Crescent questions

[Chip]

I'm scheduled to take the train from ATL to BOS soon. Does anyone know why the 7/30 train arrived in New York 7 hours late?

If my train arrives at NYP too late for me to catch the Regional I'm reserved on, do I go to the ticket counter or can I just board the next scheduled Regional?

If I should arrive at NYP after the last BOS train has departed for the day, what will Amtrak do for me and where do I go at NYP to get taken care of?

I rode Amtrak from MEM to CHI and enjoyed it, but these huge delays have me worried especially since I have paid for a hotel in Boston which is non-refundable.

Thanks.

 

[AlanB]

You will need to be reticketed for the next regional, if you miss your assigned train.

If you arrive after the last train has left, or for that matter after midnight but before the overnight train to Boston, you go to the Customer Service office to get things taken care of. This office is at the end of the ticket windows, on the right end if you are facing the windows.

 

[BobWeaver]

Looks like something happened north of Charlotte on 7/30. It could have been any number of things really. However, excessive delays on 19/20 seem to be few and bar between lately from what I've seen. A 7 hour delay is pretty rare on that line, which usually runs anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours late usually give or take.

 

[Rafi]

Looks like something happened north of Charlotte on 7/30. It could have been any number of things really. However, excessive delays on 19/20 seem to be few and bar between lately from what I've seen. A 7 hour delay is pretty rare on that line, which usually runs anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours late usually give or take.

Agreed. I really would NOT worry about making a connection in New York from the Crescent. In a worst-case scenario, even a 7-hour late Crescent is going to hit Washington at 5:10 PM, and with all of the padding in the schedule on the way up to New York (combined with very limited, discharge-only) stops, that train could easily make it into NYP by 8:30, which gives you plenty of time to make an admittedly inconvenient, but available, 3:15 AM connection to train 66 enroute to Boston (arriving 7:52 AM). If you're going sleeper, you might even be able to pursuade Amtrak that the 3:15 departure from NYP is unreasonable and have them put you in a hotel for a morning departure.

Now, all of that said, a 7 hour delay to the Crescent is extremely rare these days. In fact, anything over 3 hours is pretty darn rare. As long as the train hits Washington by 3:00 PM and New York by 6:00 PM (which would account for a 4-5 hour delay, which is quite rare), making a same-day connection to Boston to arrive before midnight shouldn't be a problem.

-Rafi

P.S. Looks like this week's delay happened right around Kannapolis. Not sure what happened, though.

 

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

This is odd but I have noticed that if you are transferring to regionals for BOS off of the Crescent the booking system seems to randomly assign you to change at WAS and NYP. I took the same trip starting at Birmingham instead of Atlanta in Mid July and depending on the dates it would give me NYP and WAS as transfer points. Occasionally when I was playing around with prices it would change its mind from what it told me the day before. Could this have to do with projected congestion on specific trains or is it truly random?