He was aboard the screw frigate USS Sabine while she made midshipman training cruises to ports in Europe and the Mediterranean in 1869 and 1870, and was promoted to lieutenant commander on June 30, 1869.

He had several assignments in 1877, beginning with duty at the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California, followed by a stint aboard the sloop-of-war USS Lackawanna on the Pacific Station, and then a return to the Naval Academy for a second tour as an instructor in navigation.

[3][4] Leaving the Naval Academy in 1881, Train received a special duty assignment aboard the sidewheel frigate USS Powhatan from 1881 to 1884.

[10] During his tour, he was involved in various ways with the last weeks of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and after the decisive Japanese defeat of the Imperial Russian Navy in the Battle of Tsushima Strait in May 1905 units of the Asiatic Fleet escorted three fleeing Russian cruisers into Manila Bay in the Philippine Islands, where he ensured that their crews were well taken care of during a lengthy stay until they were able to return to Russia.

After a memorial ceremony which the Japanese admiral Heihachiro Togo and other dignitaries attended at Yokohama, Japan, aboard Train's flagship, the battleship USS Ohio, the steamer Empress of China carried his body out of the harbor under escort.

His body was transported directly to Washington, D.C.[14] Train is buried with his wife at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.