Thruway Connecting Services (TCS)

[Cal H]

Help me to unravel the mysteries and secrets of the TCS please!

To begin, we are tourist riders of the Amtrak system and want to explore our options in seeing parts of the country where we've not been. In 2024, using the rail pass we diligently tried to plot a course from LAX to Las Vegas. We never did find that ride, figuring that it must have been discontinued during covid and not restarted. It turned out ok, as Vegas was not in the cards - we elected to roll the dice and take in some northern California instead. For 2025 we are looking at maybe using a California Rail Pass. The terms very clearly state that the TCS to Vegas is part of the network - but any route we try to get there comes up with no service available.

We run into this same issue looking at the TCS out of Denver. Looking at the Amtrak Network map, I would consider a bus trip between Denver and Salt Lake City maybe? But not with the TCS I reckon

I do (I think) understand that the TCS does not compete with private bus lines such as Greyhound or Flix. I get that.
I do (I think) understand that the TCS is a connecting service, and maybe needs to be booked with or as part of a train ride. I get that.
But how in the (heck) do you get from California to Vegas? I've tried LAX, SAN, EMY - no luck.

And then this morning, @Septa9739 provided a clue - thanks Septa! It was a

 

[Cal H]

Excuse me, my computer is acting a bit wonky this morning.

@Septa9739 provided a link to old Amtrak TCS data. I gleaned a nugget of info in there, that there may be TCS from Bakersfield to Vegas... but when I put that in, I again get a message that the trip cannot be booked. I get the same message when I look at any city north of Denver.

Can these trips only be booked with a secret handshake, or maybe only by calling and giving a password to the agent? Or only reserved for locals? Is there a secret Amtrak website that contains TCS bookings? If this is a secret, I promise I won't tell anyone!!! I can understand how ridership may not be to sporty on these routes - you can't get there from here! Surely I am not the only dummy that needs a course in how to book a trip that includes TCS

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

The only direct route there runs Santa Barbara - Oxnard - Bakersfield - Barstow - Las Vegas. It doesn't stop at LAS (the airport), instead use LVT (south strip) or LVS (downtown). You can either
(1) Start your itinerary somewhere along this route, or
(2) Start your itinerary on a route that transfers to this route: where you have a few options:

• From the Central Valley or Northern California, start on the San Joaquins route, anywhere from Oakland to Bakersfield or from its connecting buses, then transfer to the Las Vegas bus at Bakersfield.
• In Southern California, from LAX or between Van Nuys - Camarillo, ride the Coast Starlight or Pacific Surfliner to Oxnard then transfer to the Las Vegas bus there. This should physically work anywhere north from San Diego on the Surfliner on train 765, but you'll have to use the multi-trip booking option if you want to do this. The booking system doesn't seem to recognize the connection at Oxnard if you're starting south of LAX.
• From some other places in Southern California, ride another bus to Bakersfield, then transfer to the Las Vegas bus there. The routes I found are:
  • Glendale - Bakersfield (booking system doesn't let you ride this from LAX)
  • San Bernardino - Riverside - Ontario - Claremont - Pasadena - La Crescenta - Bakersfield
  • Santa Monica - Westwood - Van Nuys - Burbank - Newhall - Bakersfield

(3) Use a non-Amtrak bus company, which clearly makes more sense if you're coming from Southern California. Greyhound and Flixbus run several daily direct Los Angeles - Las Vegas buses, stopping at a few intermediate places.

(4) Ride the Southwest Chief westbound to Kingman, AZ, and ride the connecting bus (van?) west to Las Vegas, which stops at LVT (south strip) and LAS (airport), but not LVS (downtown).

 

[zephyr17]

I just did a dummy reservation LA to Las Vegas. It was the Starlight to Oxnard then a Thruway bus from Oxnard to Las Vegas via Santa Paula, Fillmore, and Bakersfield. When I tried it from Fullerton, it returned no trains available, despite the fact that several Surfliners can make that connection. I attribute that less to it being a Thruway bus than to the kludgy way connections must be maintained in ARROW, city pair by city pair by train. However, that bus can be booked directly, an so an itinerary using that connection could be constructed using Multi-City.

From Northern California points, it returns an 8 minute (!) connection from San Joaquin 712 to that same bus at Bakersfield. Since it returns that connection, that connection is "guaranteed". It is an official San Joaquin related Thruway, showing as Route 10 on Amtraksanjoaquins.com.

