Unaccompanied minors in sleepers

[Alex]

Hey there,

My son is planning to go on a cross-country Amtrak rail trip (NYP-EMY) and I don't want that he has to ride coach for three days. I believe remember that only 18+ may ride in a sleeper or isn't that true?

Thank you for your answers.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

https://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241267362254&WT.z_va_evt=redirect&WT.z_va_topic=Policies&WT.z_va_unit=Unaccompanied%20Minors&WT.z_va_group=Unaccompanied%20Minors

 

[ehbowen]

Hey there,

My son is planning to go on a cross-country Amtrak rail trip (NYP-EMY) and I don't want that he has to ride coach for three days. I believe remember that only 18+ may ride in a sleeper or isn't that true?

Thank you for your answers.

Basically, if he's sixteen or older he can travel on the same basis (and the same fare) as a legal adult. If he's under 16 he may not travel unaccompanied overnight in either coach or sleeper.

 

[Lonestar648]

If under 16, he can only travel between two staffed stations, NO transfers, and NO over nights.

 

[bmjhagen9426]

If under 16, he can only travel between two staffed stations, NO transfers, and NO over nights.

And for that reason, that's why an unaccompanied minor cannot travel on the Heartland Flyer, Pere Marquette, or the Downeaster. Some LD Trains, because of the timing and staffing, there's only a segment or two where they may travel, for example, on the Sunset Limited, they may travel only between New Orleans and Houston, or between Maricopa and El Paso. As for the Cardinal, they may only travel between Charleston and New York, or Indianapolis to Chicago on the #51.

In a nutshell...

If 12 and under, one may not travel unaccompanied, period.

If over 12 but under 16, one's travel is restricted by the guidelines set forth by the Unaccompanied Minors Policy

If at least 16 but under 18, one can travel anywhere and anyhow as long as the trip does not involve crossing the border (although one can ride on cross-border trains as long as one gets off before the border crossing)

Here is the complete policy: https://www.amtrak.com/unaccompanied-minors-policy

 

[the_traveler]

Why can't they travel on the Downeaster between Portland and Boston (North Station)? :huh: Both are staffed, there is no transfer and there is no overnight.

 

[Palmland]

How the world has changed. Took my first solo trip at age 12. I was under the care of the Pullman porter until the next day when I had to move to a coach (same train) for the remainder of the trip.

 

[Bob Dylan]

How the world has changed. Took my first solo trip at age 12. I was under the care of the Pullman porter until the next day when I had to move to a coach (same train) for the remainder of the trip.

Yep, as a kid I rode many a mile in Coach,Slumber Coach and Roomettes on SP,Katy,MoPac and Southern Trains by myself.
There's an very good old B&W Santa Fe video featuring the Super Chief where a kid rides from Chicago to Lamy,NM by himself.

The Conductors,Attendants and Station Agents used to really look out for kids!

 

[tomfuller]

We had a strange case which delayed the southbound CS in Oregon this week. Someone (perhaps minor) was to get off in Chemult into the care of (maybe custody) an adult.

The adult didn't show up. The conductor decided that the person would remain on the train until Klamath Falls where they would be met by police.

Somewhere south of Chemult, the person jumped off the moving train. Train crew searched for about an hour before the train proceeded to Klamath Falls.

This is the story I got from someone I know that got on in Chemult that was headed for southern California

 

[Don Newcomb]

I was in the upper bunk in a 3-tier sleeping compartment in Helsingborg, Sweden when a kid about 10 years-old entered the compartment, looks at me, grumbles disappointedly because I got the upper bunk before him & tossed his stuff in the lower bunk. Later, an apparently unrelated adult entered the compartment, took the middle bunk and the train got underway. When the train got to Oslo we all got off and the kid's family met him. Difference between Sweden/Norway and the USA.

 

[PVD]

one of many

 

[MikefromCrete]

I was in the upper bunk in a 3-tier sleeping compartment in Helsingborg, Sweden when a kid about 10 years-old entered the compartment, looks at me, grumbles disappointedly because I got the upper bunk before him & tossed his stuff in the lower bunk. Later, an apparently unrelated adult entered the compartment, took the middle bunk and the train got underway. When the train got to Oslo we all got off and the kid's family met him. Difference between Sweden/Norway and the USA.

...and you're saying that a good thing? All kinds of things could have happened to that kid. His parents should have been arrested.

 

[Don Newcomb]

...and you're saying that a good thing? All kinds of things could have happened to that kid. His parents should have been arrested.

I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. I try not to be judgmental about different cultures. It's just a thing.

 

[PVD]

Arrested? If it was deliberate or just irresponsibility, perhaps, but we have no idea why they didn't show up, they could have had an accident, got lost, got a flat, got very sick, received wrong info on the train....We only know they weren't there, not why.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I was in the upper bunk in a 3-tier sleeping compartment in Helsingborg, Sweden when a kid about 10 years-old entered the compartment, looks at me, grumbles disappointedly because I got the upper bunk before him & tossed his stuff in the lower bunk. Later, an apparently unrelated adult entered the compartment, took the middle bunk and the train got underway. When the train got to Oslo we all got off and the kid's family met him. Difference between Sweden/Norway and the USA.

It can be rather jarring for an American to witness a minor being treated as something other than a precious moron.

...and you're saying that a good thing? All kinds of things could have happened to that kid. His parents should have been arrested.

