51 Cardinal Advice

My husband and I are taking the 51 Cardinal from Wash-Chicago at the beginning of October. We will have folding bikes with us that we have taken on the SW Chief from Albuquerque-Los Angeles. There was no problem storing them in the sleeper car in the baggage area on the lower level. I just found out that Amtrak does not have that baggage area on the 51 Cardinal Viewliner sleeper car. Our folding bikes are allowed on Amtrak as a carry-on bag. The dimensions of our full size folding bags are 38"x28'x12" each, which is under the dimensions allowed for carry on folding bikes. I am wondering if we should change our reservation to the Capitol Ltd from Wash-Chi because of the available baggage area on the Superliner? Any advice on experienced train travelers is appreciated!

The bike bags would have to travel in coach either in the overhead racks or the end of car floor space(seats removed area) used for bags, strollers, and wheelchair storage. This is assuming you will have other luggage filling up your roomette storage spaces.

Correct. There is no additional public storage space on a Viewliner, except that in your room. A folding bike will not fit in the room with 2 people and their baggage. It may if there was only 1 person and it was stored on the unused top berth.

Since you are traveling from WAS to CHI, you may wish to consider checking them. (They may actually be carried in the CL.) Or if you want to carry then on, you may want to transfer to the CL yourself.

On some trips on a viewliner the SCA has used the handicap room for storage if it here is no passengers in there

On some trips, the attendant will actually put the carry-ons which you can't fit in the compartment in the baggage car; I've seen that done. (It's much easier to do that on a single-level train than on a bilevel train.)

Thank you for the replies. We will have to decide soon if we want to change our reservation.

stay on the Cardinal for the scenery

and check the bikes,,,,

I have never had a problem with checked luggage

We got the folding bikes to avoid checking them and we like the simplicity of carrying them on the train, but if we want to ride the Cardinal we may have to rethink that.

They may fit in the storage area over the hallway.

We all know that policy vs practice can be dramatically different. But here is the policy per the Amtrak website:

Folding bicycles under the dimensions of 34" x 15" x 48"/860 x 380 x 1120 mm will be allowed onboard all trains in lieu of a piece of baggage. They must be considered a true folding bicycle.

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The Viewliner Sleeping car is right next to the baggage Car - on the front of the train. We have had our Sleeping car attendant actually put extra bags in the baggage car, and he would retrieve them as (or if) we needed anything out of those bags.

BTW - the two bedrooms are by the vestibule end of the car - by the walkway to the baggage car - so you can walk right out of the bedroom - and just step over - and look inside the baggage car. It's just a few feet away. The roomettes are just beyond the three bedrooms (one handicapped room, and two deluxe bedrooms). The baggage car is pretty empty for the most part - big giant car with 20 or so suitcases.

If possible - book a bedroom on the Cardinal. It has a private bathroom, and you are at the head end of the train - no walk throughs.... Very private, like a private car.

In the past, I wudda said, "Transfer to the CAP, there is space for your fold-ups, there is a true LOUNGE car (Sightseer Lounge) and a TRUE diner."

BUT, BUT, (always a "but" isn't there?) The CAP's meals have been hateful of late, (IMHO) and the scenery IS better on the CARD, if (and that's a BIG if) you happen to get a seat on the correct side of the CARD.

But the food on the CARD is NOTHING to write home about, Hell, it's nothing to write a prisoner pen-pal about.........

So to me, it's an absolute CRAP SHOOT. Chances are on the CARD, they will help you, or put your bikes in the baggage car for you.

Thanks again, everyone. Since a couple of you think that there is a chance that they will stow them in the baggage car without us having to box them up, I think we will stay with the Cardinal. We booked that because we did want to see the scenery, but I think we are on the wrong side, we are in room 1. Oh well, we are looking at it as an adventure!

Hopefully by this time next year, the Cardinal will either have a Viewliner II baggage or baggage-dorm car with a bike rack. Then there would be the option to have the bikes hung in the bike rack without worrying about putting them in boxes.

Twice when I've had a roomette on the Lakeshore Limited, I've been able to store my folding bike in an adjacent coach. My theory is that a sleeping car passenger should get at least the same amenities a coach rider.

I agree with cpapat. If I wanted to check it, or were even able to check it, I'd bring a full sized bike. A couple year ago my wife and I went from QCY to SAN via CHI, PDX, and LAX with folders. During the layovers, we were able to do some riding in all three cities. That would be pretty costly if we had checked them. Of course, none of the trains had viewliners.

afigg said:

Hopefully by this time next year, the Cardinal will either have a Viewliner II baggage or baggage-dorm car with a bike rack. Then there would be the option to have the bikes hung in the bike rack without worrying about putting them in boxes.

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I'm thinking of starting a pool to guess when this will happen. My vote would be for about the same time Mica becomes a rail fan.

Some of the Folding Bikes I have seen really fold up quite small. Perhaps if you have a canvas bag or even case for them they will be that much more safer in the Baggage Car, especially if they end up sliding around.

I'm not sure how small your folding bikes fold: I have seen a few which would fit in the Viewliner roomette storage compartment (but then where would you put your luggage?)...

I'm going to guess they're somewhere in the neighborhood of...

cpapat said:

38"x28'x12"

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h34r:

OK, those are not the tiniest folding bikes in the world, but frankly, they'll probably still fit in the Viewliner luggage compartment. Wouldn't leave much room for luggage though.

They are folding bikes and they do fold up small enough to meet Amtrak's folding bike policy, however they are full-size, not the little clown bikes (as my husband refers to them), but traveling with 2 of them, they do take up some room. However, the reason we got them was to be able to take them on Amtrak without having to check them. Our first trip to LA from ABQ on the SW Chief went great. We only took public transportation and rode our bikes for 1 week all around LA and Santa Monica.

On this trip we are biking the GAP and visiting DC, so we will be traveling light with a couple of panniers, except for the bikes. (So not too much luggage.)

Oh, and we do have nice canvas bags that they fit in.