Auto Train to Florida
Mar 14 '00
This is the time of year when a northern's thoughts turn to the Sunshine State. Ah Florida! It is the only East Coast guarantee of balmy air and warm water before Memorial Day. But as appealing as shirt sleeves and tennis-without-parkas seems in March, there is a bigger draw. For us, the Florida magnet is color. The brown/grey palette the Northeast serves up in late winter becomes hard to look at, especially under skies that vary in hue between dirty milk and slate.
So, every year at this time we begin to plot a getaway to the land of green and orange and pink. In Florida even the humans are all decked out in brights and whites, except in Miami where the cool people wear chi-chi, NYC-all-black outfits, liberally accessorized with mini cell phones, as they conduct business under palm trees on South Beach sidewalks.
How to get to this land of color and heat? We often talk of driving, imagining a leisurely ride that includes stops in the Carolinas and Georgia. Sometime in the days before the trip, however, the spouse begins to remind me how I nearly went stir crazy on the five hour trip to Boston. Do we really want to drive 1,500 miles? At about that time we run into a friend with I-95 horror stories. The traffic! The trucks! And we chicken out again.
Scratching automobile, we are left with planes and trains. Sometimes we go with the plane, but often we go with the train, specifically the Auto Train. Here's what it's like:
The Route
The Auto Train has just two stations, one just south of Washington D.C. and one just north of Orlando. The trip is 900 miles and takes 16 1/2 hours. On the northern end the passing scene is drab, all industrial. In Georgia, however, the train passes through pine forests, tiny towns and rows of little wooden houses, whose residents often sit on their porches to watch the trains go by. I am prepared to swear that I have seen the same people on the same porches from year to year.
The Drill
Trains leave once a day, at 4:30 p.m., at each end of the route. Passengers are told to arrive at the stations early, not later than 3:30 for those traveling with a standard size car, or 2:30 for those with a motorcycle or over-sized car. Amtrak, which operates the Auto Train, means business with these deadlines. Arrive late, and they will turn you away. Cars are loaded into closed freight cars by Amtrak employees. SUV owners, be aware that cars can not be more than 65" high unless special arrangements are made. A few cars as high as 85" are accepted by prior agreement.
Car-top luggage racks are not allowed.
We had expected that waiting around for the train to leave would be a drag, but actually it is fun. The air is festive, and there is always a little drama. The drama often involves intense scrutiny of a vehicle that employees suspect is a fraction of an inch too tall, so do measure your van or SUV carefully
The Stations
Lorton, Virginia, the northern station, consists of a large, covered, outdoor seating area and an inside seating area. I thoroughly enjoy sitting outside and watching the loading procedure. It does feel as though the vacation has begun. The inside area fills up fast, and by the time starts to load, there are few seats left.
There is also no food service, either in the station or nearby. On early trips, we envisioned the station in a town. We thought we would arrive early enough to erase worries of getting tangled in D.C. traffic and then we would have lunch and stroll around. Wrong. There is nowhere to stroll. The train station seems to be the only game in town, and Union Station it isn't.
The Sanford station is closer to interesting sights, and the town of Sanford is worth a visit. There is also a state park nearby and there are a number of stores and restaurants within a few miles.
The Ride
We have traveled coach and we have traveled in sleeping cars. Anyone who sleeps well in a semi-upright position and doesn't mind doing so surrounded by strangers will not mind coach. Seats are spaced very far apart. There is easily four times the leg room of any row of coach airline seats. Really, the room is generous, and the seats are comfortable. If you are lucky enough to travel on a day when the trains are not crowded, and can grab two seats, you can sleep comfortably.
The spouse sleeps soundly in coach and is completely happy to do so. For me, a night in coach is a very, very long night. It never sounds bad: Stay up late reading, get very tired, sleep at least part of the night. But the hours from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. seem endless, and a number of passengers prowl around restlessly
There are a number of different sleeping car configurations, ranging from tiny lower-level rooms where one chair makes up into a bed to family bedrooms that sleep four. I love the sleeping cars. They are extremely comfortable day or night. We have gotten a deluxe bedroom on several occasions. By day it is a sitting space with a long couch and a chair; by night, two bunk beds made up with crisp white sheets. It has a private bathroom, complete with shower. Well actually, it is a bathroom that turns into a shower.
Rates
Rates vary considerably by season. Summer is low season because the trains are a favorite with snowbirds who take off for Florida in the fall with their cars and return in the late spring. There are frequent specials, too. Generally, however, a coach seat is about $225 round trip including passage for a car, and a bedroom more than doubles that fare. In late spring this year, two coach seats will be $550; upgrade to a deluxe bedroom and the fare for two people and a car becomes $1175.
This is a about the same, or a little more, than the going rate for two coach airline tickets and a rental car for 7 to 10 days. Generally, depending on the time of year and the deals airlines are offering, the Auto Train only makes sense financially if you will need a rental car for two weeks or more.
The Experience
While I have more than several friends who have taken the Auto Train and swear they will never do so again, largely because of the lack of privacy in coach, I must say that we have always found the mood upbeat and our fellow passengers friendly.
Meals are included in the fare, and are served in a white tablecloth dining car. There are several choices, often steak, a mild fish and a pasta, and the food is not bad. There are three seatings; you choose a time when you check in.
Ads for the Auto Train boast of movies shown in a lounge car. The lounge cars, with glass ceilings are delightful, but the movies are lame videos shown on what I seem to recall were 19" screens. On our trips, the movies were ignored. But one of the great pluses of train travel is the ability to roam around. We hit the lounge car several times on each trip, and stop by the bar car also. There are often card games; there is always conversation, and all-in-all the trip passes pleasantly.
Traveling in a sleeping car, in fact, is quite luxurious. A pot of coffee is always on, there is ice and juice in a cooler in a hall outside the rooms, and stewards are attentive. The trip is just long enough to get into a book, read a few magazines and gaze out the windows wondering what it would be like to live in rural Georgia.
Bottom line
If you hate to drive and aren't crazy about flying either, the Auto Train is a good choice, but it is the most expensive alternative for anyone who is staying just a week. It is also a huge time-killer. The trip eats up the better part of two days on each end of a vacation because of the requirement to arrive hours before departure.
Something to keep in mind
While the trains are due in at 9 a.m., it is not unusual for them to be late, sometimes many hours late. And unloading the cars takes time. It is a good 20 minutes before the first car rolls off, and it seems to me it is close to 2 hours before the last off is ready to be driven away. I have never figured out the order in which the cars are unloaded, but it definitely isn't first on, first off, so arriving early does not help to cut the wait short.
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