Four connections?

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Anthony

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Hey guys, do you know if there are any two Amtrak train stations in the system that cannot be traveled between with any less than four connections?

One connection would be like..

LAX - CHI, CHI - NYP

Two connections would be like..

VAC - SEA, SEA - LAX, LAX - JAX

Three connections would be like..

SAB - NYP, NYP - CHI, CHI - LAX, LAX - SAN

but four connections? Are there any city pairs that require that many?

:unsure:

(I know that you can create an itinerary with four connections quite easily, but I'm just interested in city pairs that _require_ four to get from A to B.)

Appreciate any insight. Thanks!
 
I can't think of any with four, but I can think of a whole bunch with three. :lol: I personally don't think I've ever put in an A to B iternerary and come back with five different trains I'd have to ride. Oye Vey! :lol:
 
I can think of one right now:

POR-BON, BON-BOS, BOS-CHI, CHI-LAX, LAX-SAN.

There may be a slight technicality with the above itinerary, since there is no Amtrak train between BON & BOS, but Amtrak will ticket you for this trip. The BON-BOS ticket will simply tell you to take a taxi, bus, or subway between the two stations.

I hear that they are working on a arrangement with the "T" to allow a passenger to turn in that ticket for passage on the subway. So far though it hasn't happened.

Of course the other stations on the Downeaster would also qualify, as would any of the other stations on the Pac Surfliner route.

I'll continue to ponder other possibilities. :)
 
Anthony said:
Yeah, I can't think of any either... I bet there simply aren't any :unsure:
Click to expand...
I mean there are routes you could do it that way, but its not necessary. I guess thats a strong argument not to eliminate any routes from the existing system (maybe even to add routes). The only thing I could really think of is like Miami to some of the stations on the Cascade Corridor.
 
AlanB said:
I can think of one right now:
POR-BON, BON-BOS, BOS-CHI, CHI-LAX, LAX-SAN.

There may be a slight technicality with the above itinerary, since there is no Amtrak train between BON & BOS, but Amtrak will ticket you for this trip.  The BON-BOS ticket will simply tell you to take a taxi, bus, or subway between the two stations.

I hear that they are working on a arrangement with the "T" to allow a passenger to turn in that ticket for passage on the subway.  So far though it hasn't happened.

I'll continue to ponder other possibilities.   :)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the Downeaster one - but because BOS - BON isn't an Amtrak route... I think I'll forget about it. I would have to fake a route to get a match there...

Interesting, though. :)

(Because of the BOS-BON issue, the Downeaster doesn't truly "connect" with any Amtrak train)
 
Viewliner said:
The only thing I could really think of is like Miami to some of the stations on the Cascade Corridor.
Click to expand...
MIA - NYP, NYP - CHI, CHI - SEA, SEA - *

MIA - ORL, ORL - LAX, LAX - SEA, SEA - *

MIA - ORL, ORL - LAX, LAX - PDX, PDX - *

etc..
 
Anthony said:
Thanks for the Downeaster one - but because BOS - BON isn't an Amtrak route... I think I'll forget about it. I would have to fake a route to get a match there...
Interesting, though. :)

(Because of the BOS-BON issue, the Downeaster doesn't truly "connect" with any Amtrak train)
Click to expand...
Anthony,

There may not be a train between those two stations, but you can ideed book a ticket between those two stations. So Amtrak does consider it to be a thru routing.

If you were to book my trip, you would get 5 tickets from Amtrak. Yes the BON-BOS ticket won't get you on any train, but it is used as a place holder in Amtrak's reservation system. Up until about 6 months ago, you would have needed two seperate reservations for my trip above.

You can now book that entire trip in one reservation, with one payment and you'll get five tickets.
 
Hmm, I checked tickets.amtrak.com and did SAN - BON, and got this:

"The Station pair you entered cannot be processed by our booking system. This may be because there is no connecting service. Please select an alternate route. Thank you."

While I'm sure you could call and get a placeholder BOS-BON from Amtrak... since their own booking site can't even generate that match, I think it won't be too much of a problem, especially for the purposes of this app. :)
 
Anthony said:
Hmm, I checked tickets.amtrak.com and did SAN - BON, and got this:
"The Station pair you entered cannot be processed by our booking system. This may be because there is no connecting service. Please select an alternate route. Thank you."

