[EAST] PAX East Train Alliance 2012

Tarranon

Moe Fwacky wrote:

The Metroid line does leave on the 4th, but arrives in DC on Thursday morning, not Boston. From there it catches the Sonic Line to Boston.

yeah, I hurf durfed and put in Baltimore by mistake, not Boston

Also looking at your timetables I saw you had already projected it to arrive Thursday night

I'm just

I'm just a mess here, Moe

CraZyMuffin

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Name: Andrew
Location: Metro Detroit, MI
Boarding Stop:Toledo, OH
Ticket Purchased:Not yet
Also bringing 5 friends this time for the adventure.

cynthetic

Tarranon wrote:

I just don't remember arriving Thursday last year

I thought the train people got in Thursday night last year. I remember people saying they couldn't make the PPdinner, but that they'd be in time for the Pokécrawl.

Moe Fwacky

The train does arrive thursday, but at around 8-9pm (provided the train doesn't run late).

Righthanded

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Spencer
Location: Fairfax, VA
Boarding Stop: Union Station, DC
Ticket Purchased: Yes!

I drove up 2 years ago to the first PAX EAST and only caught the last day of the conference. I'm totally stoked to take the train this year and hit up all three days! Going to be EPIC!

KoalaBro2

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Names: Kyle and Eugene
Location: Chicago, IL
Boarding Stop: Union Station, Chicago, IL
Ticket Purchased: Yes and yes

Dgeorge318

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Names: Daniel, Nakesha, Sam, Andy
Location: Dayton, OH
Boarding Stop: Toledo, OH
Ticket Purchased: Not Yet

ToadChild

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Jonathan & Sarah
Location: Baltimore, MD
Boarding Stop: Baltimore Penn Station
Ticket Purchased: Yes!

Chazzon

Hey all. I'm a PAX Prime attendee normally. But I've got business that will possibly scratch that off the list of activities for the year. So lemme ask this. What's the best Northbound east coast train to catch? I did LA to Seattle WA for prime this year. So I'd love to hit up another trip!

smerk

What line will you be on: Metal Gear Line (I'd like to take a line from the west coast if anyone else is going)
Name: Smerk
Location: Sydney, Australia
Boarding Stop: Chicago, Il (or SF, CA or Seattle, WA)
Ticket Purchased: Yes (or No)

MASeffect

What line you will be on: Lemmings Line & Metal Gear Line
Name: Aaron Sansgaard
Location: Kansas City
Boarding Stop: Kansas City, MO - April 4, 07:24 CDT (Departure at 07:43 CDT)
Ticket Purchased: waiting to see if others are going!

Will be flying, the group found a cheap flight.

MASeffect

So far it looks like not many signed up in my area, does anyone know what numbers were like last year?

Durinthal

As fun as this was last year, I've decided to fly in a day earlier to participate in other events so I won't be on the train again.

Nicole452

What line you will be on: Star Fox Line
Name: Nicole & Rusty
Location: Tampa
Boarding Stop: Orlando
Ticket Purchased: Yes

Nullzone

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Nate
Location: Manassas, VA
Boarding Stop: Washington, DC
Ticket Purchased: Yep

RoboticCheese

What line you will be on: Sonic Line (that is to say, NE176 all the way up from Virginia)
Name: Jon H (aka RoboticCheese, aka Fr00tyTang)
Location: Blacksburg, VA
Boarding Stop: Lynchburg, VA
Ticket Purchased: Finally, yes

Also training it back down on Monday. Totally stoked. Last year was a blast. Only a few months to go, so see you soon, Sonic Line Party People (TM).

rileyper

What line you will be on: Pac-Man > Metal Gear
Name: Philip R (RileyPER)
Location: Central Illinois
Boarding Stop: Springfield, Il
Ticket Purchased: Reserved them a few days ago, roundtrip for less than $200 with student advantage

This will be my first time at pax east, and I'm going with my gaming group and i can't wait!

Gravitom

Are more dates going to be added to this? The Sonic line is a Thursday arrival but I'm sure plenty (if not the majority) of people are planning on getting there early Friday.

zerzhul

I doubt it. Obviously people can choose any time they want, but as many paxers will tell you it's much more ideal to be able to arrive Thursday instead of Friday since the lines for the Friday morning stuff (keynote/first Q&A) are so long (people start lining up around 7-8am).

There's also the pre-pax gaming that happens in a lot of hotels on Thursday night.

Due to these reasons, almost all of the PAX Travel groups plan to arrive on Thursday (also see the west coast train trip, the cross country supertrip, and the western aviation networking group for Prime, all try to plan to arrive Thursday or sometimes Wednesday).

Feel free to post your plan for Friday to see if other paxers on the forums are going to share it.

Moe Fwacky

Gravitom wrote:

Are more dates going to be added to this? The Sonic line is a Thursday arrival but I'm sure plenty (if not the majority) of people are planning on getting there early Friday.

