indyfabz

You need to reevaluate your sources. Here are some figures for 2012 and 2013 along with long-term gains:

https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/636/294/...ATK-12-092.pdf

https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/730/658/...ATK-13-122.pdf

As for bikes, it does what it can with the limited resources that it has. Have you ever heard a politician say a highway like I-95 should become "self-sufficient?" I haven't, but many say that about Amtrak. And before anyone shouts "Gas tax!," as the bi-partisan budget committee pointed out a few years ago, the federal gas tax covers only about 1/3 of federal highway spending. The rest comes from the general fund.

It's all about priorities. When you hear it touted that Amtrak will soon be able to hit a top speed 180 m.p.h. on the Northeast Corridor consider the fact that that will bring us to where France was--nearly thirty years ago.

You can look up Amtrak routes by region on its web site. It's not hard.

edthesped

Rail travel on the East Coast Megalopolis is pretty solid. A colleague lives in Connecticut and works in DC and uses Amtrak to travel home on the weekends. Also, the wife went to school in Boston and used Amtrak for weekend getaways to NY and DC frequently. Unfortunately it isn't the same outside of the East Coast corridor. I digress..

Granted, I'm not in marketing but it seems that accommodating bicyclists along established trails like the C&O/GAP and the Erie Canal would just make good business sense. I would think that if Amtrak would man the baggage terminal one day per week in Cumberland to accommodate cyclists people would schedule trips around days they could access the train. If I'm not mistaken Amtrak is union and that might also add an unyielding dynamic to the situation. It's funny how ferociously bureaucratic establishments resist change.

indyfabz

As noted, the Hiawatha service is pretty frequent, with 7 round trips/day. NYC-Harrisburg is also very popular. Some people use it for their daily commutes to/from HBG. Amtrak's IL service also quite popular. The west coast trains are also popular but can have service problems due to track capacity issues.

You are correct. The on-board positions are agreement (union) positions. One issue affecting checked baggage is station configuration. I was in Cumberland but did not see the station. As someone mentioned above, a station can be a minimal thing. In some cases the station is not much more than a bus shelter along side the track with a short, paved area. Baggage cars are located at the rear. If the train is long, you could easily have baggage needing to be unloaded with nothing but slanted ballast under foot. That creates a dangerous situation. Other physical characteristics of a particular station may also make accessing a baggage car and/or handling a bike very difficult if not impossible.

Amtrak is in the process phasing in new baggage cars to replace the heritage fleet it inherited. (Those cars date back to the 1950s.) They will be placed into service on all long distance trains and will be equipped with a certain number of "racks" to hold unboxed bikes. The question which has not been sufficiently explained is whether that will expand where one can board and/or detrain with a bike or will the same old rule still apply, which is no bike unless the station has checked baggage service.

edthesped

On the Amtrak blog they stated all new baggage cars would be in service by the end of 2014. Maybe the author was a little enthusiastic, or is the Capitol Limited not considered a "long distance route"?


New Baggage Cars Coming Soon |

Carbonfiberboy 

Anyone know if uncoupled tandems are included in the roll-on service? i.e. will the racks accommodate a tandem?

Walter S

A lot of that, ok. A different and valid perspective.

But accessibility? It's much easier to bicycle to an Amtrak station than an airport almost always. Here in Atlanta you can't bike all the way there without getting on controlled access highways. You can take your bike on the train. So you figure out Marta (assuming you don't live there) and get your loaded bike on the train potentially in a very crowded environment where people love you squeezing your big load in. And then you've got significant distance to cover on foot pushing the bike once there. For Amtrak I ride to the station on the bicycle. That's all there is to it. The station is just a building next to the tracks. You're there. No big terminals and concourses and rental car outfits and on and on among a sea of concrete controlled routes.

staehpj1

One thing that may slant my opinion is that I usually fly to my tours with my bike as checked baggage and then ship my bike home from tours.

Maybe I have been lucky, but I have thus far not had problems getting out of the fair number of major airports that I have left by bike. The roads weren't always ideal, but I managed. Alternately, while I haven't generally needed to use them on my tours, light rail, monorail, shuttle bus, or something is probably an option at just about any terminal you can't ride in and out of.

I agree that if you use smaller town Amtrak stations it is super easy. Big city Amtrak stations mean riding into the middle of a major city and probably involve about as much walking while pushing the bike as most airports so I con't consider them ideal either.

Bottom line... I do agree that accessibility is on average better for Amtrak stations, but I have not found air terminals to be that bad.

Dfrost 

My experience (on the Cascade line) is No, they won't accommodate full-size tandems. The racks are wall hooks in the baggage car, where there's limited head room, and the hooks aren't far enough off the floor. I had a Counterpoint tandem years ago (original version of the Bilenky Viewpoint) with a folding front boom for recumbent sitting stoker, and we did a test fit first. That did fit, just barely.

spinnaker

I am guessing they will not be allowed. After all it is still a tandem and we are talking about a US government business. No room for flexibility.

spinnaker

From waht I am reading about the service up in the NW corridor and elsewhere, I really don't know what the excitement is about with RORO. I considered taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle but after reading the horrible reviews of delays and dirty cars, I will probably be flying.

I wish they would add RORO to the Capital Limited and I would probably use it but just for short trip and/or when I had plenty of time.

Doug64

That may be true where the bike is checked either bare bike or boxed and stored in the baggage car. However, "walk on" service would not require any Amtrak employee to be present for boarding or unloading.

The Pacific Surf liner and the San Joaquin both have "walk on" capability. There are racks in the passenger cars with room for 6 or so bikes. The customers roll the bikes on themselves.

