Amtrak Train Vacation: Cary To Durham: $16
Last week I used a four day weekend to explore my own back yard. I took the family on a short round trip train ride on Amtrak from Cary to Durham for a quick dinner at the American Tobacco campus.
The timing works out perfectly to hop on the #79 Carolinian in Cary and get up to Durham 20 minutes later. You then have two hours to take the short, ten minute walk over to the American Tobacco campus, have dinner and walk back to Durham’s brand new train station for the #74 Piedmont and the short trip back to Cary.
I know it sounds like a lot just to go out for dinner in Durham, but this trip is not about the destination, it’s the journey. We have been scouting out the schedule for a while now, but didn’t have to book our tickets until the day of our trip. The total round trip cost for two adults and a baby under two years old was $16. That’s $4 per person each way for an adult, kids under two are free and kids age 2 to 15 are half the adult price!
The first train from Cary to Durham was supposed to depart Cary at 5:03 pm and get to Durham at 5:24 pm. Since the train was coming from New York, it was running about 25 minutes late, which wasn’t the end of the world, but it did cut into our dinner time. We arrived at Durham’s brand new train station and walked over to the American Tobacco campus to have dinner. By the time we got there it was a little after 6 pm, so we had to hurry through dinner. We chose the new Cuban restaurant, Cuban Revolution…and we chose wisely. If Cuban isn’t your thing, American Tobacco has plenty more to choose from. But, if you do go Cuban Revolution…the steak sandwich is a must!
After a quick dinner, we made our way back to the station for our 7:39 pm train back to Cary. This train, owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and called the Piedmont, came from Charlotte and was running on time. We had another nice ride on the rail and actually ran into another family doing the same thing we were doing.
Including dinner, the whole trip cost us about $50. Parking was free in Cary, you can bring your own snacks on the train and the Amtrak employees were great! If you wanted a slightly longer ride (the trip from Cary to Durham does go by fast), you could do the same thing from Raleigh to Durham…that adds about 15 more minutes.
So, get out there ride the rails and enjoy the pictures we took along the way! Including my favorite…Caitlyn’s smashed coins. She was there to pick up some family and before the train arrived with some help from her dad, she put a few cents on the track and here is what happened to it. Thanks Caitlyn…I’ve always wanted to do that!
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Comments
Great article, Wes. You will probably have a lot more company next time you take the train to Durham. We were thinking about the idea after we saw you on Thursday when you got back, and now don’t even have to research it – you did it for us! Thanks for including our granddaughter Caitlyn’s coins. She was excited to see the picture.
Nice blog Wes and thanks for giving people the idea and to Ginny for making sure I read it.
And for anyone interested, there are a ton of restaurants in easy walking distance of the station. Search on Downtown at http://www.durham-nc.com/dining/eat/index.php or use this dining/entertainment map of Downtown http://dcvb-nc.com/comm/vic_downtown_map.pdf
What fun that is, I have always loved riding on trains.
On a side note, Duhrma has lots of fabulous restaurants withing a very short walk of the Amtrak station, try Brightleaf Square area, or Downtown. This link will help you decide. http://dcvb-nc.com/comm/DowntownWalkingTour.pdf
Wes – BRILLIANT idea! I love train travel and I wish there was more of it in this country. Good for you for doing this; I’ll give it a try soon.
There’s only one problem with this post – your choice of restaurants. If you’re looking for Cuban without the side of politics, I have a few other recommendations.
I often ride from Cary to my job in Durham. Getting back is a little bit of a bother, as it makes for 12 hour days. You can even bring your bike for free! If you get a multi-ride ticket, the price is somewhere around 4 dollars one-way for an adult.
Amtrak makes it very easy to take the train…but like the airlines, trains don’t always run on time…so check before you go. North Carolina has some great stations across the state with things to do near many of them. Raleigh and Charlotte are a little behind, but both have plans for new stations in the future.
Thanks for the extra food ideas Carolyn!
Luckily Jennifer, Castro wasn’t at Cuban revolution, but I know what you mean…for effect, a few of the TVs had old footage from Cuba…didn’t ruin the night though. Would love to hear your other recommendations.
Thanks to all for your comments!!
That’s very cool! My first thought, though, was to wonder if I might could use that to go from Durham to my job in Cary. Unfortunately, looking at the schedules, it looks like it might work the other way (but, as someone said, would make for a 12 hour day) but it wouldn’t work for commuting from Durham to Cary. I wonder just how hard it would be to add some commuter trains to the line. It really would be nice to have a decent rail public transportation option available between the various triangle areas.
I’ve had the same idea…to take a short train trip just for the fun and experience. I thought that it would be fun. I have a little nephew, NOAH BARNES, that is crazy about trains. This would be great for him as well.
Thanks for making it sound so fun and EASY! I guess I’ll go ahead and “JUST DO IT!”
That sounds great…I was looking for a way over to DPAC from Cary, because I think it would be better to commute over then to deal with the traffic. But don’t know if the schedules are OK…will have to check them out.
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What a cool idea, Wes. I’ve wanted to take the train to Charlotte before, but I never thought about doing it closer to home. Thanks for sharing this idea!