Preferred connection time between Long Distance (LD) trains

For those of you who have done long-disance trips in the US with a connection, is a long connection a welcome break or a boring waste of time?

Although there are exceptions (and occasional bad individual experiences) most people are relatively comfortable booking a domestic airline connection of 1.5 - 2.0 hours. If that same level of reasonable confidence existed for trains would you want a 1.5 - 2.0 connection between long haul trains? Or is something more like 6-ish hours (daytime) more desirable?

I can see both sides. On the one hand I can see wanting to get where you're going -- seems fairly obvious. But if you've got 40 hours under your belt and 20 more to go is several leisurly hours on land where you can walk around and get a relaxed non-train meal a welcome break, and a 62 hour trip versus 66 hour trip isn't really that substantial a difference?

I would rather have a few hours than an hour or so. Enough time to grab something to eat, etc.
That said, I always build in an overnight between connecting trains (Chicago, New Orleans, Seattle, Portland, Emeryville). LA is my "home" station.

If you were in a hurry you'd presumably fly...

I'm taking my first long-distance US rail trip this summer and I'm hoping for an on-time arrival into Chicago giving me a few hours for some very brief sightseeing and a meal.

A one-and-half hour wait would be the worst of all worlds - not enough to do much, but a long time to sit around. Airline connections take up some of it with the inevitable airport hassle, plus the fact that their times are when the aircraft actually arrives and departs - you get off later than quoted and have to be at the gate earlier.

If we can magic up a world where Amtrak runs to time, so that slack to make sure of the connection isn't a consideration, I'd want either a six-to-eight hour break or just enough time to comfortably stroll from the arriving platform to the departing one, not an awkward in-between wait. For comparison, here in the UK I'd consider a scheduled connection longer than about twenty minutes to be rather an inconvenience.

Sam-day connections in Chicago for east to west coast trains are 3 or more hours in either direction. These are usually made. If you book a same-day connection in Chicago for sleeping car travel it's problematic if you miss your connection. Amtrak will probably put you up in a hotel, but you likely will be in coach for the second leg because they will probably not have sleeper space for you on the next day’s train.

If you disconnect in Los Angeles to the coast starlight they will send you on a bus train connection through Bakersfield to get you to the bay area or catch up to the starlight in Martinez.

If you have sleeping car accommodations, you can wait for your connecting train in the Metropolitan Lounge, assuming your station has one. That’s what we always do.

Traveling east from San Diego to Toledo, we take Pacific Surfliner 777 which departs San Diego a minute or so after 12 noon. If it’s running on time, we’ll have a 2-hour 58-minute wait before our Southwest Chief No. 4 departs. Assuming our SWC arrives in Chicago on time, we’ll have a 3-hour 50-minute wait before our Capitol Limited No. 30 departs. It has been suggested to us that, instead of trying to make a same day connection to the CL, we should spend the night in Chicago and then take the next day’s CL. We’ve never done this since we’ve never missed this connection save once. (Fortunately, on that occasion, we had a guaranteed connection, so Amtrak paid for our hotel and meals and sent us out the next day’s train.) Even spending the night in Chicago can have its drawbacks. One year, our same day connection CL No. 30 arrived in Toledo an hour late. The next day’s No. 30 arrived in Toledo six hours late so, by not spending the night in Chicago, we avoided a major inconvenience.

Heading west from Toledo to San Diego, we take Capitol Limited No. 29 to Chicago. There we’ll have a 6-hour 5-minute wait before our Southwest Chief No. 3 boards. Spending that much time in the Chicago Union Station Metropolitan Lounge is not all that bad. There is even a shower there, if you want one.

Finally, when we reach LA, we’ll have a 2-hour 10-minute wait for our Pacific Surfliner 770 to San Diego. If for some reason, SWC No. 3 is running late, we have the option to catch 770 or the next scheduled PSL in Fullerton. (PSLs run about every hour or so.)