Many (not all) San Joaquin related routes allow bus only ticketing. This Santa Barbara-Bakersfield-Las Vegas Route 10 is one which does.

It does appear to be a dedicated Amtrak Thruway charter, not a codeshare on a bus common carrier such as Greyhound or Flix.

Like a lot places on Amtrak, it matters which station code you select. LAS (Las Vegas Airport) is only served by the Kingman shuttle. LVS (downtown Las Vegas) by this bus. I remember some years ago, if you just typed in Seattle, the first station listed was SVF. That's the Victoria Clipper dock and the only place you could get to from there was Victoria, BC. SEA, King Street Station, was second on the list. That has been corrected, but you often need to look at the station code returned and try other ones if you expect to see service and it returns none. In the case of Las Vegas, if you type in the entire city name it returns Las Vegas, NM (LSV), Las Vegas, NV (LVS), Las Vegas - McCarren (sic) International Airport (LAS), and Las Vegas-South Strip Transfer Terminal (LVT) in that order.

In any case, I would not do this from anywhere in California south of Oxnard as it is a roundabout routing and mostly on a bus. A bus is a bus is a bus whether or not I am using an Amtrak ticket to ride it. If I were to take a bus to Vegas from Southern California, I'd take a direct one and not bother riding a train to Oxnard only to backtrack on a bus from there.

 

[Cal H]

@ParanoidAndroid - a person in the know! And I appreciate it. Using the LAX (area) to Vegas I would very definitely use a direct Greyhound or Flix bus, but as I try to understand the system it seems we really need to know what and where the bus stops are. And Amtrak is not going to help us! As a tourist/visitor to the area we must just hunt & peck looking for various bus stops in the city, rather than simply typing in Las Vegas like the GH/Flix/BusBud systems work.

Using LAX to LVT (now that I am in on the secret) - it sends you from LAX west to Oxnard to spend the rest of the day on the bus zig zagging across CA. I wonder why it doesn't offer the Chief to Barstow or Kingman as alternate routes/

Then there is Denver. Looking at the map, I would like to check DEN to Casper, WY. No way it says, not even any alternate bus stops in Casper. The mystery continues...

And thank you, @zephyr17, I am simply trying to understand the system so that I might use it.

A new question: When starting from Las Vegas, it shows 2 daily departures from LVS and 4 dailies from LVT. Is there any way to see the time & destination of these departures? When selecting either of these there is only one departure for Bakersfield listed. I would like to see where those other buses run to.

 

[BCL]

I do (I think) understand that the TCS does not compete with private bus lines such as Greyhound or Flix. I get that.
I do (I think) understand that the TCS is a connecting service, and maybe needs to be booked with or as part of a train ride. I get that.
But how in the (heck) do you get from California to Vegas? I've tried LAX, SAN, EMY - no luck.

As with all things Amtrak, it depends. In California, all the Amtrak-exclusive connecting bus services are subsidized by the state of California and there used to be a law that required that Amtrak bus routes subsidized by the state could only be booked if booked with a "train segment". That was from lobbying by Greyhound and other bus companies at the time the law was enacted that forced this requirement. There was an exception for maybe a couple of routes - definitely going to Lake Tahoe from Sacramento. I think that law was repealed, but there aren't too many bus routes that can be booked separately. I did see one recently, but don't remember exactly where. Looked up Los Angeles to Santa Barbara (I think that was the one I saw before) and they have one bus in the morning, and it can be booked by itself.



As far as booking a bus, there were some workarounds, and might still be if the Amtrak booking system doesn't allow it. One was that there was no requirement that the bus segment and train segment had to actually connect to each other. They could be different times (even different days) or completely separate using multi-city booking. I remember during my commute I tried some oddball ones, like Capitol Corridor down to Santa Clara, but then a bus segment from San Francisco to Emeryville at night. I ended up taking public transportation (VTA and Caltrain) to get to San Francisco. Some people might use that trick to get a bus ride without using up a segment on the USA Rail Pass.

Apparently the San Francisco to Emerville bus trip can't be booked separately.



But it can be booked with multi-city, even if it doesn't make much sense. I'm having a problem with it, but I'm not sure if maybe the old loophole has been closed. But in any case, one could just book San Francisco to Berkeley and that comes with a bus segment where the train segment can be thrown away or even used at a later time.



