Possible to actually sleep in LSL Boston sleeper?

Sleeping for me is intermittent at best, but that constant horn/whistle blowing wears me out.

I have no problem with horns on any of the trains I have slept on. I just take out my hearing aids and all goes quiet. Works well at home also - when she says "Honey, can you ...?"

Though the horn is louder next to the engine, it has never kept me awake at night. I have never used ear plugs or even carry them with me.

I'm reasonably convinced that given the horns on each locomotive face both forward and backward, there's no splitting them to only 'blow' in the forward motion of travel. Of course, a 2nd locomotive facing rearward would have to 'blow' from the rear facing horns relative to the Front (F) end of the locomotive.

Why do I make that assumption? When riding the NEC in the BC car, the 8th car from the locomotive, I STILL hear the horn when used to for work zones, entering bridges and tunnels, too. The only possible explanation is that the rear trumpets of the horn are also sounding.

velotrain said:

When something is really loud I'll turn on my side and bury the half-good ear in the pillow, but I suspect the Amtrak mattresses are so thin that they don't work for side sleeping.

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I'm a side sleeper and the mattresses are just fine. They are nothing like a deluxe pillowtop mattress, but they are adequate. (Even more so if you can double up on the mattresses as I often do when in a roomette.) Though if you have joint issues, I can see where it could present a problem.

I definitely recommend earplugs. I have excellent hearing and yet often only need one, for the ear that is exposed when side sleeping, but they also come in handy for other parts of the trip. Like others have mentioned, I tend to not sleep well on a train and so have need of a nap or two in the daytime. Because of the condition of the individual cars, sometimes the public address announcements are barely audible and other times it's like sitting next to the loudspeaker at a raceway or fairgrounds grandstand. If the latter situation is in effect, hearing the "Aaaaaaaatention ladies and gentlemen..." a number of times throughout the day can be draining when it wakes one out of a fairly deep sleep. That's when two earplugs are quite helpful.

Then there are situations where your fellow passengers make themselves at home a bit too much and carry on loud conversations with their doors open or make extended cell phone calls every time they have a signal to do so with. Having earplugs or perhaps noise-cancelling earphones come in very handy then, too.

I rode it for the first time Saturday, no problems sleeping at all. YMMV

Oh my, the horns on the Boston section. I was glad to see this discussed. Normally I head South on the Crescent in a sleeper: having arrived from Boston via Acela or other Northeast Regional service. Last May I took took the Boston section sleeper of the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago to connect with the City of New Orleans. I was tremendously disturbed by the near constant horn sounding. The experience was very much at odds with the Crescent sleeper. I found myself wondering if this was something new or was something that had not bothered me previously. Now I know that it's unique to the LSL. In the future I now know to reserve on the New York section if I choose this route.