Morning vs Afternoon: Which Is Actually Worse for Sun on a Train?
"Travel in the morning, beat the afternoon sun." You've probably heard a version of this. It sounds right. The afternoon sun is harsh, mornings are nicer, problem solved.
Except it doesn't work that way — at least not for choosing a seat. Whether morning or afternoon is worse for you depends almost entirely on which direction your train is going. The time of day is only half the equation.
The actual logic
The sun moves east to west across the sky throughout the day. Morning: east. Midday: south (if you're in the northern hemisphere). Late afternoon: west.
Your train is moving in a fixed direction. Those two things interact.
If you're heading east in the morning, the sun is rising more or less ahead of you and to your right. The right side of the train gets hammered. Switch to an afternoon departure and the sun is now behind you — right side is shaded, much better.
Same route, different time, completely opposite result.
Flip it: heading west in the afternoon means you're driving roughly into the setting sun. Brutal. Take the morning train west and the sun is behind you — fine.
What this means when you're booking
For roughly east-west routes, time of day is a big deal. You can actually choose a departure time that puts you on the shaded side for the whole journey, just by picking morning vs afternoon.
For roughly north-south routes, the effect is less dramatic. The sun hits both sides more evenly throughout the day, so the seat side matters more than the departure time.
The shortcut
If you're genuinely torn between two departure times, plug both into SunRide and compare. It'll show you the sun exposure percentage for each side at each time — takes about 20 seconds total and you'll immediately see if one time is significantly better than the other.
Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes both times are roughly equal and it doesn't matter. Either way, now you know.
The "just take the morning train" advice isn't wrong — it's just incomplete. It depends on where you're going. Now you know what to actually look for.