how much time is required to connect from Amtrak to Greyhound at DC Un

[TimSpencer]

I'm taking Amtrak to Washington, DC Union Station.

The Palmetto arrives around 7:55pm(?).

The Greyhound bus to Chicago leaves Union Station at 12:01AM.

Yes, I know it's a 19-hour bus ride, but I couldn't resist that advance-

purchase $10 fare from DC to Chicago.

That means I'll have 4 hours. What if the Amtrak train is late?

What is the absolute minimum time that I need to get off the

train and run to the Greyhound bus. The bus leaves from

Union Station's garage.

Thanks!

 

[Ryan]

That depends on how risk averse you are. What will you do if you miss the bus?

The actual transfer time is minimal. Off the train, up an escalator, walk a few dozen yards, up another escalator, go out to the garage, up one more escalator and you're there. 5 minutes tops.

I wouldn't worry. Delays that long are rare.

 

[TimSpencer]

That depends on how risk averse you are. What will you do if you miss the bus?
The actual transfer time is minimal. Off the train, up an escalator, walk a few dozen yards, up another escalator, go out to the garage, up one more escalator and you're there. 5 minutes tops.

I wouldn't worry. Delays that long are rare.

I've taken the Palmetto to DC 4 times in the last 3 years. It has never been on-time. The delays ranged from 1 hour to 6-and-half hours.(!)

It didn't really bother me, since DC was my final destination and I just kept myself busy during the delay. All three delays were caused

by the freight trains having priority over Amtrak trains, according to the conductors.

If I miss the 12AM Greyhound from DC to Chicago, the next one is 5 hours later. Guess I'll just have to sit around and watch a couple of

movies on my tablet.

 

[the_traveler]

What if the Amtrak is late?

Amtrak and Greyhound are 2 different companies. There is no interline agreement between them.

What if you were driving from home to the train station or airport and got caught in a traffic jam? Would you expect Amtrak, the airlines or the state/county/city (roads) to compensate you? :blush: Or if your flight arrived late at O'Hare and then you missed the CZ, will United Airlines, the CTA or Amtrak compensate you? :blush:

I doubt it!

 

[crescent2]

I didn't take him to be asking about compensation, just how late would be too late to get from the train to the bus.

Welcome to AU, Tim!

 

[the_traveler]

If the bus leaves at 12:01, having the train arrive at 12:01 or later is too late.

 

[Ryan]

Actually, if the train arrived at even 11:55 that would be too late.

Depending on where the train is spotted and where you are on the train, I'd say you'd need 10-15 minutes to make the connection with ease.

 

[TimSpencer]

If the bus leaves at 12:01, having the train arrive at 12:01 or later is too late.

I was looking at train arrival status on Amtrak's website. The Palmetto arrived in DC 1.5 hours late last night. (which is still plenty early to catch the bus)

Is there somewhere that I can view the historical arr/dept train status during the last 30 days?

 

[the_traveler]

Even if 29 days out of 30 the connection could be made, you may just happen to be on that 30th train! It all depends if you want to take the chance.

 

[JayPea]

If the bus leaves at 12:01, having the train arrive at 12:01 or later is too late.

I was looking at train arrival status on Amtrak's website. The Palmetto arrived in DC 1.5 hours late last night. (which is still plenty early to catch the bus)

Is there somewhere that I can view the historical arr/dept train status during the last 30 days?

There is such a website here:

Good luck!

 

[chakk]

If the bus leaves at 12:01, having the train arrive at 12:01 or later is too late.

I was looking at train arrival status on Amtrak's website. The Palmetto arrived in DC 1.5 hours late last night. (which is still plenty early to catch the bus)

Is there somewhere that I can view the historical arr/dept train status during the last 30 days?

You can look at train status for the past 28 days at http://amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com/

 

[Ryan]

I'm actually working on a project that can answer that question even better.

I'm teaching myself Python and have written a script that takes the text status files on John's Amtrak Status Maps site and converts it into a format that I can than bring into Excel and do all sorts of crazy things with (eventually my goal is to be able to use Python instead of Excel).

I've got the script to the point where it'll work on one file at a time.

I've also downloaded a zip file with an archive of the status file for every train for every day in 2012.

Tomorrow I need to build the part that can loop through and process a whole bunch of files.

Assuming I get it right, I can turn it loose on the directory with the northbound Palmetto files in it and be able to say "In 2012, the Palmetto would have arrived in time to make the connection 90% of the time" Or 99%. or 50%. Whatever the number comes out to be.

