Originally Posted by ignant666

The thing with the hooks that you hang your rear wheel on in the Amtrak cars with roll-on bike service is that they are in what is otherwise a large luggage storage area (with a shelf in the middle you flip out of the way). The hook is a bit less than 5 feet up, 3 feet inside that luggage box thing, and designed by a person who did not care if it worked very well.

It is just plain awkward, and a huge pain, both putting the bike on, and also getting it back out, and then putting the front wheel back on so you can leave the train. The latter especially fun when your train has taken on the passengers from the previous train that had some problem, and the aisle next to the luggage/bike rack is thus packed with grumpy people.

I have had no issue with various 40-something x 700c tires getting on the hook with air in them. It is definitely a two-handed process getting the bike on, or off, the hook. There is no way you could easily hang your wheel from something else instead of the hook, that would just make it worse, and the hook is already quite low (which is why you have to remove your front wheel).

As far as knowing what trains take bikes, and on what terms, when you are selecting trains on the Amtrak site, click on the name of the train service, like Vermonter or whatever. There will be a services menu in the pop-up describing that train, and it will list what ways of getting a bike onboard are available. These days there nearly always is some way of doing so, although they may limit the number of bikes per train. Roll-on is best because it works for boarding and exiting at every stop. Bike in a box, and luggage-car roll-on services are only available at some stops, which obviously must include your starting and stopping points. The train services menu will tell you which stops are checked baggage stops.

When you buy your ticket, if there is a check box for "Add bike", you check it, pay $20, and do what the conductors tell you to do with the bike. If there is no check box, either you have picked a train that has no bike service, or all the bike slots are sold out already. If you are traveling between two checked-baggage stations, and if the station you are starting at has bike boxes, you can still do bike-in-a-box, which is also $20, including the box.