Rail for Less: a fare checking site

[phoenix]

A developer recently built this hobby project that allows you to view a "calendar" of Amtrak fares like on Google Flights (or most airline websites) for flights: Rail for Less

I believe a similar service existed a while back, but broke after Amtrak website upgrades. This one can be a bit slow because of how it's implemented, it seems, but it does save some time vs. manually checking date after date in the normal Amtrak interface.

 

[joelkfla]

A developer recently built this hobby project that allows you to view a "calendar" of Amtrak fares like on Google Flights (or most airline websites) for flights: Rail for Less

I believe a similar service existed a while back, but broke after Amtrak website upgrades. This one can be a bit slow because of how it's implemented, it seems, but it does save some time vs. manually checking date after date in the normal Amtrak interface.

Doesn't appear to be working. Stops after searching the first date, and says "No trains found."

 

[Ryan]

Doesn't appear to be working. Stops after searching the first date, and says "No trains found."

Same here. Looks promising. Station code don't work either, despite the prompt that they will.

 

[phoenix]

Looks like you're both right. Used it a week ago to see the best time for some long distance trains, but it's giving the same behavior y'all described now.

I'll send a message to the developer, maybe they'll know what's changed.

 

[Ryan]

So it appears to be work, but I'm not sure of the utility. Here's what I get:


Granted, the ongoing track work make NOL-WAS perhaps not the nest test case... But, I wish one could click on those details and get more information. Going from memory/basic Amtrak knowledge, I'll assume that the cheapest "Multiple Trains" option is the CONO to the CL? And the Mixed Service on the 19th is because of a bus bridge?

It says that rooms only work on direct routes, so you'll have to piece these together for longer trips?

Impressive that someone was able to get something working. Hopefully some of the kinks can get worked out.

 

[Rizla Ronnie]

Call me old-fashioned but it should not be beyond the ability of a modern 21st Century transportation system to be able to offer this service free to its customers.
Even the cheapest, no-frills airline offers you an instant guide to when their prices are cheapest - as a marketing tool to fill capacity at quiet times it's a no-brainer.

 

[zephyr17]

Call me old-fashioned but it should not be beyond the ability of a modern 21st Century transportation system to be able to offer this service free to its customers.
Even the cheapest, no-frills airline offers you an instant guide to when their prices are cheapest - as a marketing tool to fill capacity at quiet times it's a no-brainer.

They probably have a reservation system underneath that wasn't written in Sanskrit on clay tablets.

 

[trimetbusfan]

I just tried it. It kind of takes a while to load up, but (at least with the city/date pair I used) it worked! I feel like this will come in handy.

 

[zephyr17]

I just tried it. It kind of takes a while to load up, but (at least with the city/date pair I used) it worked! I feel like this will come in handy.

I kept getting server busy messages.

 

[niemi24s]

Poked in for a weeks worth of Roomette fares between CHI and NYP. After about 3½ minutes it showed fares for the first date and then went dead. In about that same amount of time perhaps 8-10 fares could be coaxed directly out of Amtrak.

RailForLess may be a work in progress.

 

[trimetbusfan]

I kept getting server busy messages.

Tried it on my phone first, no luck. Then tried it on my computer. The first city pair (PDX-CHI), although valid, didn’t work. Said there was no trains available.

Then I tried the coast starlight route and got results for train 11 (though it did take several minutes).

Since I am very familiar with to quickly check fares, I could easy check the 8 dates much faster using the Amtrak app. But for those who don’t know how to do that, I think it would save them some time.

 

[Ryan]

Selecting the first departure of the day is a key limitation that should get some love. I guess you could check CHI-BAL if you want an idea of Cardinal fares if you'd rather do that than the Cap.

 

[MccfamschoolMom]

A developer recently built this hobby project that allows you to view a "calendar" of Amtrak fares like on Google Flights (or most airline websites) for flights: Rail for Less

I believe a similar service existed a while back, but broke after Amtrak website upgrades. This one can be a bit slow because of how it's implemented, it seems, but it does save some time vs. manually checking date after date in the normal Amtrak interface.

Trying this for the first time this morning, using the route and approximate dates of a trip I've already booked to compare. The search went from "1 of 9" to "7 of 9" while I played through the Daily Challenges in Microsoft Solitaire (approx. 10 minutes or so, since I only played 4 of 5 challenges). Didn't attempt to filter by type of room or number of travellers (yet), Got coach fares for 1 person for the entirety of the route (2 trains in my case, transferring in Chicago). To get sleeping car fares, I had to change the search to just the Chicago-to-destination portion. Searching that bit now. A bit glitzier look than the old Amsnag, but just 1 week's worth of searches instead of 1 month's worth. Seems to be running a smidge faster with the single-segment search.