As for who provides the services, there are a lot of different providers, and I think that Greyhound might still be one. It will typically list the contracted bus company by name, whether or not it's exclusive for Amtrak booking or not. You can book a ride to Yosemite, and the connecting bus service is provided by the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) which is a publicly subsidized public transit system that goes between several cities and Yosemite. The drivers are able to scan Amtrak tickets.

 

[BCL]

I wasn't sure which routes that Greyhound basically serves as a thruway service for Amtrak passengers, but then did a little research and this was the first to come up - Nashville to New Orleans. But it's first Greyhound to Chicago, but seems to be backwards.

 

[zephyr17]

. I think that law was repealed, but there aren't too many bus routes that can be booked separately.

Much of the Amtrak California bus network is based off of the San Joaquins as the spine. The amtraksanjoaquins.com website clearly shows which routes can and cannot be booked as bus only. Route 99, Emeryville-San Francisco, cannot be booked as bus only, while Route 10, Santa Barbara-Bakersfield-Las Vegas, under discussion here, can be booked bus only.

There appear to be quite a few San Joaquin feeder routes that can be booked as bus only. That website is a good resource to see which routes are bookable without a rail segment.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

@ParanoidAndroid - a person in the know! And I appreciate it. Using the LAX (area) to Vegas I would very definitely use a direct Greyhound or Flix bus, but as I try to understand the system it seems we really need to know what and where the bus stops are. And Amtrak is not going to help us! As a tourist/visitor to the area we must just hunt & peck looking for various bus stops in the city, rather than simply typing in Las Vegas like the GH/Flix/BusBud systems work.

Using LAX to LVT (now that I am in on the secret) - it sends you from LAX west to Oxnard to spend the rest of the day on the bus zig zagging across CA. I wonder why it doesn't offer the Chief to Barstow or Kingman as alternate routes/

Then there is Denver. Looking at the map, I would like to check DEN to Casper, WY. No way it says, not even any alternate bus stops in Casper. The mystery continues...

And thank you, @zephyr17, I am simply trying to understand the system so that I might use it.

A new question: When starting from Las Vegas, it shows 2 daily departures from LVS and 4 dailies from LVT. Is there any way to see the time & destination of these departures? When selecting either of these there is only one departure for Bakersfield listed. I would like to see where those other buses run to.



View attachment 39117

I think many "stops" in the booking system aren't served by Amtrak-bookable buses at all and just remain in the system because no one took them out. Casper is probably one of them and I think all of them Wyoming are this way too.

At Kingman, the van to Las Vegas leaves right after the westbound Chief gets there, before the eastbound goes through.

 

[zephyr17]

I think many "stops" in the booking system aren't served by Amtrak-bookable buses at all and just remain in the system because no one took them out.

That's probably correct. Also, unlike the Amtrak California Thruway services, many of the Thruway services generally were and are just codeshares on scheduled common carrier bus routes and not dedicated Amtrak services. With the dramatic and ongoing shrinkage of intercity bus services (not unlike what happened to passenger rail in the 1960s), there are fewer and fewer routes for Amtrak to codeshare on.

Much of the country is increasingly lacking any common carrier transportation options at all.

 

[BCL]

That's probably correct. Also, unlike the Amtrak California Thruway services, many of the Thruway services generally were and are just codeshares on scheduled common carrier bus routes and not dedicated Amtrak services. With the dramatic and ongoing shrinkage of intercity bus services (not unlike what happened to passenger rail in the 1960s), there are fewer and fewer routes for Amtrak to codeshare on.

There were a lot of oddball routes that could be booked via Amtrak in the past. It was before I started riding Amtrak, but I heard that sometime commuter rail (like Caltrain) could be booked through Amtrak as a connection.

 

[Willbridge]

Denver <> Casper is operated by Express Arrow, which did until recently have a Thruway agreement with Amtrak. In what seems to be a race to the bottom, Amtrak has been neglecting Thruway service, and as mentioned above, the bus industry is in worse and worse shape.

https://expressarrow.com/express-arrow-route-schedules/

 

[Cal H]

I wasn't sure which routes that Greyhound basically serves as a thruway service for Amtrak passengers, but then did a little research and this was the first to come up - Nashville to New Orleans. But it's first Greyhound to Chicago, but seems to be backwards.

View attachment 39121

When I look at the Amtrak network map, it shows a Nashville - Birmingham run, but apparently not bookable as an Amtrak TCS. Busbud does show two daily Greyhound runs between Nashville & B'ham though.

