Trip Report: Amtrak Auto Train

Greetings from onboard Amtrak's Auto Train. Tonight we're southbound somewhere in North Carolina having departed from Lorton, Virginia (just outside Washington D.C.) and headed to Sanford, Florida (just outside Orlando).

 

There are two trains operating every day, one in each direction. In both Sanford and Lorton, the lineup to check-in begins around 11AM. You have to have a motor vehicle to use Amtrak Auto Train.

The train is used mainly by people coming to Florida for a lengthy stay, want to have their own car rather than renting one but don't want that long boring drive down I-95. For me it was a bucket list trip. Since I flew to Washington, I needed to rent a car to use the train. That's my rental car being driven by staff up onto an auto-carrier train car.

Once they have your car, you wait inside a modern terminal for boarding time.

The train is scheduled to depart each city at 4PM so boarding begins around 2:30PM. Double-decker Superliner II carriages are used on the route.

There are three types of accommodations. There is coach seating which is an airline-type arrangement but with a lot more legroom and much-wider seats. There are Roomettes which hold 1-2 passengers facing each other in a small room. At night, the seats become upper and lower bunks, similar to Couchettes on European trains. Finally, there are these bedrooms which can hold 1-3 passengers in seats which become upper and lower bunks at night. 

The bedrooms also include a small private WC with toilet and shower. Coach and Roomette passengers can find bathroom facilities downstairs in their respective carriages.

Coach passengers have to purchase their meals in an onboard cafe. Sleeping car passengers have meals that are included in the price and can dine in the dining car. This is the 1st Class (sleeping car) menu.

Being the meat & potatoes person that I am, it was the Flat Iron Steak for me!

During dinner, the sleeping car attendant converts the seats to upper and lower bunks.

And on into the night. Crossing the James River near Richmond. Editors Note: We departed Lorton at 3:45PM Wednesday with an ETA into Sanford of 8:58AM Thursday morning. Because we got stuck behind a derailed CSX freight train south of Florence, SC and then had a couple issues of Amtrak  engineers "timing-out", we did not arrive into Sanford until 4:30AM Friday morning, 19h32m late!