Amtrak

Nice station. I didn't know what to expect as I've not done much travel by train outside of much larger cities. Even though I was just picking someone up, it was easy to manage.

I'm thinking I may need to plan a train trip!

I don't have a lot of exposure to US train stations so I don't know what to expect. The Greensboro station was better than I had anticipated despite being a small stop. They have a small concessions store and a clean and well lit seating area. The track area was clean and well lit as well which was nice considering our 3:00 AM arrival. They had baggage handling despite our late arrival which was nice. Parking was not a problem although I only had experience with a very late pickup so it may be different during the day.

I planned for a quick trip to Durham. The tickets were inexpensive. There were a couple of delays to include my own trip. However, I did make it to my destination within the expected hour. The station had a reasonably sized waiting area, a store, & vending machines for your convenience while you wait. I did not utilize the restroom while waiting. The common waiting area was mostly clean upon entry. Mobile tickets are always a plus and easily accessible via the app in addition to updates on current trains. I would travel again for a short trip.

We traveled to Washington DC this summer with our family & loved it! We could take our own food & drinks, plus the cost for all of us round trip was less than the cost of an airline ticket for one person! Fantastic, we will use Amtrak again!

First trip on Amtrak and it's a nice change from flying or driving. Going to NYC from Greensboro and I'm just tired of the hassel and nickel and dime of flying. Was going to drive, but thought we would give the train a try, and it's a good experience. First, check in is ridiculously simple. The train was On Time! The coach accommodations are nice and roomy. Restrooms larger, too. Plenty of room to walk around. Wi-fi on board and. AC power to charge devices if needed. You can work, surf the web, read, snooze, do whatever as you head toward your destination. Plus the scenery is interesting.

Compared to flying the cost is less. $530 for two of us vs $760 flying.

The downside is it does take longer, about the same as driving. Flying door-to-door would have taken six hours and the train will take 12. But if you're thinking of driving, the train is definitely a good option. If we ever get the high speed trains they have in Europe and Japan this will be the only way to go.

Fun historic station that has all the old fixtures still up. Ideally located in Downtown Greensboro, it's walking distance to Elm Street or pick up a scooter/request a driver and make your way to the broadest points of Downtown Greensboro (hello, whiskey at Dram and Draught!). Really enjoy this as an option to and from Raleigh but wish they ran later - the latest you can leave heading back to Durham or Raleigh is 8:30 p.m. $15-18 one way between Raleigh and GSO depending on how far out your purchase.

I like to think of bad experiences as opportunities to collect really great stories, the chance to find new adventure.

The summer after high school, I fell off my skateboard while speeding down a mountain. Fortunately, the ground broke my fall (ba-dum-bum). I landed on my face. Bloodied, and with half a front tooth hacked off, I went to the ER, and later had an emergency root canal.

(I applied for a job at Versace before my tooth was capped. I didn't get the job.)

Embarrassed and pained and regretful, the experience made me a little more interesting.

("He'd do anything for a good story," someone once said.)

So, when I missed my midnight train from Greensboro to New Orleans (I read 12 pm instead of 12 am, and booked a room at the Marriott), I thought it off as an invitation to explore a new city.

Or lack thereof.

When I realized my error the next morning, I called Amtrak to reschedule, and they told me I'd have to wait for the next midnight train. That meant an extra day in Greensboro, and one less day in New Orleans. I mulled it over, and, in direct conflict with thrifty-hostel Keane of weeks past, booked a flight down to New Orleans and canceled my Amtrak reservation entirely (with 90% refund, thank you). A couple hundred dollars can be remade, but a memory cannot. Besides, who'd want to wait another 12 hours in Greensboro for a 20 hour train ride? Not me. So I flew...

(What do you call a Chinese person with wings?)

As we reached New Orleans, there was an intense, shockingly visible, thunderstorm over the airport. The pilot circled for 30 minutes (an extended aerial tour of New Orleans, I told myself. I'm so fortunate. Yes.), but gave up and landed in Baton Rouge to refuel and wait.

