wayman
Engineer
My cousin is getting married in Sarasota in late May, and if I go of course I'm taking the train 
From Philadelphia it's just Silver Star to Tampa, bus 6091 to Sarasota; then to return, bus 6092 to Tampa, Silver Star to Philadelphia.
But that would be silly, because then I'd have to take a second trip to Florida some other time to knock out the mileage to Miami! It's "much more efficient" to return via Miami (and come north on the Silver Meteor). PHL-TPA (Silver Star), wedding in Sarasota, TPA-MIA (Silver Star), overnight in Miami, MIA-PHL (Silver Meteor).
The catch is that Amtrak doesn't expect anyone to want to go from Sarasota to Miami: if you punch this into amtrak.com, it returns the "no service exists between these cities" message.
But... there is always a way! The timetable shows that there are two northbound Thruway buses that start in Fort Myers and travel north along the same route: bus 6092 goes Ft Myers-Sarasota-Tampa to connect with the northbound Star, and bus 6098 goes Ft Myers-Sarasota-Tampa-Orlando to connect with the northbound Meteor. So, both buses stop in Sarasota and then in Tampa. And bus 6098 is three hours earlier and would be perfect for getting off in Tampa with 2.5 hours layover until the southbound Star.
Amtrak almost certainly has just plugged buses 6092 and 6098 into the system as "receive only" all the way to their destinations, since the law requires passengers to be connecting with a train, and that's the simplest way for Amtrak to have programmed that. But technically the law doesn't care which train I take, so long as it's an Amtrak train that I board in Florida on the same day, right?.... So my question is, am I likely to have any luck on the phone or at 30th St with booking this 6098-connect-with-91 itinerary, or is ARROW going to squawk at anyone who tries to do this and not allow anyone to manually override?
As a fallback (there is always a way!), I could book TPA-MIA on the Star and book a separate itinerary SRA-WPK--that's the desired bus 6098 from Sarasota (through Tampa) to Orlando, and then one stop on the Silver Meteor from Orlando to Winter Park. Then I'd take the bus, step off at Tampa, and not use the ORL-WPK ticket. (Maybe I could even exchange it later....) But that's less elegant than just getting to book the clever northbound-bus-to-southbound-train (It's also assuming the bus driver wouldn't prevent me from getting off the bus in Tampa somehow!...)
From Philadelphia it's just Silver Star to Tampa, bus 6091 to Sarasota; then to return, bus 6092 to Tampa, Silver Star to Philadelphia.But that would be silly, because then I'd have to take a second trip to Florida some other time to knock out the mileage to Miami! It's "much more efficient" to return via Miami (and come north on the Silver Meteor). PHL-TPA (Silver Star), wedding in Sarasota, TPA-MIA (Silver Star), overnight in Miami, MIA-PHL (Silver Meteor).
The catch is that Amtrak doesn't expect anyone to want to go from Sarasota to Miami: if you punch this into amtrak.com, it returns the "no service exists between these cities" message.
But... there is always a way! The timetable shows that there are two northbound Thruway buses that start in Fort Myers and travel north along the same route: bus 6092 goes Ft Myers-Sarasota-Tampa to connect with the northbound Star, and bus 6098 goes Ft Myers-Sarasota-Tampa-Orlando to connect with the northbound Meteor. So, both buses stop in Sarasota and then in Tampa. And bus 6098 is three hours earlier and would be perfect for getting off in Tampa with 2.5 hours layover until the southbound Star.
Amtrak almost certainly has just plugged buses 6092 and 6098 into the system as "receive only" all the way to their destinations, since the law requires passengers to be connecting with a train, and that's the simplest way for Amtrak to have programmed that. But technically the law doesn't care which train I take, so long as it's an Amtrak train that I board in Florida on the same day, right?.... So my question is, am I likely to have any luck on the phone or at 30th St with booking this 6098-connect-with-91 itinerary, or is ARROW going to squawk at anyone who tries to do this and not allow anyone to manually override?
As a fallback (there is always a way!), I could book TPA-MIA on the Star and book a separate itinerary SRA-WPK--that's the desired bus 6098 from Sarasota (through Tampa) to Orlando, and then one stop on the Silver Meteor from Orlando to Winter Park. Then I'd take the bus, step off at Tampa, and not use the ORL-WPK ticket. (Maybe I could even exchange it later....) But that's less elegant than just getting to book the clever northbound-bus-to-southbound-train
(It's also assuming the bus driver wouldn't prevent me from getting off the bus in Tampa somehow!...)
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