How much do departure and arrival times figure in your Amtrak trip planning?

[Kbyrdleroydogg]

I usually take the Lake Shore Limited that departs from Chicago Union Station at 9:30 pm. I like this train because you sleep on it immediately upon boarding and get into NYC refreshed and quicker.
But there is a Cardinal that leaves at 5:55 pm but gets into NYC at 10:30 or later. You stay awake until after dinner then go to sleep but you have a whole day before you get into NYC.
Which should I take? I have never been on a Cardinal before.
How much does departure time figure into your trip? Arrival time?

 

[TinCan782]

I've been on both and prefer the Cardinal (even though it is only three days a week).

 

[thully]

I will avoid any train that has a middle-of-the night departure or arrival if at all possible. For example, 48 departs Toledo at 3:20am (and the thruway bus from Ann Arbor drops you there at 10:30pm for an almost 5 hour layover), so I’ve taken longer itineraries involving the Capitol Limited and a Regional to avoid that. Also, I’m not sure I’d take the Texas Eagle westbound with that nasty 5am-ish arrival time in LA (though I have done the Capitol Limited which is similar).

 

[danasgoodstuff]

I'm pretty flexible, but I probably won't ever take the train to or from Spokane unless they put it on a more reasonable schedule.

 

[rs9]

I am generally at Lake Shore Limited traveler, and with work from home/work on the train flexibility (and traveling solo) I have the ability to thumb my nose at delays to an extent. Likewise, on trips into Rochester NY a couple times a year, my friend knows the train is coming in the late-morning/early afternoon ish and we'll find out on the day of. Again, COVID work schedules help a lot here.

I would take into account the possibility of a delay. If you get into NYC at 1:30 or 2 a.m., does that change your perspective? Are you comfortable riding public transport at that hour to your final destination if that's your plan?

Outside of that, it's probably a function of how much train time you would enjoy.

 

[MARC Rider]

When I went to Yellowstone, I took the Empire Builder, which drops you off and picks you up in Havre at about 1 PM. The alternative would be the California Zephyr, which calls on Salt Lake City in the middle of the night. There are probably more rental car options in Salt Lake City, but waiting for a train in the middle of the night didn't appeal to me.

On the other hand, I've ridden the Crescent to and from Greenville, SC (on the old schedule), and the 5 AM arrival and ~midnight departure wasn't too bad. That was partly because my hotel offered a shuttle ride to the train station, even at 11:30, and hanging around a hotel lounge sure beats hanging around an Amshack.

 

[zephyr17]

It only affects me to a limited extent. Where I live I either board at SEA or EVR, depending on where I am going, so train times are good there, and usually going the whole route route.

There are a couple trains I won't take because of times, though. The westbound Cardinal because of the early New York departure, and the westbound Sunset, due to the 5 am arrival at LA.

 

[JayPea]

I'm pretty flexible, but I probably won't ever take the train to or from Spokane unless they put it on a more reasonable schedule.

I wish I had a better option than Spokane. Not much I can do about it without going too far out of my way to make it practical. The new Empire Builder schedule does make it better, though, from my perspective. The EB departs westbound from Spokane to Seattle or Portland an hour and 15 minutes later. That gives me more time to nap before making the hour's drive to Spokane.

 

[Eric in East County]

To get from San Diego to Toledo, Ohio (our most frequent long-distance train trip destination) we already know in advance which trains we will be taking and when they leave, so we don’t have much flexibility in deciding to take earlier or later trains.

We usually depart San Diego on Pacific Surfliner No. 777 which leaves at about 12:05 p.m. and can be counted upon to come to a stop at LAUS within a few minutes of its carded arrival time. Once there, we’ll have about a 3-hour wait until SWC No. 4 departs.

If the SWC arrives in Chicago on time (which is unlikely) we’ll have 3 hours and 50 minutes before our Capitol Limited No. 30 train departs. Although we’ve never had a problem making connections between the SWC and the CL, we have them both under the same reservation number to ensure a guaranteed connection.

The return trip uses these same trains but in reverse order. First, we catch the Capitol Limited No. 29 train in Toledo at about 5:25 a.m. If it arrives in Chicago on time, we’ll have a little over 6 hours before our SWC No. 3 train departs. In the past, we’ve been inclined to gamble a bit with the No. 29 train and pay for it using travel points, thus eliminating any possibility of a guaranteed connection. However, and as someone has pointed out in a different thread, when you gamble with “Casino Amtrak” the odds are never in your favor. This year, we made sure that we have an ironclad guaranteed connection between CL No 29 and SWC No. 3.

