Checked Baggage Timetable Symbols

[Bronzeman]

Our family just returned from a pleasant trip from CHI to GPK on the EB. On our arrival at GPK, however, we were surprised to see checked baggage being handled by the station crew. Had we known we would have checked a few bags rather than stuff everything in our sleepers.

The fact is that we didn't know because I looked at the timetable rather than the stations tab on the website. The latter clearly states that baggage is handled. My issue is with the timetable. It has a symbol (a small suitcase) defined as "Checked baggage at select stations". For reasons that were certainly not apparent to me that symbol appears in front of the arrival/departure times at only some of the stations that handle checked bags. For example, it appears before the end points SEA and CHI but not before GPK and MOT even though all four actually handle checked bags.

Does anyone have any idea what the reasoning behind this might be? BTW we did check on our return to CHI.

 

[roadman3313]

That is an interesting observation. I checked bags recently from GPK to OXN (they had to dig for the tag as that is not a common routing they see that often!). I believe I knew because of online reviews and the website. But you make a good point that the timetable does not indicate checked baggage at East Glacier. I guess I just assumed having been there before (to the station itself but not there via train). But for someone who didn't look up the information and only had the timetable it would be difficult to know without calling the station itself.

Hopefully that's something that can be cleared up in future timetables. Maybe they forgot to add the symbol back when the added the time back as it is a seasonal stop?

 

[EB_OBS]

For most of last year and well into this year MOT was not accepting checked baggage due to the flood damage the previous year.

I don't know why the checked baggage symbol isn't on the GPK line in the timetable. I'll pass this along to my boss. He can inform the printing department of this error.

 

[benjibear]

If Amtrak tracks the amount of bags at each station, they will think nobody uses this station.

 

[Aaron]

Hopefully that's something that can be cleared up in future timetables. Maybe they forgot to add the symbol back when the added the time back as it is a seasonal stop?

I think that's it, because the symbol is definitely there on last summer's timetable (the national one dated May 7, 2012).

 

[the_traveler]

I can only speak for myself, but every time I've looked at GPK, I've always saw the symbol. Perhaps you looked during the fall/winter schedule, when the EB doesn't stop, and it may not have been shown. (The EB stops at GPK during the summer season only, but not at Browning. During the rest of the year, it's the opposite.)

 

[roadman3313]

The timetable posted on Amtrak.com does NOT have the symbol included. Again, I imagine this is just an oversight as the location does have Checked Baggage.