Saratoga Springs

Nice station, nice small town feel to it. The arm chairs show way too much dirt and grime for me to sit in. Mens bathroom was nice and clean. Lots of spaces available to lease in there too.

Good little location. Very nice looking inside and out.nDecent parking lot. Looking forward to using this Amtrak station a lot to trips down to NYC.

We stayed one day and one night and part of another day at Saratoga Springs, to break our rail journey from NYC to the Dominion. ‘Stay at Saratoga Springs, and experience a gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan town,’ urged a friend excitedly, and we did.nnAmtrak brought us to the Saratoga Springs railway station, sorry, ‘train station’, on time and in good order and condition, and we were delighted to discover that it was a gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan ray-rode station, i.e. it has no platform. What you do is, you alight from the train onto cute little yellow Amtrak stools, the type you climb to reach books on the library’s top shelf. Having alit, you turn back to the train doorway and haul on your baggage until it cascades onto the gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan ground. We felt like characters in a Western; I at once donned chaps and a Stetson, but my wife fumed because she had packed away her crinoline and picture hat; the derringer she wears in her garter had been confiscated at JFK.nnThe Saratoga Springs ray-rode station is way to hell-and-gone out of town, in a gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan way, so you need the phone number of a gen-you-wine Saratoga Springs taxi-service. (If there is a bus service, we didn’t learn of it; for all we know, it runs weekly.) Phone numbers are displayed in and around the premises of the ray-rode station, we guess; they usually are, but hey - Google Maps.nnThe taxi that arrived for us was driven by a large gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan Saratoga Springs lady. Her battered cab was redolent of Rottweiler and old Marlboros, but she was right friendly and helpful and handled our baggage with an enviable pep, one that argued a background of shot-putt championships at the local High School.nn—nnNext day, a differently odoured and less peppily personed cab brought us back to the remotely sited Saratoga Springs ray-rode station. Our cicerone generously let us wrestle our own portmanteaux out of his curricle, generously accepted a tip, and serenely drove away bearing my wife’s anorak and umbrella. Several phone calls later we were able to determine that they were in fact nowhere in his vehicle; they had been overlooked in our hotel’s package room, where doubtless they remain to this day. We were not going way to hell-and-gone back into town to fetch a charity-store wind-cheater and a ratty parasol.nnThe waiting room of the Saratoga Springs ray-rode station is clean and comfortable; no doubt air-conditioned, too. But having checked in, we fled its interior for the great outdoors. Like all public spaces in the US of A, the waiting room of the Saratoga Springs ray-rode station is sound-blasted with music, so if you don’t like recycled pop songs, and were hoping for some silent contemplation, you’re stuck, because there are Tannoys blaring muzak outside the Saratoga Springs ray-rode station, too.nnStill, the vista of Saratoga Springs tracks and signals and other ray-rode landscape is intriguing if you’re a railway buff, so I was content to ramble, while the Mrs searched her bags for that gah-dam crinoline. When the train pulled in from down south, it was ringing a bell in a gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan way, loud enough to drown even the pop music. My wife donned her picture hat, I pulled off my Stetson and wiped my brow with a red bandana, spat into a cuspidor, and we departed. We’d never done that kind of thing before, but you can’t stay a day-night-day in gen-you-wine, rural, Ay-murcan town without something rubbing off on you, even if it’s just the odour of Rottweilers.

A beautifully situated train station nestled among the woods, you can go anywhere from here. Down to New York City or into the Adirondacks. Nice connections can be made to the local scene by buses or Ubers. I especially liked how the interior felt like a cabin in the woods with big picture windows and even a television for watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The local arts council put on exhibit paintings by local artists, just to give a young of local color. Amtrak staffs the station, a station agent who helped me find alternatives for getting to the race track should my Uber cancel on me again. Sadly, the great views cannot be enjoyed with a nice dinner or a glass of wine. No one has added a little restaurant yet.

Do they not know where their trains are or network status? Iv never once had a train arrive on time 25+ rides . This corporation plans routes on the back of napkins. Do they use computers?