Amtrak travel benefits?

[Amfleeter]

I'm currently looking at a position with Amtrak out of Washington Union Station, and I was curious what the employee travel benefits look like as of late, particularly for NEC travel - I travel occasionally on the NEC for various reasons and it'd be useful if I got a discount. I've heard hearsay that on-corr coach is free, and Acela has deep discounts for employees, but I'd like to know the truth.

 

[Triley]

On the corridor we can ride a Regional for free. We can also ride Regional Business Class for free, but we need to get a ticket through a QuickTrak machine, ticket office, or through 800-USA-RAIL no more than an hour before departure from our station. That same thing goes for Acela tickets, except we are also limited to the usual blackout times that an AGR ticket would be. Also yes, the discounts for Acela Business Class and First Class are extremely deep, but I don't feel comfortable discussing the price publicly.

 

[Amfleeter]

On the corridor we can ride a Regional for free. We can also ride Regional Business Class for free, but we need to get a ticket through a QuickTrak machine, ticket office, or through 800-USA-RAIL no more than an hour before departure from our station. That same thing goes for Acela tickets, except we are also limited to the usual blackout times that an AGR ticket would be. Also yes, the discounts for Acela Business Class and First Class are extremely deep, but I don't feel comfortable discussing the price publicly.

Thank you! I'm really looking forward to working with Amtrak if I get the job, and as someone who enjoys traveling, it does make it even more appealing. The discounts on Acela might actually get me to try it for once, actually.

 

[Triley]

I use to be a travel lover before I started, but now? Trust me, on your days off you will want to just stay home. The novelty of free and discounted travel wears off after about a month. I've done 30 round-trips (including three personal) on the corridor since I've started in October. And only those personal trips were from BOS to NYP or EWR, all other trips were the full length of the corridor, including some runs to Virginia. If you averaged out my one-ways as being 9 hours in length, I've spent over 500 hours on-board since October, and I'm sure it's actually more than that.

67 round-trip yields about 39 hours, and my most recent trip on it the engine died just outside RTE, so we were delayed by many hours, and that assignment turned in to a 45 hour ordeal. For my return trip on 66 I'm suppose to report to the NPN station at 1pm, and get back to Boston at 7:58am. But because of the delay, I didn't sign out in Boston until 1:25pm, so I was on the clock for almost 24.5 hours!

Don't get me wrong, it's an enjoyable job. I still love it. But as far as traveling goes? I get the travel out of my system while I'm at work. I'm laying over in DC for 18 hours? Great, I can go out and see some of the museums, and still get a good meal and night's rest. Laying over in DC for almost on hour on 66/67? Great, I can run to the LIRR concourse and get some yummy NY pizza, and some fresh pastries to bring home!