BB Road trip to Rutgers

[medinabuckeye1]

Those who have been here for a while will remember Gator's write-ups on road-trips to various football venues.  I don't think I can do that justice but I did always like this tradition so I thought I'd share one anyway.  

For starters, this was my first time ever seeing Ohio State play a "true" road basketball game:

Rutgers' arena is technically named the "Louis Brown Athletic Center" but as near as I can tell, everyone calls it either the "Rutgers Athletic Center", or simply the "RAC" (pronounced as spelled, not R - A - C).  

The nice thing about a trip to Rutgers (and the reason I went on this trip) is that it is only about an hour by train from Manhattan.  Amtrack's NE Corridor line leaves New York's Penn Station (Between 7th and 8th Avenues and between W31st and W33rd Streets).  This train leaves reasonably frequently and it is only an hour on the train to the New Brunswick Station adjacent to the Rutgers Campus.  

After exiting the train station there are free campus buses to get you to the RAC.  One word of caution, there are TWO Penn Stations on this route.  The other one is "Newark Penn Station" and if you are trying to get back to the City you DO NOT want to get off there, don't ask me how I know.  

For as urban as the surrounding area is, the Rutgers Campus is surprisingly wooded and ascetically pleasing.  It is also a very old campus that has what I can only describe as a "what a college should look like" look about it.  We didn't look around much for three reasons:  First, we were here for a football game not long ago.  Second, it was cold.  Third, it was dark.  

The RAC itself is surprisingly small.  It felt almost like a HS gym.  The Rutgers fans that we met were friendly and welcoming (in a New Yorker) way.  We sat in the third row behind the baseline (for a surprisingly low price).  At one point in the second half a Rutgers player was shooting a foul shot at the basket we were behind and I (somewhat instinctively) started waving my arms in the usual fan effort to distract the shooter.  A guy behind me said "You don't need to do that to get him to miss" and the player promptly missed the shot.  

After the game we took the free campus bus back to near the train station, walked to the train station, and were on the train headed back to Manhattan within a half hour after the game ended.  

Penn Station, if you are not aware, is literally adjacent to Madison Square Garden and only a few blocks from Times Square.  This is what makes a trip to Rutgers unique.  You can stay in NYC and get a weekend in the City out of the trip.  For those of us who are married and/or need to drag a significant other who isn't terribly interested in sports along on a trip, the weekend in NYC is the clincher in making the sale.  

It was a fun trip, I recommend it!

[Brutus Buckeye]

Did you consider taking the Amtrak from Cleveland to NYC? 

My brother and his wife used to do that during summer break when they were mere College sweethearts. 

They went to Richmond(VA), but she was from Poughkeepsie, NY and he was from Columbus. 

[medinabuckeye1]

Did you consider taking the Amtrak from Cleveland to NYC?

My brother and his wife used to do that during summer break when they were mere College sweethearts.

They went to Richmond(VA), but she was from Poughkeepsie, NY and he was from Columbus.

To be honest I didn't even look.  I have checked them before and the prices/times were ridiculous for a long trip.  I checked for our trip to Nebraska and it was honestly more expensive than flying and slower than driving.  

[MarqHusker]

Good write-up,  always appreciate the travel stories.   I chuckled at the 'Penn Station' scenario.   Penn Station (the NYC station) is still a nasty place, I don't care how much lipstick they've put on it lately.

re: Amtrak.   There's such great romance in thinking about taking a long train ride, but it rarely does make much economic sense.   There are no doubt sensible segments of train travel that come to mind between certain places in this country, but once you extend the trip a bit further out, there's not only no value relative to air/car/megabus, but insufferable scheduling, not to mention some reliability problems.

[FearlessF]

thanks for the write up

[betarhoalphadelta]

To be honest I didn't even look.  I have checked them before and the prices/times were ridiculous for a long trip.  I checked for our trip to Nebraska and it was honestly more expensive than flying and slower than driving.  

re: Amtrak.   There's such great romance in thinking about taking a long train ride, but it rarely does make much economic sense.   There are no doubt sensible segments of train travel that come to mind between certain places in this country, but once you extend the trip a bit further out, there's not only no value relative to air/car/megabus, but insufferable scheduling, not to mention some reliability problems.

Yeah, I did a look at this a couple of years ago. People romanticize riding the rails, but to be frank it's a terrible way to travel. As mentioned, it's typically more expensive than flying and slower than driving. 

