Wendell Willkie was a strikingly handsome man – charming successful, and confident – and a “womanizer“. In 1940, he ran against the popular Franklin Roosevelt as FDR tried for a third term. While the press generally let both candidates keep their private lives private, a Trotskyite female writer took a backdoor approach to scandal against the Republican candidate and published a widely read short story about a handsome businessman meeting and “seducing” a young woman on a train. “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt” was generally taken to be Willkie.
Trains remain good places to meet, game, and bang women – if it worked for Wendell (and for me), it can work for you.
The Business End of Amtrak
By trains, I mean long distance Amtrak routes, particularly in the Western part of the country. Ideally, you’ll want to take an overnight trip, preferably start to finish. These routes range from 35 hours for Los Angeles to Seattle on the Coast Starlight to 51 hours for Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr (two nights.) The New Orleans to New York run, the Crescent, might work at 30 hours but I haven’t tried that route and its been many years since I rode the Silver Star or Silver Meteor from NYC to Miami. As you might expect, the overnight City of New Orleans from Chicago via Memphis to the Big Easy can be quite the party train as can the longer Sunset Limited from LA to New Orleans. For route descriptions, timetables, menus, and reservations, check www.amtrak.com.
Something like airlines, Amtrak offers two classes – coach and “accommodations” – the latter really “first class” by another name. You really want accommodations on overnight trips. Sleeping in a coach seat is a great argument for strong opiates – it ain’t easy. In accommodations, you pay for a ticket for carriage at the same price as coach but buy your room as a separate, additional charge that includes your meals in the dining car. But they don’t offer a room for one – their smallest is a roomette with two beds.
The beauty with the Amtrak system is that even if you’ve boarded alone and paid for a roomette, you can still invite any ticketed passenger to join you, even for meals and as an overnight guest, until her (or your) ticketed destination. Money-wise, it’s all the same to Amtrak. Most on-board staff know the deal although you do need to inform your car attendant and introduce your new bed buddy so the attendant can recognize the new face in the sleeper car and be accountable for all the passengers in case of an accident.
Who Rides Amtrak?
Amtrak clientele is diverse. They have three market niches pretty much to themselves – the obese who are too broad for airline seats, the neurotic who are afraid of flying, and the geriatrics who are too weak to travel any other way (using the special handicapped bedrooms.) None of these groups are of much interest.
Better are the college students and other young people moving about the country. Obviously, there are prime travel seasons for college students but there were young bargain hunting females on every train I’ve been on. Foreigners seem to love our trains, especially Australians and Germans, and both nationalities are friendly and eager to talk to Americans. Another surprising group of people are the recently divorced/widowed or those just escaping a failed relationship. The largest single group, however, are retired people who usually travel as couples. They tend to be friendly enough, but just not your focus.
The young American women and the recently divorced are your prime targets, depending on your own age. In either case, the best place to meet them is in the lounge car. Besides having the biggest windows and the best views, it also has a full-time bartender from early morning to midnight! With any game at all, you’ll be able to strike up a conversation with a female of your choice. Women on trains are easy to approach since they feel safe and protected while on-board.
Once you’ve broken the ice with a particular woman you’ve met in the lounge car, and maybe had a couple of drinks with her, your next move is to invite her to visit your room in “first class.” Choose carefully, because you two may be very intimate for the next 48 hours. You can consume your own private stash of booze in your room, something that’s forbidden to coach passengers. Water, ice, cups, juice and soft drinks are provided as mixers in your sleeping car so bringing a pint of vodka or rum is thinking ahead and can save money. Remember to introduce your new friend to your car attendant.
The Mechanics of the Roomette
A roomette is not a roomy place for a tryst. Yet it is several notches better than the backseat of a car and infinitely better than the toilet on a 777. You will be able to lock the door and pull the curtains for privacy. The train’s background noise when moving will block most conversation and non-screaming lovemaking sounds from your neighbors. If you DON’T pull the curtains while getting frisky, the car attendant may interrupt you to protect the sensitivities of the other passengers. Think of it as a very cozy, rolling hotel room.
Taking your new friend for a meal in the dining car is another gift. In any case, if the waiters see you two coming from the sleeping car end of the train (the diner and lounge cars are in the middle) and/or you’ve made a reservation for two, then they will simply ask if you’re in coach or the sleepers – you say “yes” to sleepers and just sign the two order forms with your name and your car and room numbers.