If No. 3 arrives in LA on time (which is also unlikely) we’ll have about 2 hours before the next Pacific Surfliner departs for San Diego. Fortunately, these leave on a regular basis throughout the day, and if we miss one, we can always catch the next one. We also have the option to detrain at Fullerton and catch the next southbound Surfliner there.

Eric & Pat

 

[Barb Stout]

Arrival and departure times matter a lot to me because I'm usually taking the train to some point in Ohio where I then catch a bus to go to Columbus Ohio. There are a number of factors to take into account and I usually start the consideration of the factors at my final destination. What time do I want my sister to pick me up at or take me to the bus station in Columbus? Not during rush hour or real late at night. Then I work backwards having to account for the bus departure times in the 3 Amtrak Ohio choices of Toledo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. I have to pad enough layover time between train and bus in case the train is late. On my next trip in 2 weeks, we are taking the Cardinal 50 arriving in Cincinnati at 3:27 am and taking the bus (a different location, so have to Lyft it over) which leaves at 10 am arriving in Columbus at 11:45 am. But we're not going back that way. The return trip we're taking a bus that leaves Columbus at noon and arrives in Cleveland at 3:10 pm and we hang around Cleveland for about 12 hours when the Capitol Limited is scheduled to arrive at 2:59 am to take us to Chicago. Ohio is complicated.

 

[mitako]

I've been on the Sunset Ltd/Texas Eagle twice, and we were hours late coming home to Los Angeles Union Station. The first trip was five hours late and the second was nearly three hours late. I was happy to not arrive at the scheduled 5 AM, but can't really avoid it, as that's my home station. Both of those trips included stays in San Antonio, which has a scheduled arrival time of 4:50 AM, but we were hours late there as well, so again, not so bad. But as a general rule, I won't take a train to a city where I'd be arriving/departing any time between midnight and 4 AM.

 

[mitako]

When I went to Yellowstone, I took the Empire Builder, which drops you off and picks you up in Havre at about 1 PM. The alternative would be the California Zephyr, which calls on Salt Lake City in the middle of the night. There are probably more rental car options in Salt Lake City, but waiting for a train in the middle of the night didn't appeal to me.

On the other hand, I've ridden the Crescent to and from Greenville, SC (on the old schedule), and the 5 AM arrival and ~midnight departure wasn't too bad. That was partly because my hotel offered a shuttle ride to the train station, even at 11:30, and hanging around a hotel lounge sure beats hanging around an Amshack.

I assume you rented a car in Havre and drove to Yellowstone NP? How long of a drive was that? I've been to Yellowstone twice, both times driving from Los Angeles. That's more than 20 hours of driving time, so I'd love to let the train do most of the "driving" if I ever go there again.

 

[rfmccoy]

I will avoid any train that has a middle-of-the night departure or arrival if at all possible.

It must be nice to have options. I live in Omaha, served by the California Zephyr — one train a day in each direction. If heading west you board (scheduled) at 11pm. If heading east you board at 5am. Your advice wouldn't travel well here, or I suspect, in many areas of the country.

 

[niemi24s]

How much do departure and arrival times figure in your Amtrak trip planning?

They figure in a lot for me. They really do!

 

[Stremba]

I just completed a trip from Pittsburgh to LA this past week. For me arrival/departure times plus finances played a role in my planning. We rode the SWC from Chicago to LA — that planning was easy (one of the main reasons we did the trip was to do a western LD route). Pittsburgh-Chicago was a bit less easy.

The CL/SWC connection seems pretty safe, but I was not taking any chances. I planned on an overnight layover in Chicago. The CL from Pittsburgh departs at midnight (technically 11:59 pm) and arrives in CHI around breakfast time (assuming on time). It would have cost an extra $600 each way for the two roomettes we would have booked (me, wife and teenage son).

Since I was planning on a room anyway, and we were not doing anything on the train except sleep, (plus finding a room that would allow an early am checkin would have been tough), my cheap self looked for alternatives. I found a room near MDW that included parking for the entire duration of my LA trip for $180. The combination of departure time, arrival time, cost, and my (not unjustified) paranoia over Amtrak’s OTP led me to do something sacreligious — we drove to Chicago to catch the SWC rather than take the CL.

 

[City of Miami]

I'd love to visit Cincinnati. The Cardinal goes there and passes about 50 yds from where I sit now - the CVS station is down the street. BUT arrival times in CIN are in the wee hours, very unattractive esp in terms of accommodations, i.e. pay for a hotel AND a sleeper for the same night, going and coming. I keep looking at it hoping to make it work but Nope.

