This is your typical small-town train station. Fairly small, outdated waiting room, with floors that have decades of grime that will never be polished out. But ultimately, it's not the station you're spending hours in, it's the train. The ticketmaster behind the glass was grouchy -after reading other review, must have just been that he was having a bad day. But his behavior was unprofessional. After a rudimentary greeting to me, he continued to talk under his breath about the previous customer who had caused some hubbub. Something about too many carry-on bags...
After waiting only a half hour, the train was right on time. Waiting outside for the last 15 minutes was the highlight of the train station visit. Once on the train, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were plenty of seats available and was fortunate to have both the window and aisle seat all to myself the entire ride to Penn Station. Granted, it was Thursday morning, 9am, but still, would've thought there'd have been some commuter traffic in Utica or Albany. The staff was pleasant and helpful in handing up my baggage to me and directing me to the right car. The cafe car was clean and well-attended, though a bit mediocre in food selection. And if you happen to be on a diet or a health kick, forget about it -just pack your own snacks. The only healthy food they have is Greek yogurt (yum!) and very expensive fresh fruit ($1 for one banana). The cafe car staff was mediocre as well. I had a Tim Horton's cup that I had some tea in earlier when I first got on the train. I asked the attendant if he could just fill it up with some more hot tea, so as to save a cup. He said it was against the rules, something about counting the number of cups and tea bags that are sold each day. Fine, I'll go with it. But I still wanted to be able to recycle my TH cup, as well as the cardboard sleeve. "No recycling on board." Well, ok then. Amtrak is a bit antiquated as far as being "green". I saw how much cardboard, plastic and paper was being thrown away, from the danish wrappings to the microwavable pizza containers. It's a shame.
Ok, rest of the ride to NYC was great. On the way home, that Sunday, well that was another story! The staff was particularly rude and unaccommodating. Everyone nearby me in my car noticed as well. All of a sudden in Utica, at 11pm, there was assigned seating -the train attendant went around and collapsed foot rests of passengers who were sleeping to get them to move to their "correct seat".
The train was packed from the moment we left Penn right up until Buffalo. In fact, when we stopped in Rochester at 2:30am, another two dozen passengers boarded!! My advice if you're traveling late at night: bring noise-cancelling earphones (because there's always That Guy who is on board to make friends and chatter the whole night), a warm blanket, a pillow and some back support, as well as a smartphone or an iPod with a never-ending music playlist -there is no Wifi!! The AC was blasting from the moment we left Penn. Numerous passengers asked the conductor to turn it down but because it was located on the OUTSIDE of the train, the answer was 'no'. I kid you not, it had to have been 50 degrees. My lips turned blue about 3 hours into the trip. Around 9pm the "heat" came on -you could only feel the benefits of this so-called heat if you were sitting in a window seat and had your bare leg pressed between the chair and the floorboard vent, something that becomes very uncomfortable after 45 minutes.
We arrived in Buffalo 3 hours later than originally scheduled, due to numerous slow-downs and pull-overs to let other trains pass. Because Amtrak doesn't own the rights of the railroad tracks, we don't have right away and therefore must let cargo trains pass, hence the many 30-minute stops in the middle of nowhere.
Bottom line, if you have an additional $100, spend it on airfare and enjoy the 56 minute plane trip to NYC, rather than the 12 hour ride-from-hell in the refrigerated section of Amtrak. read more