I think some of these replies - focusing on what-ifs and fallbacks and the likelihood of delays - have missed the point of the original question:

“If that same level of reasonable confidence existed for trains”

That is, even if you were guaranteed to always make it, would you want to schedule a connection of a few minutes, or is a few hours off the train a positive benefit?

Pete

I prefer a bit of time off the train. I love train travel, but I also try to make the most of the sights at journeys end.
I guess it depends on the purpose of your ride, if you need to get somewhere asap, then short connection times are best, but if it is a leisure trip, then a longer break might be good.
The idea that one could expect a reliable scheduled connection as short as 20minutes is entirely fanciful on Amtrak, and pretty rare here in the UK too these days, methinks!

moselman66 said:

For those of you who have done long-disance trips in the US with a connection, is a long connection a welcome break or a boring waste of time?

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Depends on the circumstances. For a station with lots to see and do in the immediate vicinity during Amtrak calling times (rare in my experience) a few extra hours might be really nice, but more likely to be boring considering how many Amtrak stations are isolated and/or visited outside of normal business hours.

moselman66 said:

If that same level of reasonable confidence existed for trains would you want a 1.5 - 2.0 connection between long haul trains? Or is something more like 6-ish hours (daytime) more desirable?

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I tend to book 90min flight connections and have accepted as little as 45 minute if I'm familiar with the airport. If rail was as reliable as flying I'd probably do the same for Amtrak connections. Once you get beyond 2-3 hours I would prefer to have a true stopover rather than come back 6-ish hours later.

Pete said:

I think some of these replies - focusing on what-ifs and fallbacks and the likelihood of delays - have missed the point of the original question:

“If that same level of reasonable confidence existed for trains”

That is, even if you were guaranteed to always make it, would you want to schedule a connection of a few minutes, or is a few hours off the train a positive benefit?

Pete

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Getting off the train for a bit can be beneficial. You get a chance to excercise and get some good food. Usually trains stations, unlike airports, are near city centers, so there are things to see and do, often within walking distance.

One thing to consider is the length of the originating leg of the trip. It doesn't so much matter where you are boarding. For example, taking the EB from somewhere in Wisconsin and trying to connect in Chicago to another train. It's not delays between Wisconsin and Chicago that might cause you problems, but delays in Montana.

It is much easier to make quick connections from an Eastern train than from a Western one because the Eastern trains are no more than a single night and are less likely to be delayed long enough to miss a connection, so you need less time.

As for making a connection in a small city with nothing to do or see at late hours and everything is closed, as @Devil's Advocate mentioned: Most or all train-to-train connections are in major cities: New York, Chicago, Washington, Las Angeles, etc. so this isn't much of an issue. However, it can be serious with bus-to-train connections. Waiting around in Kingman after taking the bus from Las Vegas to catch an hour or two late SWC at midnight was very boring. At least they let us wait inside the station, on hard wooden benches, and we didn't have to stand for 2+ hours on the platform with no seats at all. (Other passengers seemed to be surprised they opened the station for us, maybe this was unusual. We were a full bus load plus local traffic, and they should have known that; maybe that was the reason they let us inside.)

tgstubbs1 said:

Getting off the train for a bit can be beneficial. You get a chance to excercise and get some good food. Usually trains stations, unlike airports, are near city centers, so there are things to see and do, often within walking distance.

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East-bound CZ arrived in Winnemucca on time, but there was supposed to be a crew change and the replacement crew, who I think arrived on a very delayed west-bound CZ earlier that day hadn't had enough down time (10 hours required?) so there was going to be an extra 2 hour delay wait for them to be legal. I spent a lot of the time walking up and down the platform about a dozen times, so I got my daily exercise in, There was some sort of event in town a couple of blocks from the station, and I could hear music from a nearby bar, but I was too paranoid to leave the train-side.