I'm thinking that kind of data can be useful for a lot of different purposes. It'll probably never be something that gets released for other people to play with, but it'll be awesome to have that kind of data available for answering questions like this one.

Hopefully I'll have an answer tomorrow.

 

[Ryan]

OK, so I've got it. Still not as polished as I would like, but I was able to get an answer.

For the 322 days in 2012 that I have data, you would have missed your connection 4 times.

One other time you would have had to hustle, but the connection should have been makeable.

The horizontal red line is at 3:45 late (225 minutes) That would make an arrival time of 11:45, giving you 20 minutes to make it up to the bus.

Yes, there really was a train that was 14 hours late.

Negative numbers mean the train was early.

 

[guest]

That $10 fare is probably only good for that schedule. If you miss it and have to rebook, Greyhound could charge you full fare with a rebooking fee on top. And how long will you have to wait until the next departure?

 

[Ryan]

Yay, stats!

(I'm having far too much fun with this)

Here's how the trips for the Palmetto arrving into Washington for 2012 break out:

Early: 72.36%

On Time: 0.93%

Late, but OK: 27.02%

Missed it: 0.62%

 

[fairviewroad]

That $10 fare is probably only good for that schedule. If you miss it and have to rebook, Greyhound could charge you full fare with a rebooking fee on top. And how long will you have to wait until the next departure?

There wouldn't be a "rebooking fee" since the OP could simply throw away the $10 ticket and buy a new one at walk-up prices. On Greyhound.com

the "standard fare" prices for trips leaving later today are $117 so that's probably what the OP would be looking at in the relatively unlikely occurrence that

the connection is missed.

 

[JoeBas]

Yay stats ooo ooo ooo do the SL into NOL by 11PM since the schedule change!

 

[guest]

That $10 fare is probably only good for that schedule. If you miss it and have to rebook, Greyhound could charge you full fare with a rebooking fee on top. And how long will you have to wait until the next departure?

There wouldn't be a "rebooking fee" since the OP could simply throw away the $10 ticket and buy a new one at walk-up prices. On Greyhound.com

the "standard fare" prices for trips leaving later today are $117 so that's probably what the OP would be looking at in the relatively unlikely occurrence that

the connection is missed.

Maybe he should buy another $10 for the next departure just in case.

 

[fairviewroad]

That $10 fare is probably only good for that schedule. If you miss it and have to rebook, Greyhound could charge you full fare with a rebooking fee on top. And how long will you have to wait until the next departure?

There wouldn't be a "rebooking fee" since the OP could simply throw away the $10 ticket and buy a new one at walk-up prices. On Greyhound.com

the "standard fare" prices for trips leaving later today are $117 so that's probably what the OP would be looking at in the relatively unlikely occurrence that

the connection is missed.

Maybe he should buy another $10 for the next departure just in case.

Assuming that fare is still available for that departure, then yes that would be a relatively cheap insurance policy. That's also assuming Greyhound

doesn't have ticketing policies in place to prevent such double bookings. (There are reports of Amtrak contacting people who've made impossible

double-bookings to ask them to cancel one of them. I'd kind of doubt that Greyhound has the IT chops in place to catch those, but you never know.)

 

[guest]

That $10 fare is probably only good for that schedule. If you miss it and have to rebook, Greyhound could charge you full fare with a rebooking fee on top. And how long will you have to wait until the next departure?

There wouldn't be a "rebooking fee" since the OP could simply throw away the $10 ticket and buy a new one at walk-up prices. On Greyhound.com

the "standard fare" prices for trips leaving later today are $117 so that's probably what the OP would be looking at in the relatively unlikely occurrence that

the connection is missed.

Maybe he should buy another $10 for the next departure just in case.

Assuming that fare is still available for that departure, then yes that would be a relatively cheap insurance policy. That's also assuming Greyhound

doesn't have ticketing policies in place to prevent such double bookings. (There are reports of Amtrak contacting people who've made impossible

double-bookings to ask them to cancel one of them. I'd kind of doubt that Greyhound has the IT chops in place to catch those, but you never know.)

No, I don't think Greyhound would catch it. Once the ticket is paid for, that's it, it's a good ticket. If they "cancel" it, so what. Drivers don't scan tickets electronically, they only collect them. I don't even think there's a manifest.

 

[TimSpencer]

Th

Maybe he should buy another $10 for the next departure just in case.

I did. $10 is cheaper than then $15 or $20 they charge for ticket changes(if allowed).

I now have a ticket for the 12AM and 5AM departures from DC Union Station to Chicago.