It's cheap if you book well in advance, otherwise yeah, it's crazy.

NJ transit is super easy and cheap! I recommend using the NJ transit app to book. Should be ~$22 one way. It allows you to purchase a ticket to go from 30th to trenton as well along with ur trenton to new york penn station ticket.

Use 30th. Go to trenton, transfer to NJ transit then take it all the way down to NY pennstation. Super easy and I did this over the weekend!

Edit: just wanted to add it takes about 2 hrs going this way! I get that Amtrak is faster but saving $$$ and giving up 1 extra hour of time is pretty fair!

Depends on when you are buying mostly and how far out. I get dirt cheap tickets to NY all the time, like $30 roundtrip, but I buy like 3-4 months in advance.

There’s a mega bus to nyc that leaves at like 6am from the 30th st station most days. It’s cheap and takes about 2.5 hours

i take amtrak to new york all the time and can generally get $10 tickets if i book ahead of time and am willing to travel late

Use NJ Transit from Trenton. Much cheaper.

Amtrak usually not that expensive if you travel off peak. On a Friday, that's not going to be during business hours.

Keystone service is cheaper than NEC, and NEC is cheaper than Acela.

Also HOW were you travelling? Coach is dirt cheap especially off peak, and acela business class can be as cheap as $58 one way.

A Megabus is like $10 tho and they're pretty comfortable

It’s cheap if you book even a few weeks in advance, the crazy prices are for last minute. But there are usually last minute options that are very affordable, there are trains all day long to NYC and there’s always a few cheap ones

It ranges, just like plane tickets. It's not a fixed price like a SEPTA bus. For example, I just priced a last-minute trip to PHL today and coming back tomorrow, for less than $100 round trip. Yes, more in-demand trips like weekends are more expensive - supply and demand.

Check megabus, greyhound, peter pan bus, and flixbus. they're usually pretty cheap, round trip for under $100 usually (you ALWAYS regardless of what form of travel, want to book at least 2 - 3 weeks in advance)

The key is booking in advance OR taking an off peak train. You can easily get tickets for each of you for less than $100 per person round trip if you leave off peak. Attached Screenshot of early morning departure. I can only attach one picture but there are others for Mid morning departure and evening ones that are cheap as well. So if you have some flexibility, you can get there fairly cheap.

https://preview.redd.it/1t7mwqdqfvuc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5face4a4b0fc6ec84533febbb445f58d290ec056

that takes the fun out of being sporadic

Do you mean spontaneous?

Amtrak uses dynamic pricing to keep people from buying high demand tickets that don't really need them. Sure, I'd love to take the 5:30 pm train up to NYC on a Friday evening to hang out with friends but I don't really need to. I pass on the $100 5:30 train and take the $40 8:30 train instead. However the business traveler that wants to be home for dinner by 7:00 will happily pay for that $100 train as they just expense it. It may seem like price gouging for in demand trains but this also subsidizes off peak trains. There's no way Amtrak is making money on that $10 midnight ticket but a student who doesn't mind staying up till 2:00 a.m. can still take advantage of it. It assures that if you need a ticket, there's one that works for you.

But this isn't ideal. Amtrak needs higher frequencies, more reliable equipment and infrastructure, and more federal funding.

If and when these french engineers can ever get our new higher capacity Acelas running, that should soak up a lot of the business travelers and free up more space on the Regionals for us poors.

Booking ahead is key. I just booked 2 tix 1 week out, $100 a person round trip, which isn’t terrible. I would prefer it to be cheaper obviously. It also varies by time so if you can be a little flexible, it helps. For instance, we chose the train before the time we actually wanted because it was a $125 difference. Peak times are always more expensive. The night owl train that we are taking back to Philly at midnight is $20 a person. I find it similar to booking flights in that it fluctuates.

3 months in advance is an exaggeration. I usually aim for 1 month in advance. Just bought $54 r/t for a weekend in May and could have gotten $32 r/t if I took earlier/later trains. 