I looked it up back when I had lived in Atlanta, specific to what it would take to get to Chicago from Atlanta by train. Well, Amtrak doesn't go from Atlanta to Chicago. You'd have to go Atlanta->NYC, then NYC->Chicago. Leave at 8 PM on a Sunday, and you'll make it to Chicago at 8 AM on a Tuesday. That's 36 hours of travel, on two trains, both overnight, and according to Amtrak's current web site pricing, it's about $200 if you want a seat, but over $600 if you want a sleeper car. 

That's about a 2 hour flight, or a >10 hr drive, or about 15 hrs via bus. 

People act as if rail is great. And it can be useful. But it's not cheap or fast. And unless it goes EXACTLY where you want to go, it's useless. 

[Brutus Buckeye]

Yeah, I just figured that Cleveland to NYC would be a pretty straight shot, while driving across the mountains in the middle of the winter can always suck. 

Throw in the fact that it was sposta be some sorta romantic weekend getaway with the wife... 

[medinabuckeye1]

Yeah, I just figured that Cleveland to NYC would be a pretty straight shot, while driving across the mountains in the middle of the winter can always suck.

Throw in the fact that it was sposta be some sorta romantic weekend getaway with the wife...

I have to admit that on the trip home (Monday, Jan 15) we ran into the storm that hit the midwest about half way across Pennsylvania.  What started as about a 7 hour drive (8 counting the hour of dealing with traffic to get from midtown to the GWB ended up taking closer to 12 hours with the last half of the miles done at ~40MPH in the snow.  
That said, here is the schedule information (assuming a trip tomorrow from Cleveland to New York):
The train leaves Cleveland at 5:50am and arrives at Penn Station in NYC at 6:23pm.  That is a bit under 13 hours for a trip that didn't take me that long by car even with the snowstorm.  Plus, you have to get up in the middle of the night to get to the train station in Cleveland at 0-dark-thirty.  
Here is the return trip information (assuming a trip Thursday from NYP to CLE):
The train leaves Penn Station (NYP) at 3:40pm and arrives at Cleveland at 3:27am.  That is quicker than the trip to NYC but still longer than typical car time.  It also has the detriment of arriving in the middle of the night.  
The trips are $84 each way so $168 per person round-trip.  You could probably fly for around that if you booked far enough in advance and you'd do the trip a lot quicker or you could drive for less than that AND in less time.  
I looked at it for a trip to Glacier Park and the price/time were ridiculous.  It was so much slower and more expensive than driving that I could literally use the money saved to pay for hotels for two nights and STILL get there quicker and cheaper by driving.  

[MarqHusker]

My last 'rail' trip was a few years ago between Seattle and Portland (on the old track line, not the new one that just derailed) and it was at least 90 minutes longer than the scheduled travel times, which are already longer than a car or bus ride.   This is always being blamed by Amtrak on the Freight Rails (BNSF) over Amtrak.   (Summoning Froggy). This was tolerable for us, because we didn't really have to be in PDX on time and our kids loved the novelty of their first train ride, but it was not working for everybody else on the train.

Outside the Milwaukee to Chicago (Hiawatha line) and the NE Corridor, I can't think of anything nice about passenger train travel anywhere else I've tried, or explored.  

[medinabuckeye1]

My last 'rail' trip was a few years ago between Seattle and Portland (on the old track line, not the new one that just derailed) and it was at least 90 minutes longer than the scheduled travel times, which are already longer than a car or bus ride.   This is always being blamed by Amtrak on the Freight Rails (BNSF) over Amtrak.   (Summoning Froggy). This was tolerable for us, because we didn't really have to be in PDX on time and our kids loved the novelty of their first train ride, but it was not working for everybody else on the train.

Outside the Milwaukee to Chicago (Hiawatha line) and the NE Corridor, I can't think of anything nice about passenger train travel anywhere else I've tried, or explored.  

