Can I get off the train one station early?

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troo troo tcrane

Train Attendant
Joined
Nov 2, 2018
Messages
67
Booked through Boston South Station but our hotel is much closer to Back Bay. We will make the request to the attendant once we board the train but want to know if it is in general allowed for pax to get off the train one station early like that?

We will only have carry on luggage and will fit 2 carry on sized suitcases in a view liner roomette and can easily handle them ourselves.
 
I do this routinely on the Silver Meteor when ticketed to Orlando. I often detrain in Winter Park (one station before Orlando). I once detrained from an Acela at Back Bay when ticketed to Boston. In all instances, I did not have checked luggage and I informed the attendant in advance.
 
Booked through Boston South Station but our hotel is much closer to Back Bay. We will make the request to the attendant once we board the train but want to know if it is in general allowed for pax to get off the train one station early like that?

We will only have carry on luggage and will fit 2 carry on sized suitcases in a view liner roomette and can easily handle them ourselves.

I did that the only time I've been to Boston on the train. The conductor had no problem with it.
 
I travel to Route 128 often. Unless your in First Class on Acela you don't really need to tell anyone you'll be getting off at Back Bay. Passengers detraining at 128, Back Bay, and South Station receive the same seat check. So no one will know if you're getting off at 128, Back Bay, or South Station. ;)
 
When taking the Hiawatha, one time I remember getting off early in Glenview coming back to Chicago from Milwaukee, despite that I was ticketed to Chicago. Yes, the Amtrak employees won't care if you get off 1 stop(or 2 or whatever) early. However I WILL note that it is VERY important to immediately contact Amtrak somehow if say you are ticketed to a different destination(i.e. let's pretend you're ticketed to go from Chicago to West Glacier, but you decide to get off at East Glacier instead), and you want to travel from a different station instead(say you want to travel from East Glacier to Chicago, instead of from West Glacier where in this theoretical example, you were ticketed to) going back. Since in this example if you don't board the train going back from West Glacier east to Chicago and choose to board at East Glacier, Amtrak will consider you a no show and this eastbound trip would automatically get cancelled. And yes, it is the passenger's responsibility to call Amtrak, and say their plan changed, where that they will be traveling from East Glacier to go back to Chicago instead of West Glacier.
 
I do this routinely on the Silver Meteor when ticketed to Orlando. I often detrain in Winter Park (one station before Orlando). I once detrained from an Acela at Back Bay when ticketed to Boston. In all instances, I did not have checked luggage and I informed the attendant in advance.
If I ever go to Orlando via Amtrak again, I will do that too. WPK seems to be in a better area. To me, it's worth the higher cab, Uber or Lyft fare to get to where I'm going in Orlando.
 
This would be no different than getting off an airline flight 1 stop early but may have problems with hidden city ticketing reservations.
Also if an accident were to occur - the souls on board would have one missing from the count causing who knows what confusion to the
emergency responders !
 
Last year I was really close to Select, so I bought a ticket on the Capitol Corridor from San Jose to Sacramento, but got off in Oakland to take a ferry home. I didn't bother telling anyone and grabbed my seat tag to free up the seat. I can't imagine why it'd be a problem.
 
This would be no different than getting off an airline flight 1 stop early but may have problems with hidden city ticketing reservations.
Also if an accident were to occur - the souls on board would have one missing from the count causing who knows what confusion to the
emergency responders !

Airlines have learned to shut down the hidden city option, especially when they went away from paper tickets. For example, back in the 80s, one could fly Northwest from OKC to Memphis for a fare higher than Fluffy could lift her tail, but if you booked to Nashville, the fare was less than half AND HAD A PLANE CHANGE IN MEMPHIS! We had some clients who knew how to work this; make sure you have no checked bags and after you get off in Memphis, pull the segment 2 and 3 tickets from your packet and simply board the MEM-OKC segment (#4) like nothing happened.

Now if you try that, your res cancels the moment you no-show for the next seg.

Of course Amtrak fares are distance based and I would imagine there are no hidden cities.
 
What's the term for that in airline travel? One of my friends suggested it for a recent trip, but we nixed it as too risky.

That's hidden city, but that's kind of a detail about air travel pricing that doesn't really apply to Amtrak. Often the routes for air travel seem odd, but they price them to provide point to point service. I can' t think of a case where Amtrak would provide a cheaper fare to go a longer distance.

The idea of hidden city is that something like SFO-LAS-PHX might be cheaper than SOF-LAS. So the passenger buys the ticket and then hops off in Las Vegas. Then the airlines freak out when they do a head count before allowing passengers to board and there's a missing passenger. They might even take more time to figure out who is missing.

Then the real pitfall is that the airlines really only offer point to point transportation. If a flight is cancelled, their obligation is to get the passenger to the final destination and can substitute a direct flight to that destination of a set of flights through a different city. Imagine trying to insist that you need to pass through Las Vegas when your ticket says you're going to Phoenix.
 
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