Does the train make stops in a cross country trip?

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When traveling from Boston MA to Carson City Nevada, does the train make stops at all?

How many hours does it take?
 
Yes. The train makes several stops along the route, principally Chicago IL to change trains. Go to Amtrak's website, and pull up the schedules for the Lake Shore Limited and the California Zephyr. Those list all the stops that your train will be making along the way.
 
There will be dozens of stops. It will take a few days to get from Boston to Reno. You can't get to carson city. Use www.Amtrak.com to help you get a better idea.
 
There is also a bus from Reno to Carson City. It's mainly a commuter run but could work depending and it's only $4. The schedule is here.
 
When traveling from Boston MA to Carson City Nevada, does the train make stops at all?How many hours does it take?
No offense, but is this a serious question?
It happens from time to time. People are SO used to flying which is terminal to terminal with no stopovers-- maybe ONE layover, if that.
Does the airport at Carson City even handle commercial traffic? I would think that, given its proximity to Reno-Tahoe, it would not.
 
When traveling from Boston MA to Carson City Nevada, does the train make stops at all?How many hours does it take?
No offense, but is this a serious question?
It happens from time to time. People are SO used to flying which is terminal to terminal with no stopovers-- maybe ONE layover, if that.
Does the airport at Carson City even handle commercial traffic? I would think that, given its proximity to Reno-Tahoe, it would not.
No clue.

But again, we live in an airport airborne culture-- we're used to point A to point B without any stops because people like it that way-- most people anyway. I'm sure the OP is just a confused first timer who is both excited and a tad worried about how his/her first trip will turn out.
 
Does the airport at Carson City even handle commercial traffic? I would think that, given its proximity to Reno-Tahoe, it would not.
No clue.

But again, we live in an airport airborne culture-- we're used to point A to point B without any stops because people like it that way-- most people anyway. I'm sure the OP is just a confused first timer who is both excited and a tad worried about how his/her first trip will turn out.
It seems whether you're flying or going by rail, the nearest you'll get to Carson City using public transportation is Reno. I don't even think Greyhound serves Carson City.
 
The thing to keep in mind when responding to new guests questions is that they might sometimes think this is an official train passenger enquiry website. When Googling, depending on the search words, extracts from our past forum discussions can show up near the top of the search results..

If one has never taken a train, it's possible that some folk don't even know the long distance usa passenger system is run by Amtrak?

Be gentle!

Ed B)
 
Do keep in mind that trains and buses serve a quite different purpose than planes.It just developed that way.

The airline industry is much newer than the rails. Guess they quickly figured out that it did not make sense to have an airport at every little town, the whole country would be nothing but airport runways--no farms, no houses, nothing :) But you can have train stations and bus stations in many more places.

We live in a huge vast large country. There is life between NYC and LA. Human life,even!! And it all has to be served, thus ground transportation.

And keep in mind that trains and buses run all during the night faithfully making stops.

Also keep in mind the need for fueling,water, etc. Your car could not go that far without stops --neither could a train.
 
We live in a huge vast large country. There is life between NYC and LA. Human life,even!! And it all has to be served, thus ground transportation.
Many people think that the area from Washington to Boston is all one big area with loads of people. However, the route from just north of NHV to just south of PVD travels thru mostly wooded areas! In fact (and it's just my opinion), I consider the portion from OSB to WLY to be one of the most scenic routes in the country! (It goes within sight of the Long Island Sound - sometimes within feet!)
 
Aloha

I am wondering if the question was ment to find out if the train stoped in different city's giving one time to explore the city where you are. Just another thought and 2 cents, for what thats worth. :rolleyes: :lol:
 
Do keep in mind that trains and buses serve a quite different purpose than planes.It just developed that way.
The airline industry is much newer than the rails. Guess they quickly figured out that it did not make sense to have an airport at every little town, the whole country would be nothing but airport runways--no farms, no houses, nothing :) But you can have train stations and bus stations in many more places.
I think it's more that the technologies have different limitations.

Jet airplanes turn out to get extremely poor fuel economy at low altitudes when compared to high altitudes. Therefore, each flight consists of some fixed cost overhead of getting from the airport to the section of the sky which has good fuel economy, and you don't want to drag passengers through that very expensive segment of flying more times than necessary. (At the same time, it turns out that dragging a passenger through two of those segments in 100 person planes is more viable than running point to point flights that have only five passengers so that you don't have to bring passengers from the ground to cruising altitude a second time.)

I believe the airspace system also requires lower speeds at lower altitudes, and getting in line to use a busy runway certainly can involve some waiting, whereas at cruise altitude there's plenty of airspace available and generally no congestion, and a jet airplane can typically go over 500 MPH.

Landing a plane also involves some interesting energy management problems: as you lose altitude, the plane wants to go faster, yet the typical plane ought to be somewhere around 65 MPH (plus or minus maybe 10 or 20 MPH) when it reaches the runway.

