New York | A train to relax… for a long time!

Amtrak resumed service between Montreal and New York in April after a three-year hiatus. Is it worth traveling 11 hours to get to the heart of the Big Apple? If you are patient and have something to keep you busy, why not!

Along with the coach (which can take up to nine hours), the Adirondack Train is the most environmentally friendly way to travel to Manhattan. It’s also the cheapest, at US$70 (approximately C$95) each way (you have to buy the outward and return tickets separately).

Going back and forth, you are sure to “lose” two full days of your life, since the journey is not made at night, as was the case with the Montrealer in another era. From Montreal, departure is at 11:10 a.m., for an arrival around 10 p.m. From New York, the train leaves Penn Station at 8:40 a.m. and arrives at Central Station around 8 p.m.

But we can also see it differently. Those who have a job allowing them to work remotely can very well make the trip with their eyes glued to their laptop rather than the landscape.

In one of the articles in our recent file on boredom, published on Sunday, May 21, the theater man Hugo Bélanger spoke of his appreciation of the Adirondack train. “It’s 11 hours of time!” Round trip, that’s 22 hours! […] It’s like a mobile office. You do nothing, there is a hypnotic side, the decor changes and you have no choice! It sure has WiFi, so it’s dangerous. But otherwise it’s like a mobile prison. […] It inspires me deeply,” he confided to our colleague Silvia Galipeau.

Contemplation is an underestimated state. It is said that the Adirondack route is one of the most beautiful in North America. Our expectations were perhaps a bit high.

Admittedly, about halfway there is the Willsboro Way, roughly across from Burlington, Vermont, which passes 100 feet above Lake Champlain. This is the most impressive passage. The driver says: It’s one of the best parts! We also see herons in a marshy landscape and even a deer in the forest. But the Quebec portion is mostly made up of cornfields as far as the eye can see and new mansions in Brossard.

Observation not your thing? With reading, films or series downloaded on his tablet, music or meditation apps, a notebook to draw, time flies. Not fast. But he passes! You will also want to eat. The cafe on the train is not bad, with a choice of morning specials, sandwiches, hot dishes, nibbles and drinks.

Stops along the way

There and back, the train is far from full. Departing from Montreal, our car neighbors are, among others, a teenager from Ottawa visiting his mother in Philadelphia (he hasn’t arrived, that one!), an elderly man on his way to join his sister in New York, a dancer from Brooklyn returning home, an American couple enchanted by their stay in Quebec.

The fewer people there are, the faster the passage through customs. On the way there, the train stops for about an hour and a quarter. It’s even faster on the way back, which earns us congratulations from the driver!

If there can be up to 17 stops along the way, we only made about ten. Plattsburgh, Saratoga Springs, Albany… On the way back, we take the opportunity to go down to Albany, rent a car and take a walk in the Catskills. To re-embark in the Adirondack two days later, you obviously have to buy a ticket for the Albany-Montreal portion.

If your plan is to marry town and country, the car from A to Z is a better option, because adding the price of two train tickets (NY-Albany then Albany-Montreal portions) and a car rental for two days on return, the bill rises to CAN$460.

But it is also possible to stop with the train in the very pretty village of Hudson and then enjoy its new hotels, cafes, shops and restaurants without even needing a car. The train station is a 10-minute walk from the beautiful Maker Hotel, among others.

Returning from Albany, we chat with a lady from Texas who flew to New York to take the Adirondack to Montreal, where she will be spending time with her friends from Verdun. She loves to travel by train. ” It’s relaxing. The fact remains that after 11 hours of hustle and bustle, we end up looking forward to arriving.