Auto Train

Auto Train is an 855-mile-long (1,376 km) scheduled train service for passengers and their automobiles operated by Amtrak between Lorton, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.), and Sanford, Florida (near Orlando). Although there are similar services around the world, the Auto Train is the only one of its kind in the United States. The Auto Train is the only north-south Amtrak train in the east to use Superliner cars.

Passengers ride either in coach seats or private sleeping car rooms while their vehicles (car, van, sport utility vehicle, motorcycle, small trailer, or jet-ski) are carried in enclosed automobile-carrying freight cars, called autoracks. The train also includes lounge cars and dining cars, and is the only Amtrak route to allow smoking while on board the train. The Auto Train service allows its passengers to avoid driving Interstate 95 in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, while bringing their own vehicle with them.

The service operates as train 53 southbound and 52 northbound, making no station stops between its terminals at Lorton, Virginia, and Sanford, Florida. Amtrak's Auto Train is the successor to an earlier similarly named service operated by the privately owned Auto-Train Corporation in the 1970s.

During fiscal year 2011, the Auto Train carried over 250,000 passengers, a 6.4% increase over FY2010. The train had a total revenue of US$68,618,768 in FY2011, an increase of 12.5% over FY2010. The Auto Train had the highest revenue of any long-distance train in the Amtrak system.