Iāve done it I think 3 or maybe 4 times, but only once did it go smoothly. The auto train ONLY runs from just south of DC (lorton) to just north of Orlando (sanford).
The concept is fantastic. Put your car on a train, eat dinner, go to sleep and wake up at your destination while saving a thousand miles of driving. If you time it right it can be cheaper than youād expect. I want to say Iāve done one way with a car for under $500 in the past, and then you can upgrade to a roomette in advance or on site for a few hundred bucks. Once was almost free after signing up for an amtrak CC. Dinner in a dining car and the whole ātrain experienceā is interesting although the trains are, well, grungy.
Thatās the good news. The bad news is, itās run by amtrak and they do a pretty terrible job. lol.
The bigger problem is that there are exactly two trains, and they go back and forth between the same two stations every day. If something goes wrong, like a delay or mechanical issue - the problem can snowball and at some point the only option they have is to cancel a run. Itās not like airport scheduling where they can just reroute a plane from somewhere else. And my understanding (I had a long chat with one of the employees one trip) is that the auto train is lower priority on the tracks than many of the other freight trains - so it waits, and waits, and waits when things get off schedule - so what starts as a 3 hour delay on monday can be a 4 hour delay on tues, and so on.
The other issue is just logistics. Watching them load/unload the cars is a cool process at first but extremely time consuming. They split the ~20 car-carrier cars into chains of 4, and then load your cars, top and bottom, via a few dozen valet drivers who have to drive the car through each chain of trains to its resting spot. And then when you arrive, the same thing takes place but in reverse. So actual loading and unloading takes ~2+ hours on each end.
Last but not least, the last time I took the train - I want to say it left almost 5-6 hours late. So in total (because you have to arrive with plenty of time to load your car) I was stuck at the station, with nowhere to go, for about 8 hours. Because of the route, this is a lot of snowbirds and families. People were losing their minds. I watched at least two groups storm off to their car (obviously before loading started) and say āscrew it Iāll drive there faster.ā Around 7pm the staff brought in 40 dominos pizzas and then hid - clearly they were used to this happening every so often.
Well thanks to the delay, I was awake for most of the trip - and let me tell you, south carolina through florida is not a scenic or comfortable journey. We finally arrived in FL maybe 8 hours delayed (again, there is no āmaking up timeā on a train, it has one speed and has to stop on a sideline when other trains need to pass) and passengers were ready to go all out WWE brawl with the staff - folks missed funerals, missed an entire day of their disney vacation with 4 kids, you name it. You get to hear lots of angry stories while youāre waiting 2 hours for your car to come off the train.
Would I do it again? Maybe. Just go into it understanding that the timeline is far from guaranteed.
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