Planning Trips, Part 2, choosing route

I will recap planning. There are two ways to determine trip. The first is final destination. This destination is chosen because of what you will see there, for one thing. The second thing, is how you get there. The second factor in planning is route. How do you go. This may be determine by how you get there as well as intermediate destinations.

In choosing a trip to Boston, MA it began as a major destination. In that destination, there were many sub-destinations: trains to watch and other sites to see. Amtrak will route the trip with a transfer in Washington, DC. From Cary, NC, we have two trains, the Carolinian and the Silver Star. Both, only go as far as New York. We have to transfer to the Northeast Regional. The Northeast Regional, that we will transfer to, originates in Newport News, Virginia. If we take the Star, we can transfer in Richmond, VA and Alexandria, VA in addition to Washington, DC. The Carolinian adds Fredericksburg, VA.

The major problem with Washington is that it is very late. Departure from DC is around 10:00p. By the time you settle for the long trip it is an hour later. Alexandria, is almost 1:15 earlier. South of Washington, the train is pulled by diesel engines and north is electric. In DC the switch engines, resupply the commissary, change crews, and add or subtract cars. This takes 30 or so minutes, normally. So to board in Alexandria, you board earlier, and by the time the trains leaves DC, you are well settled. The drawback is that the station closes about an hour before the train arrives, meaning you will be sitting outside on the platform, until train arrives.

Fredericksburg, VA is much earlier. We have Commuter rail that comes into Fredericksburg, Amtrak, and CSX. If at the wrong time of the year, and the Carolinian is much late, it is after dark or limited in the time of daylight, making watching, more difficult. There is not alternative destinations, in walking distance, in the area. To make matters worse, there is no indoor waiting area.

As we see we need to choose route, including transfer point. Occasionally we can make weird routes and make one out and a different one back. In a planned trip to Chicago from Cary, We make the transfer and take the train to Boston, as mentioned above. We take the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago. Return would be via West Virginia on the Cardinal, Here, I would stay the night in Manassas, as there is good and less expensive lodging close to the train and a scenic route, I would take Commuter Rail into Washington or Alexandria, to take the train home.