(It actually worked out well for one passenger. There was a medical emergency in the other sleeper just as we were about to leave which delayed us for another 20 minutes waiting for the ambulance to come and take the poor passenger to the local hospital, but imagine if we had left on time and it had happened 120 miles out in the desert? I think the Winnemucca hospital was the closest in at least 100 miles, and the poor person would have had to wait a couple of hours while an ambulance drove out to meet the train and then another couple of hours while it drove him back to the hospital, before he could even see a doctor. I hope it turned out okay.)

I generally overnight between the LD trains. Two nights in New Orleans. One in Chicago (but will stay in Aurora, and the end of the Metra BNSF line) (there's a good hotel within a block or two, and a good Irish pub for dinner a few blocks further on). I'll overnight in Charlottesville, VA because downtown is so much fun, and the Omni hotel is convenient to the station and downtown. Los Angeles has Philippe for food three blocks from the station, and the Metro Plaza hotel, dated but decent. Etc.

What they all said. I don't mind a one night to two night connection, but after two nights on a train, I'm ready for a hotel room and some sightseeing. There's plenty to do in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland. I love train travel (especially in a room) as much as anyone, but I can't see stretching more than three nights in a row.

A long, long time ago I did around the country circle trips in coach, with a hotel and a nice restaurant dinner every third night.

Unlike most of you, I'd prefer just long enough to comfortably stroll to the next train, with perhaps a stop in the washroom for a plumbing inspection and snack purchase.

Pete said:

I think some of these replies - focusing on what-ifs and fallbacks and the likelihood of delays - have missed the point of the original question:

“If that same level of reasonable confidence existed for trains”

That is, even if you were guaranteed to always make it, would you want to schedule a connection of a few minutes, or is a few hours off the train a positive benefit?

Pete

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Yup, that's exactly what the sort of feedback I was looking for. If the trains ran like clockwork so theres no concern of missing a connection, if you're on a long multi-day trip with a connection is having a handful of hours between trains a nice break or a waste of time?

If it helps frame the question this is related to a personal scheduling project I've been playing with, maybe something to share for fun down the road. So this isn't about me looking for feedback on planning my own travel, but more about trying to create the best system I can. I have a decent handle on many other aspects but I really don't know if there's a solid preference for longer-haul connections.

Thanks for the input!

Probably a few hours. I'd love to be able to walk around the city (especially one like Chicago) for a bit before catching my next train. Train travel is all about seeing the country, so it'd be nice to actually experience some of it too.

I love a four hour or so connection in Chicago. I always go out and walk around, usually down to Grant Park and the Navy Pier, grab some lunch and get back to Union Station about an hour or so before scheduled departure out west. Nice way to break up the transcontinental trip from NY. I've done it many times and have always made the connection. Coming east is not as nice since you're arriving later into Chicago.

I've intentionally booked longer layovers in NY and DC to have more time to go around, visit museums, etc.

Pete said:

That is, even if you were guaranteed to always make it, would you want to schedule a connection of a few minutes, or is a few hours off the train a positive benefit?

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If you want to create a layover somewhere, sure, go ahead (and insist that stations where these connections are made have good baggage storage options.) That makes sense for multi-day trips where you want a break, or perhaps where you deliberately have one business day somewhere between a morning arrival and an afternoon departure.

But can tell you that when I was in Italy last fall, people routinely booked, and made, <15 minute connections. (Of course if you did miss your train you could be put on another within a couple hours.) It makes a 2-train trip of a few hundred miles MUCH more competitive with driving or flying to not add an hour or more in the middle of it.

John Santos said:

As for making a connection in a small city with nothing to do or see at late hours and everything is closed, as @Devil's Advocate mentioned: Most or all train-to-train connections are in major cities: New York, Chicago, Washington, Las Angeles, etc. so this isn't much of an issue. However, it can be serious with bus-to-train connections. Waiting around in Kingman after taking the bus from Las Vegas to catch an hour or two late SWC at midnight was very boring.

