Rail Travel Awards

Earn awards and prizes for your Amtrak passenger rail travels! Most awards will be based on individual achievement. Thus, anyone can earn the awards by just traveling enough distance by rail or traveling enough different routes by rail.

Awards and prizes will be for various categories of passenger rail travel. This will be an ongoing contest and there will be no ending date for earning most awards and prizes. Exact details will be posted at a later date, but I wanted to inform you of this contest so that you can start to gather up your old Amtrak ticket stubs and start saving the stubs from new trips.

The types of awards contemplated are TrainWeb certificates, trophies, T-shirts, caps, and other prizes. We will be seeking prizes to be contributed from other rail related vendors and will keep you up-to-date with posts to this page. The names of those earning awards in each category will also be posted to this page.

The following achievement awards are currently contemplated:

• An award for having traveled over 100,000 miles lifetime on Amtrak. (Additional awards categories will be created for higher milage as we discover such travelers).
• An award for having traveled ALL of Amtrak's routes that are in the current Amtrak national system.
• An award for having traveled every mile of every rail in the Amtrak system (this is easier than the above award as many routes use the same rails).

The following competitive categories are currently contemplated for which awards will be given each year:

• An award for having traveled the most Amtrak miles during the year.
• An award for having traveled the most number of different Amtrak routes during the year.
• An award for having traveled the most number of miles on Amtrak routes, not counting duplicated miles during the same year.
• An award for having traveled the most number of Amtrak miles lifetime (to be awarded to whoever is the current record holder each year).

More categories will be added if they are thought to be significant records. Ticket stubs will be considered as proof of travel. Other proofs of travel may be acceptable, but will have to be considered on a case by case basis.

Amtrak employees are not allowed to apply working miles toward milage based awards, but they may apply milage from paid or free travel toward those awards. Amtrak employees may apply all milage, working or personal, toward categories based on having traveled all of the Amtrak routes or all of the Amtrak miles. The logic to these exclusions is that it is easy for onboard Amtrak employees to rack up milage while working, but it is almost as difficult for them to try to cover all of the Amtrak routes as it is for the general rail traveling public. Honorable mention will be given to Amtrak employees that do rack up large milage including onboard working miles, but that will not be awarded in the same categories as the traveling public.

So, start saving those Amtrak ticket stubs! Further details will be posted here as they develop.