” The food is not great either (Dunkin’ Donuts coffee?). At one point cops came on the train with a sniffer dog.
“What an incredibly depressing example of the sad state of rail service in the United States,” says Herman of Doobybrain.