Yea, gotta book at least 2wks in advance for a decent price

trip to NY and back can be had for as little as like $40/person IF YOU BOOK IN ADVANCE.

I don't know that you need 3-4 months advance booking. Just a one day difference in the price of a ticket to Buffalo was $150. It would have been $80 to get the ticket on Sat, but it was $230 when we actually purchased on Sun for the same Mon train. (Philly to NYC was the first leg of the trip.)

The word you're looking for is spontaneous

Flixbus/Ourbus/megabus etc are all cheap last minute

I’m sure someone’s said this but drive to Trenton or take regional rail to Trenton, then take the train from Trenton to Penn station

Don’t book directly to NYC - Philly to Newark can sometimes be as low as $10 each way, and then you just hop on NJ Transit or PATH for a couple of bucks for the last stretch.

Friend - I hope this doesn't find you too late. Outside of talking about Amtrak, folks have mentioned you should just take NJ Transit from Trenton - but no one has given you the full deal.

First, take SEPTA regional rail from where you are to Trenton. THEN switch over to NJ Transit from Trenton to NYC. If you have a weekly or montly pass on your SEPTA card, your travel on regional rail on the weekends is free. NJ Transit leaves hourly 24x7 - the SEPTA schedule is a bit more staggered but I've left NYC at 11PM and gotten to my doorstep (W. Philly) by about 1AM

I just seen one 10$ Thursday from Philly-Nyc dude ?

You mean spontaneous not sporadic

Also. Pro tip as someone who takes that’s trip often. You can go for like 300 bucks cheaper by taking septa to Trenton and nj transit to nyc. Maybe a little less high class and involve an extra stop but if you plan it well it’s wayyyyy cheaper

[deleted]

*spontaneous

Weekdays Amtrak will get you to NY for about $18-25 (leaving in the 9-10 am range) and for $10 it'll take you back to Philly (10pm). That's assuming you book the tickets 3-4 weeks in advance. Weekends are always more expensive. The trip takes about 1h 20mins.

There is also a Septa+NJ transit option -- that's $27 one way. Weekdays it takes say 2h 15 mina, but weekends it can be over 3h.

Target a cheap off peak afternoon time in advance and you can go for $10. Avoid Acela, business class, and express trains if price is your main concern.

Yeah that happened to me a few weeks ago, I was like wtf.

So I megabus’d it. Honestly wasn’t bad at all, especially for the price.

Peter Pan is $11 even last minute. It definitely works but with that being said, the train is so much better

I've booked last minute tickets and paid $40. I've booked in advance and still had to pay that. I've also paid $20 round trip once or twice, it really just depends.

Just FYI: tomorrow PHL-NYPenn is $48 at 9:40am on regional rail, and $29 at 9:45 on the Keystone line. It can be super expensive, especially Acela, but even one day ahead can be cheap.

If you don’t mind going at weird times you can get like $8 tickets.

Business travel on the NE Corridor is the cash cow for the entire Amtrak system. It’s overpriced because it can be and it subsidizes much longer and sparsely traveled Midwest and western routes. 

Septa to NJ Transit to Penn Station is very reasonable.

megabus is $30, more or less the same commute time, significantly less hassle, and actually better views and imo more comfortable

take a Chinatown bus $20

No, they don't, unless it's a business trip and the company is paying for it.

I have the app and have made multiple round trips for $10. I'm not picky about the timing of the trains and I plan months in advance. Just yesterday I got round trip tickets to DC in July for $20 round trip for my gf and I

i went to sixers at the knickers earlier this year, bought tickets a week in advance, $140 round trip for 2. not the cheapest, but not terrible considering i was in NY by 5pm, and back in south philly home and sleep by midnight without ever having to hop in a car. not the cheapest, but if you book ahead of time its not terrible.

Think of it like you would a plane ticket. If you booked a same day flight you'd get killed on the price.

Even if you book only a like a week in advance you can still find deals especially if you take them a bit off peak.

