It would be great if the train to Lynchburgh could diverge and head to Roanoke. I visited this city twice for business purposes and took the Crescent down to Lynchburgh where we rented a car (at th airport - just in time before it closed upon arrival of the Crescent from NYC!) and headed out to Roanoke, VA for the conference. We stayed at a really nice facility and all along the highway from Lynchburg to Roanoke there were all kinds of Civil War and early American museum sites to visit, making me think that it must be a mecca for tourists. Anyway, we had to wake up early from Roanoke in order to catch the Crescent back north. Of course I happened to leave my tickets in the back seat of the rental car - didn't realize it until I had dropped it off at the airport and was at the Lynchburgh Amtrak station. At that time, you could still get "replacement tickets" for a $30 fee - or at least that's what it ended up costing me. There was four of us on the trip and we decided to book two roomettes and use them as day rooms. At the time it turned out cheaper to book it this way (meals included etc.). Course as the driver from Roanoke to Lynchburg and getting up at an ungodly early morning hour in Roanoke in order to make the Crescent, I did lower the upper bunk to take a nap until "last call for breakfast." Lunch was called around 11:00 a.m. as we were running ahead of schedule and it was announced there would just be one call for lunch. So we ate breakfast and lunch on the way back with relatively little time in between. We repeated the same trip the following year for the same conference. Unfortunately, since we arrived at the conference facility in the late evening and then departed in the early morning hours in the dark, we got a "night-time" view of Roanoke. And again we took note of all the hitoric signs along the way! But it definitely looked like a more "populated" town and area than say Lynchburgh!
In the instance that I had to get new tickets issued, I wonder if Amtrak (conductor and sleeping car attendant) would have actually taken me aboard considering they had a manifest of sleeping car passengers and the situation was explainable. And I barely got the tickets exchanged before the ticket clerk had to get the baggage assembled and get it loaded on the train. As a group of four, one if us (me) had essentialy (lost their ticket). Thank goodness the train was running 10 miuntes late. Course I don't advise running this risk of "losing tickets" and then trying to board without any. I just wanted to play it safe by having new tickets issued if it was just going to cost me $30 - even though looking back it I think that was a pretty high number in comparison to my "portion of the trip cost."
In the instance that I had to get new tickets issued, I wonder if Amtrak (conductor and sleeping car attendant) would have actually taken me aboard considering they had a manifest of sleeping car passengers and the situation was explainable. And I barely got the tickets exchanged before the ticket clerk had to get the baggage assembled and get it loaded on the train. As a group of four, one if us (me) had essentialy (lost their ticket). Thank goodness the train was running 10 miuntes late. Course I don't advise running this risk of "losing tickets" and then trying to board without any. I just wanted to play it safe by having new tickets issued if it was just going to cost me $30 - even though looking back it I think that was a pretty high number in comparison to my "portion of the trip cost."