There are a few reasons for the train getting in on thursday. The first being that the only way to work every train line to connect and get in together is to get it in the evening, so getting in Friday would mean missing the first day of PAX. The reason other days aren't involved is because it would remove the main goal of the train trip, which is to get as many PAXers on the same trains as possible. By having trains arriving on different days, it encourages people to spread out and removes the PAXer per train density.

General Pengwin

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Nicholas J.A. Hartmann & posse
Location:Long Island
Boarding Stop: New York City Penn Station
Ticket Purchased: Not yet, but most likely sometime this week.

InuFaye

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Chris Belsky & Stuarts Draft Saints
Location:Stuarts Draft, VA
Boarding Stop: Charlottesville, VA
Ticket Purchased: Not yet, but most likely sometime this week.

ReptilianSamurai

What line you will be on: Sonic
Name: Jason & Christina
Location: Frederick, MD
Boarding Stop: BWI
Ticket Purchased: YES!

This will be our very first PAX, after not being able to make it work out the past two years. We are very excited! So how do we find everyone else on our train?

zerzhul

ReptilianSamurai wrote:

This will be our very first PAX, after not being able to make it work out the past two years. We are very excited! So how do we find everyone else on our train?

Sometimes there will be someone with a PAX flag or something like that. Whomever has posted here as getting on at the first stop should get together and agree on how to meet. Although if you all wear nerd shirts that should be a good start.

feitocomfruta

So I was wondering if we were going to try to organize some sort of dinner so that when we all arrive, we can get check in at our hotels and get something to eat. In the past, the PPD and PokeCrawl have started before some of the trains arrive, so we tend to miss out on them.

Most likely it would be by train line, and up to those people to figure out where to go and when, but I figure some semblance of organization would be cool.

(I will be on the Sonic Line, and if necessary, I can help organize it for our train.)

griffin.bruce

CraZyMuffin wrote:

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Name: Andrew
Location: Metro Detroit, MI
Boarding Stop:Toledo, OH
Ticket Purchased:Not yet
Also bringing 5 friends this time for the adventure.

Hey, I'm from Lansing, considering taking the train as well if I don't end up hitching a ride with my parents when they visit my sister this same week. Maybe we'll run into each other!

Wingedillidan

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Wingedillidan + 2
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Boarding Stop: Philadelphia, PA
Ticket Purchased: Yes

klokateer9047

General Pengwin wrote:

What line you will be on: Sonic Line
Name: Nicholas J.A. Hartmann & posse
Location:Long Island
Boarding Stop: New York City Penn Station
Ticket Purchased: Not yet, but most likely sometime this week.

Nicholas J.A. Hartmann & posse

Posse? Hey! That's me!

mentok1982

Hey Moe.

I think Amtrak did something that borked all your train links.
Like the 176 Northeast Regional link under the Sonic Line.

Moe Fwacky

Gah, those bastards changed all their links. I'll figure it out later, I guess.

Nullzone

As for meeting on the train, Sonic Line had good success with just piling into the rearmost car. I vote we try to do that again, as it's the least likely to cause any disturbance among other passengers. Someone had a fruitfucker flag which was also handy, though I'm not sure that I have anything similar if said flag isn't available.

antherem

On Metal Gear it was pretty obvious which car was the PAX car, just from t-shirts and DS's. Also we basically took over the lounge.

HuskyDork

Nullzone wrote:

As for meeting on the train, Sonic Line had good success with just piling into the rearmost car. I vote we try to do that again, as it's the least likely to cause any disturbance among other passengers. Someone had a fruitfucker flag which was also handy, though I'm not sure that I have anything similar if said flag isn't available.

The flag shall be there, as either @bigsassy or one of his friends has it. I also agree on piling into the last car, as seats were pretty plentiful compared to other cars.

ReptilianSamurai

Doesn't Amtrak have assigned seating? Just wondering, because it would be good to sit with the other PAX attendees.

Moe Fwacky

Amtrak doesn't assign seats like airlines do. You get your seat when you get on the train.

DaNerd

What line you will be on: Sonic
Name: Ian
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Boarding Stop: New York Penn Station
Ticket Purchased: Yes

radjago

Dgeorge318 wrote:

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Names: Daniel, Nakesha, Sam, Andy
Location: Dayton, OH
Boarding Stop: Toledo, OH
Ticket Purchased: Not Yet

I'm Sam from this post and Nakesha is my wife. You may remember us from such trains as PAX East 2010's Metal Gear line (Formerly Lava live).

Malkara

Until Moe fixes the links, here's the timetables: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/Page/1237405732505/1237405732505

gidgets

What line you will be on: Metal Gear
Name: Jo (gidgets) & Jeremiah (Bitstream)
Location: San Francisco
Boarding Stop: Chicago Union Station, IL
Ticket Purchased: Not yet, finalizing plane/hotel plans with Zedarius.

Thin Red Paste

Just registered for the forums to say:
What line you will be on: Star Fox to Sonic
Name: Justin
Location: Middle of Nowhere, NC
Boarding Stop: Rocky Mount, NC
Ticket Purchased: Double Yes.

I'll probably be the guy in the Protomen shirt and commissar cap. Now I need to deal with a room.