Artagnan

Hi folks,

My brother recently moved away and left his (very nice) bicycle at home in NYP, so I'm going to take it down to WAS. I booked a ticket on the Palmetto and paid the extra fare for my bicycle. The Palmetto is in the "Trainside Checked Bicycle Service" section, which appears to mean that it will be stored in the baggage car for me to reclaim down in WAS.

I have a few questions about this:

• Do I bring the bike down to the tracks ("trainside"?) or do I leave it with the checked baggage desk?
• Do I need to put it in a box? The web page appears to indicate no.
• How early do I need to arrive to check the bike? I am a frequent Amtrak traveler (S+) and typically arrive ten minutes before departure, which I assume won't cut it with a bike.

Thanks in advance for your help. I haven't ever checked anything on Amtrak before, so this process is totally new to me.

SCEflyer

Have you tried calling Amtrak, as any advice that you receive here may or may not be accurate?

jobtraklite

The odds are that if you called Amtrak, the agent would say that you need a box. From time immemorial that was the only way on LD trains. But with the relatively new "Trainside Checked Bicycle Service", that would be absolutely false.

I believe the rules for "Trainside Checked Bicycle Service" state that the cyclist be able to lift the unboxed bike up to an Amtrak employee at the baggage car door. That should answer the first two questions. I say "believe" because when I went to double check at Amtrak.com, I got

"An error (503 Service Unavailable) has occurred in response to this request." I wasn't surprised since there are new bicycle announcements being made as we speak.

As to when, my answer would be as soon as you are permitted on the platform after the train arrives.

On a side note, I believe the rules state that the new service is available only at stations that have an agent or perhaps that have baggage service (which are not always one and the same thing). This doesn't appear to be true. Which stations that have the service seem to be random. But an insider suggested that it depends on the platform being long enough that the baggage car can stop at the platform without double spotting.

jobtraklite

The relevant page is back and the passage I was looking for is" Passengers utilizing the trainside bicycle service, where bikes are transported on select trains in racks in the baggage car, must be able to lift their bicycle to shoulder height so Amtrak personnel may store and secure them in the bike racks."

BobH

There's an article about this at

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/...t=Full+Article

Bob H

Artagnan

Thanks to everyone who posted! In case anyone else is looking for an answer, figured I'd update the thread to share my experience.

I got to the station ~30 minutes in advance of the train. Since it was early in the morning, the station was pretty empty, and it was more than enough time ahead of departure. I went to the baggage desk and someone escorted me down to the platform and to the baggage car, where the redcap took it.

On the other end, I went directly to the baggage car and claimed the bike back (they give you a claim check). All in all, a pretty easy process and definitely worth the nominal $20 cost of bringing the bike with me to DC.

dicksboat

Thanks for the follow up. Did you(and bike) use the stairs, escalators or elevators at NYP and WAS ?

Artagnan

I used the escalator at both stations - my bike is very light (road/racing bike), so carrying it wasn't an issue.