Everyone uses the train these days because lets face it, train travel is easier and at times cheaper than other travel options, especially with the price of gas to fill your car these days. So, what if you’re like me and haven’t used train travel before? We Hoosiers are somewhat new to the train travel system. It just depends what part of Indiana you are from as to how familiar you are with train travel. So, I decided on my last trip, that I was going to use the train travel system and here is what I’ve learned thus far.
With the way the world is today, train travel may be affordable, but the people running the show will want ID. I can’t blame them for this with how much stuff has happened before in subways and airports. Mostly any picture ID will work for train travel and hey, it’s keeping people like you and me safe so it should be no problem to carry some photo ID and put up with the slight delay.
Just like you can from airlines, you can buy your tickets for train travel ahead of time so that you can feel confident you have your means of travel and you can make plans. You can normally do this by phone or by internet. I trust the phone more now as more and more people are stealing identities online. You just need a credit card handy because you will have to buy it. You can’t place tickets on hold without buying them. Another way that train travel is much like the airline system is that you find the times for you to board the train by looking on the screen. This will tell you the time when your train is due to depart and will notify you of the soonest time that you can start boarding the train. Due to how noisy it is in train stations, though, when you use train travel, they don’t announce it as much.
When you buy two single tickets when using train travel, it can be cheaper. This tends to open up more time to travel and you don’t have to buy a return. Of course though, this is just a suggestion, you’ll need to check this out before you use train travel. To get the best train travel ticket though is to be patient and not picky. This will allow you to sometimes get better rates as some trains will be looking to fill a train that they have sold little seats. If you do this, the train might be leaving rather quickly or at an odd time for affordable train travel time.
Some trains have rail cards that give discounts on the fares making them even more easily affordable. Some give them to young people and can take a third off the cost of a regular ticket. Others may give discounts to senior citizens. Then, you can always get a group discount. Most of these group discounts will allow a group of four people to travel for the price of two train tickets.
Lastly, you can always try online reductions if you are still looking for something a bit cheaper to try out.
So, all aboard who’s going on this train ride. This train is about to leave and I’ll be seeing you there as I take my first train ride. Are you ready? I sure am and I just learned a few things that might help me get the best deal for my money. Hope you enjoy train travel as much as I’m about to.