{"id":67,"date":"2015-10-22T21:06:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T01:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sharett.org\/?p=67"},"modified":"2024-04-02T20:43:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T00:43:15","slug":"amtrak-pvta-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/?p=67","title":{"rendered":"Amtrak & PVTA tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: October 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Double<\/a>Amtrak<\/a> service has been running for 10 months now here in Northampton.\u00a0 It’s great to have a passenger train running through town again, but it’s an expensive ride.\u00a0 Here are some tips on getting around inexpensively.<\/p>\n

You can save 20% on the Vermonter (and many other Amtrak trains) if you buy 7 days in advance via this page on Amtrak<\/a>.\u00a0 Railserve.com<\/a> compiles all the Amtrak promotion codes.\u00a0 It’s a great resource and helpful to learn about how Amtrak prices tickets.<\/p>\n

If you’re heading all the way north to Burlington-Essex Junction, VT, it’s cheaper to buy two tickets: one from Northampton to Brattleboro and then another from Brattleboro to Essex Junction – on the same train and the same day!\u00a0 Amtrak is currently offering “Saver” fares of $18 from Brattleboro to Essex Junction with a 3-day advance purchase.\u00a0 Together with the 20% discount<\/a> from Northampton to Brattleboro ($12.61), you can do the whole trip for $30.61, instead of $41 if you just buy one ticket.<\/p>\n

Heading south to Springfield and New York City, it’s far cheaper to take the PVTA<\/a> from Northampton to Holyoke (B48<\/a>), and then an express bus from Holyoke to Springfield (P21e<\/a>), all for $1.50.\u00a0 Weekdays, this bus combination runs once an hour from 7 am to 6 pm (7 pm on the way back). Then you can transfer to the many trains running from Springfield.<\/p>\n

Even if you are committed to taking the train from Northampton, it’s often cheaper to buy two separate tickets, one from Northampton to Springfield ($12, or $9.60 with the 20% discount<\/a>), and then one from Springfield south to New York ($34 in advance).\u00a0 This only works if you buy in advance, because special “Saver” fares (14 day advance ticket) are posted for Springfield south, but not from Northampton – even for the same train.<\/p>\n

If you’re going to New York City and you can’t buy two weeks in advance, consider taking Amtrak just to New Haven from Springfield ($23, or $18.40 a week in advance<\/a>), and then riding Metro North<\/a> into the city ($16.25 off peak).\u00a0 Together with PVTA, the total cost is between $36.50 and $40.75 one way (versus $61 for taking Amtrak the whole way).<\/p>\n

Finally, if you join the National Association of Railroad Passengers<\/a> you get 10% off all Amtrak tickets.<\/p>\n

(There’s also Megabus<\/a>, Greyhound<\/a> and Peter Pan<\/a> bus lines if you’re willing to forgo train travel entirely).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: October 2015 Amtrak service has been running for 10 months now here in Northampton.\u00a0 It’s great to have a passenger train running through town again, but it’s an expensive ride.\u00a0 Here are some tips on getting around inexpensively. You can save 20% on the Vermonter (and many other Amtrak trains) if you buy 7 … Continue reading Amtrak & PVTA tips<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[25,29,28,27,26],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transportation","tag-amtrak","tag-bus","tag-northampton","tag-pvta","tag-train"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharett.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}