I'm unaware of any routine abuse on trains or planes. Statistically speaking most abuse occurs in the home of the child or in those of family members and close friends. But that's a messy inconvenient truth and as usual we'd rather ignore such issues than respond to them in a mature and responsible fashion. On the other hand there's an indirect benefit of US policy being dominated by hypersensitive and irrational safety advocates. Their overactive fears and misplaced concerns help ensure no kids will ever be allowed to sit near me or have easy access to my stuff. Having been a child aged troublemaker myself I know firsthand just how much difficulty children can create for random adults. In the real world "stranger danger" comes from both directions.

 

[tricia]

Anyone over 50 can remember when children in the US were treated as though they were capable of doing many things on their own that currently would be considered "too dangerous."

For example, when I was 6-7 years old, my family moved temporarily beyond the schoolbus range for my elementary school. Each morning, my mom would walk me to the corner where I'd catch a regular city bus, full of commuters (both they and the driver greeted me like a regular). I'd get off the bus within a block of my school, and at the end of the day would walk a block to catch a bus going home.

A parent doing this today would risk being charged with child neglect or abuse. At the time, it was an entirely reasonable solution to a minor problem.

I think this and similar experiences (solo trips on inter-city buses to visit distant relatives) left me with an inclination to treat children as small adults with limited strength and experience, and short memory spans, rather than as morons that need to be protected from EVERYTHING. I sometimes worry that kids who've been so thoroughly insulated from the real world while growing up, will be impaired in dealing with it when they're older.

Of course, it actually IS more dangerous to allow children to do things on their own in public places than it used to be, since our culture no longer expects or enables adults to look out for the welfare of any kids but their own.

I've digressed rather far from "unaccompanied minors in sleepers" here. (Shocking! Never happens on this forum!) Would anyone care to pull this thread back toward its original topic?

 

[Don Newcomb]

It can be rather jarring for an American to witness a minor being treated as something other than a precious moron.

As I say, I try not to judge other cultures. Another foreign train travel story. I was waiting for a train in Oslo and noticed a guy in blue jeans and a black leather jacket waiting with a MP5 submachinegun slung over his shoulder. Being an American I sort of backed up behind a massive steel column and looked around. No one else was freaking out, so I stayed cool. I boarded the train, he got in the same car and casually tossed the MP5 into the overhead luggage rack and grabbed a magazine from the magazine rack. When we got to Trondheim he was met by some other guys in an Norwegian army jeep and off they went. I later learned that Norway was holding army maneuvers and there were a lot of reservists doing their training.

 

[KmH]

We have the media to thank for today's seriously skewed perception of the dangers we face daily.

 

[jis]

We have the media to thank for today's seriously skewed perception of the dangers we face daily.

And the media do it to earn their keep by getting enough people to lap up the utter nonsense so that they can claim that those buggers are actually seeing the ads in their pages and doing something about it. The wonders of capitalism that we all love so much.

 

[Karl1459]

The issue with abuse, neglect, or running away of a minor is not so much that it happens more than rarely, it just that our legal system will allow the carrier to feel the full brunt of a lawsuit for damages when it occurs. So rather than be subject to expensive lawsuits (expensive even if you win) Amtrak tries to avoid the problem. As they did with carrying pets as baggage, etc. Our system, our loss.

 

[Bob Dylan]

We have the media to thank for today's seriously skewed perception of the dangers we face daily.

And don't forget the politicians and profiteers that provide the fodder for the corporate media!
Fear mongering and Bs= Big Bucks!!!

 

[ehbowen]

I was in the upper bunk in a 3-tier sleeping compartment in Helsingborg, Sweden when a kid about 10 years-old entered the compartment, looks at me, grumbles disappointedly because I got the upper bunk before him & tossed his stuff in the lower bunk. Later, an apparently unrelated adult entered the compartment, took the middle bunk and the train got underway. When the train got to Oslo we all got off and the kid's family met him. Difference between Sweden/Norway and the USA.

...and you're saying that a good thing? All kinds of things could have happened to that kid. His parents should have been arrested.

Unaccompanied minors on trains used to be No Big Deal...even when their grandparents accidentally put them on the wrong train!

 

[Steve4031]

I was watching the movie, Mayou Angelou: And Still I Rise. As a toddler she and her brother were sent from Los Angles to a small town in Arkansas on several different trains. They were handed off from porter to porter and after several days arrived in Arkansas. This was an underground arrangement made in the African American community. There were pieces of paper with the routing and destination pinned to each child.

 

[seat38a]

All it takes is one child who loses a finger or toe while walking between cars or god forbid something even worse before everyone is ready to hang the conductor or SCA from the nearest tree. Some airlines even have or had rules that UM could not be sat next to males who were not traveling with their own kids. Whatever anyone thinks about the media, they do report the incidents, which I think they are perfectly justified and SHOULD be reporting on incidents of child abuse for parents to be aware of the dangers out there.

 

[Don Newcomb]

One more overseas train-related story then I'll shut up. I took the early-morning inter-city bus from Tromsø to Narvik (250 km) to be able to catch the Lofoten Line over to Karuna and connect to the night train to Stockholm. The bus traveled through a very sparsely settled part of Norway. It turned out that this bus was not only literally the "milk run", it also served as the local school bus. Somewhere around Nordkjosbotn the bus began stopping at every little farmhouse to be loaded with both milk cans and school children. This continued until we got to the dairy, where they unloaded the milk and then the school, where the kids got off.

The kids were every age from about 6 up and they were perfectly behaved. They talked quietly, read books, studied, etc. some of them made a 100 km round-trip bus ride every school day. There was no concern at all about them traveling on the same bus with unknown, adult foreigners.