For a conventional speed train, the cost of making a stop is much lower. The stations are usually along the route Amtrak would be traveling anyway, and if the station is configured so that the train never has to back up or reverse direction, less than 10 minutes would typically be saved for through passengers by skipping a single stop. If you look at a route like the California Zephyr, which stops about once every two hours, I doubt that making the trip 5% faster by eliminating all stops except Chicago and Emeryville would attract any more Chicago<->Emeryville passengers who want to make the whole trip, and it would certainly eliminate a huge fraction of the passengers who were interested in service to the intermediate stations.

If we start building new high speed rail alignments, the time cost of stopping in a major city vs bypassing it without stopping is likely to have much more airplane like characteristics, since bypassing a city is likely to involve covering the 50 miles nearest the city at 220 MPH in under 15 minutes, whereas going through a large city on the conventional speed tracks into the downtown station might involve 25 miles of averaging 45 MPH from the edge of the metro area to the downtown station, followed by a stop, followed by another 25 miles averaging 45 MPH to get back to the 220 MPH tracks.

Even if the distances on the slow tracks aren't as long as my guess here or the tracks are a bit faster, going through lots of extra metro areas unnecessarily will be undesireable, and there will probably be at least a 30 minute delay for through passengers as a result of stopping in that city which could be avoided by skipping it. However, even then, making multiple stops within a metro area will probably cost under 10 minutes per stop for through passengers, so making a couple of stops in a major metro area for more convenient subway/commuter rail transfers for more local rail lines is likely to make sense.

It's certainly easier to move a train from one station in a downtown to another downtown station in the same city than to taxi a plane from JFK to LGA.
 
I am wondering if the question was ment to find out if the train stoped in different city's giving one time to explore the city where you are.
Someone familiar with Greyhound might also be interested in knowing that since Amtrak's long distance trains have cafe and dining cars and restrooms on the train, there's no need for the food stops like on a typical bus.
 
Does the airport at Carson City even handle commercial traffic? I would think that, given its proximity to Reno-Tahoe, it would not.
No clue.

But again, we live in an airport airborne culture-- we're used to point A to point B without any stops because people like it that way-- most people anyway. I'm sure the OP is just a confused first timer who is both excited and a tad worried about how his/her first trip will turn out.
It seems whether you're flying or going by rail, the nearest you'll get to Carson City using public transportation is Reno. I don't even think Greyhound serves Carson City.
Greyhound does not go to Carson City. Closest it gets is Reno. Carson City airport is general aviation only. Nearest commercial airport is...Reno.
 
Does the airport at Carson City even handle commercial traffic? I would think that, given its proximity to Reno-Tahoe, it would not.
No clue.

But again, we live in an airport airborne culture-- we're used to point A to point B without any stops because people like it that way-- most people anyway. I'm sure the OP is just a confused first timer who is both excited and a tad worried about how his/her first trip will turn out.
It seems whether you're flying or going by rail, the nearest you'll get to Carson City using public transportation is Reno. I don't even think Greyhound serves Carson City.
Greyhound does not go to Carson City. Closest it gets is Reno. Carson City airport is general aviation only. Nearest commercial airport is...Reno.
Sounds like somebody is going to have to take a cab--
 
Greyhound does not go to Carson City. Closest it gets is Reno. Carson City airport is general aviation only. Nearest commercial airport is...Reno.
Sounds like somebody is going to have to take a cab--
Or rent a car. When I took a train to Reno a few years ago, and had to go to Carson City, the Hertz rental counter was at one of the downtown hotels. When that was closed (after hours), the counter was at the airport. A cab to the airport was (IIRC at that time) $10. That's much cheaper than a cab 30-40 miles - and you may need a car in Carson City anyway.
 
Greyhound does not go to Carson City. Closest it gets is Reno. Carson City airport is general aviation only. Nearest commercial airport is...Reno.
Sounds like somebody is going to have to take a cab--
Or rent a car. When I took a train to Reno a few years ago, and had to go to Carson City, the Hertz rental counter was at one of the downtown hotels. When that was closed (after hours), the counter was at the airport. A cab to the airport was (IIRC at that time) $10. That's much cheaper than a cab 30-40 miles - and you may need a car in Carson City anyway.
Yeah-- either way. You can't go to Carson City via Amtrak... and frankly, I won't chalk this one up as a "service gap" .
 
Seems odd that a town of 55 thousand people has no requirement for any decent public transport links to the outside world. I am going to put it on my "List of places to visit before I forget where I put my list of places to visit"...

Ed B)
 
We live in a huge vast large country. There is life between NYC and LA. Human life,even!! And it all has to be served, thus ground transportation.
Many people think that the area from Washington to Boston is all one big area with loads of people. However, the route from just north of NHV to just south of PVD travels thru mostly wooded areas! In fact (and it's just my opinion), I consider the portion from OSB to WLY to be one of the most scenic routes in the country! (It goes within sight of the Long Island Sound - sometimes within feet!)
I wholeheartly agree with your opinion, the_traveler. I traveled from BOS to NYP yesterday and enjoyed the scenery. The train even stopped in Kingston, RI!!
 
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