Marq:
Your experiences with Amtrack concern me because I have a long-term plan to do a hike in Glacier Park that involves taking the train from West Glacier (WGL) to East Glacier (GPK).  The trip would be beautiful.  The track basically runs along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River along with US Route 2 from the Station at West Glacier (Near Apgar) to a station across the street from Glacier Park Lodge.  I drove that on my last trip to Glacier.  Google says 63 minutes driving and that is about right depending on how much time to take stopping to observe the amazing views.  
Per Amtrack's schedule the train takes 98 minutes.  As usual, it is slower than driving but in this case I thought it would be a great option for a variety of reasons including:

• The novelty/beauty of a train ride in that setting, 
• It is a short trip so the time difference isn't severe, 
• The price for this short trip is only $13/person so that is negligible, 
• My plan is to do a hike starting from the Two Medicine Ranger Station and Glacier Park has a cheap hiker shuttle from Glacier Park Lodge to the Two Medicine Ranger Station, 
• The planned hike ends back near Apgar (after crossing the triple divide and then crossing the continental divide again) so I'd like my vehicle to be at Apgar where I plan to finish rather than at Glacier Park Lodge when I get done.  

Here is the thing:
Amtrack's schedule has the train leaving WGL at 8:11am and arriving at GPK at 9:49am.  My plan involves counting that day as one of my hiking days because I would plan to hike that day up to the Oldman Lake Campground on that day.  It is only a 7 mile hike but it includes almost 1,800' of increased elevation so it wouldn't be an easy hike and I would want to be in camp WELL before dark because that is PRIME Grizzly country.  I couldn't deal with hours of train delays before my hike started.  Campground in Glacier offer reservations so I was planning to reserve everything in advance but in that case a train delay would be catastrophic because it would put me a day behind for ALL of my stops.  Is that something I would need to plan for?  Glacier Park Lodge is a beautiful spot, but I'd hate to burn a day there just to be sure I could start as planned.  

[Brutus Buckeye]

I have to admit that on the trip home (Monday, Jan 15) we ran into the storm that hit the midwest about half way across Pennsylvania.  What started as about a 7 hour drive (8 counting the hour of dealing with traffic to get from midtown to the GWB ended up taking closer to 12 hours with the last half of the miles done at ~40MPH in the snow.  
That said, here is the schedule information (assuming a trip tomorrow from Cleveland to New York):
The train leaves Cleveland at 5:50am and arrives at Penn Station in NYC at 6:23pm.  That is a bit under 13 hours for a trip that didn't take me that long by car even with the snowstorm.  Plus, you have to get up in the middle of the night to get to the train station in Cleveland at 0-dark-thirty.  
Here is the return trip information (assuming a trip Thursday from NYP to CLE):
The train leaves Penn Station (NYP) at 3:40pm and arrives at Cleveland at 3:27am.  That is quicker than the trip to NYC but still longer than typical car time.  It also has the detriment of arriving in the middle of the night.  
The trips are $84 each way so $168 per person round-trip.  You could probably fly for around that if you booked far enough in advance and you'd do the trip a lot quicker or you could drive for less than that AND in less time.  
I looked at it for a trip to Glacier Park and the price/time were ridiculous.  It was so much slower and more expensive than driving that I could literally use the money saved to pay for hotels for two nights and STILL get there quicker and cheaper by driving.  

[MarqHusker]

Marq:
Your experiences with Amtrack concern me because I have a long-term plan to do a hike in Glacier Park that involves taking the train from West Glacier (WGL) to East Glacier (GPK).  The trip would be beautiful.  The track basically runs along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River along with US Route 2 from the Station at West Glacier (Near Apgar) to a station across the street from Glacier Park Lodge.  I drove that on my last trip to Glacier.  Google says 63 minutes driving and that is about right depending on how much time to take stopping to observe the amazing views.  
Per Amtrack's schedule the train takes 98 minutes.  As usual, it is slower than driving but in this case I thought it would be a great option for a variety of reasons including:

• The novelty/beauty of a train ride in that setting,
• It is a short trip so the time difference isn't severe,
• The price for this short trip is only $13/person so that is negligible,
• My plan is to do a hike starting from the Two Medicine Ranger Station and Glacier Park has a cheap hiker shuttle from Glacier Park Lodge to the Two Medicine Ranger Station,
• The planned hike ends back near Apgar (after crossing the triple divide and then crossing the continental divide again) so I'd like my vehicle to be at Apgar where I plan to finish rather than at Glacier Park Lodge when I get done.  

Here is the thing:
Amtrack's schedule has the train leaving WGL at 8:11am and arriving at GPK at 9:49am.  My plan involves counting that day as one of my hiking days because I would plan to hike that day up to the Oldman Lake Campground on that day.  It is only a 7 mile hike but it includes almost 1,800' of increased elevation so it wouldn't be an easy hike and I would want to be in camp WELL before dark because that is PRIME Grizzly country.  I couldn't deal with hours of train delays before my hike started.  Campground in Glacier offer reservations so I was planning to reserve everything in advance but in that case a train delay would be catastrophic because it would put me a day behind for ALL of my stops.  Is that something I would need to plan for?  Glacier Park Lodge is a beautiful spot, but I'd hate to burn a day there just to be sure I could start as planned.  

