Greetings,
I will need to travel from San Francisco to Boston in October and thinking to take an Amtrak train. I want to take California Zephyr to Chicago, travel to Chicago by California Zephyr. Then from Chicago to Boston on whatever train goes this way.
My longest trip on train was only 15 hours and I never traveled by Amtrak before, so I have a lot of questions and will appreciate any answer.

1) What could you do on the train except looking for scenery? I am afraid it could be really boring.
2) Which part of the route has the nice scenery (so I’ll not miss it)? Are there better routes for scenery that California Zephyr? I thought to go thru Portland, OR and Glacier Park but it seems to be much longer route.
3) How hard it will be to travel 55 hours in coach? How comfortable it is compare to Greyhound bus? Coach ticket costs $145, upgrade to sleeper room cost additional $650, does it worth it?
4) How busy is California Zephyr train in October? From previous posts I understood that it is possible to upgrade to sleeper on the train, for less price than on Amtrak site. Is it true for California Zephyr? Is it usually possible to buy coach ticket for the next day, or you really need to buy them in advance?
5) I am thinking about taking a 15-day pass and get out at main cities like Denver, Salt Lake City, to have a rest, sleep in hostel and get on the train next day. Does it make sense? How does this pass work? Can I just jump on any train or I still have to call Amtrak/reserve place somehow?
6) Do they have quiet coach cars on California Zephyr?
7) Are a lot of people with babies/kids traveling in this train by coach? Can you change coach to another or sit is assigned and can not be changed?
8) How to buy Amtrak tickets cheaper  Are there any discounts, promotions? I am not a student and not an AAA member. Are the price fixed on their site?
9) Is there electricity in coaches so I can charge my laptop couple times a day? I found on Amtrak site that electric outlets are available in all upgraded rooms, but didn’t found anything about coaches.

Any other tips will be helpful!

Hello Fellow Amtrakers! I hope you're all enjoying your summer and getting a few trips on the rails in. I could use some opinions on Acela and Guest Rewards....


So as you guys who use Acela and have Guest Rewards know riders get a 500 point bonus for riding Acela for a long enough distance (like New York to Boston) and I've had Guest Rewards for about five years now and am finally getting close to the magic number needed to get one free one way ticket in zone 1.

I'm about 500 points away and would certainly love to have the ticket but I'm still not sure if its worth it. I could really use your opinion in my decision making process. I'll brake down my options with a make-shift chart below:


NYC-BOS options:

Acela                                                         Northeast Regional                        Megabus

3 1/2  Hour Trip                                       4 Hour Trip                                       4 Hour Trip
Very Comfortable                                    Pretty Comfortable                         Not So Comfortable
$90-120                                                    $60                                                    $10
500 Guest Rewards Points                  120 Guest Rewards Points          0 Guest Rewards Poi ts

Is it worth it to ride Acela? I love the thought of riding High Speed Rail in the United States and it would be great to have the free ticket but is it worth the monies?  What do you think?

but a few friends and i are going to be taking an amtrak train in a few months and one of my friends would like to bring a few alcoholic beverages with her.. i have heard it is allowed, but the problem is, shes underage, hence why this is an immature question. i dont want her to get caught but shes stubborn. she never listens to me anyway. sooo, i was wondering, if any of you guys have traveled on an amtrak train recently, how do they screen baggage? do they even look? or is there an xray thing? is she better off checking her bags than carrying them on? any help would be appreciated! thank you!!
:)

Congress passes $15B Amtrak reauthorization bill. Both the House and the Senate have passed this with enough votes to override a veto, which the White House has threatened. Now, on to the conference committee...

A few minutes ago I heard the westbound Capitol Limited blowing its horn for the crossing at Boundary Street in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, which is just before it enters Schenley Tunnel, on its way to the station in Pittsburgh.


View Larger Map

Around 8 in the evening, when I have the time, I'll drive 10 minutes to watch Amtrak's Pennsylvanian turn around before backing into the station and parking for the night.

Does anyone else here go out and watch Amtrak?