While I'm sure you could call and get a placeholder BOS-BON from Amtrak... since their own booking site can't even generate that match, I think it won't be too much of a problem, especially for the purposes of this app. :)
Click to expand...
Well you are right, but you are also wrong. :)

You can't connect to BON at all, Amtrak won't connect that under any circumstance. To get a BON-BOS ticket you must at least go to a station other than BON served by the Downeaster. For example you can do POR to LAX, but you can't do BON to LAX.

Now for the part where you're right, oddly enough while you can do POR to LAX, Amtrak doesn't seem to support that fourth connection anywhere in the system. I tried POR-SAN, POR-VAC, POR-CTL and none of them worked. I don't know if this is an oversight in the Amtrak system, or if they just hit the wall at four connections and said forget about it.
 
I stand corrected.

POR to LAX in the tickets system shows a train# 2680 "Self transfer", I do see that now.

It appears that they rate that at 9 minutes between BON and BBY, with "unreserved" service.

I doubt that Amtrak has mileage for "train" 2680, however... what if the taxi takes you a long route through Boston? :lol:

Seriously, introducing such a 2680 train would complicate matters in my database, as it would try to include it as a valid train connecting at Back Bay with other things. With the true purpose of determining mileage at hand, I'll skip the self transfer "train" and make people do BON - POR separately.

Thanks.
 
I think I found one...

POU-SAN

POU-ALB, ALB-CHI, CHI-EMY, EMY-LAX, LAX-SAN

this only would work because the Lake Shore does not stop in Poughkeepsie so you would have to take an Empire Service to Albany. Tried to do this in Amtrak's reservation system and it did not like it at all. Does this count?
 
You know, that's funny, because I use Poughkeepsie in my scratch notes here as it was a good example of a three-connection to a city feeding off of LAX. :)

Poughkeepsie to cities feeding LAX or SEA is only three connections because a transfer at EMY is not required (simply use the 7/27 or 3 west out of CHI)

Thanks, though :)
 
I found one!

LNV-NDL Motorcoach 5004 11:45p-12:45a

NDL-LAX Train 3 1:10a-8:40a

LAX-BFD Motorcoach 5815 10:45a-1:00p

BFD-MCD Train 715 1:15p-4:19p

MCD-YOS Motorcoach 8416 5:15p-8:00p

So, connections are at 1.Needles 2.Los Angeles Union Station 3.Bakersfield 4.Merced.

There isn't an easier way to do this! The fare comes to about $115 one way. You need to use the multi-city trips page to get the system to recognize the itinerary and use the points LNV-LAX-YOS. Then it will pull it right up! I am taking one of these many-connection type trips this Thanksgiving. Even though it is possible to do with less connections, I will be travelling Long Beach-Los Angeles-Bakersfield-Stockton-Sacramento-Reno. There's a good four connections for ya!

:D
 
Anthony said:
Poughkeepsie to cities feeding LAX or SEA is only three connections because a transfer at EMY is not required (simply use the 7/27 or 3 west out of CHI)
Click to expand...
The 3 west works, but not 7/27 since, connecting to the Starlight, you would need to connect again in LAX to a Pacific Surfliner train to reach SAN.

B)
 
LOL, note I said train stations :)

There is no way in Hades that I'll be attempting to include Thruway routes...

Thanks for the interesting itinerary, though :p
 
Ah, I always considered thruway stops to be train stations, especially since the Amtrak thruways look just like the Amtrak California trains in California. I WILL find one for you, though. Just give me a little time (I'm off to class now). :)
 
I'm just not thinking it is possible to find a pair of cities that there has to be 4 connections. I could of course manufacture numerous trips requiring 4 connections but there would be other options available with fewer connections. I'm sure someone could could throw all the information into a database and find something but is the effort it would take really worth it? :)
 
Oh well even I could come up with that one (no offense). I think Anthony was going for a direct route, i.e. east coast to west coast, using the fewest number of trains possible.
 
MIA - NYP - BOS

Yup, I know four connections can be manufactured, but I'm looking for a city pair that requires four bona fide train connections.

Thanks :)
 
How about this one?

CWH-PHL-CHI-LAX-SAN

OR

CWH-PHL-CHI-POR-EUG

OR

CWH-PHL-CHI-EMY-EUG

With the help of the NEC, all things are possible

By the way, Amtrak won't allow you to book any of these connections unless you use the multi-city-trips page
 

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