Much of the Amtrak California bus network is based off of the San Joaquins as the spine. The amtraksanjoaquins.com website clearly shows which routes can and cannot be booked as bus only.

That right there was a wonderful link - and a page I have not seen before. I have bookmarked it, however, so that as we explore the California Rail Pass I can use it. I am not sure from that page how to tell which routes might be booked as bus only though...

I think many "stops" in the booking system aren't served by Amtrak-bookable buses at all and just remain in the system because no one took them out. Casper is probably one of them and I think all of them Wyoming are this way too.

What a sad state of affairs when we (Amtrak) cannot be bothered enough to keep the system updated. It makes me wonder what "the real" Amtrak Network map looks like.

 

[Cal H]

Denver <> Casper is operated by Express Arrow, which did until recently have a Thruway agreement with Amtrak. In what seems to be a race to the bottom, Amtrak has been neglecting Thruway service, and as mentioned above, the bus industry is in worse and worse shape.

https://expressarrow.com/express-arrow-route-schedules/

View attachment 39128

This is great info, but how does one actually find this? It is almost like it's a secret for locals only! I see on the EA website that Denver to Buffalo, WY is an option.
No matter how I try through Amtrak this bus service does not come up. Ok, perhaps (maybe)(we might guess) that Amtrak no longer offers this as a TCS service.
My next resource is Busbud. It looks like a lot of bus stations in Denver, I tried three of them with no luck. I reversed course to search for the Buffalo to Denver run - still no services shown through Busbud.
As a casual observer and tourist looking for public transportation to Wyoming I would conclude that nothing is available. Obviously incorrect, but without knowing the name of the bus line...

Edit, when I just did a Yahoo search of Charter bus line Denver to Casper, WY I got two hits, Greyhound & Flix, both of which were booking the EA bus. So, yay!, I did find the info. Not easily, but I did find it.

 

[Asher]

It seems to me that with Las Vegas Nevada being out of the Amtrak loop, No train going there, why would they have a TCS connection to or from there. Best travel route to Vegas from Los Angeles area, Orange County, Long Beach, LAX airports.
Or, the Hound from Barstow.

 

[Cal H]

It seems to me that with Las Vegas Nevada being out of the Amtrak loop, No train going there, why would they have a TCS connection to or from there. Best travel route to Vegas from Los Angeles area, Orange County, Long Beach, LAX airports.

Well, Las Vegas is only out of the Amtrak train loop.
I've gleaned a bunch of useful info from all of the responses so far, and with the link provided by @zephyr17 above I have discovered a whole world of (California) possibilities. I've already roughed out a California Rail Pass that, I think, will be a very interesting and enjoyable trip for us! Using the CaRP for train only, I just couldn't see doing anything more than a ride thru the central valley and from SAN to SAC. Finding out about the bus routes and schedules let's us consider a lot of other options - both for destinations and for daytime travel.

Now... if I can find similar info for the Pacific NW and Denver areas - I would be set for a long time

 

[BCL]

At least in California, the state provides funding for these carriers and many lines are clearly marked as Amtrak buses. There was a time when they had the same color scheme but were otherwise unmarked while they came up with different text. I think this is Santa Barbara.

This photo (from the Pacific Surfliner website) is a bit conflicted though.

I've also noticed that they're more specific about who the provider is. If it's an Amtrak marked bus, it will say "Amtrak Connection", while for another chartered carrier it will say that (e.g. "AmeriStar"). But for the Amtrak marked buses they operator is going to be on the side of the bus, and I think that's by law for any kind of coach bus, whether it's scheduled or chartered. This photo says "Orange Belt Stages".

Sometimes it can get a bit confusing when it's not marked specifically as an Amtrak bus. I've boarded in Santa Barbara quite a few times and that gets confusing because there are different bus companies using the station, including FlixBus and Greyhound, although they have clearly marked buses.

 

[zephyr17]

I am not sure from that page how to tell which routes might be booked as bus only though...

They have a "B" in a solid circle on the maps for each individual route (not the overall map).

Example of route that can be booked bus only:
Example of one that must have a related rail segment:

 

[tgstubbs1]

I've already roughed out a California Rail Pass that, I think, will be a very interesting and enjoyable trip for us!

Finding out about the bus routes and schedules let's us consider a lot of other options - both for destinations and for daytime travel.

Now... if I can find similar info for the Pacific NW and Denver areas - I would be set for a long time

Can you route a trip with decent connections, etc? It would be good to see how that works.

What is busbud?