Originally Posted by jonwvara

I think you are correct about Amtrak not caring how a particular bike gets small. They shouldn't care, and as far as my experience goes, they don't care. The key wording in the Amtrak quote about folding bikes is "Generally, these bikes have frame latches allowing the frame to be collapsed, and smaller wheels." What they mean by "generally speaking" is that latches and small wheels are typical of folding bikes, but--as that clearly implies--there are exceptions. My standard frame, with its full-sized wheels, rinko'd and packed in a bag that falls withing the size and weight limits, is one of those exceptions That's my position, and I am sticking to it.. My advice is not to overthink this.

Originally Posted by Tourist in MSN

I suspect that most of the time, your bike in a bag would pass. But I have met some Amtrak employees with authoritarian complex. Those of us on this forum are not the ones you have to convince, it is the Amtrak employee that wants to show how much power he has that can block you, and they have some of them.

Originally Posted by jonwvara

That's a good point. I understand that conductors have broad discretion. A rogue one, I suppose, could refuse to let a person board for any reason, or no reason. But how common is that? I ask that in perfect ignorance, never having run into such a person, although it sounds like you haven't been so lucky. Rightly or wrongly, I tend to regard that risk as roughly comparable to that of an unseasonable blizzard or a flash flood that undermines a stretch of tracks--in short, as one of those unavoidable but low-probability risks of traveling anywhere. Possibly I am a fool.