Weird question. East coast train going south.

[Snowwhyt]

Someone was telling me there’s an East Coast train going south that they take and I believe it will also deliver the car.
I don’t know what states on the East Coast I don’t know how far it goes where it starts where it finishes. But I do have a lady in Main, trying to find out how to get her handicap son to our Fort Lauderdale flight without costing an arm and a leg.
I’m not a travel agent, just a girl that likes to help someone out when they’re stressed and are looking for help
Can anyone help me remember anything about this? It was mentioned a few years ago maybe they stopped because of Covid

 

[LoveDaisy]

There is a thread that might be able to help. Sorry I don’t know more personally but hoping it’s an option for them.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/all-about-the-autotrain.402667/

 

[ljhayes]

The Amtrak auto train goes between Lorton, VA and Sanford, FL. We've taken it a few times (we live in MA). It's not cheaper or even necessarily faster than driving the whole way, but it's an experience and gives you a bit of a break.

 

[Calantha]

Can anyone help me remember anything about this

As far as I know, the auto train starts in Virginia and not any further north.

 

[Calantha]

The Amtrak auto train goes between Lorton, VA and Sanford, FL. We've taken it a few times (we live in MA). It's not cheaper or even necessarily faster than driving the whole way, but it's an experience and gives you a bit of a break.

Simultaneously posting!

 

[Jason Martin]

Someone was telling me there’s an East Coast train going south that they take and I believe it will also deliver the car.
I don’t know what states on the East Coast I don’t know how far it goes where it starts where it finishes. But I do have a lady in Main, trying to find out how to get her handicap son to our Fort Lauderdale flight without costing an arm and a leg.
I’m not a travel agent, just a girl that likes to help someone out when they’re stressed and are looking for help
Can anyone help me remember anything about this? It was mentioned a few years ago maybe they stopped because of Covid

As people said it leaves from Lorton, VA which is about 30 miles south of Washington and goes non stop other than a staff change in SC to Sanford FL which is about 45 minutes from Orlando, just over an hour to Port Canveral and 3.5 hours to Port Everglades. It leaves VA in afternoon and scheduled to arrive in FL the following morning. Caution booking it to arrive day of as it can be delayed

 

[DisneyConvert]

Lots of good YouTubes on how it works. Pricing depends partially on size of your vehicle is, and mostly whether you/family will want a sleeper room.

 

[Riley mrn]

Watched a YouTube video on it recently. Gentleman and his wife spent about 1,000.00 for a sleeper car. Kind of expensive, but gets your car there if you can't do the driving yourself. My concern was the delays they had. It was many hours late. Also didn't get to eat there dinner until midnight.

 

[DisneyConvert]

Watched a YouTube video on it recently. Gentleman and his wife spent about 1,000.00 for a sleeper car. Kind of expensive, but gets your car there if you can't do the driving yourself. My concern was the delays they had. It was many hours late. Also didn't get to eat there dinner until midnight.

Delays are a BIG factor on AmTrack (even worse than airplanes, but the seating and view is better ;-).
We did 8 long-distance (sleeper) trains the summer of 2022 and did LOTS of research before.
All the performance stats (rolling over the past 30 days) for the trains are on-line

https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php

So for example, the AutoTrain is #52 NBound and #53 SBound
Ymmv but for many routes . . . we figured
~50% of the time we'd arrive on-time or <2 hr late.
25% of the time we were told a train might be 2~6hrs late.
And yeah, 25% of the time, there can be very bad lateness issues (it's always the freight railroads' fault ;-)

AutoTrain has only one segment (and schedules are always padded a bit), so it can arrive early
Here's a recent summary for the Lorton => Sanford segment, which did quite well.

 

[ljhayes]

Delays are a BIG factor on AmTrack (even worse than airplanes, but the seating and view is better ;-).
We did 8 long-distance (sleeper) trains the summer of 2022 and did LOTS of research before.
All the performance stats (rolling over the past 30 days) for the trains are on-line

https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/history.php

So for example, the AutoTrain is #52 NBound and #53 SBound
Ymmv but for many routes . . . we figured
~50% of the time we'd arrive on-time or <2 hr late.
25% of the time we were told a train might be 2~6hrs late.
And yeah, 25% of the time, there can be very bad lateness issues (it's always the freight railroads' fault ;-)

AutoTrain has only one segment (and schedules are always padded a bit), so it can arrive early
Here's a recent summary for the Lorton => Sanford segment, which did quite well.

Delays can also snowball since it's the same train running each direction once per day. I know when I was looking a while back there had been a couple instances where they got more and more delayed over the course of several days and eventually had to cancel one of the trains to get back on schedule. That said, that situation doesn't seem to be very common.

 

[pearljammer]

The Amtrak auto train goes between Lorton, VA and Sanford, FL. We've taken it a few times (we live in MA). It's not cheaper or even necessarily faster than driving the whole way, but it's an experience and gives you a bit of a break.

I agree that Amtrak train is NOT a cheaper way to travel. We’ve looked at taking a train down to FL and was surprised at the costs. At least with airports, they have assistance for handicapped individuals to include using those special carts to get people around and ensure they make their flights.