Amtrak Cleveland station to airport on rapid transit system

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JackieTakestheTrain

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
278
Location
Boston
Hello:

in mid-August, I am thinking of taking the LSL from NYP to CLE with a Sunday a.m. arrival.

The Cleveland transit website states that the Amtrak station is by request only.

Does anyone have any idea what that means *IF* you are arriving by train?

My guess -- guessing only -- would be the transit would stop if it see passengers waiting, but I am not sure.

Also, if anyone has used the rapid transit from Amtrak to the airport, I would appreciate any tips.

Thanks!

-Jackie
 
Hello Jackie, if you are taking the Lake Shore you'll be arriving into Cleveland around 3:27 am, so you'll have to wait til sometime after 9:35 to catch the Light Rail to Tower City to transfer to the airport. Unfortunately, there is no service earlier than that to Tower City on the weekends. I would recommend taking a taxi or Uber to the airport or maybe to Tower City to transfer to the RTA Red Line. If the train does arrive late enough to take the RTA, you'll have to walk about 750 ft to the North Coast rapid station as the RTA only drops off passengers by request at the crossing from the Amtrak station to the platform.
 
Personally, I would walk to Tower City and take the Red Line from there. The walk is about a mile, so may not work well for everyone. Otherwise, you could take Uber, Lyft, or a taxi to Tower City.
 
The sad thing is there are two trains that pass through CLE and both of them stop there during the graveyard shift on both ends. You want to go from CLE to CHI (CLE's #1 destination)? Would you rather leave CLE at 2:59am or 3:45am????
 
But on a positive note..there is no rush hour traffic at 2am. :p

And as previously noted. Do not walk to Tower City from the Amtrak station. It is not a straight-line route to downtown. Cabs are always waiting when the trains arrive.
 
At one time, when the Pennsylvanian went all the way to Chicago instead of terminating at Pittsburgh, Cleveland had afternoon service both east and westbound. But that hasn't been for a good number of years now. But it was coach service only...a mixture of Amfleet and Horizon cars. As I recall the vast majority of the train consisted of MHCs and RoadRailers. (Thank goodness Amtrak got out of the freight business!)
 
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The Sunset Ltd.'s Calling Times in San Antonio are not fit for man or beast either!
One of the reasons I could never make the Sunset work, pre-Katrina is that the places I wanted to go in NW Fla were all served at oh-dark-30.
 
At one time, when the Pennsylvanian went all the way to Chicago instead of terminating at Pittsburgh, Cleveland had afternoon service both east and westbound. But that hasn't been for a good number of years now. But it was coach service only...a mixture of Amfleet and Horizon cars. As I recall the vast majority of the train consisted of MHCs and RoadRailers. (Thank goodness Amtrak got out of the freight business!)
Yes it did: http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=20000521n&item=0030

The problem was if going from CLE to CHI you arrived after midnight and if you returned you left at 6:00am. The times to PHL were horrible too and the train didn't even serve NYP. It worked if going from CLE to/from PGH or TOL though.

The ideal schedule for CLE (and TOL) would have been the Skyline Connection (45/46) which was never implemented. If I had a choice between this schedule's 40 or 46 for CHI to PHL, I would've taken 46 (westbound I would still rather have 41 than 45 to avoid leaving after midnight). My ideal Philly train schedule would be 45 pushed two hours earlier and 46 pushed one hour earlier (and extend to NJ/NYP both directions). For CLE, that would be 10:38am-4:47pm westbound and 12:30-8:15pm eastbound.
 
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Yeah, there's a nasty schedule mismatch at Cleveland. :-( They need a day train!
I thought the New Orleans schedules were bad until I looked at Cleveland.
Yep, it is too bad that Cleveland doesn't have some sort of daytime Amtrak train servicing it. It'd be nice if some sort of regional train could be created from Cleveland to Chicago, but I suspect it'd require funding by the Ohio Department of Transportation to be supported? And that since it's less than 750 miles, that federal funding wouldn't cover such a train.

Don't forget Salt Lake City, UT, Charlotte, NC, and Fargo, ND have pretty bad Amtrak train times as well. Both these places would probably be interesting to visit, but it makes me a little reluctant to want to visit either place with how late at night it stops in both these cities. At least Lynchburg, VA(where my aunt and uncle live) now has a NE Regional train servicing that city, where the times aren't as very early or late as the Crescent train times are. This is the same train, where it is about to be extended to Roanoke in the next few months btw. Though the Crescent's arrival times in Lynchburg, VA could easily be worse, though. Say, when you look at how late Charlotte, NC sees the Crescent in both directions arrive!
 
Spokane is another stop that has bad timing. There is some talk about reviving service over the NP Stampede Pass route that would restore service to former Amtrak stops Yakima, Ellensburg, and East Auburn, and that would run between Seattle and Spokane and give Spokane daylight service. I will believe it when I see it and not until then.
 
Yeah, there's a nasty schedule mismatch at Cleveland. :-( They need a day train!
I thought the New Orleans schedules were bad until I looked at Cleveland.
Yep, it is too bad that Cleveland doesn't have some sort of daytime Amtrak train servicing it. It'd be nice if some sort of regional train could be created from Cleveland to Chicago, but I suspect it'd require funding by the Ohio Department of Transportation to be supported? And that since it's less than 750 miles, that federal funding wouldn't cover such a train.

