Throughbus - on map and schedule, but cannot book, specifically HOU-GLS (Galveston)
 

It's in Green on the Amtrak map, I find it on schedule, but get nothing when attempting to buy a ticket.

Does this exist or is this something phantom left over from years ago? The terminal has been converted to a museum IIRC, but would love to book the bus as shuttles are expensive.

I tried HOU-GLS and DAL-GLS, which either goes through or changes in SAT IIRC.

Megabus or FlixBus can get me to Houston pretty cheap, but after Megabus purchased the bus company that served Houston - Galveston the route was dropped a couple of months later :mad:

Thanks, I'll take a look at SAT option, but that is a really long way to go just over 300 miles :(

I assume you mean SAS, the Amtrak station in San Antonio? If so, why would HOU-GLS, if that means Houston to Galveston, go through or change in San Antonio?

When I was in the Amtrak station in Tampa, a customer wanted to take the Amtrak bus to Orlando, The agent explained that Amtrak cannot sell a ticket for bus only, but the customer could buy a ticket from Tampa to Winter Park, which would be bus to Orlando and train to Winter Park and the customer could simply fail to board the train to Winter Park. The customer did this and got the bus ride to Orlando.

To apply this to what I understand to be your situation, you would need to buy a ticket from some city served by an Amtrak train to Galveston. Unfortunately, if you no-show for the train journey, Amtrak will cancel the rest of your trip. It is possible that the bus driver's manifest would not get updated before you boarded the bus, but I wouldn't bet on it. And taking a train to a nearby city in order to take a train from a nearby city seems like a waste of time, especially on the route of the Sunset Limited.

Did that help?

The DAL-HOU would go through San Antone ;)

The other part was useful I was sort of guessing that the bus needs to be part of a real rail journey. Will look to see how much it would be to buy a GLS-SAS (provided Amtrak is willing to sell that). Otherwise may have to bite the bullet and do a shuttle or look into renting a car.

Many Thruway busses are dedicated Amtrak busses and you cannot buy a ticket on them unless you connect to a train.
Some Thruway busses are operated by separate bus lines such as Greyhound or Lamers. You can ride these busses without a train connection, but you cannot buy your ticket thru Amtrak, you will buy it from the bus line that operates it.
The Amtrak schedule will indicate who operates the Thruway bus. Daze

Well, it wasn't too hard to find that Lone Star Coaches operates this route:

Longview, TX 8:40 AM

Nacogdoches, TX Ar 10:05 AM

Houston, TX Ar 1:15 PM

Galveston, TX Ar 2:45 PM

But no way to buy a ticket from Lone Star Coaches that I can see, it looks like they only work with renting the whole bus :(

Interestingly enough I tried New Orleans where I will be in November, and that is only three days a week service, so for my particular dates the route would be via Chicago to Houston and then the bus. Guess Amtrak is an eastern seaboard plus a few west coast routes for all intents and purposes :rolleyes: