One major downside is that the schedule is very unpredictable between Portland and Seattle, due to right of way being preempted by freight traffic. It's not uncommon to have to pull into a siding and sit for 10-20 minutes several times.
That said the comfort between train and air travel is night and day, you get much more space, plenty of outlets, room to get up and move around, purchase food and drinks, even if the food is worse than airline food.
On the east coast Amtrak is doing this thing where they pull the dining cars off of long distance trains and have snack cars only and offer lower roomette fares in return. Reviews are mixed.
How can the food be worse than airline food? I haven’t been on a flight in years that had anything other than prepackaged snacks available at any price.
It was a burger in a plastic wrap, which was microwaved to heat it.
I've had bad airline food, like British Airways ten years back, and food from British trains, but Amtrak's offering was easily the worst. Hopefully they've improved by now.
The best meal was on a Swiss train (in Germany). That was also the cheapest Swiss food I've ever had.