We waited for three hours.

And while everyone on board was complaining about the heat or why US Airways couldn't pay for the fuel or about "that other plane on the news (you know, Mabel, the one that was stuck on the tarmac for God-knows-how-long?)," I was reading my book. My lovely, lovely book. And though I much preferred spending my time in New Orleans, I really couldn't do much about it then. Anyway, it was better than being in Greensboro.

(A cook.)

So, that was the spice before the final stretch of my trip. And while coming back home to San Francisco felt like the end of the ride, it really wasn't:

"You do realize you have to find a new job when you get back, right?"

You say it as if it were a bad thing.

After all, it's just another adventure...

On my first plane ride on the US Airways shuttle to DC, once we had landed at National, the guy in front of me turned to his wife and said, "See? If we had taken the Amtrak, like you insisted, we would be in Newark by now!" True that. The plane is supposed to take 45 minutes, compared to the train's 4 hours, but 2 hours on a runway quickly takes the charm out of the jet-setting life. After some bad experiences on what is supposed the be the "shuttle" to DC on American, I went back to taking Amtrak. Sure, it completely boggled my mind that the fare to DC from NYC is now $90, making round-trip cost almost $200, which is more than the plane fare I usually get (go figure). But it beats the hell out of sitting on the runway.

I'm glad I made the switch. I had forgotten how nice the ride is, gluing my face to the window and watching the scenery, iPod securely fastened to head. Maryland, Delaware, Philly, and Jersey. Time to sleep, time to read, time to whip out the laptop, if you are so inclined. Bonus is that you don't have to go through security, have strangers rifle through your things or look at you like you are a criminal because you dared to bring a bottle of water with you. No taking off your shoes and no lines, except for the cattle call at Penn Station to get on the train.

Stepping into DC's Union Station is always so comforting to me. It's really a beautiful building, as soon as you get out of the train station portion of it. Even when I get in at midnight or so, it still feels like it's welcoming me home. Brings back a lot of memories of really loud dinners with friends in the food court, movies that we never really watched, walking around trying to impress the guys who were trying to impress us..... The cab ride to my house from the station is nice, too. DC has a different smell in the air that puts me at ease and into vacation mode. However, the depressing part of taking the train is getting into Penn Station and then the cab ride through Times Square. As soon as I hit Times Square, I know. Party's over.

Amtrak has only let me down twice in 10 or so years of taking it back and forth, so it is a much more reliable way to travel the Northeast Corridor. Note that $135 for the Acela is a rotten deal. The accommodations on the Acela are nice, and the $45 price difference is negligible if you got it like that. But I say it's not worth it because it saves you about 1/2 an hour over the regular train. Last trip to DC, I got a deal because it was only $65 from NYC to DC, so I took the difference and put it towards a ride on the Acela. Again, pretty much the same experience as the regular train.

The ticket-takers and the guys in the dining car are always so nice. A nice change from the hustly-bustly, borderline rude crew on the "shuttle". All in all, I find the train to be a much more comforting and comfortable way to travel.

I enjoyed traveling by train but the service we got was so awful. I am talking about you Mr. Asenfelter at the Greensboro hub. He was a rude jerk and was actually trying to pick a fight with us. The online recommendation is to arrive 30 minutes early and we were berated because we weren't an hour early. If my child had not been with me there would have been some badness, but I wasn't going to ruin my trip with my kid.

Even worse I wrote Amtrak to tell them of the encounter and poor treatment and I got an email promising a response within 24 hours, that was last Thursday. Customer Service FAIL.

i want to dress in full 1940s attire and just hang out in this train station, its that neat inside. The entire building has been restored to its original glory and that lovely 20s grandiose building style. It really made my fairly ho-hum train trip into more of an adventure adding a great nostalgia vibe to the whole experience.