I'm looking at possibly moving to Sacramento, and I think that a lot of travel to San Francisco would be involved (if nothing else to keep me sane, I'm not a small-town person), calling for the Capitol Corridor. It looks like I can either take an Amtrak coach from Emeryville to Embarcadero, or I can just get off the train in Richmond and take the BART to Embarcadero. The difference in time is a couple minutes, tops, and I get a discount on BART due to disability that basically renders the difference in cost too close to bother calculating. For some reason, Amtrak says that the only accessible coach station in San Francisco is the Embarcadero stop (they call it Ferry Building), but that's fine by me because Embarcadero is probably the most convenient entry point to the City anyhow for Muni and bus connections.

By point of reference, the timetable is: here.

What do folks tend to do? I would think people more familiar/comfortable with San Francisco, which I am, would just skip the thruway and take BART into the City. Is there an access reason to not bother with the thruway coach?

This is all just theoretical right now, but I'm going to have to answer the question eventually, I'm either going to end up in SF or Sac it seems.

Planning on travelling Chicago to LA on the Texas Eagle next May.  I would like to stop off en route for a couple of days in a smallish place to get the feel of America (as a pensioner this will be my one and only trip Stateside and I want to make the best of it if I can).  I would like to go somewhere where the people are friendly, I don't need a car and it's safe to walk around.  Any suggestions please?  Thanks.

So this weekend I took Amtrak for the first time. I rode the Empire Builder from St. Paul to Chicago. I had a blast and was almost crying when they said we were pulling into Union Station. Boy did those 8 hours fly.

Because I had so much fun I am thinking about just riding the train out to LA and back during spring break. However for the trip there I want to ride the same train I took to Chicago to it's final destination than go from there to LA. My return trip to Chicago would be the straight shot from LA.

I am thinking about maybe doing the sleeping car there and than riding coach back. If I do do the sleeping car option how do I find the upgrade price on the Amtrak site.

I rode coach home and it was just fine, I kind of just want to see what it would be like in a sleeper car.


NVM: I found out how. I'll stick with coach.

so that being said, has anyone done this before. am I crazy wanting to see the country like this?

am I able to shower or some how bathe on the train?

I am moving from Boston to Los Angeles and am planning to use this opportunity to see some of the US. Can anyone offer me advice on how I can save money (moving is very expensive) while still making the most of my trip - or in other words, what is worth spending money on? Should I spend money on a sleeper or are the coach seats comfortable for sleeping? Is the dining food worth the money?

For anyone who saw anything about the Amtrak train crashed in Chicago, link here, I just wanted to let you know everyone is OK as far as I know. Its a shame it happened so close to being in Chicago! It happened just past the Dan Ryan after they use a little bridge to pass it. I knew the engineer, the engineer on stand by in case the original engineer went dead, the conductors and the LSA who were working it. I think it was mostly all crew members in the hospital and one passenger, everyone else was ok.

The only problem was, from what I heard, seats in the first superliner car detached from their bases or were turned around from the crash -- even though the train was only going about 15-20 MPH.

Do any of the trains serve anything special for the holidays like Egg Nog? 

Good Evening Everyone,

I am looking for a map of the interior of New York's Penn Station. Long story short, I am looking at taking a few trips up there this coming year and I would like to have something to work with. I am sure most people will say "just wait till you get there" but I would like to have some idea of where things are inside. I found a map of the MTA map but that doesn't do me much good other than the fact it says Amtrak and NJT are upstairs. Any and all help would be nice.

It's me again. The same person who asked all of those questions about taking the train the very first time to Denver. This time Im taking the train to Walt Disney World in December. Also this time I wont have so many questions. LOL. We are taking the train from Penn Station in NYC to the train station in Kissimee.

Are these trains nicer? 

I know it makes a stop in Washington, DC but is there a way I can see the landmarks from the station or the train?

Do they serve the same food?

That's all I have and no I wont have anymore.

Thanks for your answers. 

