Finding Room for Your Bags.

There are only two kinds of travelers;

those who are traveling light

and those who wish they were.”

—Rick Steves

 
I’ve received another email asking about traveling with luggage on one of Amtrak’s western trains, specifically in a Superliner sleeping car.
 
First, Amtrak’s advice—and it’s good advice if you’re traveling with several suitcases or a really large piece—is to store your luggage in the racks located on the lower level of each sleeping car and take only the bare essentials to your roomette in an overnight bag: nightclothes, toiletries, etc.
 
I would qualify that as follows: If two of you are in one of the five big bedrooms on the Superliner, you can bring one or even two small suitcase into the room. You’ll have to move them around and move around them, but it’ll work.
 
 It’s more difficult if there are two of you in a roomette, but it’s still doable if you both can live overnight out of one small suitcase. There’s a step on the roomette wall—it’s partly visible in this photo just inside the door—that’s for use by whoever is the one climbing up into the upper berth. The rest of the time, it serves nicely as a shelf for that small suitcase.
 
But those are just the fine points. It really comes down to budget. When my wife and I travel together, we usually get two roomettes. There’s privacy when one of us wants it, no one has to climb up into an upper berth, and you get to see out of both sides of the train.
 
One other thing: Amtrak has eliminated ticket agents at a lot of the smaller railroad stations around the country. If you have in mind to check any bags, be very sure that there’s a station agent at your final destination. Otherwise, there will be no one to open the baggage car and retrieve your bags.