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Zealousideal-Bus5806 t1_j5m3abc wrote

Hi, I've lived in Providence and worked in Boston for about 8 years.

Will you be driving to the commuter rail from your house or getting dropped off? If driving/parking, I'd recommend parking in the new Pawtucket/Central Falls station or in Attleboro where the parking is much cheaper than Providence.

3x a week is not too bad. When the train is working, it works fine. It's comfy and roomy, and it's easy to do work on the train if you have hotspot. Not uncommonly, there are delays of about 10-15 minutes. It's less common to encounter a significant delay of 30 minutes plus. I'd recommend taking the "express" trains that skip a couple of the stops between. One example is the 7:40am train out of Providence.

If you are getting dropped off and depending on how flexible your schedule is, you can buy Amtrak tickets in advance that are only $9 for certain times (I think there's like a ~3:20pm out of South Station) and it takes about 36 minutes to get to Providence. There are fewer cheap Amtrak options in the a.m., but you can take Commuter Rail one way, and the Amtrak the other. The Amtrak is really nice if you can swing getting picked up in Providence (it doesn't make intermediate stops between Boston except for Route 128).

Good luck!

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Annual_Account9238 OP t1_j5mikb5 wrote

Thanks. I would be driving to the station. I read some horror stories on Reddit from commuters on the train but I wouldn’t want to do that drive every day.

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yeehawkalian t1_j5pxmfl wrote

Do u have a link for the cheap Amtrak tickets? I can’t find them online

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Zealousideal-Bus5806 t1_j5pyjy7 wrote

There isn't a link. You just have to do the search on Amtrak.com and then if they are available, the $9 rides will come up as a trip option. They're usually off peak times.

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yeehawkalian t1_j5q3fuf wrote

Got it. Do you know if it’s certain days ? Would it be south station for the destination or is it only out of south station and to pvd?

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Zealousideal-Bus5806 t1_j5q7hzq wrote

I've had luck on weekdays coming out of back bay to pvd at 3:27, probably a south station one a few minutes before. I've only seen like a 10:30am or so from pvd to Boston.

If weekends, the commuter rail has a $10 all weekend pass.

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