Family Travel

My Family and the Auto Train

The Easy(ish) Way Down I-95

The concept is super simple. Why drive all the way to Florida when you can take your car with you on the train? Amtrak runs the Auto Train service from Washington, DC. to Orlando taking about 17 hours. Here’s my story with my family of four.

Booking and Planning

I like trains, and the Auto Train has been on my bucket list for about fifteen years. When my wife and I figured out that we’d waited too long to book flights for the kids’ February break, we’d all but given up hope on getting somewhere warm, so when I remembered the possibility of the Auto Train, I checked the Amtrak app, I was amazed there were still open spaces left.

I wasn’t sure how to sell it to my wife, though. Would she go for it? The conversation went something like this:

“Bear with me, hon; I have an idea, and reserve all judgment until I’ve got all my words out.”

I mumbled a few more words, pulled up the Amtrak app on my phone and showed it to her. It didn’t take much convincing, and she was on board.

The Auto Train runs between Lorton, VA and Sanford, FL. Both these stations are about 30 minutes outside of DC and Orlando, respectively. We had a reservation for the Saturday 5 pm departure; the latest check-in is 3 pm.

Check-In and Lorton Station

We arrived at Lorton at about 1 pm (check-in opens at 12:30 pm). Check-in was super simple — they asked us for our last names and attached a magnetic number to the side of the driver’s door. The employee told us where to park, so we drove up, opened the driver’s door window, turned off the engine, put our keys on the dashboard then left them to it. They wasted no time loading our car onto the auto rack.

We checked in inside the station at 1 pm and had a choice of 5, 7, and 9 pm (we chose 7 pm) sittings for our dinner reservation. The agent told us that the train would board at 3:30 pm and to hang out in the station until our car was ready for boarding.

We have a four and a twelve-year-old with different needs. The 12-year-old was fine playing Pokemon Go on his device with other kids in the station, and there was a smallish playground outside the station for little ones.

A station shop sells coffee, snacks, candy, and that kind of thing. I recommend you stock up there because there is a better choice than on the train.

Boarding and Roomettes

At 3:30 pm, we boarded and found our roomettes. Not to nerd out here, but the train uses Superliner cars, which is uncommon in the northeastern US. The cars are double-decker and are the same height as the auto racks. And this is why the train goes no further north than Lorton — basically, the train is too tall to fit under the bridges between Washington, New York, and Boston (it would be totally amazing if this train made it all the way to Boston).

The Superliner roomettes are small, and we brought too much on the train with us. We had grand designs of wearing tuxedos and ballgowns to dinner (joking) and sleeping in PJs (not joking) — I even brought my fancy camera and laptop bag, another backpack with a change of clothes, charger cables, and toiletries — it was already cramped. My advice — bring a device charger, toothbrush, toothpaste, change of undies, earplugs, and your snacks from the station shop — and I’d leave it at that.

That’s not to say that roomettes aren’t comfortable and worth the extra money. They absolutely are. Just don’t be surprised at how small they are when you get on the train. Trust that everything works out. The restroom is a communal one shared with the other roomettes (there are four restrooms between about 18 roomettes, and I never had to wait).

The lower deck of the Superliner is more private and less busy than the upper deck — the train cars are connected via the upper deck, so passengers transitioning from one car to the next do so upstairs. The bottom deck contains a few roomettes, a couple of four-person bedrooms, three bathrooms, a shower/changing room, and the door to exit the train. And because the cars are relatively tall, the lower deck sways less than the upper deck, which is mighty important when you’re trying to sleep.

Boarding doesn’t take long, and Amtrak wants you on the train quickly so they can lock the doors and assemble the train. The auto racks are attached together and then connected to the back, and then you are ready to go. Departure time is 5 pm, but usually the train leaves when everyone is onboard, and the train is assembled — this can be anytime between 4 and 5 pm.

Once we were onboard, the attendant made announcements explaining about how things work and what to expect. Once the train got underway, we headed to the lounge car and had a drink and a snack.

Lounge and Dinner

And so this is where we ought to be patient as passengers in a country not famed for its impeccable rail service. There was a problem with the card system on the train, so any purchases in the bar had to be made with cash only. And the line was long because the purchases still had to be inputted into a non-cooperating government cash register.

A few things about the dinner service — the train was crowded, and you needed to go to dinner at your allotted time. And even then, you weren’t guaranteed a seat in the dining car (you may have had to sit in the lounge car). The food was surprisingly good (I had the famed Amtrak flatiron steak cooked to my preference and served au jus with green beans and jacket spuds).

After dinner, we retired back to our roomettes. The attendant had converted my wife’s and 4-year-old’s roomette to nighttime configuration. It was about 8:30 pm. My son and I stayed up a little later, and the attendant came at 10 pm to convert our roomette.

Sleeping

One of the first questions our attendant asked us when we got on the train was when we wanted to go to sleep. And when that time came, the attendant set the room into nighttime configuration. In the roomette. The two seats facing each other came together and the attendant pulled a pre-made mattress with sheets from the top bunk (which folded down from the ceiling), placed the mattress on the bottom bunk, then opened up a pair of sealed bags which contained the bed covers. The whole process took about three minutes.

The top bunk was big enough for a robust-sized adult (roomettes are designed for two sharing adults). When the bunk folded down, a net of sorts connected from the ceiling to underneath the upper bunk. This is presumably designed to stop whoever is in the top bunk from waking up in the lower bunk with a concussion.

