My main motivation to do it eastward (if using the Amtrak) is to spend the Saturday night in Pittsburgh. It seems that we should be done on our last day early afternoon and Cumberland, MD is not the most exciting city to wait around for the train. Also 1800 ft does not sound like that big over climb overall so doing it over 20 miles sounded better than over 40. But I never had a consistent 1.5% grade before. Is there prevalent wind direction? It seem I can find bed/train reservations in either direction at this point and will keep bike disassembled on the train.