Do you go out of your way to ride a particular train?

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spinnaker

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Mar 23, 2018
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Already putting together my vacation for next year. As some of you may know I like to do bicycle tours but also try to use Amtrak to get back home.

My plan for next year is to do a loop out of Spokane making use of the Coeur d' Alene and Route of the Hiawatha bike trails.

I would like to take the train home but I really don't want to take the EB out of Spokane. First there is that horrible departure time. And you really miss one of the better parts of the trip and that is the Cascades out of Spokane. Plus I just took the EB this year.

I don't know if this is a crazy plan or not. But I was going to fly to Sacramento from Spokane. The crazy part is that is a 4 hour flight plus the trip to the hotel in Sacramento that is near the train station. I can be half way home on a flight in that time. Not to mention an extra night in Sacramento.

Aside from flying out to take the train ride back (which your vacation is really the train ride). Has anyone gone to great lengths to take the train to get to or from somewhere, rather than just flying?
 
I do it all the time when traveling from Spokane to Seattle, and vice versa. It takes longer to drive to the airport in Spokane than it does to fly to Seattle; in fact I can also fly from Pullman-Moscow, 15 miles away, and fly in less than an hour to Seattle. But I'd rather drive to Spokane, board the train to Seattle at 0 dark 30, and ride the 8 1/2 hours on the train. And take the train back, get to Spokane just after midnight, and make the drive in the dark home.
 
You are right about the vacation part. I've flown to LA to ride the Sunset, the Southwest Chief and the Starlight. This Fall I plan to suffer flying to SFO to ride the Zephyr. I'll come home on the Eagle.
Due to the departure's times on several times, it means a hotel night, but that's just part of the price you pay to ride, I guess.
 
Flew to LA last fall to take the SWC, CL & Pennsy to the NY Gathering. Just going to it via the NEC seemed so wrong. [emoji3]
 
Probably my most 'extreme' trip by air, just to ride a train, was last year when I flew to LA to ride the Tehachapi detour of the Coast Starlight to Oakland. I then caught the redeye flight home from SF that night.

But I have started a new "tradition"...
Last November, I took a 15 night cruise from New York to New Orleans. And then came home on the Crescent, the next day.
I couple of weeks ago, I ended a full six month world cruise from New York in Miami. And then came home on the Silver Meteor the next day.

So...I enjoyed the experience so much, that I am planning on doing the same at the end of January, when I take a cruise from New York to San Francisco...spend a few days there, and then take the CZ back, at least as far as Colorado...and then fly the rest of the way home, after visiting Colorado a few days...
 
If you go south on the TX Eagle from CHI to Little Rock, it has one of those o-dark-thirty arrival times (3:30-4am?). I had been considering going to Memphis on CONO, then taking Greyhound(and thinking as it'd be shorter travel time, that Silver Dog would be less bad) west to Little Rock to get there, then taking the train north when done in Little Rock where the Eagle arrival time isn't as super late (around 11:30pm-midnight).

Ditto with for Fargo on Builder, where it's arrival time is marginally better going east at 2:18 am vs. 3:24 am going west. So at one point I considered going west on EB somewhere, then going back east and arriving at that time to spend a while day in Fargo. Fingers crossed that the eastbound EB wouldn't be too late. There's also a similar situation with Salt Lake on Zephyr where it's better to arrive or depart west to travel via train there, as well (after 11pm going west, vs. near 3:30am going east).

So if the original poster was talking about careful and elaborate planning to do Amtrak train trips, and avoid worser o-dark-thirty arrival times, then yes I have for sure tried doing that in the past.
 
So...I enjoyed the experience so much, that I am planning on doing the same at the end of January, when I take a cruise from New York to San Francisco...spend a few days there, and then take the CZ back, at least as far as Colorado...and then fly the rest of the way home, after visiting Colorado a few days...

My first Amtrak LD trip, we (daughter) met a couple who had cruised from CA to FL and then took one of the Silvers to DC. We had dinner or breakfast with them on the Cap. We found out they were going to be on the CZ, as were we. Turns out they were in the room across from us. After they and my daughter and I had few meals with some "rather not eat with them again" people we arranged to have dinner together the 2nd night. My daughter and I got off at Provo, UT.
 
I HAVE gone out of my way to take a particular train...for my original "Railfan Madness" trip in 2015, as I had never been on the Southwest Chief before, I took the Sunset Limited to New Orleans, waited there for a day that the SL did not run, and then took the City of New Orleans to Chicago and a direct connection to the Southwest Chief westbound...under AGR 1.0 rules, this was a permissible single two-zone trip. The next year, for "Railfan Madness Part II", I did much the same thing except that I made it a trip from New Orleans to Portland via CONO and the Empire Builder (I had previously [2014] ridden the Builder from Seattle to Whitefish as part of yet another AGR 1.0 two-zone redemption from Houston to Whitefish...this meant that I had covered the full distance of both legs of the Empire Builder). On the way back I took the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Sacramento so that I could pick up the California Zephyr (again, never ridden) from Sacramento to Galesburg, thence connecting via AmVan with the Texas Eagle at Springfield for Longview and AmBus home.

Normally, though, when I'm just planning to get from Point A to Point B, I just take whatever trains are most convenient...although in 2012 I did have my father drive me and my nephew/niece to Austin in order to catch the Texas Eagle there directly for Chicago and Washington, D.C. in order to avoid the AmBus to Longview.
 
