20 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

While this won't affect the three "official" Amtrak trips as part of the Saturday & Sunday Fest activities, please keep in mind that once again Amtrak in its lack of foresight has not loaded the 2016 holidays into its reservation system yet.   When enough people point out their mistake yet again, there will be a Sunday schedule on Monday, January 18th, and some Sunday trains on January 17th will operate on a Saturday schedule (in a few cases the Saturday & Sunday schedules differ).  We go through this every year. It either prevents one in the know from making a reservation for Monday travel home until the problem is fixed, or if a reservation is made it runs the risk of being changed to a Sunday train number (and potentially different departure/arrival times) than one expected under the weekday schedule.  Please take note of this if you plan Amtrak travel that weekend particularly in the Northeast Corridor on a Sunday-only train or any Acela or Regional train on Monday.

 

I think this usually gets corrected by mid-December.

[jacorbett70]

I reserved my Amtrak trips to NY late Friday, arriving a bit after 8PM, and from NY on Monday afternoon w/ the Monday schedule so I'll get the robocall when the schedule changes to a Sunday schedule and I get switched from "Train 653" to "Train 669."

There is a 3-day NEC sale in effect today through Thursday for January 5-28 travel and the sale prices included many trains MLK holiday weekend.

[KevinKorell]

Irresponsible and inexcusable that they are pushing this sale including that period and they still don't have the proper inventory loaded for Sunday & Monday.  That means a lot of robocalls, which don't really help but tell people to contact Amtrak anyhow to have a human straighten out the mess Amtrak caused by their inefficiency.  One would think they would learn from previous years. No way to run a business.

[jacorbett70]

Fortunately the last couple of holiday schedule changes resulted in Amtrak re-issuing a ticket for the equivalent weekend train w/o my need to call them.

The robocalls were like "you were originally scheduled to depart New York Penn Station on train 6-5-3 at 5:10 PM. You are now scheduled to depart on train 6-6-9 at 5:17PM" and then I would get an email with a corrected e-ticket. It would only say to call if the new itinerary was not acceptable. I figure they have you call if no train runs about the same time.

[KevinKorell]

I've had Acela trains rescheduled for a time I didn't want, but of course on weekends those choices are limited.

[steve4031]

Booked my Amtrak segments in coach this morning. Mike Hammond will do coach too.

[KevinKorell]

Good thought. I don't see any reason to go Business Class for any of the official segments. And the Keystone doesn't have Business Class anyhow. So it's coach.

[KevinKorell]

A day before New Years Eve and 19 days in advance, Amtrak still has the weekday schedule loaded for the holiday, Monday, January 18th.

[BillMagee]

A day before New Years Eve and 19 days in advance, Amtrak still has the weekday schedule loaded for the holiday, Monday, January 18th.

Ridiculous, isn't it? The closer they get, the greater the number of reservations that will have to be rebooked, likely manually. It will be interesting to see when the light bulb comes on.

[jacorbett70]

Any chance that Amtrak goes ahead and runs the weekday schedule that day? Since it is not a major holiday, some commuter railroads run weekday (SEPTA) or special hybrid schedules (such as LIRR/M-N) that reflect many working that day.