The big step is inviting her to sleep in your roomette. If she’s already tried sleeping in a coach seat, she’s primed for your offer. You can also offer a shower—pre- or post-coital—there’s one per sleeper car available for passengers who don’t have one in their larger rooms. It works well and doesn’t get much use.
Mistakes to Avoid
But if she takes you up on the overnight, don’t let this beta move be yours:
Make her get her ass out of the rack and go with you to the dining car – don‘t play room service for her. Also, you’ll want the bottom bunk for sleeping since it is a bit roomier than the top rack.
If you’re in coach, don’t despair! Getting overly amorous in your coach seats is discouraged since you’re surrounded by other passengers although there are blankets if you’re discreet and quiet after lights out. Better, the coach cars have “dressing rooms” downstairs that are larger and cleaner than the rest rooms and can be used when the passion temperature is right.
Other tips:
– Tip your car attendant, bartender, and head waiter at first meeting and remember their names. $20 each is a good start and gets their attention.
– Baggage check is available between the larger stations but there’s plenty of room for carry-ons.
– Bring plenty of cash or credit cards to buy alcohol. The selection of wines (in half bottles or by the glass) in the dining car is usually decent, reasonably priced stuff. The price of alcohol is not included in accommodations.
– There have been no TSA pre-boarding inspections to date although you are asked to check your guns! Amtrak, by law, has a special gun safe in the baggage car.
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– Dress up a bit and look sharp but comfortable. This gives you credibility with a broader range of females and with the staff. Shoes are required to be worn when not in your seat or compartment.
– A roll of duct tape is a favorite with regular Amtrak riders – a little tab can quiet annoying rattles or muffle a too-loud screamer.
– No smoking on the train but most schedules stop every couple of hours long enough for a smoke of whatever on the platform. If you don’t smoke, get out anyway and walk up and down the train for exercise. Plus, you might meet someone you haven’t seen in the lounge car yet – here’s a chance for an invitation.
– Mingle early and often. Being seen as open and friendly, even with the retirees, can be the social proof she needs.
– Don’t give the staff lip or act the fool. They have the legal authority to smack you upside the head, cuff you, and leave your ass off on the Winnemucca platform at 2 am in January…. or worst.
– Ladies – if you are someday on a long train trip and a tall, handsome, well-dressed gentleman offers small talk, cocktails, and a chance to visit with him in his first class room, you’d be a fool to say no.
– Guys – if you should see a tall, handsome, well-dressed gentleman on a train making his moves on an attractive female, don’t you dare try to AMOG me.
Read More: Passive Game vs. Active Game
Interesting topic and well presented. Good complement to the shorter train rides most men are used to running game on, such as nyc subway and such.
Funny story- my grandmother, going on a hundred years ago, was a new graduate going across Canada on the train for a job as teacher. She was packed a large lunch and warned not to talk to strange men. After the train gets going a man asks her to lunch, so she throws her brown bag out the window and goes with him. I don’t know if she fucked the guy at any point, but if she was a young woman these days she might well have.
I never asked my late Jewish-Ruthenian Grandmother about her prior Coital habits, but she had the book “A House is Not a Home” in her bookshelf. I READ it not too long ago. It’s about a Ukranian-Jewish Woman who in the 1920s-1940s was New York’s most Infamous Madame!
Interesting post. Any hints on deals for rooms. I see that the price/room is more than $500 for the one night trip from Penn Station to Chicago in the cheapest roomette. I know it’s for two people and includes all meals, but it is still a bit steep. Do they ever offer discounts for late bookings on the train, for example?
Accommodation and ticket charges generally go down after Labor Day and generally vary by day of the week. Unlike airlines, Amtrak will offer discounts 48 hours prior to departure as cancellations occur.
There are also discounts on tickets (but not accommodations) for veterans, students, seniors, AAA members, rail passenger association members, etc. Active duty military get a discount AND go to the head of the line. You usually need to buy three days in advance though.
The author whose name we dare not speak is Mary McCarthy and it’s a great story about female self-delusion. It’s from ‘The Company She Keeps’, should anyone want to read it. ‘Cruel and Barbarous Treatment’ from the same collection isn’t bad either.
Just finished it – you’re right that a major theme is female self-delusion but the man was given to romantic enthusiasms too.
The food and the service on-board sounded pretty good too.
Bed bugs are the most alpha of bugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination
Discuss.
Impressive.
