Take the A(uto) Train

I’ve always had a thing for trains, and of course for cars as well.  So when the time came for my annual road trip to the south and west, this year with a first stop in northern Florida, I decided to try Amtrak’s Auto Train, which carries you and your car overnight from just south of Washington, D.C., to less than an hour northwest of Orlando.  The trip covers a bit over 800 miles in a scheduled 17.5 hours, though we actually arrived ahead of time — a first in my experience with Amtrak.

Bottom line: It’s a friendly, well-run service that saves more than 12 hours of driving on Interstate 95, which ranks high on the list of everyone’s least favorite — and speed-trap filled — highways. Dinner aboard is good (and included in the price), and, at least for sleeping car passengers, it’s served in an honest to goodness dining car with tablecloths, real china and glassware. When was the last time you saw one of those on an American train? Sleep doesn’t come easily, because the cars shimmy a lot, but on the whole it’s a pretty satisfactory experience.

You can choose a wide range of accommodations, from coach class with reclining seats to roomettes and bedrooms, some complete with private toilet and shower. I opted for a bedroom, which had an upper and a lower bunk perpendicular to the axis of the car; the upper folds out of the way during the day, while the lower converts to a reasonably comfortable couch.  

There’s also a collapsible table; a swiveling chair next to the large window; a small sink with mirror; and a weird combination toilet and shower, functional except for a lack of hot water. (Oddly, there was hot water to shave with.) The overall space was tight, okay for one person but two people would get to know each other awfully well if they didn’t already.

The fare structure is complicated, because what you pay varies with when you go, what type of accommodation you choose and how large your vehicle is (full-size SUVs and minivans pay a surcharge). With a 10 percent AAA discount on only the basic $89 coach fare — understandably, given the route, no senior discounts apply — I paid $80.10 plus $260 for a bedroom and $169 for my SUV, a charge that now seems to have risen to $220 (versus $147 and up for anything shorter than 182 inches). For me that made just over $500 in all, a price I felt justified by what I saved on a motel room, a decent dinner, at least two $60 tankfuls of gasoline — and, a biggie, wear and tear on an aging driver.

I left New York at 8 a.m. to make a 2 p.m. deadline at the northern Auto Train terminus in Lorton, Va., just off I-95 about half an hour south of the Capitol. I was concerned about getting stuck in one of the legendary Beltway traffic jams, as I have before, but this time breezed through and got to Lorton by 12:30. An attendant slapped a magnetized ID number on the side of the car. I took with me the luggage I needed and left the car to be loaded onto one of the enclosed vehicle carriers that would be coupled to the back of the train.

Inside the attractive terminal building, I checked in at the sleeping-car desk, where a helpful Amtrak employee noticed the camera around my neck and told me when and where I could photograph the engines being attached to the front of the train.  By 3 o’clock we were called to board the train. Dennis, the attendant on Car 5340, showed me aboard and, in accents that recalled his native Guyana, explained how things worked in Bedroom E. A few minutes before the daily 4 p.m. scheduled departure, after complex switching maneuvers to couple the loaded vehicle carriers to the passenger cars, we were off.

The Auto Train can carry as many as 650 passengers and 330 cars; with its maximum complement of 18 silver-sided passenger cars and 33 auto carriers, the train stretches more than three-quarters of a mile — making it the longest passenger train in the world. The day I took it in mid-March, the train was less than half full, with 243 passengers and 127 vehicles, including a lone motorcycle.

We enjoyed a complimentary wine and cheese reception in the lounge car before we left, the wines on offer being a chardonnay, a Norton — a grape new to me — and a vidal blanc, all from Rappahannock Cellars in Virginia, all OK but nothing more.  The lounge car stayed open until 11 p.m., with free movies and stronger drink available at $5 a pop.

Dinner was served in two sittings, at 5 and 7 p.m., with welcome sightings of fruit trees in bloom in the late afternoon sunshine.  I joined two Auto Train veterans at the second sitting and followed their recommendation of the 10-ounce New York steak, which was excellent and accompanied by a freely poured Williamsburg red wine. There was a salad, and my dessert was a killer brownie with pecans and chocolate icing on top.

I was awakened around 7 a.m. to a view of the Florida landscape just south of Jacksonville. After a continental breakfast, we arrived in Sanford at 8:40 a.m. The vehicle carriers were uncoupled, divided into several sections, and switched into position next to the unloading ramps. We were off the train by 9 a.m. to wait for our cars.  

Happily for me, the SUVs and minivans were the first vehicles unloaded. My breakfast companions had taken the Auto Train twice before; once they had their car in 15 minutes, but the second time — a full train on New Year’s Eve — it took a full two hours.  I was out of there by 9:15, on the road to lunch with friends in the horse country near Ocala.   

My theory is that the bigger vehicles are offloaded first because they’re more likely to belong to families en route to Disney World with small children — and Amtrak wants to get the kiddies out of there before they start bawling. Or maybe it was just the roll of the dice.  Or whatever.

© 2008 by Keith R. Johnson.  A retired senior editor of Fortune, Johnson lives in Sharon.  Wheels appears monthly.