Amtrak Palmetto Service

youd have to be very tall to feel cramped in any of Amtraks seats I think .

Nothing has changed since you started the Business Class on Palmetto thread a few months ago. It is unlikely to change before your trip. It may also help if you read the
Business Class on trains 42/42 thread from earlier in the month. They share consists.

Pennsylvanian and Palmetto use Amfleet II coaches with a full Amfleet I business class car. The Vermonter, Ethan Allen and Empire trains have the "Café/Club" car with 2-1 seating.

Is the Palmetto still using a full BC Car and Long-Distance Coaches? Booking a trip for next month and wanted to decide if it's worth "upgrading" to "business class"... If BC is not 2-1 seating I'll stick with coach...

hi55us wrote:Is the Palmetto still using a full BC Car and Long-Distance Coaches? Booking a trip for next month and wanted to decide if it's worth "upgrading" to "business class"... If BC is not 2-1 seating I'll stick with coach...

According to the March issue of Trains the Palmetto has a full 2-2 BC car.

The Palmetto is currently showing as sold out beginning 5/2 forward on Mondays through Thursdays (per AmSnag http://biketrain.net/amsnag/amSnag.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). It's available before that, so I don't think it's accident related.

Any thoughts as to why?

I went on to the Amtrak site and searched for NYP->SAV and SAV->NYP on 5/2-5/4 and 5/6. It appears that only train 90 (SAV->NYP) is sold out on Mondays through Thursdays, but 89 still shows seats available all days of the week. It looks like it might be time for another one of Amtrak's experiments...

A predecessor on the SCL: https://www.american-rails.com/palmland.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If I am not mistaken, SCL, during the brief period that it ran passenger trains, used to combine the Palmland and the Gulf coast special (FKA Havana Special ) at Broad St. Station in Richmond to avoid additional charges on RF&P/Penn Central, I presume. Some days this made for a very long train.

I had not realized the Palmland and Gulf Coast Spl were combined. SCL’s first timetable - July 1967, has the two trains still separate as it did in the December issue. I don’t have one for 1968, buy their TT for April of 1969 shows them combined north of Richmond. To do that, the Palmland’s schedule was advanced a couple hours so arrival time in Richmond was close to the 10pm for the Gulf Coast.

My 1964 ride on the Palmland was great. In those days the Miami sleeper was often a foreign road such as Wabash or UP. Guess the SAL needed all their cars for the growing Florida traffic on the Star and Meteor. My car was a SRR 14-4, Hiwassee Valley. Also on the train was a C&O sleeper and several heavyweIght Pullmans carrying recruits to Ft. Jackson in Columbia. I boarded in Washington around midnight and had a leisurely ride through the Carolinas the next day enjoying the meals and beer in the grill-dinner. The best part was hanging out the Dutch door of the sleeper as we raced (we were flying) through the low country of SC and GA and across the many trestles south of Savannah to Jax. An evening tour of the great Jax station then a morning arrival in Ft. Lauderdale. Good food and good service to boot.