For a family of four to rent a mid-size car for this 10-day trip, a search revealed a low-price option of $534 USD. You could do a similar search and get a better price, or perhaps one that is higher. As with any other Internet search, it is a snapshot in time.
Likewise, the price paid for Amtrak tickets is also a variable. The best prices for this trip at time of booking was $162 from Boston to New York and $189 from New York to Washington,DC. We chose off-peak times and we did not take the faster Acela service. The Amtrak total for four passengers (two adults and two children) came to $351, a savings over the car rental cost of $183.
But we're not finished yet. We must add savings of about $70 for gasoline costs (assuming 25 MPG and $3.25/gallon gas, which was the average at time of departure in this part of the country) and highway tolls.
The car rental cost for travel between cities came out to $604, a difference of more than $250.
This comparison is not completely fair because each price buys you a set of nice but separate benefits.
With the car rental, we conceivably could have shopped for less expensive suburban or even rural hotel rooms. With the train method, we were limited to downtown hotels in close proximity to public transportation.
Another benefit of the car rental is more freedom of exploration. Side trips to Plymouth, Salem, the coast of Maine, Mystic Seaport or Gettysburg become far more difficult or unavailable as train-dependent travelers.
But there are also benefits beyond price for the train plan.
Remember the traffic jam outside New York? That Amtrak train had been delayed about 40 minutes leaving Boston, but the traffic delays that evening would have been longer.
City-center to city-center convenience is also a big plus with trains. South Station in Boston, Penn Station in New York and Union Station in Washington are well connected to local mass transit systems. In New York, our budget hotel was a five-minute walk from Penn Station. Mass transit took us from Logan to downtown and from downtown to Reagan National.
More information: potential parking fee savings in major cities.
