WASHINGTON – Anticipating its busiest travel week of the year, Amtrak is planning ahead for the Thanksgiving holiday and encouraging passengers to do the same.
During the week, Amtrak will operate every available car and is scheduling extra trains to accommodate the extra passengers.
On what is anticipated to be the heaviest single travel day of the year for Amtrak — the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — the railroad expects ridership to reach as many as 125,000 passengers system-wide – a 70 percent increase over the 74,000 passengers Amtrak carried on an average Wednesday last year.
In preparation for the holiday week, Amtrak is taking several steps to ensure passengers have an enjoyable trip.
Extra equipment and/or added capacity to existing trains will operate in the Pacific Northwest, out of Chicago and in the Northeast Corridor, with most of the additional trains and capacity running on the two busiest travel days, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 25 and the Sunday after, Nov. 29.
A special Thanksgiving Holiday Timetable for the Northeast Corridor services is also now available at Amtrak stations in the Northeast and online. Additionally, all Amtrak trains in the Northeast will require reservations – including the Harrisburg-Philadelphia Keystone Service trains and the New Haven-Springfield Shuttles.
