<p class="ingestion featured-caption">I love traveling by train. Diana Kruzman</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>I've traveled across the US numerous times on <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-everyone-should-know-before-taking-long-train-77-hours-2022-9">Amtrak trains</a>.</li><li>My experiences have been overwhelmingly positive, but I've run into plenty of mishaps.</li></ul><p>Amtrak is the biggest name in US train travel, which also means there's a pretty high demand, especially around the holidays — over 1 million passengers boarded trains <a target="_blank" class href="https://media.amtrak.com/2024/10/amtrak-encourages-booking-thanksgiving-travel-now/">around Thanksgiving time</a> last year.</p><p>I've crisscrossed the US numerous times on Amtrak trains from San Francisco to Chicago, Denver to California, Los Angeles to New Orleans, <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/review-amtrak-train-new-york-chicago-2021-7">New York to Chicago</a>, Chicago to Washington, DC, New York to Boston, and Chicago to Portland, Oregon.</p><p>Although my <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/long-haul-flights-not-worth-it-shorter-trips-2024-1">long-haul journeys</a> have been positive overall, things can always go wrong.</p><p>Here are the biggest mishaps I've encountered on Amtrak journeys and how I prepare for them in advance.</p>