The previous community post about the Japanese tourist removed from a train by police for taking pictures upset me enough to write Amtrak. This is what I received back this morning:
( Read more... )

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/opinion/01thu4.html

A Little Hope for Amtrak

Published: November 1, 2007

Anyone who has ridden Amtrak lately, especially anyone familiar with rail travel in Europe or Japan, should be able to see that it needs help. Congress is considering a bill to significantly increase funding for the nation’s only passenger railroad. The bill would be a welcome step, but even if it passes, Amtrak — badly underfunded compared with air and auto travel — could use a lot more support.

The Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act, which passed the Senate Tuesday, would direct a little more than $3 billion a year to Amtrak for each of the next six years. The bill comes courtesy of one of Washington’s more unlikely duos, Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Senator Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi. Rail travel is important not only to their states but to the whole country.

Railroads are a relief valve for America’s clogged skies and overloaded highways. They also make environmental sense. According to the National Association of Railroad Passengers, airplanes use energy at a rate of 20 percent more per passenger mile than Amtrak. Cars are even worse, at 27 percent more per passenger mile.

Rail offers other advantages. Surveys show that people who suffer road rage and airplane anxiety yearn for more civilized ways to travel. Amtrak will never be the Orient Express. But as regulars can attest, a trip across the Rockies or up the Hudson River from New York City can be an extraordinarily pleasant way to get around. It would be even more pleasant if Amtrak were on time. This bill would try to help with that by fining freight rail companies that cause many of the delays.

The goal of the Senate bill is to make Amtrak more efficient, not to turn it into a profitable enterprise as the Bush administration has attempted in the past. The House now needs to act. If the bill becomes law, it would give Amtrak steady enough financial support that its managers could start to plan a few years at a time — and spare them their yearly trek to Capitol Hill. In the costly world of mass transportation, adequately funding Amtrak is an easy bargain.

My obligatory plea: Write or call your Representative about this bill I wasn't able to find a bill number for this in the House, as of yet, but whoever takes your call or reads your letter should know what you're referring to when you mention 'The Amtrak bill'.

So I live in Downtown Los Angeles, and my parents may be about to move back to Arizona (Tucson, to be specific). I'm in a wheelchair and no fan of the LAX shuffle, and I'm car-free (in LA, yay!) so the airport thing isn't an attractive option for short-haul trips.

I've only taken the Metroliner and Acela on the Boston-NYC route, so I'm not at all familiar with the Superliners that run through the rest of the Amtrak network.

So what can people tell me about the Sunset Limited? Does it have at least a casual relationship to its schedule? ;p I wouldn't mind coming in late to LA or leaving late from LA, Union Station is a pretty comfortable place to sit around in, but the arrival and departures in Tucson are a bit after midnight and the station sure doesn't look like Penn Station so I'm not hot on sitting around all night waiting for a train or keeping my parents up all night - I can't imagine we're going to get much in the way of cell phone service in the back 40 of Pinal County so I wouldn't even be able to update them except once from Yuma and once from Maricopa.

How is it setup? Since I'm just going from LA-Tucson I personally find it silly to get more than a coach seat, although when my mother comes to LA she'll probably either fly or get a roomette or something. Where is the dining car in relation to the seating? Is there an observation area? Call me crazy but I think the desert is one of the most beautiful things in the US, I'm not anxious to take a train through it and not see anything. I guess my understanding is that the seating/dining/observation stuff is on the upper level of the Superliners.

I can get out of the wheelchair and can maneuver up steps fine, though I do so by basically lifting myself by my arms, I'm an amputee. If Amtrak isn't going to throw a tantrum I have no problem parking the wheelchair on the lower level and getting around on my own on the upper level.

I've had extremely good experiences with the folks on the Acela and Metroliner being very accommodating to the wheelchair (my trip down to NYC the staff on my car always ordered my breakfast for me and everything since the wheelchair doesn't change cars easily or safely on the Metroliners), but the Northeast Corridor lines never presented the steps issue that the Superliners will.

When it comes time to actually deal with this I'll talk to a ticket agent at LA Union Station, but at the moment it's all theoretical since they may not even move back to Arizona yet. I'd like to see them move back though, for a variety of reasons, and knowing that I'll and they'll have easy access to Amtrak to Tucson may help convince them.

Does anyone know what happened to Conductor Zeb Love who used to ride between San Antonio and Texarkana on the Eagle?