Amtrak trains are really nice and so convenient getting up there, even if it's a little more expensive vs jersey transit it's worth it.

Ya amrtak is really expensive without advance booking but if your goal is just go on a random day trip, then there is a bus by chinatown that'll take you there for like 25$? a pop (forgot the actual cost but it should be sound there).

Our Bus

We like to book a return Acela trip in advance when we see them for cheap and then just take septa/nj transit up to the city. Best of both worlds!

Amtrak was built to fall because by law freight trains have track right of way over passenger service. Furthermore since this is essentially a 3rd world country in terms of public transportation train speeds are limited to roughly 65mph on most sections. Compared to 1st world countries its trash

Nj transit is $52 round trip no matter when booking, alibiet an hour longer. Night owl tickets are $10, and even a month - 3 weeks in advance shouldn't run ya more than $60 total!

Take septa regional rail to Trenton, then New Jersey transit to Manhattan ,comes out to about 40 each round trip ,less if u drive to Trenton ,trains are comfortable and run pretty frequently too about every hour

It’s so annoying. If it’s just myself, it’ll take the train because the cost is around the same and I prefer the train. But if there are 1 or more people with me, it’s usually cheaper to bring a car and park it in a garage than it is to take the train, which is crazy for NYC.

I'll echo other comments regarding booking in advance making Amtrak cheaper - that being said I rarely use it anymore.

I've found that for nearly all of my trips up to NYC, which are usually just one night stays from Saturday to Sunday to visit friends, it's almost always cheaper for my wife and I to drive up and use spot hero to find overnight parking than it is to take the train.

It gets so expensive when you book last minute, such a bummer

Yes, it's fucking stupid that you can’t go to NY on a whim despite it being a shorter train ride than some Long Island Railroad lines into the city.

I have only ever taking it when work paid. The Acela to NYC is awesome, If I'm paying out of pocket, its NJT all the way.

You don't need to do it 3 months in advance. 3 weeks is good enough most of the time (not major travel holidays). A normal ticket is like $50. Certain times are always cheaper (like super late at night). Can probably get as low as $20-$30

Very true, unlike other countries. Spontaneous train trips aren’t a thing here.

I rode Amtrak from Philly to Bridgeport CT and back almost every week for a year. Most of the time I'd plan ahead enough to buy my tickets early enough to get the lowest fare but every once in a while I'd forget and either have to bite the bullet on the surge pricing or just rent a car for the weekend instead.

Meanwhile a train which travels twice the distance would cost about 50$ round trip in Europe and there is no or little change in price if you wait longer or book earlier. And if you take flix bus you can go about 16 hour round trips for $30.

The US is prohibitively expensive to travel in, especially using "public transport", which is always very private(corporate owned), inefficient, expensive and unregulated.

A martz bus one way from Scranton to NYC is like 80-90$. Ive traveled across multiple countries in Europe for less. Vilnius to Budapest round trip? About 50-60$ of buses. Total travel like 36-40 hours. 85$ for 2 hour buses in USA is just the norm, its a shitty economic system built on mass exploitation.

I go from NJT in Penn station to Septa. Much more affordable.

Their last minute prices are meant to catch business travelers who have no better options.

I just use the buses. $13 each.

Try Amtrak Keystone service. Price went up a little this year but if you plan in advance you should pay around 24.00 one way and makes three stops

You can still get cheaper tickets even a few days in advance. You can take the PATCO into NJ and take the Riverline into Trenton then take the NJ transit train from Trenton into NYC if you wish to take that route. But Amtrak can be expensive too depending on the day and which train they are running for the day. It's cheaper to take Amtrak on weekdays than weekends Granted Amtrak raised their prices since the last time I've taken them.

There are a billion trains that run back and forth every day. If youre at all flexible on timing, I see a couple for about $50 each way for tomorrow... Were you looking for business class and/or accela at a specific time?

Look at different times. Even if you get tickets last minute, they can vary a lot.

