Oh, if you are trying to get from Chicago to LA, SWC is a far better route for sure. I was trying to get to Tucson, so my choices were to SWC to LA & then go east on Sunset Limited to Tucson, or, City of New Orleans to NO & west on the Sunset to Tucson. Or this Texas Eagle hack.

I'm in Portland now, so my choice here is which direction I want for my beautiful views.

I'm in Detroit, which means luckily for me, I am on one of the best regional routes to Chicago (the Wolverine goes between Chicago & Detroit 6 times a day & gets up to 120 mph), for easy access to most long distance Amtrak routes. The downside is they are all long & thus expensive & time consuming.

we were thinking about taking Amtrak from chicago to visit friends outside Detroit but the logistics (and necessity, with little kids) of getting a rental car at the end really makes it hard to justify not just driving

The lack of transit here in Detroit does suck. I'm going in reverse. Not having a car in Chicago is a feature, not having to deal with parking or traffic. If you stick to the central business district in Detroit, you can get away without a car & only stick to the pathetic light rail.

It'll get you to all the museums, sports stadiums, lots of other venues. But it's not super kid friendly. I admit I'm indulging in more train travel since my kid has grown - I have more money at this stage in my life & she's easier to travel with. (I travel more in general now, honestly.)