Useful for questions. Useless for transactions. That is deliberate.
We are not trying to be a booking site, a comparison engine or a travel agency. We publish rail information and answer questions on the phone, and we would rather do that one thing properly.
Railway Travel is an independent rail travel information service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Amtrak, VIA Rail or any railway operator. Disclaimer
What an information service is actually good for
Working out what is possible
Whether two cities are connected at all, by what, how long it takes and whether it involves a change. This is where most trip planning stalls.
Understanding accommodation
The difference between a roomette and a bedroom, what is included, and whether coach is realistic overnight. Descriptions on carrier sites are brief.
Accessibility questions
What assistance schemes exist, how much notice they need, which stations are step-free and how the process differs between the US and the UK.
Realistic expectations
How punctual a route actually is, whether a connection is sensible, and why long-distance American trains behave differently from corridor services.
Practical rules
Luggage, bicycles, pets, food, power and connectivity — the details that decide whether a plan works in practice.
Two networks, one call
American and British rail work on completely different logic. If your trip touches both, you do not need two separate research projects.
Things we will tell you that a sales desk would not
We have nothing to sell, which removes the incentive to shade an answer. That produces conversations that a commission-driven sales operation would find uncomfortable.
- That booking directly with the carrier is usually the simplest course
- That a rail pass often costs more than point-to-point tickets
- That a 43-hour train is not a sensible substitute for a 5-hour flight
- That the connection you are considering will probably fail in practice
- That the cheaper station is not always the better one
- That we cannot help with your problem, and who can
Why we labour the disclaimer
This corner of the internet has a real problem with sites that are deliberately vague about whether they are the carrier, an agent of the carrier, or something else entirely. People end up paying fees they did not expect, to companies they did not realise they were dealing with.
Railway Travel is a trading name of AGENCY 54, LLC, an independent information service. We are not Amtrak, VIA Rail, Eurostar or National Rail, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting as an agent of any of them. We do not sell tickets and we do not take payments.
That statement appears on every page of this site, above the fold, before any call to action — not tucked into a footer where nobody reads it. If that costs us some calls from people who wanted a carrier, we would rather lose those calls than have someone believe we are something we are not.
A simple test
If a travel website will not tell you plainly whether it is the carrier, an agent, or an independent third party — and will not tell you what it charges — close the tab. That applies to us as much as to anyone else.
