using amtrak as a hotel

If you were to start in ATL with a 15-day rail pass, what route would you take to maximize night travel on the train? Therefore, you would start going northbound and perhaps spend a day in WAS or NYP. What itineraries can you dream up? The purpose of the trip is not sight-seeing, rather to focus on a particular project. Thanks.

Except for routes that have multiple runs per day (such as WAS-NYP or LAX-SAN), if the train arrives at 8 pm the next train in the same direction is not until 8 pm the following day.

Yeah, that's pretty tough, especially out of ATL. The Crescent is the only train going through ATL, and it runs every 24 hours. What project are you trying to accomplish?

My point is to use the train for overnight travel. For example, get off and spend the day in WAS, then you can overnight to CHI, etc. Things like that. Obviously sometimes you would have to get an actual hotel to stay sane, but I'm saying I wouldn't get off in Charlotte, for example, because it arrives there at night.

Are you trying to end up back in ATL or end up anywhere and fly back?

the_traveler said:

Except for routes that have multiple runs per day (such as WAS-NYP or LAX-SAN), if the train arrives at 8 pm the next train in the same direction is not until 8 pm the following day.

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Open to either option at this point.

ATL-WAS is overnight.

Spend the day in DC, and then take the overnight Regional to New York.

Spend the Day there, and then take the LSL west to Chicago.

Chicago can be a good "hub" for what your looking for.

You can do an "out and back" on the Southwest Chief. Leave CHI at 3 in the afternoon, arrive in Raton, NM around 11 the next morning. Cool your heels there for a few hours, then get on the train back to CHI at 4:50 that afternoon.

You can do the same thing on the City of New Orleans, perhaps going as far as Jackson, MS.

When you're ready to come home, you can take the Cardinal back as far as Charlottesville. Bail off there at 3 in the afternoon, grab some dinner and then get on the Crescent back to ATL for your last overnight.

If I counted right, that's 10 days. You can probably do one or two more round trips from Chicago if you want to pad your schedule out a bit.

Let's take a stab at this - THIS would have you on the train for 14 straight nights though there are a couple of Chicago connections which are not entirely reliable. DISCLAIMER - I would not attempt to actually execute this itinerary myself. As I have gotten older, I'm more about quality than quantity!

Day 1 - dp Atlanta Crescent

Day 2 - ar Washington

dp Washington Silver Star

Day 3 ar Orlando

dp Orlando Silver Meteor

Day 4 ar Washington

dp Washington Capitol Limited

Day 5 ar Chicago

dp Chicago City of New Orleans

Day 6 ar Jackson, MS

dp Jackson, MS City of New Orleans

Day 7 ar Chicago

dp Chicago Southwest Chief

Day 9 ar Los Angeles

dp Los Angeles Southwest Chief

Day 11 ar Chicago

dp Chicago California Zephyr

Day 12 ar Denver

dp Denver California Zephyr

Day 13 ar Chicago

dp Chicago Cardinal

Day 14 ar Charlottesville

dp Charlottesville Crescent

Day 15 ar Atlanta

Or, you could just take Via Rail's Canadian between Vancouver and Toronto. With some of the delays that train encounters, you might be able to cover all 14 nights of the train with just one round-trip!

A friend and I recently traveled ATL-WAS-CHI-CVS-ATL, on the nb Crescent, wb Capitol Limited, eb Cardinal (only runs some days), and sb Crescent. (Actually we started and ended in Anniston, but that doesn't matter for your purposes.) Four nights in a row on different trains, and nice daytime layovers of several hours in DC, Chicago, and Charlottesville for a little bit of sight-seeing. As others have posted, much longer trips are possible, but this was a very enjoyable and easy trip.

Throwing a return route into your itinerary may give you additional options, if you can do them on different trains as we did. I think you can visit a city twice on a railpass, but I haven't looked at the rules in a while.

If so, using the above, you could stay on the sb Crescent through ATL to New Orleans, overnight there, and then continue from NOL on the CONO or SL (only runs some days), with various options from there. Have fun on your trip!

chakk said:

Or, you could just take Via Rail's Canadian between Vancouver and Toronto. With some of the delays that train encounters, you might be able to cover all 14 nights of the train with just one round-trip!

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The OP's 15-day rail pass will not work in Canada or any other foreign country.