Don't forget Salt Lake City, UT, Charlotte, NC, and Fargo, ND have pretty bad Amtrak train times as well. Both these places would probably be interesting to visit, but it makes me a little reluctant to want to visit either place with how late at night it stops in both these cities. At least Lynchburg, VA(where my aunt and uncle live) now has a NE Regional train servicing that city, where the times aren't as very early or late as the Crescent train times are. This is the same train, where it is about to be extended to Roanoke in the next few months btw. Though the Crescent's arrival times in Lynchburg, VA could easily be worse, though. Say, when you look at how late Charlotte, NC sees the Crescent in both directions arrive!
Charlotte also has the Carolinian and Piedmont, which have much better calling times. The downside of these trains is that they do not connect to the CL or LSL for passengers from locations west of the east coast. Salt Lake City's times aren't that bad westbound, but they are miserable eastbound. Fargo does have horrible times, but it is a relatively small city and is far from alone in the category of small cities with sub-par Amtrak service.
 
Service at the wee hours, has always been the bane of train stations at certain longitudes, where their location suffers account their distance from the origins of the trains....back when trains ran at multiple times on a route, it was not as big a problem, but most of the 'fleet' of limiteds passed these points at wee hours, and an all-stops 'accommodation' train served the daylight patrons....

As for Cleveland, it seems to me that they should run Train 49 about three hours later, which would improve things somewhat...(and try to cut that long dwell at ALB)...
 
Service at the wee hours, has always been the bane of train stations at certain longitudes, where their location suffers account their distance from the origins of the trains....back when trains ran at multiple times on a route, it was not as big a problem, but most of the 'fleet' of limiteds passed these points at wee hours, and an all-stops 'accommodation' train served the daylight patrons....

As for Cleveland, it seems to me that they should run Train 49 about three hours later, which would improve things somewhat...(and try to cut that long dwell at ALB)...
Good point regarding #49. The stop at ALB is way too long.
 
Spokane is another stop that has bad timing. There is some talk about reviving service over the NP Stampede Pass route that would restore service to former Amtrak stops Yakima, Ellensburg, and East Auburn, and that would run between Seattle and Spokane and give Spokane daylight service. I will believe it when I see it and not until then.
Yep, Spokane does have bad timing too. At least theoretically one could board and sleep on the train, just before the process occurs where both parts of the train are connected or disconnected. Depending on the direction of the train you're boarding. There are stations that have it a little worse though, such as of course Fargo. :) Little Rock going south/westbound is rough too, when it's scheduled to arrive at 3:10am. It isn't as bad heading north/eastbound towards Saint Louis and Chicago(midnight-ish, give or take), though.

Service at the wee hours, has always been the bane of train stations at certain longitudes, where their location suffers account their distance from the origins of the trains....back when trains ran at multiple times on a route, it was not as big a problem, but most of the 'fleet' of limiteds passed these points at wee hours, and an all-stops 'accommodation' train served the daylight patrons....

As for Cleveland, it seems to me that they should run Train 49 about three hours later, which would improve things somewhat...(and try to cut that long dwell at ALB)...
You're inevitably right, when it comes to train travel. Some states/cities/towns will always inevitably have a late as heck or ridiculously early in the morning stop(3-5am), due to being far away from where the train originates. And since this problem is compounded more, by the fact there's only 1 long distance train(vs. more than 1 train pre-Amtrak) serving a lot of these cities. I.e. Nebraska stops on the California Zephyr, Kansas stops on the Southwest Chief, eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota stops on the Empire Builder, and western Arizona/eastern California stops on the Sunset Limited. Sadly for the latter, that problem is compounded by the fact it only runs 3 days a week, which probably won't change anytime soon. :( Though I wish it would get upgraded to daily service, along with the Cardinal.

Service at the wee hours, has always been the bane of train stations at certain longitudes, where their location suffers account their distance from the origins of the trains....back when trains ran at multiple times on a route, it was not as big a problem, but most of the 'fleet' of limiteds passed these points at wee hours, and an all-stops 'accommodation' train served the daylight patrons....

As for Cleveland, it seems to me that they should run Train 49 about three hours later, which would improve things somewhat...(and try to cut that long dwell at ALB)...
I just looked at the 49's schedule now, and yeah that would help things. Don't know if scheduling issues(i.e. time slots for Amtrak trains to run, balancing Amtrak with freight train traffic) would make it tough for Amtrak to have the westbound LSL run a little bit later. But it'd certainly help Cleveland and all the stops west of it have a less brutal arrival time, to adjust the schedule by as little as 1-2 hours. Of course if 49 had a 1-3 hour later arrival at all stations west of Albany, they'd risk annoying the western NY riders(particularly Rochester and Buffalo). 11/2 hours later for all westbound 49 scheduled stop times might be a fair compromise, so that Rochester and Buffalo don't have too late of an arrival time(12:39am and 1:25am). And Cleveland would see a 4:57am arrival time(and 5:15am departure), which would be an improvement. Ditto with all the Ohio and Indiana stops, west of Cleveland.

Like another poster said, if you change the arrival time to make it better for certain cities, you make it worse for others(i.e. Erie, PA). I guess that's just the way long distance train scheduling is, that some city or town always gets screwed with a really bad time. It's too bad it isn't like the pre-Amtrak days, where there is a variety of arrival times in different parts of the day for those middle of the US stops.
 
I've occasionally pitched what I call the "TWO A DAY" plan -- a second Lake Shore Limited which runs overnight from Syracuse to New York City and in the daytime through Ohio.

I think there is enough demand for two trains per day. I'm just not sure how to assemble the correct coalition of advocates.
 
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