Amtrak: Evening & Night Trains in Northeast USA Starting at $5 (e.g. NYC – Newark Airport & DC – Baltimore Airport)

US train operator Amtrak recently started offering “Night Owl’ fares in the Northeast which allow you to travel for as low as US$5 (~€5) between 19:00 (7 pm) and 05:00 (5 am). The train company advertises this fare by highlighting its advantages compared to air travel, like allowing 2 pieces of luggage and 2 personal items.

These are some of the routes that may be interesting:

  • Washington DC to Baltimore Airport at US$5 (~€5)
  • New York City to Philadelphia at US$10 (~€9)
  • Philadelphia to Washington DC at US$10 (~€9)
  • New York City to Newark Airport at US$5 (~€5)
  • and many more..
amtrak nyp phl

Search & Book, Schedules

You can get these tickets if the departure is either after 19:00 (7 pm) or before 5:00 (5 am) from the station you want to travel from. The other requirement is your trip must be between Washington DC Union Station WAS and New York City Moynihan Train Hall (Penn Station) NYP. There are plenty of stations between these two for example in Newark (NWK, EWR, MET), Trenton (TRE), Philadelphia (PHL, PHN), Wilmington (WIL), Baltimore (BAL, BWI), New Carrollton (NCR) and many more.

You can find availabilities on Amtrak’s website by searching for trains for your desired connection. You can ease your search by sorting from the lowest fare or by selecting the morning or evening departure period. However, Amtrak’s site can become pretty annoying as you’d need to clear filters and apply again if you were to modify your search.

amtrak filters

On some routes like from DC to New York, availabilities are very limited. However, on most other routes, you can find trips almost every day, even short-term. You can also check train schedules on Amtrak’s Schedules site, although that only shows schedules for one train type. Please note that while there are many carriers operating on the Northeast Corridor, this sale only applies to Amtrak trains:

amtrak northeast corridor
The Northeast Corridor ©Amtrak

Bottom Line

Considering how ridiculously expensive these trains usually are, it’s definitely a nice treat from Amtrak to price these trips so low. The Northeast Corridor is the company’s most important route where it operates a variety of services. While there could be more cheap trains, it’s a nice start.

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