Late night/early morning arrivals

[mitako]

Still working on my cross-country train trip planning. I'm curious how you all handle middle-of-the-night or very early am arrival times. Is it easy to catch an Uber at 5:00 AM, for example, or at two in the morning? What do you do when it's way too early to start sightseeing? Or you arrive at your destination at three in the morning?

Any comments/suggestions/tips for working around inconvenient arrival times would be much appreciated!

 

[SarahZ]

It really depends on the destination. Some areas don't have readily available cabs/Ubers, but there might be a hotel van that picks people up from the station. Do you have a particular city in mind?

If it's 2-3 a.m., I would just stay up, so that would mean crashing as soon as I got to the hotel. I'd wake up around 10 or 11 and have brunch. I'm a night owl, so this works well for me.

If it's 5:00 a.m, I might have had only a few hours of sleep (if that), so I'll either find a place to eat breakfast and start sightseeing, or I'll go back to sleep and go out later. It just depends on the area and what I want to do that day/evening.

 

[bratkinson]

I'll assume your concern is early morning (or quite late evening) arrivals at your destination(s). Obviously, arriving at Podunk USA, in the wee hours will find you standing alone on the platform with nothing moving except the train accelerating away from you. Arrival at large metropolitan areas any any hour of the day would likely have a line or taxis waiting for customers outside the door. Uber or other similar services, there may be some available.

But, for the record, after arriving at New Orleans after 10PM aboard the Crescent this past April, I encountered another passenger who was waiting more than 30 minutes after contacting Uber to get a ride. I was waiting for the street car that happened to be running way behind schedule that night and were 'bunched together' on the route, I discovered.

 

[railiner]

A lot would also depend on whether you could wait around inside the station until 'morning', or would it be locked up tight... That might make the difference to me, as to whether or not I would spring for a short stay in a hotel, or not.

 

[PVD]

I some towns, the one or two taxis/cars on the road off hours gravitate to the station to meet an arriving train because it may be one of the few decent fares they get on an otherwise bleak shift.You might try a search against town name/amtrak station and see if any reviews/comments shed any light.

 

[Heading North]

A few years ago I arrived in Charleston, SC at 5 AM off the Meteor. Id looked up phone numbers for cabs in advance (from this site I believe) but had no trouble finding one waiting at the station, went to the hotel, and waited in the lobby until the restaurant opened for breakfast. If its a stop in town somewhere, theres probably a coffee shop or something thats open by 6-6:30 am for early risers... Google Maps can help with that.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

I've boarded and detrained during the middle of the night at various locations. When I have boarded the southbound Crescent at Charlotte (2:45 AM), I spent the time downtown until soon after midnight, at which point I used public transportation to the station. Once there, I prepared as though I was going to sleep so that I could soon after I boarded the train. I did similar things when boarding the westbound Capitol Limited at Pittsburgh and a very late northbound Crescent at Atlanta. When boarding the southbound Crescent at Greensboro, I also explored the city although I returned earlier as there was no public transportation at that time of night and there was a limited number of things to do downtown. As far as detraining, I have had two experiences in the past year. In January, the southbound Silver Star I was aboard arrived Tampa nearly 12 hours late at just before midnight. Once all the bags were claimed, the building was promptly closed, but I was easily able to get an Uber to take me to my apartment in Clearwater. The other time was last November, when I arrived Salisbury, NC in the middle of the night on the northbound Crescent. I had to connect to Raleigh, and chose to book myself on the afternoon train rather than the morning train and transfer at Salisbury rather than Charlotte so that I could visit the North Carolina Transportation Museum. The Crescent was averaging several hours late at the time, so I was caught somewhat off guard when I arrived right on time at around 2:30 AM. The station attendant was friendly, but had to close the building, leaving me out in the 30 degree weather in the small town. I actually enjoyed the cold, but there was no activity in town until around 7 AM, with the exception of the 24 hour Waffle House about half a mile away. Just prior to sunrise, I ended up walking around downtown, where I stayed to watch the northbound Carolinian. I then walked the 3 miles to the museum and spent a few hours there before walking back to board the Piedmont. I loved the museum, but would prefer next time to make a day round trip on the Piedmont while visiting Raleigh rather than using the Crescent with its poor calling times. My experiences in big cities were fun and I had no safety issues, but I would definitely prefer to have visited them during the day. My experiences are also somewhat different in that they were all during transfers, with the exceptions of Atlanta and Tampa.

 

[caravanman]

There is no easy answer to this. I would at least try to pre-book any taxi I needed for an early morning pickup.

It may work out that you can alight at a station before your final destination at a reasonable time in the evening, stay there overnight, and continue on again to your final destination in the morning by Greyhound, bus for example. (Not often that one gets "joined up" public transport connections in America, but it could work out.)

