Amtrak can i bring my bike

You tour the Fort, bicycle around town, eat at a local restaurant, and return to Martin Street near the Rome Station. Now you turn east on Martin Street and travel. Bicycle another. You bicycle through a beautiful wooded section of the Trail for 14 mi.

Along the way you passed Erie Canal Lock E20 with its camping area. You descend and after having a delicious lunch you return to the Utica Amtrak Station. It is only 1. Both trains have bicycle carriage service. Please check Amtrak's website for the most up-to-date information.

Chances are, if you're planning an Amtrak trip with your bike, you're feeling intimidated and overwhelmed by the unknowns.

How do bike services work? Will my bike be accepted? Do I need to reserve a bike space and how does that work? Fear not!

While Amtrak bike services are far from perfect, they are fairly straightforward once you learn the basics. These tips will help you get on track to take the bike-train trip you've been dreaming of. Before planning your Amtrak trip with your bike, know that there are two types of bike services and they work differently. If you have any bike other than a folding bike or a standard two-wheel bike with a maximum tire width of 2 inches e-bikes under 50 lbs are also good to go , then we're sorry to say you can stop reading this post.

Amtrak doesn't take recumbents, tandems, trikes, or other non-standard bikes, but Adventure Cycling is actively advocating for this and we have some hope it will change soon. Check out these tips from the Path Less Pedaled on how to use trainside checked service. They call it carry-on or roll-up, but it's actually checked bike service. For many years, boxing a bike as baggage was the only way to travel with a non-folding bike. Good news — you don't need to box your bike anymore since the routes that offer bike service now provide bike racks.

You can still box it if you want on routes with trainside checked service, and some stations still sell bike boxes but don't count on it. The one exception is that if you are going to or from Portland, Oregon on the Empire Builder you have to box your bike. The route splits in Spokane, and the baggage car with bike racks goes to Seattle.

Note: Folding bikes are treated as carry-on luggage on all Amtrak lines. Passengers can put them on the regular luggage rack on the train. Next, you'll need to find out which type of bike service if any the route and stations you want to use provide. If you don't yet know which route s will get you to where you need to go, just plug your trip into Amtrak's ticket booking system and it will tell you which routes connect those destinations.

You can also see which stations with bike service align with Adventure Cycling and U. Bicycle Routes by using this interactive map. The map is best used for determining which bike routes align with stations, not which type of bike service is offered. Make sure to use the spreadsheet to determine the type of service. Once you're sure about what bike services to expect and which stations you'll be able to use with your bike, you can book your ticket.

There should be a little bike icon that shows up on your ticket options see above , with a number indicating how many bike spaces are still available. When you choose your ticket, it will prompt you to add bike s to your reservation and will display the reservation fee. If you don't purchase a bike reservation with your ticket, then you won't be able to get your bike on the train, unless you're taking the Capitol Corridor or San Joaquin services in California.

If the bike icon does not show up, or there is a zero shown, it could be for a few reasons. If the bike spaces are sold out or there aren't enough spaces for your group, you can still box your bike, and Amtrak will treat it like other checked baggage. If you're checking your bike, Amtrak requires all checked luggage to be checked 45 minutes before the train leaves.

The station staff will give you a ticket for your bike when you check it. You'll want to get there early to make sure you know where to go and can deal with any last minute issues if they come up.

There is a federal law that prioritizes passenger rail over freight if there are conflicting uses; however, it is often ignored by the host railroad companies. Amtrak produces a report card grading these host railroad companies for on-time performance each year. You can check out the report card to see what percentage of the time the route you are planning to take is on time defined as within 15 minutes.

Amtrak would provide carry-on bike service system-wide tomorrow if it could; however, there are a number of reasons why it will take time to reach that goal. Amtrak decision-makers : Prioritizing the direction of Amtrak starts with its leadership, and unfortunately, with the arrival of Amtrak's CEO Richard Anderson in , bike services were downgraded as a priority.

Also, Amtrak doesn't have decision-making authority over state-funded routes, so whether or not to offer bike service is determined by those state transportation agencies.

Train equipment : Much of Amtrak's equipment is 40 years old and needs to be replaced. Until that can happen dependent on government funding , the old equipment needs to be retrofitted to add bike space.

This space can be limited, especially for non-standard bikes. If I removed the front wheel before boarding and secured it to the bike frame with a velcro strap or bungee cord it would have saved me a lot of time and anxiety. It was a long, drawn-out negotiation with Amtrak to come to this point.

Expect the next generation of Amtrak trains to be way more bike friendly. Thanks for this John! Yes luggage can be on there, but there are two stickers on the rack that state the space is reserved for bicycles.

Look for the conductor if this happens. Great article John. There is nothing better than sharing your own experience for something like taking a bike on Amtrak. The photos are very helpful. For biking the Erie Canal in June, I looked at using Amtrak for doing a one way trip before deciding to do a round trip.

NJ Transit has been welcoming cyclists too. Thank you, John! Paul and I almost got thrown off Amtrak with our folders last year by a rude conductor because the Redcap put our bikes in the wrong disabled passenger place. Do you know which Keystone trains offer this? Im doing a Century in Sept on a Sat ending in Lancaster. We are planning a trip on the GAP trail and were hoping to use Amtrak to return from the end of the trail but we have 2.