Salt Lake Central Station — Local services in Salt Lake City

Although our train ride itself was a good experience, we were caught off guard by a few things that put a damper on the first day of our travels. Coming from out of town, we were limited as to arrival times, and had to get there around 4:00 in the afternoon for an 11:30 departure. Imagine our surprise to find out that the Amtrak station would not be open until 10:30 that night, so there was no where to sit or store our luggage. Thankfully, there is a Greyhound station next door with indoor seating and they also offered a place to store luggage for a mere $9 per bag!! We decided to store the 2 largest bags with them, and set off walking with our carry-on luggage in search of a restaurant for dinner. We had maps to the nearby restaurants and had done research to determine which ones would be open on a Sunday in SLC. PF Changs was 7/8 mile and Denny's was a little closer. We ended up at Denny's, and they were very kind to let us stay there for a while after we finished our dinner. But soon it was time to head back to the Greyhound station, and we decided to walk a different route through Pioneer Park. Very soon, we began to see many homeless people (sad). At one point, a homeless lady asked where we were headed and then suggested an alternate route. She told us that we were a "target" and should avoid going down a certain street that was occupied by hundreds of homeless people living in tents and in the shelter. (This is a block or so from Amtrak) We thanked her and followed her directions. Once we got to the Greyhound station, we stayed inside for the rest of the night until Amtrak opened. The Amtrak station itself was so unaccommodating and pathetic compared to others we saw on the trip. It seems odd that a city the size of Salt Lake could...

The attitude of the (Caucasian) female who was working at the Amtrak ticket counter during the late evening hours helped reinforce the idea that respect for a customer is a myth.

The employee interrupted me while I tried using my phone to show my last name. She appeared to imply that COVID-19 was why she didn't want to notice, but I didn't request using her potentially grubby hands to handle my device. I expected her to read the display since my last name was allegedly difficult for her to spell. She was just too lazy to bring her face close to the partition to look at the screen.

I nicely asked her to repeat the information regarding a train's delayed arrival, but her demeanor made me feel like the courtesy wasn't reciprocated.

Many people who have jobs involving personal interaction do not really care about assisting individuals, and the female at this station is a prime example. Workers like her (too often) forget that customers are major reasons why she is able to support...

I was going to be traveling Amtrak due to a car theft, during which my IDs were stolen. I made the mistake of thinking the ticketing agent would be helpful with that, but Amtrak veteran Grant was extremely rude and actively tried to interfere with my efforts to get a ticket over the phone, once he denied me one outright. (I did have enough proofs of ID to satisfy Amtrak rules, but Grant has his own interpretations.)

I easily got Amtrak police to help me, but it required having central operations (ENOC) call and email Grant and directly order him to issue me a ticket. It took about three hours of phone calls for me to clear up the issue.

I would use amtrak again in a pinch, but would buy online and never set foot inside this miserable third world station.

Final fun fact, once I had a ticket with a scan-able bar code, my identification was not once questioned, and I boarded the train with zero hassle from...