I guess hotels in places served by Amtrak during the night might be used to guests arrivals and departures at such times?

Ed.

 

[JRR]

Has anyone gotten off the Cardinal in Cincinnati at its scheduled 1:15 am or later? What is the availability of a taxi or Uber at the station?

 

[cpotisch]

As was said, it's really going to depend on the place. If you're in a big city like New York or Los Angeles, you'll almost certainly have plenty of cabs and/or Ubers at your disposal at pretty much any hour. If you're in a a small town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem.

What cities (if any) are you thinking about?

 

[mitako]

As was said, it's really going to depend on the place. If you're in a big city like New York or Los Angeles, you'll almost certainly have plenty of cabs and/or Ubers at your disposal at pretty much any hour. If you're in a a small town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem.

What cities (if any) are you thinking about?

It definitely would be big cities. New Orleans, Chicago, and Washington DC are the likeliest.

 

[cpotisch]

As was said, it's really going to depend on the place. If you're in a big city like New York or Los Angeles, you'll almost certainly have plenty of cabs and/or Ubers at your disposal at pretty much any hour. If you're in a a small town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem.

What cities (if any) are you thinking about?

It definitely would be big cities. New Orleans, Chicago, and Washington DC are the likeliest.

Then I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

As was said, it's really going to depend on the place. If you're in a big city like New York or Los Angeles, you'll almost certainly have plenty of cabs and/or Ubers at your disposal at pretty much any hour. If you're in a a small town pretty much in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem.

What cities (if any) are you thinking about?

It definitely would be big cities. New Orleans, Chicago, and Washington DC are the likeliest.

Unless your train is late, you are unlikely to be in any of those stations in the middle of the night. The earliest scheduled train in Chicago is at 6:10 AM and the latest is 11:25 PM (both of which are local Hiawatha Service trains to Milwaukee). In New Orleans, times range from 7:00 AM to 9:40 PM. Washington does have a few middle of the night Northeast Regionals, but there are many daytime alternatives. If the times mentioned for Chicago and New Orleans are your idea of late night/early morning, essentially all of the same options that are available during the day are also available at those times, although it would be a good idea to be aware of your surroundings. If you travel to another major city or your train is late enough to be very early morning, Uber/Lyft/taxis would be available in any major city. In cities as big as Chicago even some bus and rapid transit lines are open 24 hours.

 

[SanAntonioClyde]

living close to major airports usually means early morning rides are easy to get at least here in San Antonio.

 

[Charles785]

One small town I'm familiar with is Newton, KS on the Southwest Chief route. Both the east and

westbound trains arrive and depart (when they're on time) between 2:45 and 3:00 a.m.

The town has a small taxicab service (I don't know anything about Uber) and with advance

reservations they can take passengers from the Amtrak station to a local hotel. (They might also

be available without advance reservations.)

Also Wichita cabs can take passengers the 25 mile route to Wichita.

And Newton Amtrak passengers are fortunate enough to enjoy an all night donut and sandwich

shop 1 and 1/2 blocks from the train station - Druber's.

 

[Asher]

DC or Narlins, either place I wouldn't want to arrive without prior lodging arraignment. Both have good transportation and since nothing good happens after 2 AM, get some sleep and you'll be good to go the next day. Otherwise if it's earlier and you are not toting luggage ask a driver, they usually can give you good info.

 

[daybeers]

I once took a Lyft to WAS to catch NER #136, which leaves at 3:15am. I don't remember when I left for the ~25 minute ride, but I only had to wait 5-10 minutes for one. You can also schedule them ahead of time, though sometimes that costs a little extra. I had foolishly missed my train the afternoon before and that was the next train able to get me to HFD! It was very nice watching the sun rise!

 

[seat38a]

It never surprises me how our free enterprise system seems to solve the transportation at the wee hours problem at Amtrak stations. No matter what small station that I've traveled through via Amtrak, there seems to alway be some enterprising individual at the station trying to earn a buck or two no matter what time of the day it is. Having said that, I myself would not rely on some enterprising individual being there and plan way ahead of time before leaving.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

It never surprises me how our free enterprise system seems to solve the transportation at the wee hours problem at Amtrak stations. No matter what small station that I've traveled through via Amtrak, there seems to alway be some enterprising individual at the station trying to earn a buck or two no matter what time of the day it is. Having said that, I myself would not rely on some enterprising individual being there and plan way ahead of time before leaving.

Pretty much my experience too.

If the train usually arrives at, say, 6pm, but is running late and arrives instead at 3am, one might have trouble finding local transportation.

If the train usually arrives at 3am, there is typically local services available, waiting at the station. Basically, you aren't the first customer to get off the train at 3am.