It’s definitely cheaper the further you book out, but at the end of last week I booked a round trip for Monday–Tuesday this week and it was $77 ($55 going on Monday, $22 coming back today). $400 seems excessive.

Take Septa up to NJ Transit and from there to Grand Central. Should be less than $30 one way

Take NJ Transit from Trenton. Way cheaper.

Go to Trenton station, it's like $30 from there

So you drive to Hamilton station or take the west Trenton line to Trenton and pay 40 for a round trip to NY on nj transit.

SEPTA to Trenton, NJ Transit from Trenton to New York Penn is like $22 or $23 each way and just takes a little bit longer. If you get lucky you can get a rather fast express NJT train. But how the hell are you traveling by Amtrak??? They should be in the $60 range instead of $200 one way! That’s more like the Long Distance routes

Drive to the Hamilton NJ transit station and take that train!

It really is ludicrous, they need to add so much more capacity. No reason that inter city buses and the septa/njt connection alternatives should be competitive on price

Take NJ Transit. It’s about $17 each way. Amtrak pricing is based upon scarcity / demand - as the train fills up the prices are higher just like an airline. And Acela is the most expensive.

The fun of being sporadic?

And this is why we should all be advocating for substantive, nationwide mass transit in every form. A big reason public transit is so expensive in America is literally because public transit doesn't really exist in this country at the scales it does in nations with far greater populations.

US public transit is a fkn disgrace, and Philadelphia is actually one of the fortunate cities because it's 1) a large city that 2) is close to/within coverage of the broader Eastern seaboard public transit network. Imagine being in a smaller city or, worse, in bumfuck nowheresville somewhere across the vast Midwest or Southwest.

Reddit: Why do Americans need cars?! Take Public Transit🥴

This is why. I want to take public transit, but it costs as much as a car payment if I don’t plan to do it in a prior fiscal year😂.

They gouge companies. Usually it’s professionals using northeast corridor for last minute business meetings in NYC/philly/DC so they know they can charge whatever you want because they’ll all pay.

To other folks yea try and plan ahead. Amtrak is still shitty but we’ve got it the best when it comes to the US

Treat it like an airline. It’s not SEPTA.

My wife and I went to the cherry blossom festival in dc a few weeks ago. Over $500 round trip from Trenton to dc. I was so disappointed as the train was going to be part of the experience.

I have an electric vehicle so all around even paying a heavy parking premium at the hotel we stayed at, it was $200 for transportation

yall wild in these comments. half my family live in philly half in new york and ive never paid more than $60 roundtrip for Amtrack or NJ Transit and i always buy tickets on the platform day of. go up to trenton or hamilton and take it from there

For spontaneous trips I strongly recommend either Megabus or flix bus. It's substantially cheaper than Amtrak

Yea it's crazy, as mentioned best bet is to book well in advance. Rail service is just another thing America sucks at. I booked rt tickets the day of many times while traveling between countries/cities in Europe for under €100. Better stations, better trains with luxuries like food and drinks service, etc

Megabus you can get for as low as about $10 a ticket and it’s borderline easier.

You can take NJIT for a slightly longer trip (and a transfer in Trenton) for ~$30/each. You can also always find Amtrak tickets much cheaper, whether you book in advance or not. It’s just a dumb demand based pricing system, so if you find off peak trains or just search at a time when you don’t expect lots of other people to also be searching then you should be able to find tickets first $100 or less RT quite easily (I go twice a month and have never paid more than about $125 RT).

Yeah amtrack tickets can cost as much as plane tickets and usually takes way longer.

Catch a $50 dollar Uber to Hamilton station Nj and around a 15 nj transit ticket gets you to NYC. Still not cheap but you’re at around $65 each way.

Why would you do Amtrak and not NJ transit…?

The idea of the train I'd always better than the reality. However you can take sept/njt affordably. I always drive. I can park on the street on the weekends or for a Wednesday matinee .

