Amtrak depends upon the train route you are on.
On some you can carry a bike on, on some they go as boxed baggage only at certain stations
If you look around the Amtrak site you can find info for each line.
I take the Pacific Surfliner occasionally and that one allows 5 or 6 bikes carried on each train, but you have to reserve the bike with a ticket. (And the Surfliner tickets aren’t normally reserved)
Thanks! Looks like I can book my bike a ticket on the California Zephyr. How much concern have you had around security / bumps? Did you just lock your bike with a lock?
On the Surfliner there are racks right in one of the passenger cars. I don’t lock, just sit near it on the ~2 hour ride.
Some trains put the bikes in the baggage area, so no one but Amtrak staff should have access.
Gotta check what method the Zephyr uses.
cool thanks, looks like the Zephyr puts em in the baggage area
Having seen the mess of a mates bike after luggage handlers in Mallorca got hold of his in a soft bag, I would never use one and the few times I have travelled by plane its been a hard case for me. I think I’ve borrowed the Scion and Bike Box Alan ones.
I was thinking about taking a train up to the Bay Area (Oakland?) and riding back to SoCal. Gotta figure out how that would work with my bike though 
You could probably use Bike Flights to ship your bike to NorCal from SoCal to a bike shop in NorCal, have the bike shop put it together for you / make sure there are no problems. Not inexpensive, but an option. For the box, go to a local shop you use, and see if you can get a used bike box from them to pack your bike in.
You’d probably be taking Coast Starlight then. Looks that uses checked bikes in baggage cars.
You’d have to use just the bigger stations that have baggage device.
You would not have access to your bike on that.
On the Surfliner, the racks look like this
You can see a cable lock on that bike. A u lock could probably work on one wheel.
I used to use the Surfliner on occasion as a part of my commute back when I lived in San Diego, pretty damn convenient. I’d probably just stick to Surfliner destinations, I don’t want to check my bike. Oh well.
Anyone have a recent recommendation for something <$100 on Amazon or similar site? I’d ass cardboard to it if necessary. Looking for a budget version. Thanks
Many bike shops will give you a cardboard bike box for free or very cheap. If that isn’t an option you can order them online from Uline, Grainger, Etsy, Amazon. As long as you are ok with breaking the bike down enough to fit in one, they’re a pretty good option.
REI also sells them and will actually package the bike for you and coordinate shipping with Bikeflights. I had them do this with a bike when I was crunched for time on travel and iirc it was surprisingly cheap, I think it was like $70 to have them pack it up for me and coordinate with Bikeflights (and then I obviously had to pay for the shipping itself).
Anyone got favourite lightweight tools or other weight saving tips? Particularly in terms of shifting weight into carry-on bags and volume into the bike bag (like using clothing as packing material as mentioned in an earlier post)?
I’ve never had an issue bringing my pedals in plastic bags stuffed inside my shoes as carry-on. Have wondered whether I could bring the chain in hand baggage as well or if it’s a potential weapon? Even more relevant as I’m thinking about bringing two pre-waxed chains for an upcoming longer trip.
The IceToolz Ocarina is a great travel torque wrench and I imagine is ‘close enough’ for most uses - could always err a bit conservative and then stop by LBS for fine tuning if needed.
Been thinking about getting the wolf tooth tyre levers that assemble into a quick link tool as that seems preferable to the park tool pliers.
It’s a huge weight penalty for me to remove centre lock brake rotors for travel. The cassette lockring socket is small and can go into hand baggage, but then you need a crescent wrench at the other end (can probably just visit a garage/petrol station but that’s an extra stop that you can’t ride to). I also have a dedicated cassette tool with its own handle but it’s really heavy. Anyone found a better solution for this?
I guess if you’ve got electronic shifting it’s easy to put the rear mech in a cabin bag as well.
Any other top tips?
I have travelled probably 12 times now with my bike, and each time I bring less and less stuff with me.
I keep EVERYTHING that comes off the bike, in the bike box. I also put torque wrench, helmet and spare tyres in the bike box as well.
The rest is in checkin.
I feel like this is very dependent on your bag and the type of bike.
On both my road and MTB (different cases) I remove very little which makes the number of tools I bring also minimal. In both cases, I can disassemble/assemble with 3 different hex keys and a small hand pump for my tires (MTB I leave inflated). While I might get bit at some point, I leave the rotors attached to the wheels and haven’t had major issues.
I also don’t travel with a torque wrench. If you work on your bike enough, you will get to a point where you can comfortably tighten all of the necessary bolts by hand to a point that is secure/safe enough and not be at risk of damaging anything.
If money is no option, Silca has 3D printed Ti tools you could get to save weight. These save additional weight by removing excess weight from your wallet 
Hahah I have this one and it is magic. Yes it is $$ but all Silca products are so well made.
Heck I even bought this from rei and it is in my bike box alan permanently.
Thx ericallenboyd! I’ll order that nice, pretty, expensive silca torque wrench to go with my new Orucase flight bag coming next month… now just need to figure out a travel torque solution for my picky Garmin power pedals (must be 25nm)
Torque in pedals? Firm/taught! They self tighten.
Don’t buy an expensive torque wrench. This is cheaper, smaller, and more accurate https://www.amazon.com/Venzo-2-10NM-Bicycle-Portable-Torque/dp/B00V4CQEGW/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=1G8KMPFG7HKJU&keywords=venzo+torque&qid=1641618481&sprefix=venzo+torque%2Caps%2C77&sr=8-5
I just use a regular old allen but maybe you are referring to vectors which are fincky from what I hear. I have 4iii left crank and ultegra pedals. That silca torque is awesome and the size of a wallet.
Does anyone have experience with the shokbox? And do others have experience with a Buxumbox? I have an aerus biospeed bag. Despite the observations in earlier posts, that baggage handlers may treat these bags more gently, I have had two separate instance of frame damage when flying to europe…so moving to a hard case. Perhaps it was because the Aerus looks less like a bike bag than the EVOC or Scicon soft cases.