Same day connection from Florida to Boston not showing up

[cocojacoby]

Tried to book a train from Florida to Boston this week. NO SERVICE AVAILABLE! Are you serious? You cannot get from Florida to Boston by Amtrak right now? This is unbelievable.

 

[joelkfla]

Tired to book a train from Florida to Boston this week. NO SERVICE AVAILABLE! Are you serious? You cannot get from Florida to Boston by Amtrak right now? This is unbelievable.

It's because the SS arrives at NYP @ 7:10p, & the last train NYP-BOS departs @ 7:50p. You need to do a Multi-City with an overnight somewhere between WAS & NYP. It's been that way since they suspended the SM.

I had to do the same on my trip to CHI. No connections to anywhere from the NB SS. It's a pain in the butt.

 

[jis]

Tired to book a train from Florida to Boston this week. NO SERVICE AVAILABLE! Are you serious? You cannot get from Florida to Boston by Amtrak right now? This is unbelievable.

For a while there was no same day connection in Washington DC or New York. One had to stay overnight in Washington DC or New York or any city in between. This has been discussed ad inifnitum.

 

[Steve4031]

The additional cost of a hotel night could make Amtrak a financially unusable option in this case. Thought I believe the OP was frustrated about the website or app not clearly showing it would be necessary to spend a night along the way.

 

[thully]

66 (the overnight Regional) should be an option here, shouldn’t it? Seems Amtrak hasn’t updated its system to add the connection. You could probably book multi-city or separate reservations to get that, though if I was to do that I’d connect in WAS to avoid boarding at NYP at 2:40am.

 

[jis]

66 (the overnight Regional) should be an option here, shouldn’t it? Seems Amtrak hasn’t updated its system to add the connection. You could probably book multi-city or separate reservations to get that, though if I was to do that I’d connect in WAS to avoid boarding at NYP at 2:40am.

Indeed! Now that 66 is running it should show up as a same day connection from the Star in Washington DC.

I had forgotten that 66 has started running again.

Looks like they forgot to add the connection at WAS. Only the connection to 166 in NYP shows up for weekends.

 

[cocojacoby]

Yeah this is a great reason that good old-fashioned train schedules would be helpful, Amtrak. Really helpful.

It's frustrating that a route that once offered two trains a day is not even offering one now. Making this a two night trip via the "Night Owl" or requiring a hotel overnight, kills it for me. You can book a RT flight for as low as $85 on Frontier right now with some restrictions.

 

[bratkinson]

I think their website is a bit screwed up as of late. I tried to book a Springfield MA to Trenton NJ trip for October and it only came up with 2 trains vs 7 or so it should have! Fortunately, my choice for train #141 was one of those two options. Returning from Philadelphia, it pulled the same trick until I forced it to look for afternoon departures only before it offered #148, the through train to Springfield.

As mentioned above, it could be simply a case they haven't put #66 back into the system as a connection to BOS. Multi-city should make it work, though. Just be ready for a lot of announcements for the frequent stops along the way. I would recommend making the transfer to #66 at WAS as the Metropolitan lounge there closes about 9PM, and you'd likely arrive too late to use it at PHL or NYP. But, if you decide to spend a night, do it at BWI as hotels/motels offer better rates than in the WAS area and it's been my experience that they all have shuttle services to the BWI train station when you call them.

 

[Steve4031]

A friend of mine called Amtrak to purchase round-trip tickets from
Chicago to Greenwood, Ms on 59/58. She was going down on Tuesday and returning the following Tuesday. The agent told her there was no availability. She called me and I did a round-trip on the app. I was able to book 59 but got a message that 58 was not available. When I did two one way bookings it was no problem. Strange.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

A friend of mine called Amtrak to purchase round-trip tickets from
Chicago to Greenwood, Ms on 59/58. She was going down on Tuesday and returning the following Tuesday. The agent told her there was no availability. She called me and I did a round-trip on the app. I was able to book 59 but got a message that 58 was not available. When I did two one way bookings it was no problem. Strange.

Was 58 numbered 1058?

 

[Steve4031]

Was 58 numbered 1058?

It was not. That was the first thing I looked for.

 

[Squad1-1]

The reason you can’t book a “same day connection train” from FL-BOS and other cities is the fact that the connecting times to other trains are too close together. It’s not that the system is not updated, they want to avoid people being upset when their first train arrives too late for the connecting train. That’s why you can only do it while making separate reservations.

 

[jis]

The reason you can’t book a “same day connection train” from FL-BOS and other cities is the fact that the connecting times to other trains are too close together. It’s not that the system is not updated, they want to avoid people being upset when their first train arrives too late for the connecting train. That’s why you can only do it while making separate reservations.

That cannot be correct. 92 arrives into Washington DC from Florida at 3:04pm and 66 departs Washington DC for Boston at 10:52pm. By any stretch of imagination 7+ hours is not too close.

 

[Squad1-1]

Same thing if there is too much of a delay between trains. It’s moot at this point, the Silver Meteor will be back in service starting October 3 which will allow for better connections

 

[zephyr17]

The reason you can’t book a “same day connection train” from FL-BOS and other cities is the fact that the connecting times to other trains are too close together. It’s not that the system is not updated, they want to avoid people being upset when their first train arrives too late for the connecting train. That’s why you can only do it while making separate reservations.

The reason there isn't a connection between 92 and 66 is likely that the connection wasn't entered in Arrow, nothing more. All connections have to be entered manually. The "normal" connection from Florida to Boston is the Meteor (98) to New York and transfer an Acela or Regional there. Probably nobody entered the 92-66 connections as a substitute when they suspended the Meteor. Typical Amtrak.

There should be no problem booking 92-66 using Florida-WAS and WAS-BOS as two segments using Multi-City. My guess is if the Star was catastrophically late enough to miss it, they'd even honor the guarantee, since it is well over the two hour guideline for LD to Regional connections.