Flatworms still have them beat for the invertebrate crown, however:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_fencing
That’s gay as fuck, though.
totally is. fight something with a dick to win the right to blow a load in the losing dick-haver? I’ll pass on that one, dog.
Made me think of having coffee immediately after I tried this on my wife’s stomach.
Curse you Carson, it doesn’t work. You tricked me again, but my wife seems to be groveling for affection more?
While drinking my coffee I was curious if a zebra has black stripes on a white background or black stripes on white background?
This is a really interesting article. Thanks for sharing. Now I have a hankering to take my boys on the train. They love em.
Um…
Nice article, BroadsMan. Good work including all the relevant details.
Cost-benefit analysis: I wonder if the additional travel time & money spent on Amtrak (both are high) would be better spent on a cheap flight and nice hotel (using, say, Priceline and BetterBidding or a hotel BRG).
That way, you can arrive early in your party town, like New Orleans, and try to start gaming some strange right away.
Nice article, interesting background and great niche.
Main downside: at the end of the trip, you’re still in America 🙁
“Main downside: at the end of the trip, you’re still in America :(”
Not necessarily.
Checking Amtrak’s map, you can get to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver directly. Amtrak will take you as far as San Diego for a quick jaunt to Tijuana, to Yuma to visit Mexicali, or to El Paso to cross over to Juarez.
Lots of places to escape to! Just don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
no sleepers on routes to Canada.
So are you gone yet?
Amtrak sucks. The prices are through the roof.
” The prices are through the roof. ”
I’m not so sure about that. I’ve beaten airline fares before, San Jose to Denver, with accommodations for two,off-season, but that was with 24 hour notice so even coach airfare was high and accommodations were cheap and shared. Great views too – Donner Pass then Salt Lake City, Gore Canyon, Glenwood Springs, Rocky Mountain National Park, Moffit Tunnel at Winter Park, then descending down the Front Range into Denver. You even pass Mustang Ranch in Sparks and get to wave to the girls.
Checking the latest fares, a one-way ticket from Chicago to LA is only $169 (traveling coach first of November.) Chicago to Salt Lake City is only $140. Chicago to New Orleans is only $127.
Where Amtrak is really price-competitive is between the places without an airline hub. So Yazoo City, Mississippi to Carbondale, Illinois is only $76 – you couldn’t drive that cheaply. Shorter runs can also be cheap – Amtrak between San Jose and Sacramento is only $32.
I’ve read that there’s a significant difference in service quality between trains in the East vs trains in the West. Remember that almost all Amtrak on-board and maintenance employees are members of some very old unions. Amtrak had to really beat up on the maintenance people to improve reliability of even little things like ice makers and air conditioners. They’ve had a long-standing technical issue with the toilets too. Their Superliner fleet is getting old – seems like all the money is going to the Northeast Corridor – that’s why Joe Biden of Delaware is such a supporter.
Travel during peak summer season and the other passengers will bid up prices and room reservations are often hard to come by. Lots of Europeans and Australians visit then (it’s their winter down south). Amtrak has peak limited capacity but it is available year-round. They only have so many cars and the station tracks are only so long. The tracks are owned by the railroads who move freight for a living so there can be congestion in spots.
Me, I travel a LOT for business by air. I’ve plenty enough time as spam in a can. When I can, I’ll take a train.
Wow, would I spend $500 to travel for 21 hours just so I can have a chance (and a mere chance) to have some action in a two-bed sleeper?
You’re so right!
For you, your money is better spent on a couple of decent in-calls or maybe five massages with happy endings.
…or a girl chatted up in a decent bar downtown, after maybe $50 worth of drinks and the comfort of finding msyelf on the same side of country. Some of these articles veer a bit too much into fantasyland.
I didn’t see anywhere in the article or in the comments a suggestion that one ride Amtrak JUST to get laid or that gaming on a train was the BEST or EASIEST way to get laid. There are lots of great reasons to take the train rather than flying, just as oft times, flying or driving are the better options.
If you find yourself on a long-distance train, you WILL find opportunities IF you keep your eyes open and the article tells you how to be prepared for them and how to be smooth and make the most of them when they occur.
Women ARE open to meeting and having sex with men they’ve just met while on trains. It is a romantic AND safe environment for them – plus a long train ride can be boring. It is a repeated theme in literature and cinema (and probably romance novels!)
But if you believe it never happens, it will never happen to you.
fantasyland for some… if you have ‘no game’ – that’s understandable.
what a great post.
Ehhhh.