There may be internet forums (imagine that) that get into the on time rate of these kinds of routes and those experiences with that run.   My knee jerk would be to assume that that particularly stretch of track, couldn't nearly be as busy as the one between SEA/PDX.   That stretch is crazy busy with trains.  Of course we had 80 trains a day go past our dorms in Lincoln which were those 150+ cars.   I'm sure you could find a good consensus.  That's a good reason to pause though. 
I know my Milwaukee to Thunder Bay Canada trek (years ago) wasn't so bad on timing, maybe an hour ish behind, it was lousy for other reasons, once we were north of the Twin Cities.    Another trek between WY/CO wasn't that bad, again the draw there was a awfully cool terrain you get to see, which you often don't on a Interstate or State HWY.  I wasn't in a hurry though. 

[CousinFreddie]

My experiences have been different than Marq's ... maybe it's a luck of the draw thing and I've just been lucky, but here is my rundown:

I've done the Portland-Seattle (and one time Portland-Vancouver BC) round trip many times.  King St station in Seattle is located about 3 blocks from Safeco, so it's great to go up for a day game from pdx.  Or from King St you can take the Sounder (commuter train) up to Pikes Market/downtown area, and from there you can take the monorail (for an antiquated 60s sci-fi kind of experience) to Seattle Center, where the EMP lives.

The trains are almost always on time, at least in my experience.  In fact, they don't wait for you, so you'd better be aboard at the scheduled time because it's usually starting to roll then.

Last year I did the Baltimore to Boston (Back Bay sta) round trip, and it was 7 hours door to door (my apt was in downtown B'more last year so real close to Penn Station - yet another Penn Sta!).  Back Bay is located only about 8 blocks from Fenway.  Location close to MLB parks is a big plus for me.  And 7 hours ... much better than driving the NE corridor (by a long shot) and in my book better than flying (I checked and it would have taken me at least 5 hours to drive to BWI, park, shuttle to the terminal, go through security, fly to Logan, taxi or rental car into downtown Boston through that crazy tunnel thing they've got there out of the airport).  Saves a lot of aggravation.  No traffic to wade through behind the wheel.  And, unlike the sardine cans that airplanes have become, train seats are big and roomy and you can walk to the dining car or just stretch your legs, no problem.  And you see cool parts of the countryside (and the "innards" of cities", a real graffiti tour) that you don't see from the interstate.  Going to Seattle exposes you to parts of the Puget Sound you'd otherwise only see by boat.

Anyway, when I can, I take the train.  It's so much better than driving or flying.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

My last 'rail' trip was a few years ago between Seattle and Portland (on the old track line, not the new one that just derailed) and it was at least 90 minutes longer than the scheduled travel times, which are already longer than a car or bus ride.   This is always being blamed by Amtrak on the Freight Rails (BNSF) over Amtrak.   (Summoning Froggy). This was tolerable for us, because we didn't really have to be in PDX on time and our kids loved the novelty of their first train ride, but it was not working for everybody else on the train.

Outside the Milwaukee to Chicago (Hiawatha line) and the NE Corridor, I can't think of anything nice about passenger train travel anywhere else I've tried, or explored.  

That's actually a feature of the train system we have here, not a bug. Trains make the most sense when they're fully loaded. Trains are an absolutely GREAT solution for long-haul freight. Far more efficient per ton carried than big rig trucks. 
Trains are an absolutely stupid way to move people over long distances, because you're basically moving air. They're slow. They're inflexible, in that every person on that train basically has to go the same route, whereas if you had the same number of people in buses they could go to 15 different destinations. And they have limited schedules, largely because the number of people you need on a train to make it economically viable means that you can barely ever run them because not enough people want to take them [for the cost/time reasons mentioned above]. 
So yes, American rails are typically owned by freight companies rather than Amtrak, and that means that often they'll prioritize freight. Which is what you'd expect. Amtrak is the preferred mode of travel for overly-romantic wealthy retirees. Nobody else has the time or inclination to do it. Why should overly-romantic wealthy retirees get priority over making sure that all the rest of us get our Amazon shipments on time?