charleston

[darjel]

i'm coming into the charleston sc station which is actually in north charleston on the palmetto. i'm getting enterprise rentacar from charleston airport to come and pick me up when i get in. question: just how dicey is the chs station and the surrounding area while i am waiting for the rental car people?

 

[Guest]

It has been a few years since I was there, but as I recall, the station is sort of out in the middle of nowhere in an almost rural area. It is also a small, staffed station. I wouldn't expect any safety problems.

 

[Palmland]

Unfortunately Charleston is not in a rural area, but rather a somewhat derelict old industrial part of town. Not a nice area but the station is secure - chain link fence surrounds it and at train time feels very safe. Agent is on duty so you should not have any problems there. OK place to watch trains - mainline in front of the station and off to one side the CSX (former SAL) line to Andrews and Hamlet branches off.

The Palmetto is a good train if CSX is not broken that day. The business class is well worth it with 2/1 leather seating and the adjacent dinette area. Since the Palmetto arrives in the evening and may be late, you might want to consider spending the night and flying out the next morning. Good excuse to splurge and stay in the historic downtown and get some fabulous low country cooking.

 

[Guest]

With Enterprise, check their office closing times carefully. If your train arrives at 5:55pm and Enterprise closes at 6:00pm, have them on speed dial and hit it as soon as your feet hit the ground. They are supposed to come get you. Having been left stranded once (to their great credit they made it right the next day) by Enterprise, (they wouldn't answer the phone! at 5 minutes to closing and the train arrived then), I've learned to keep a list of local taxi numbers on hand or otherwise make really good acquaintance with another traveler who has access to a car (that works for short distances). A hotel may offer a shuttle to come get you.

In addition, I usually call Enterprise a few minutes prior to arrival. In a bad part of town the time it takes to catch a ride will seem much longer than it really is.

-guest

 

[darjel]

okay thanks good info

i'm staying in charleston, just coming in on sunday which leaves the airport enterprise as my only option (which is also open til 11:59 pm allowing for palmetto lateage, tho' i think on sunday it'll be okay)

taking the meteor back on thursday

 

[AmtrakWPK]

The station itself is not the smallest by any means, and passenger counts seem pretty robust. When we used that station (RT from the Orlando area) I think we rented a car from Hertz, which is an Amtrak partner, and they reimbursed us for the taxi fare to/from the CHS airport from the Amtrak station, so that we could rent Hertz at the airport. That worked out quite well. The airport is relatively close to the Amtrak station, as I recall - perhaps 5 - 10 minutes, max.