Amtrak operates more than trains daily in North America, connecting more than destinations in 46 states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces, and reaches additional destinations via connecting bus routes. Book travel, check train status, access your eTicket and more through the Amtrak app.
Learn more at Amtrak. Alternatively, you can print and get ticket assistance at the blue Amtrak ticketing kiosks located in The Great Hall. Refer to the Station Map for these locations.
Much of this has to do with a fundamental lack of investment. Unlike Japan, France, Spain, or China the country has not committed to building modern high-speed rail infrastructure.
But the operational aspects of American passenger rail are also curiously primitive. In other words, we don't use the infrastructure that we do have in a remotely efficient way or apply international best practices to railroad management. In general, once one knows on which track a train will arrive, one goes to the adjacent platform and waits.
When the train arrives, the doors will open and people who need to disembark will get off. Then you go through the open door and hop on the train. At smaller stations such as New Haven, New Carrollton, or New Rochelle, Amtrak uses the same boarding procedure used by foreign intercity railroad operators and by commuter rail and mass transit rail systems in the United States.
However, at larger stations, Amtrak chooses to ignore years of accumulated human wisdom about boarding trains. You wait for your track to be called and then need to queue up — with each passenger presenting a ticket to an Amtrak staff member before you are allowed onto a platform.
This is roughly how one boards an airplane in all countries, but it is not normally how one boards a train. Airplanes typically only have one door, which makes single-file queuing unavoidable. What's more, trains typically use either turnstiles at station entrances for mass transit or on-board conductor checks for intercity trains to verify payment.
This makes a ticket inspection queue unnecessary, while the multiple doors factor makes an inspection queue burdensome. They seem to be aware. As noted, Amtrak employs standard train boarding methods at many stations, offering a clear indication that they are aware that trains have multiple doors. What's more, Amtrak employs conductors who check tickets on trains, indicating that they are aware that there is no need for pre-boarding payment verification.
The queuing is limited to a handful of stations that happen to be located in major cities and thus happen to account for a very large share of total boardings. Amtrak officials have represented to me that the ticket check is a necessary security measure.
They have not been able to point to a specific legal directive instructing them to employ this method, but they gesture in the direction of airport security procedures. Purchasing a train ticket is a trivial task compared to assembling a bomb or obtaining a visa to enter the United States. Even if the ticket checking did have security value, the fact of the matter is that a malefactor could always board the train in Newark or Stamford and evade the system.
It inconveniences law-abiding travelers but offers no meaningful impediment to a determined villain. At New York's Penn Station one can avoid the queuing madness by adopting the following procedure : go to the main waiting room. Observe the escalators located in the middle of the room near the main information board.
Descend the escalator. Additional options can be found on the Amtrak. Note that we selected Chicago as the transfer point to calculate trip times. You can also change trains in New Orleans , but that trip option requires on overnight stay in New Orleans due to train arrival and departure times.
Train Time 61 hours Layover Time 6 hours westbound and 4 hours eastbound. The fastest cross-country trip is from Los Angeles to Washington D. The Mojave Desert and Allegheny Mountains are two major landmarks, and the start and end Amtrak stations are historic and beautiful.
Choose this cross-country route if you prefer desert and lake scenery over traveling through the Rocky Mountains, and wish to start and end in New York and L.
The Pacific Northwest segment between Spokane and Portland is particularly scenic, and the train stops at Glacier National Park as well.
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