Too much $ for a captive venue. You can’t exactly bounce if you’re stuck with less than desirable prospects, or have a problem where you’d otherwise just leave to escape. I just think there are much better ways to game than to book a train trip.
Now, if you happen to be taking the train rather than driving/flying somewhere, then by all means try it. I just can’t see spending this kind of money just to explore the Amtrack hack.
So basically you’re giving advice to other guys about how to use a woman. That’s sick!
So offering free room and board, not to mention engaging conversation, free booze, and sincere sexual pleasuring in a romantic setting is “using”?
Please, some woman come and “use” me!
As I said to Anonymous just now, one night stands are most definitely a form of using women. It doesn’t matter what kind of “payment” you offer. Doing that just makes you no better than a prostitute.
OK. works for me!
…..and Wendell Willkie (business executive and presidential candidate) and Mary McCarthy (best woman novelist of the 20th century) and many thousands of happy men and women over the years.
If this isn’t your cup of tea, fine. No one will force you nor likely ask, since most guys can read women well enough for that.
Otherwise, mind your own beeswax.
you’re a sick person. poor thing.
Can you email me? I have a question man.
[email protected]
Maybe you missed your 9th grade sex ed class but, newsflash — men like to have sex.
Also a newsflash — many women like to have sex with men they’re attracted to.
So, combining those two things, and adding in a dash of chivalry, such as sharing a room and having a temporary travel companion — is somehow “using” a woman? Moron.
This article makes it sound like its talking about how to have a one night stand on Amtrak trains. One night stands are most definitely using women.
Would a TWO night stand on the California Zephyr be OK in your moral calculus? The couple would have to work fast, maybe meeting in the Chicago’s Union Station before boarding although first class and coach have separate waiting areas. That’s about the same scenario as “The Man with the Brooks Brothers Shirt” except some of the detailed routing has changed.
Protip: some women enjoy one night stands too, and some men do not, or are not looking for them.
yes. i’m mostly beta and averse to one night stands. the lord in his mercy and wisdom made me tall and attractive to counteract my ludicrous shyness and lack of confidence, and i do stay fit, so once in a while a woman will throw herself at me. since i am a man i generally can’t resist, but one night stands really aren’t my thing and i don’t go looking for them.
Look at her. The ugly ones always resent healthy sexuality between men and women. The only train she’s riding is the Lesbianism Express.
lol. as if you know anything about women.
I guess I won’t be fucking on a train any time soon.
Interesting perspective. I’ve only been on an Amtrak train once when I was a little kid, but I recall the atmosphere and it seems pretty conducive to running game- it isn’t the circus of a club but it’s pretty social anyway.
I’ll keep these things in mind should I find myself on a train in the future. Thanks.
Enjoyable article about something I knew nothing about. It really is sad that rail travel in America is not anyway near as popular as in Europe or Japan. Trains are cool, and it’s unfortunate our government chooses to spend money on wars and world domination, rather than investing in the infrastructure of the nation.
Just found this fun video – riding the Santa Fe’s Super Chief from Chicago to LA circa 1956:
The Amtrak equivalent for this route, the Southwest Chief, is nowhere as luxurious but still comfortable and still social. The Indians at the Albuquerque station are still there waiting for you and your cash though.
I’m suddenly seeing web ads for “Spare the Air,” a state of California air quality initiative that is using the prospect of romance on a train as a come-on for mass transit.
Wondered if they read this article?
Wow, talking about women like they’re a hunk of meat meant to be hunted down. Ooh boy, prime rib on that one over there Chuck. This is gross.
you’re gross.
Well, since women don’t pursue men, biology makes it happen the other way.
How does an angry person like you attract a romantic suitor? Do you carry laminated ground rules? You act as if the women portrayed in this article are naive, brainless, and susceptible to the slightest suggestion. What a terrible statement to make about women, who can’t POSSIBLY think for themselves. YOU’RE the sexist.
Lifelong dream. I almost lost my virginity on a train, but had to cancel the trip. Girl wouldnt have been worth it in retrospect.
I’ve Always been more Curious about the “Mile Long Club” than the “Mile High Club.” That Said, I visited Graceland years ago and they showed us Elvis Private Plane with a King-Size Bed (pun intended) “in case he got tired on his trips.” Rrrriight!
Amtrak prices aren’t TOO Bad, and they don’t have a last minute markup like the airlines. But those Tiny Roomettes are VERY High-priced.