 

[Willbridge]

It depends on the situation for me. Going to McCook from Denver and return, I booked an advance night in the Chief Motel (which had a 24hr front desk) so I could crash on arrival. I've had jobs with weird hours, so learned to deal with them. Read: 23rd Hour, 23rd Psalm – Berlin 1969

The only ones that I remember starting bad were August 1967 off of Greyhound at Bandon-by-the-Sea at 2:05 a.m., being met by the town cop. And icy Bremen at 4:18 a.m. in February 1970. Both turned out okay.

Well, maybe being met by my dad at the 3:30 a.m. Greyhound arrival in Portland after my buddy and I missed our trip home from the Seattle World's Fair wasn't so great. But we did get to ride a Scenicruiser.

 

[tricia]

Since the Crescent's scheduled has changed to have such awful calling times, especially northbound, at the nearest station to me (a 2-3 hour drive away), I won't use it anymore for a roundtrip either to Washington or to New Orleans. Amtrak travel for me now only happens as part of a trip involving either an airplane or a long road trip.

 

[Maglev]

The departure and arrival times of trains profoundly influence my travel plans. For example, on the Coast Starlight from Seattle to the Bay Area, I choose to disembark in San Jose to allow plenty of time for breakfast on the train for my wife who likes to sleep in.

 

[glensfallsse]

As I type this I’m sitting in Union Station waiting for the Sunset Limited’s 10 p.m. departure … which works fine for me. I can check out of the hotel at noon at do whatever during the day.

What I won’t ever do is take the SW Chief or Sunset Limited westbound to LA with early morning arrival. Especially the one that gets in at 5 am or whatever it is. That’s fine if you live here or have a business conference or something, but it’s no good for a vacationer. What would I do at that hour? I can handle the LSL 10ish arrival — I can kill a couple of hours in the lounge if needed — but those others just don’t work for me.

 

[Bob Dylan]

As I type this I’m sitting in Union Station waiting for the Sunset Limited’s 10 p.m. departure … which works fine for me. I can check out of the hotel at noon at do whatever during the day.

What I won’t ever do is take the SW Chief or Sunset Limited westbound to LA with early morning arrival. Especially the one that gets in at 5 am or whatever it is. That’s fine if you live here or have a business conference or something, but it’s no good for a vacationer. What would I do at that hour? I can handle the LSL 10ish arrival — I can kill a couple of hours in the lounge if needed — but those others just don’t work for me.

Totally agree about the Sunset's arrival time into LAX, it's Cruel and Inhuman Punishment!( and it's calling times in San Antonio are even worse!)

 

[Gary Moline]

I've taken the TE/SSL to LA several times, but it was never on time.

 

[MARC Rider]

I assume you rented a car in Havre and drove to Yellowstone NP? How long of a drive was that? I've been to Yellowstone twice, both times driving from Los Angeles. That's more than 20 hours of driving time, so I'd love to let the train do most of the "driving" if I ever go there again.

Yeah, there's one car rental agency in Havre. They'll pick you up at the station and drop you off. One thing to be careful about is that they care closed on Sunday, so if you did what I did and make the mistake of reserving your return trip on a Sunday, you're stuck with leaving the car at the station parking lot with the key locked inside. I did that, and it was fine, except that the windshield cracked (probably from the cold) between the time I parked the car and the time the rental people picked it up the next day. Cost me a couple of hundred dollars for the repair.

I'm not sure how many hours the drive is if you drive straight through. I wasn't finished with the rental paperwork until about 2 PM, and I then drove straight to Great Falls, getting there about dark (This was February) and spending the night. The next day I drove to Bozeman and spent the night and met my roommate at the airport the next day. Then it was a couple (few?) hours driving from Bozeman to the Park entrance at Gardiner and then on to the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel. On the way back, I drove directly from Mammoth Hot Springs to Bozeman to drop my roommate at the airport and then on to Great Falls, and even had time to make a side trip to Butte. The next morning I drove from Great Falls back to Havre with plenty of time to catch the eastbound Builder back to Chicago. So I would say, it's an overnight trip from Havre to Mammoth Hot Springs, via Great Falls, Bozeman and Gardiner. It's all either interstates or rural highways with 70 mph speed limits, and fortunately for me, the weather was clear the whole way. I hate to think of what it would have been like if there had been a blizzard.

 

[west point]

The north midnight departure from ATL might be the worse biggest city scheduled departure of any LD train.

 

[Bob Dylan]

The north midnight departure from ATL might be the worse biggest city scheduled departure of any LD train.

Well I'd say San Antonio, ( Sunset Ltd), Little Rock ( Eagle) Salt Lake City( Zephyr) ,Pittsburgh( Cap West Bound)Buffalo( Lake Shore West Bound)) Cincinnatti and Indy ,( Cardinal)and Cleveland ( Lake Shore and Cap) are just as bad , if not Worse!