Sleeping on any train is a challenge. The kids did just fine. The four-year-old took a little longer to go to sleep just through sheer excitement but she stayed down. And this is where it was essential to have rooms close to each other. My wife needed to go to the bathroom and wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the little one in the bunk alone.

I slept well, considering. I managed to get a few hours — train sleep is pretty much on and off. The Auto-Train (along with most long-distance Amtrak trains outside of the northeast corridor) utilizes freight rail track. If you are used to the smoothness of the North East, you won’t find that here. It’s not terrible; it’s just not dedicated passenger-rail smooth.

I woke up to my wife knocking on the roomette door at about 7:30 am. We headed for breakfast (the cars were full), but we got a grab-and-go breakfast and took them back to our rooms. While we were out, the attendant put the room in daytime configuration. We finished our breakfasts, freshened up, and waited for the train to arrive at Sanford.

Sanford Arrival

We arrived only four or five minutes late into Sanford. The station is smaller than Lorton and the passenger sections of the train were separated into two because the train was too long for the platform. Obviously, this takes more time. It was another twenty minutes before we could leave the train, so it was about 10:30 am before the first cars came off the train.

So, it was about noon by the time we got our car. By then, we sat on our cases outside in the warm Florida sun, ate flavored shaved ice from the truck, and cheered when we spotted our car. We threw our bags in the trunk, buckled the kids up, and drove to Clearwater. The kids complained that everything in the car was damp. It was due (dew, get it?) to the cold car from the auto rack and the humid Florida air. It wasn’t a big deal.

Irksome Things About The Auto Train

• On the way back, we checked in at Sanford at 2 pm. The only available dining time was 9 pm which would have been too late for our 4-year-old. The check-in desk could only offer us 8:30 pm dinner in the roomette. Our attendant resolved it by arranging for us to have a 6:30 pm dinner in our roomettes. Our attendant, Debbie, made that happen because she’s fantastic.
• The train was overly crowded. To compound this, the lounge had tables covered with Amtrak staff belongings and signs telling passengers not to sit there. No. Clear the tables. Let passengers sit and hang out.
• Coffee machines did not work in all the cars, and the ones that worked did not produce edible coffee.
• Sanford station needs to be bigger to handle a packed train.
• The Auto Train is expensive; more on this below.

Would I do it again?

From the hotel in Clearwater to our home just outside of Boston, our trip took around 32 hours. Driving the same distance with a ten-hour stop is about the same. The same trip on a plane is less than a quarter of that. The Auto Train doesn’t compete against airlines; it competes against people planning to drive all the way on I-95.

We figured out that we would have paid around $700 in gas, hotels, and meals (for a round trip) for a family of four if we hadn’t taken the train. The train, round trip for the four of us, cost a little over $3,000 (remember though, this is peak season and last minute). Again, this would have been considerably less (around $1,200 for a round trip) if we’d had coach seats.

The primary appeal of the Auto Train is that you bypass 900 miles of I-95, and you’re conveniently deposited just north of Orlando. While this is true, if you’re traveling from New England, it doesn’t alleviate that tragic nightmare of a never-ending 400 miles and 50 million people in the North Eastern Megalopolis, all inconveniently crowded around the very road you are attempting to travel down. I wish it went all the way to New England.

My wife asked me the question this way.

“If you had to drive to Florida from here, would you take the Auto Train?”

My answer was, “hell yes.”

Auto Train Hacks and Things to Remember

• You get a pillow on the train, but it’s a bit soft. Bring one of your own if you need a firm pillow.
• If you have multiple rooms, try to get them close to each other and definitely in the same car.
• Your car attendant works really hard; consider tipping them when you leave the train.
• Bring earplugs.
• Breakfast is served from 6:30 am but the first call is at 7:30 am. Get to the dining car before the first breakfast call if you want to sit in the dining car for breakfast because it fills up quickly.
• Dinner is called on time, be ready to get to the dining car as soon as the call is made to be guaranteed a seat in the dining car, otherwise you’re relegated to the lounge car.
• Pack light for the train (just the essentials) and have your stuff ready to pull out of the vehicle as soon as you leave your car with Amtrak. You don’t get much time.
• Check in early if you want a choice of dinner reservations. The 7 pm fills up first, then 5 pm soon after, and before you know it, you’re left with the 9 pm dinner sitting and a screaming hangry kid. You can ask your attendant if they can do anything; we got lucky.
• Be in the mindset that your vacation starts the moment you get on the train, not when you get off it.
• Not everything will work, so be patient.
• If you are in a position to splurge on the priority off-loading, get it. The priority cars were off the train within the first few minutes. The general consensus from veteran Auto Train travelers was that cars in Sanford are slower to come off than in Lorton.
• The shop at Sanford station isn’t as big as the one in Lorton so don’t rely too heavily on getting your fill of snacks from there.
• The train makes an unpublished scheduled stop in South Carolina for about 30 minutes to refuel, load water, change crew, and dump the trash. Our attendant told us that passengers are allowed briefly off the train to allow service animals to go for a tinkle and a quick smoke (the passengers, not the service animals). So, bear that in mind if you need to do that and have a quiet word with your attendant when you board the train.

You can find more information on Amtrak’s Auto Train service here. It says, “Skip I-95 for $95*”, but I’m pretty sure the * is doing a lot of heavy lifting.