Winter Rail Pass Routing

[brianpmcdonnell17]

I am in the process of planning a 15 day Rail Pass for late December, starting and ending in Tampa, FL. Looking at the schedules, it looks best to do CZ to northbound CS to EB. In the East I am going to take the Cardinal and Lake Shore Limited, but cant decide which direction to do each. They both appear to pass the best scenery going eastbound, so which one would you recommend to go Westbound on?

 

[p&sr]

In the East I am going to take the Cardinal and Lake Shore Limited, but cant decide which direction to do each. They both appear to pass the best scenery going eastbound, so which one would you recommend to go Westbound on?

I enjoy taking the Lake Shore Limited from New York to Chicago. This gives a fine view of the Hudson River Valley in the afternoon and evening, right up to Albany. Last fall I took the Cardinal from Chicago to New York (via Washington, DC) and found the scenery very fine, beginning with the Ohio River by daybreak, and the best scenery of West Virginia and Virginia by mid-day.

 

[ScouseAndy]

Id do LSL Westbound and the Cardinal EB unless I was planning in staying in chicago over night to reduce the chance of missing my connection with the LSL leaving at 9:30pm rather than 5:45PM.

 

[tomfuller]

How many segments and days will you use? What cities would you want to spend more than 12 hours or overnight in?

On my last long distance trip, I took the SWC to LAX and rode the CS all the way back home to Oregon.

I had taken the CZ eastbound but did not want to spend many hours in Sacramento waiting for the CS to come at midnight on the return trip.

The highlight of the return trip on the SWC was breakfast in New Mexico with Mark Murphy (Amtrak VP - Long Distance routes)

 

[pennyk]

Neither the eastbound Cardinal nor the eastbound Lakeshore Limited easily connect to Florida trains. If you take the eastbound Lakeshore Limited, you would need to spend the night in the northeast in order to connect to a Silver.

If you take the eastbound Cardinal, Amtrak may route you to Charlottesville, then thruway bus to Richmond, then Silver Meteor to Florida from Richmond.

I think the eastbound Cardinal scenery, especially in the winter, will likely be better than the westbound scenery.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

I was planning on spending a night in the Northeast: Philadelphia when I take the Cardinal and New York when I take the LSL. It seems the most popular way would be LSL West and Cardinal East, but looking on the Amtrak website they do not allow an EB to Cardinal connection.