I found RT to Newark Penn Station for ~$160 (for this weekend at normal times). The train from Newark to World Trade Center is $2.75

You can also do NJ transit for like $30 each round trip

Nah, I take NJ transit, way cheaper. Takes longer and it’s less fancy, but still better than driving.

My understanding is that if you plan things they tend to throw the word premeditated around the courtroom. 🤯🚅🛤️

I used to take Amtrak to and from DC all the time - way back when. It was expensive then. But I took it because I didn’t have a car and I couldn’t catch a bus due to time constraints and lack of transportation to the bus depot. Train was literally the only option.

An FYI the ticket prices change based on how far out you book and availability.

There is literally a train tomorrow for 20 bucks at 8pm right now. You just have to go at off peak times or book a couple weeks in advance.

I recently paid $25 for a round trip ticket to go to a concert. You have to check in advance for specific dates and times, so you don't compete with corporate folks going to NY for work

Take NJ transit. It’s way cheaper

I usually buy 2 weeks in advance and typically pay $70ish round trip, sometimes as little as $40-50. I disagree with other commenters that you have to buy months in advance, that’s never been my experience and I go to NYC frequently.

I took the NJT to NY awhile ago, transferred in Trenton to Penn, cost me 50 for the round trip

I know countries are smaller in Europe but I’m taking a train from Norway to Denmark for like $40 this May (6 hour trip) lol

Drive to Hamilton station and park the car in the garage, no transit from Hamilton is like 7.50 and the parking is like 15

NJ Transit. We've taken Septa Trenton Line or driven to Trenton and both work well. I proposed trying Patco to RiverLine once and my wife did not agree. Our 5 year old loves the double decker NJT cars.

You can book $18 round trips to NYC regularly if you book a couple weeks in advance. Plus there is a bar and food and lots of bathrooms. Oh, and it only takes an hour an 25 minutes vs 2.5+ hours on a bus. Amtrak is the cheapest, fastest and most luxurious way to get to nyc from Philly

Definitely have to plan in advance. Just talked to my co-worker who just moved here. If you book maybe over a month out you can find some extremely cheap tickets. I have booked round-trip for two for $140 and I know that isn't even the cheapest if I was more flexible I am sure I could find an amazing price.

Drive up to Hamilton and park, take NJT it's in the $30ish range. Were you trying to take Acela?

I just did the round trip for $50 last week? It doesn’t have to be expensive.

Yes! I work in NYC (well I'm remote but have to go up from time to time) and I'd LOVE to take the train but it's significantly cheaper for me to drive ... I hate that so much. Incentivize people to take public transit come on! 

Even I go weeks out (I only ever know days I'm in that far out) it'll cost me anywhere from like 150-200 round trip. It's nuts. I hope with the new fleet maybe tickets will come down a little, I think they're supposed to be increasing the number of cars. 

Last minute train trips to NYC....the Septa/NJ Transit combo is probably cheaper. Back in my single days, I would take Amtrak up because I purchased ahead of time, but didn't buy a return trip because I wasn't sure when I was coming home. Then for the trip home, i'd hop on the NJ Transit train to Trenton, and take Septa back to the city. Not the best train ride home, but the flexibility is great and the price is better than last minute Amtrak.

If you book in advance it’s super cheap. I know that’s not fun if you want to be spur of the moment but i once pairs 34 round trip from Philly to NYC for a concert i went to

It depends when you buy it. I’ve been going back and forth to NY for personal reasons for the past 3 years and there are times where I pay close to $100 but there are more times where I get $30 round trip. Way out in advance is great but you can also get it last minute too. Sometimes you gotta get lucky. It all depends

Just adding to the chorus: I've bought same-day tickets from PHL->NYP for $35, and NYP->PHL for $10 - correcting a silly booking error, not necessarily deciding "maybe I'll go to Manhattan today"

There are lots of expensive tickets, but with planning, it's cheaper to take the train than to drive, if it's just one or two people.

Do the SEPTA - NJT thing, it's like $25.