 

[Jay Aitchsee]

I've used Rail for Less several times to search roomette fares on the Empire Builder between Chicago and Portland with 5-to-7-day windows. It has worked pretty well for me. It seems to take about the same amount of time as doing it manually on the Amtrak site (which I believe, according to the developer, is in essence how it works), but it is a lot less tedious and presents a nice tabular result.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

Looking for a trip in early Dec from Galesburg to Fullerton for one of kids birthdays the APP worked well and reminded me how expensive Amtrak has gotten. I was excited to see the family room listed for $900 on Dec 9th that price isn’t that much more than it was 3 years ago. Unfortunately when I put in 2 adults and 2 kids (rail fare) it went up to close to $1400. Still a great deal these days as it usually defaults most days to a outrageous $2200 one way fare. Hopefully Amtrak doesn’t take legal action against Rail for Less. It works! see my results attached

 

[1976steve]

I gave up searching Amtrak for trips because its too tedious so am interested in anything new for searches. Just did a few different searches of 4 to 6 calendar dates for sleeper fares and although not real quick it did provide results in a few minutes. Easy to read, Station codes not automatic yet, could use a button between stations to flip direction of travel, seems to be working on color coding pricing which will be nice. Overall I'm happy to see this work in progress keep it up Sean.

 

[johnmiller]

Thank you for posting this!

 

[dlagrua]

With the demise of Amsnag it had become difficult to check fares over a few days on the Amtrak ticketing site without going through several steps. Since RailForLess.us was created it greatly simplifies the fare search. The site was created by an enterprising young man by the name of Sean Eddy and we have been using it regularly. It has helped us greatly with our rail trips ; and saved us money. While this site has been mentioned here before; for those that are not aware of it, I thought that I would give it another plug. Anyone else using this site and getting good results?

 

[AmtrakFlyer]

It’s better than Amtraks site if your trying to find a low(er) fare.

 

[Anderson]

Neither Amtrak nor the airlines have figured out that some travelers might be willing to slide their travel by a day or two in either direction to save a few hundred dollars. It's hardly uncommon for somebody to be agnostic to flying late one evening vs early the next morning, for example...

...and with Amtrak running 1x/day on a bunch of routes, it would certainly be nice if you could check a few days at a time rather than just getting "oops, no train for you" if a train is sold out.

[It would also be nice if, when facing that on a later segment, Amtrak would let you know if there was a segment available with a one-day delay.]

 

[Maglev]

I tried it, and after getting a "server is busy" message, the response was as quick as looking up the fares myself.

 

[dlagrua]

The railforless site seems to be up running and working correctly. I just bought the developer a cup of coffee. I am not soliciting for him but a $5 donation is the least that I can do for such a helpful resource. Sean Eddy though his creative IT ability has brought back the fare search capability over a week or more that we once enjoyed and that Amtrak seems so hessitant to reveal.

 

[dlagrua]

I tried it, and after getting a "server is busy" message, the response was as quick as looking up the fares myself.

But how long would it take you to look up fares and compare them for a week or more. With railforless you can have that data presented in list form. Seems easier to me.

 

[Trollopian]

I tried it, and after getting a "server is busy" message, the response was as quick as looking up the fares myself.

I loved the late, great Amsnag and I want to love Rail For Less but it's been a letdown, so far.

I'm dreaming of a "mini-circle" trip this fall, DC to Chicago on the Cardinal then the Lake Shore to NYC then home. (Not to be confused with the "great circle" trip that I want to take cross-country and back via the Zephyr and Builder. That's still on the bucket list.)

But when I eagerly fired up Rail For Less months ago, I found that the DC-to-Chicago leg defaulted to the Cap Limited. I could figure out no way, nada, to get it to show the Cardinal.

Okay, today this thread spurred (pun, get it?) me to try again. I started with DC-to-Chicago. The result after several minutes' wait is "No trains found." Mind you, that's for an entire 10-day period, in three different months, for either train and for any class of ticket: coach, roomette, etc. In all cases, Amtrak's website shows multiple routings and ample availability except for the family bedroom (which I don't want).

I appreciate the effort especially given the sheer difficulty of scraping Amtrak's site, which apparently led to Amsnag's demise. This isn't a successor. Yet.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Neither Amtrak nor the airlines have figured out that some travelers might be willing to slide their travel by a day or two in either direction to save a few hundred dollars.

Southwest Airlines started showing several days at once decades ago and I can see multiple dates on AA, DL, & UA as well. If it does not come up automatically select the flexible dates option and you're good to go. You can see several months at a time and set price alerts with third party services. Meanwhile Amtrak disables third party options while refusing to build their own.