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Exactly. People naturally think of connections that occur in big cities that never sleep, but there are plenty of other connections that occur in the dead of night (SAS, KCY, OKC, NEW) or last so long you just want to get on with your trip already (STL, GBB, NOL) or require an overnight on your own dime if you want to connect to a daytime train (PDX, SEA, NOL). I can make do with most of these options once or twice but after the first few trips I've seen what interests me and I'd rather make it a destination or get moving again.

Siegmund said:

But can tell you that when I was in Italy last fall, people routinely booked, and made, <15 minute connections. (Of course if you did miss your train you could be put on another within a couple hours.)

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Yep - despite what Caravanman said, I wouldn’t find anything unusual or concerning about a planned 10 or 15 minute connection in the UK.

I’m at the opposite end of the country to him and train companies do vary, but Southwestern Railway here generally run to time. Occasionally there will be major disruption like when we had high winds and multiple trees fallen on the tracks all round the network, or the land slip that took out the main line to and from London, but when that happens the entire timetable goes out the window rather than individual trains being a little late. Under those circumstances you pretty much just jump on anything heading in the right direction and hope for the best, and the guards (conductors in American) generally give up checking tickets and spend their time helping people find a route home instead.

nferr said:

I love a four hour or so connection in Chicago. I always go out and walk around, usually down to Grant Park and the Navy Pier, grab some lunch and get back to Union Station about an hour or so before scheduled departure out west. Nice way to break up the transcontinental trip from NY. I've done it many times and have always made the connection. Coming east is not as nice since you're arriving later into Chicago.

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The long layovers in Chicago for the Western trains are done for a purpose; to accommodate delays that happen on routes owned by the freight railroads. It increases the likelihood of making your connection and not missing your train. If we arrive on time we go over to Greektown (about a 4 block walk) for lunch. There on S.Halstead street you have restaurants like the Greek Island, a large supermarket (Marianos), Starbucks Coffee, and a CVS drug store.

Every trip, especially one with connections, is a "crap shoot". Here are a few of mine:
Going to Phoenix from Philadelphia with a stopover in New Orleans. As usual, the Crescent arrived 2 hours late (9pm) in NO. Taxi to hotel, great time sight-seeing next day, overnight at hotel. Message from Amtrak at 7am: " 9am Sunset Limited running late. No need to get to the station before noon". Train arrives at noon and departs at 1:30pm. Gets to our stop the next day at 1am instead of 8pm. No transportation, including Uber, to get to Phoenix. Bribe a driver in a van with $40. to get us to the hotel.

Flying from Philadelphia to Brazil. Plane backs out of gate, then stops for 15 minutes. "We are having red lights flashing, so we are switching to a different 'plane". We leave 2 hours later. Since our flight to Brazil has a connecting flight in Miami of 2 1/2 hours, we might make it. Get to Miami with 30 minutes to spare, but the plane cannot latch on to the gate. 40 minutes later, we can start getting off. We get lucky because the Brazil flight leaves 2 hours late.

Having not answered the original question , we would prefer to not have the 5 hour layover at Chicago Union Station but this is not 1960 where most trains ran on schedule. If it would be possible one hour would be plenty.

It really depends on the particular trip and the transfer point. In general on cross-country trips we plan stopovers at places where we have family, friends or places we want to see. If the train connections are awkward or dicey, though, we will sometimes plan to spend an extra day or night somewhere.

I know there are people who regularly plan to spend the night in Chicago rather than relying on Amtrak's same-day connections, but in 20-plus cross-country trips we have never done this. Once Amtrak put us up in a Chicago hotel for the night when we were transferring from the Chief to the Lake Shore, but this was not because of a missed connection but because our sleeper on the Lake Shore was bad-ordered and there were no rooms left in the other two sleepers. We were given a choice of taking a room on the same night's Capitol Limited plus two coach rides the next day from Washington to NYP to Albany -- or a bedroom on the next night's Lake Shore. We chose the latter.

If the trains all ran like clockwork, at this point I'd rather have a 1-2 hour layover in Chicago than a six-hour one. But realizing that they don't, I'd rather have the six-hour layover than have a high risk of missing the connection.