The other service on some of the Northwest routes, Cascades, is checking the bike at the baggage car. This service is where the customer wheels the bike, with appropriate baggage tag attached, to the baggage car and passes it up to an Amtrak employee. The drill is reversed when picking up the bike.

The other service is to box the bike and check it as baggage.

We utilize the train a lot at both the start and end of many of our tours. Figuring it out has never been a problem.







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edthesped

I found a couple of pics of the Cumberland station, maybe there is a good reason they don't do checked baggage...




I always thought the terminal was the same as the Western Maryland railroad but I was clearly mistaken.


I'm kicking around taking the train to Albany, then riding to Buffalo and hoping the train back to the Burgh as a summer jaunt. I just need to come up with good camping options.

staehpj1

If you are referring to the size of the terminal, I have seen others about that size that did have baggage service.

Walter S

That makes me wonder, what do you do with your touring gear if you roll on with no baggage service?

BobG

Amtrak has a generous carry on allowance. Strap each pair of panniers together and you should have 2 carry ons within the limits.

Amtrak - Policies - Baggage Policy & Service - Carry-On Baggage

Walter S

Since I already live in the city there's no problem getting there

I ride to the Atlanta Amtrak and walk maybe 80 feet. I reconfigure my stuff and box the bike not 40 feet from baggage claim.

staehpj1

Some or all of your baggage could stay on the bike if it is the same kind of rack I have used on light rail systems. I just hung the bike on the rack, baggage and all.

When I have checked a bike on Amtrak, I carried on all of my baggage other than the bike. That was back before the ultralight bug bit me and I was still using 4 panniers. I strapped pairs of panniers together to make the 4 panniers into two pieces of carry on baggage and my handlebar bag was a personal item. The agent said it was fine.

Walter S

I guess if it's a high traffic area. I worry about the wrong people messing with my stuff. But I imagine you're right about that being reasonable.

Yeah, I've had good luck doing that too.

3speed

I would Definitely recommend flying if you'll be near Chicago. In my experience, that entire area's crew should be fired. The trip from Madison WI area out to Seattle was fine(Seattle/Portland area crew from what I gathered), but on the way back from CA they did a crew change on the way to Chicago and everything changed. None of them were friendly at all and half of them acted like you were inconveniencing them by being on the train or something. Then everything really went to hell when we got delayed ~8 hours right outside of Chicago. Things break down; I get that. I don't fault them for that at all. The problem was that they had already closed the food car since we were almost to our destination and refused to give us any food, even though Many of us hadn't eaten since breakfast because we planned on eating lunch in Chicago when the train got in. It was ridiculous. We were all absolutely "starving", and there were even children on the train literally crying of hunger. Those of us that had some small snacks were sharing them with the families around us who had children. Then the crew was not only practically non-existent throughout the train, but they were all sitting in the front snack car chatting, drinking coffee, and Having Snacks! If you went up to ask about Anything, they would all go silent and glare at you and were rude to the point of being hostile when you asked whatever you went to ask. It was insane. I can't believe how the Amtrak employees behave. Then after All that, all they would offer was a credit toward our next Amtrak ticket, as if I would Ever use them again after the way their employees treat the customers. I can deal with some delays, but I won't deal with being starved for Hours while I'm stuck on their train and then treated with hostility. It sucks that planes are so expensive for taking a bike along, but Do Not take Amtrak. /rant

spinnaker

Well if they would do it the right way just take care of it yourself like they do in Europe.

prathmann

Depends on how you carry your gear. My touring load is all contained in a couple rear panniers so I can pull them off the bike in a few seconds and they snap together to form only one piece of carry-on luggage (two pieces are allowed).

The bike racks I've used have been pretty roomy so some touring gear could stay on the bike if it doesn't stick out too far. If you have a lot of small pieces of gear strapped to your rack it might be good to have a light duffel along so you could stash most of the items in there as one of your two carry-ons.

Doug64

There are storage bins at the ends of the car. It is easier to handle the bike when the panniers are removed. They do not need to be checked. We have never been chastised for piling our gear in the bins.

If there is room , we just left the panniers on the bikes, but it takes team work to get them through the door. I think this was on the San Joaquin. We left our gear on the bikes, as did another bike tourer parked between us.


When we know we will be travelling by train or air, we usually carry a very lightweight duffle bag in our panniers. This is the Amtrak station if Mt. Vernon, Washington. When using the Cascade, Vancouver, BC to Eugene, OR; it is roll your own to the baggage car. My four panniers plus some of my daughter's gear are stowed in the last 3 bags on the right. My wife's 2 panniers are at the left. The duffle allows consolidation of gear. The bikes need to be bare when you hand them up to the attendant.


The duffe also works well when boxing the bikes.

kelsodeez

i rode the capitol corridor train from sacramento to san francisco about a week ago and brought my bicycle with me. put it up in one of the designated spots on the train, locked it up and took my seat.

really came in handy when i had to get to the bart station a few miles away from the amtrak station. now only if the train was cheaper, id use it a lot more.

mev

Here is how this worked rolling off at Tukwila station on the Cascades line (which I don't think even has a building):
- prior to arrival, conductor on train came by and reminded me she was going to help me get my bike
- train stops, we both quickly walk to baggage car, door opened, bike retrieved
- conductor gets back on train and train continues

In the rolling on case at Cascades line in Salem, there was a building. I walked to the baggage car at the front of the train and handed my bike. I don't quite remember if person I handed bike got on the train or went back to the station, but it easily could have worked either way.