Roll-on bike service on the Hiawatha, and soon the Empire Builder

Update 2016-11-28:
It's real! According to news reports and the Amtrak bike info page, the Empire Builder now accepts bikes checked trainside. What's especially awesome: Despite being unstaffed, the station at West Glacier nonetheless offers bike service! Glacier National Park, here we come!

Update 2016-07-06:
After talking to a friend who recently rode the Empire Builder with his bike and was skeptical about the prospects of walk-up service coming soon, I contacted Amtrak through their website. Here is their response: 

Thank you for contacting us regarding walk-on bike service on long distance trains.
[...] Currently, we have no information regarding projected dates in 2016 when walk-on bike service will be expanded on long distance trains, including the Empire Builder. Expansion of this service will be announced on our website, www.Amtrak.com at the News & Media link at the bottom of our homepage..
We hope this information will assist you.

In other words: Don't hold your breath...


Good news for cyclists in Wisconsin and Illinois! As the Bike Fed reports, starting May 4 Amtrak's Hiawatha line, which connects Milwaukee to Chicago, will start offering walk-up service for bikes. Previously your bike had to be partially disassembled and go into a box, whereas now you can just roll up your bike to the train and it will travel in the cab (after having made a 5-dollar reservation). This is not quite as good as the "walk on" service where you yourself roll the bike on and off the train, but it still is an improvement. Another, related limitation is that bikes can only travel between the respective downtown stations; all intermediate stops won't be served because the car in which the bikes travel will be locked.


For Madison residents the practical relevance of the new service is probably limited. If you want to go Chicago, instead of riding the 140 kilometers (85 miles) to the Multimodal Station in Milwaukee, you might as well bike approximately the same distance to Harvard, IL and take your bike on the Metra train. However, the ride to Milwaukee is arguably nicer (about 90 percent on trails), and Metra allows bikes only during off-peak hours. On the other hand, Metra is only $10.50 (no extra charge for bikes) versus $30 one way on Amtrak (including the $5 bike fee).



What is maybe more exciting for the Madison adventurous touring cyclist is that the Empire Builder will soon also offer walk up service for bikes. The Empire Builder travels between Chicago and Portland/Seattle, with attractive stops such as Glacier National Park in between. It's only about 50 kilometers (35 miles) to the Amtrak station in Columbus (Wisc.), and not having to deal with boxing up the bike makes a long-distance trip West seem much more attractive. There is no firm date yet for when this is going to happen, but hopefully it will still be this summer.

Next step: Get walk-on service on the train to Madison. Oh, wait...

QC-MTL, Day 0: Train to Quebec

> forward to day 1
Our original plan, as presented on this blog earlier in the year, had been to do a week-long tour from Quebec City to Montreal, following the Route Verte 1 throught the Eastern Townships. We were all ready to do it when at the last minute it turned out that I had to be somewhere on Tuesday morning. That would have given us at most 6.5 days for the 500 km. It could have worked out but we decided that we didn't want to cut it close and rather ride on the Route Verte 5, following the St. Lawrence river. This route would only be about 350 km, leaving us a comfortable time window.

On Monday evening we packed up and, after dropping off some recalled books at the library, went to Montreal Central Station. The person at the baggage counter was very nice when taking our bikes and panniers and soon we would be en route to Quebec City. Our train was scheduled to arrive at 9 pm and we arrived pretty much on time. Our bikes were unloaded last and after putting back on the panniers we got going for the 12 km to the hotel.

Our bikes, neatly parked in the Via Rail baggage car

I had planned the route to hotel based on the Quebec City bike maps which resulted in a lovely first part of the ride. We followed the Sainte-Anne river on a winding smooth bike path. Unfortunately, the path does not follow the river all the way to our hotel and the second part of the ride wasn't all that great. The suggested route followed an arterial street that even on a Monday evening at 9:30 pm was still pretty busy. A bike lane did exist but it was narrow and every once in a while disappeared. Well, we eventually made it to Motel Bonaparte. This was by far the cheapest option for accommodation in Quebec and it was definitive a decent value for the money. At around 11 pm we fell asleep, full of anticipation of next day's riding.

> forward to day 1