Originally Posted by jamawani
Amtrak might complicate things.
Jamawani, I think I read your journal somewhere - were you the one waiting at the Greyhound station when the prison bus pulled up and dropped off several freshly released prisoners
(and it turned out that the ex-convicts where some of the best behaved people on the bus
)?
jjones, I am riding Seattle to S.F. this summer. I will ship my bike to Seattle ahead of time via Fedex (I have a cousin near Seattle) and fly out. When I arrive in S.F. I will ship the bike home via FedEx (my employer has an office in Mt View, which helps) and then I will get on a plane and fly home. As much as I hate to fly, there is no way I'm messing with Amtrak!
If you go Amtrak with a Bob trailer, carefully read their baggage policies. For instance, the Amtrak route across Missouri will allow you to bring a bike onboard for an additional fee, but they do not allow trailers, so if you wanted to do the Katy Trail with a Bob trailer and use Amtrak, you're SOL. Other routes allow bikes and trailers as checked baggage only, but then many of the stations on the route do not have baggage service (meaning they'll stop and let YOU off of the train but they won't retrieve your bike from the baggage car). Bottom line: Amtrak SUCKS.