Through the years I have traveled to many places so that I could ride Amtrak Trains being re-routed for various reasons.

Also, lots of the Tourist Trains,Dinner Trains, Specials and Rail Museums have required Special Trips by various means ( Plane.s,Trains and Autimobiles)to be able to ride and visit them.

Travel is my muse and I've also done similar trips to ride various Flights, Local Transit,Ferries and even Bus Trips!!!:D
 
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I once took a Surfliner from San Diego to Santa Barbara and an overnight bus from there to Emeryville in order to ride the Tehachapi detour, and I took the Coast Starlight from Eugene to SAC to connect to the Zephyr Wyoming detour rather than catching the EB at PDX. Also, I once did a loop ARB-CHI (Wolverine), CHI-WAS (Cardinal), WAS-BOS (#66), BOS-TOL (Lake Shore Limited), TOL-ARB (bus) without any overnights for the sake of a long train ride.

On a more practical note, I’ve also taken longer routes to avoid awful middle-of-the-night call times. In my case, this mostly involves my tendency to avoid the 48/448 Lake Shore Limited at all costs. 49/449 is OK, but the 3:20am call time of 48/448 in TOL (combined with the thruway bus from ARB arriving there nearly 5 hours early) means I’ll take 30 and a Regional (or 30 and 42) any time over 48, even if I’m going to a city served directly by 48 or 448. Maybe I’ll take it sometime, but I think I’ll only do that if I go to CHI and board it there (which ends up costing me most of an extra day...) Though I’m honestly not sure how eager I am to ride Eastern trains in any case with the food situation...
 
No particular route or event but for each of the recent year's vacations I've routed it to experience new routes. I've traveled all the western LD routes end to end in at least one direction as well as the Capitol Limited and City of New Orleans. This fall's trip, I'm adding the Lake Shore Limited and Crescent to my "portfolio"!
 
Since I live 300 miles from the nearest station, no thruway services, every train ride is out of the way. I'd like to ride the CONO since I've never been on it, the most direct route is to get on a greyhound to take the Eagle to CHI; I can pick up the CONO the same day I arrive in CHI. I'd have to spend the night in CHI going back.

There are at least two other ways to go but they involve more than one hotel stay and at least one O-dark-thirty several-hours wait. Too complicated and expensive.

I'm only 7 miles from the local airport but I don't fly. Ever.
 
To be clear. I was not refereeing to flying to some city. just to take the train ride back home as your vacation. Just a train ride plus a visit to the departure city makes for an excellent vacation alone.

What I meant was that you are off somewhere wither for business or pleasure. There are no trains back from that city or (like Spokane) the schedule stinks from that city. So you fy off or take a bus to somewhere else to take the train. When it would have been a heck of a lot easier just flying straight home from the city you are visiting.
 
One time instead of taking the Silver Star to New York.l for a change of scenery I flew to Boston. Caught the Lake Shore Limited to Albany and took the Maple Leaf into the city. And I still got to the city at the same time.

Coming up I’m taking the Skeena after visiting Alaska. I’m flying to Portland from anchorage riding the Cascades to Vancouver. Then flying to Prince Rupert before catching the Skeena.
 
I've flown to Seattle, taken the Cascades to Vancouver, the bus out to Horseshoe Bay, and the ferry to Nanaimo, rather than simply flying to Victoria or Nanaimo before.

I would have been open to the ferry directly from Seattle to Victoria, too, but the Clipper has gotten outrageously expensive.
 
I flew to Seattle to take the Coast Starlight to San Jose to visit family.
This year I’m flying from San Jose to Chicago then taking the Cap & NER home... just to get in some train time .
 
I spend summers in Jackson, Wyoming. I fly in from Florida in June and each year take the train from the west coast back to Florida in early Sept. I fly out of here thru Salt Lake City and head to LA, Oakland or Seattle for the train ride(s) home to Florida. It depends on how many points for a bedroom so some years its the Chief, last year surprisingly it was the CZ and this year its the EB. Those are followed by CL and SM usually. I spend additional vacation time in west coast city then Chicago and DC. Its a mini vacation on the way home.

Without the trains it would be a 7 hr plane ride with connections home. With the trains its at least 8 days.
 
Only once. I flew to St. Louis from DC and wanted to take the train back but floods ruined those plans.

Many, many years ago I was attending a scientific conference at Jekyl Island, Georgia when I got a request to attend a one-day meeting in Washington, D.C. during the conference. So instead of flying 4 hours from the nearest airport in Brunswick, GA to DC with a change of plane in Atlanta, I took the Silver Meteor each way between Jesup, GA (just one hour's drive in my rental car from Jekyl Island) and Washington, D.C., booking a roomette overnight each way. Comfortable, convenient timings, less expensive than flying at that time, dinner and breakfast on the trains, and only missed one day of the scientific conference.
 
I flew one spring break (1973?) from New Orleans to San Antonio (on National Airlines!) just to ride the then new INTER-AMERICAN to Fort Worth.
Another year I flew Texas International's remaining turbojet prop service from Dallas to Beaumont to Lake Charles where I caught the eastbound SUNSET LIMITED to New Orleans. I did that rather than fly directly to New Orleans.
 
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