Buying a ticket from a station without quick-track machine option

[Mark Del Monte]

If you are traveling from Monterey to San Francisco on the Coast Starlight you would hand the thruway bus driver your ID card to be given to the agent at Salinas at which point you would pay for your ticket. If you take the Amtrak California Bus which is actually MST transit route 55 to San Jose I believe you would pay cash in the farebox and then amtrak would deduct that from the rest of your rail fare however with that route you would be changing to CalTrain into San Francisco so the whole trip would be non amtrak and you would just buy a separate caltrain ticket. But anytime your travel begins on an amtrak bus you simpy hand over your license or ID Card to the driver and we give it to the station agent who then sells you your ticket.

Mark

 

[ralfp]

If you are traveling from Monterey to San Francisco on the Coast Starlight you would hand the thruway bus driver your ID card to be given to the agent at Salinas at which point you would pay for your ticket.

What!?! You let them keep your ID?

 

[AlanB]

If you are traveling from Monterey to San Francisco on the Coast Starlight you would hand the thruway bus driver your ID card to be given to the agent at Salinas at which point you would pay for your ticket.

What!?! You let them keep your ID?

Yup, that's how they let you board a Thruway bus without a ticket. Giving them your license is your guarantee that you'll pay for the fare upon arrival at the station to connect with the train. Hundreds, if not thousands of people do this in California every year.

 

[HP_Lovecraft]

I believe that it's handled much the same way that tickets are handled for the LD's.

I see people get on without tickets all the time, and buy directly from the conductor.

I'm told this is allowed at stations that are not staffed, since the quicktrack machines only work for people with credit cards. If you want to pay with cash, you can just buy from the conductor directly.

You can do this from the staffed stations as well (ie BON, POR), but they are supposed to charge a fee. Similar policy to the MBTA.

Many trains do sell out, though. Usually on days when the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, or Pats play, you will see sold out trains around the game times.

I think technically those of us with monthly tickets are not guarenteed a seat, though I've never been prevented from boarding. Monthly tickets are considered UNRESERVED so I wonder how is that calculated with a sold-out train?

 

[TransitGeek]

My hometown station is unstaffed (RIV), as is the only other station that I've been through on Amtrak (VRV). When I made a quick run to the desert on the Southwest Chief a few years ago, I made reservations through the internet and the web site gave me the option of either Express Mail or Pick Up At A Staffed Station. I chose the latter, took the bus to San Bernardino (which is the nearest staffed station, dunno station code), and picked up my tickets with no incident.

RIV now has ticket purchase and pickup available via Metrolink TVM's, so upon booking my Christmas trip this year I didn't have the opportunity to check whether or not this option was still available, but as of 2003 it was. I can't see why they would remove it for no good reason.

Incidentally, does anyone know how Amtrak handles same-day travel from unstaffed, rural stations like VRV? I have a friend who wants to come down the hill (VRV-RIV on the SWC), and the train's the cheapest way to do that, but he doesn't want to make reservations as his plans change quickly, and he's in the mail-me-a-ticket trap.

 

[AlanB]

Incidentally, does anyone know how Amtrak handles same-day travel from unstaffed, rural stations like VRV? I have a friend who wants to come down the hill (VRV-RIV on the SWC), and the train's the cheapest way to do that, but he doesn't want to make reservations as his plans change quickly, and he's in the mail-me-a-ticket trap.

He has to call Amtrak up, make a reservation, and then give the conductor that reservation number when he boards the train. If he's paying with cash, then he pays the conductor. If by credit card, he can either give the number to the agent on the phone or the card to the conductor when boarding.