Quote:
Originally Posted by John_W
The Autotrain has just two stations. Sanford, Florida and Lorton, Virginia. It's about 900 miles and departs from each station every day at 4pm and arrives the next morning at 9:30am.
My neighbor next door just visited Long Island, NY and took the roundtrip with sleeper accomodations, I believe the two of them paid $1400. Of course, if you're like myself who is only going as far as Maryland it's a great deal, others will require some driving to finish their trip. Sanford is about 90 miles east of here in Seminole County from the Virginia station I'll have about a 90 minute drive to the north Baltimore area.
When I took my first trip in April of 2011 heading north, the conductor got on the PA and said we made history. We were the longest train on record at 4,000+ feet, i forget the exact number, plus 475+ passengers, 203 cars and 2 motorcycles. That train was full.
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Perhaps they have gotten more efficient since the one time we took it from Sanford Florida to Lorton Virginia back in 1973.........hopefully so.
Our experience was not pleasant.........very very long wait to board.
Ditto for unloading. Hubby could have made better time driving the 900 miles......and overnighting in motels.......but it was a novel experience, which no doubt has been improved upon since 1973.
Also, we had a five year old and a two year old with us.........
We were extremely polite to the dining car help, but back in those days they were extremely rude to us......even when I just asked for some milk for the children.......
They definitely had an "attitude"........so it is not a trip we repeated.
After that we always flew to Florida. However, this one time we were moving back and had to take our vehicle.
We had driven from Satellite Beach to Sanford......and it was a very very long wait to board..............and then to disembark in Viriginia........
Our children were very patient little ones.......not screamers.
Still, it was hard to believe they couldn't find them (or us) something to eat in the dining car.........as it was the dinner hour. Again, circa 1973.