If you plan on going up to NYC anytime soon, much like The Upstate Life will in 2 weeks for Interpol's Hammerstein gig, I honestly recommend that you check out Greyhound right now for your way of travel. They're completely undercutting the Chinatown bus competition by offering an insane promotion for a round trip ticket from DC to NY's Port Authority. The cost you ask? 35 dollars. It's so ridiculously low that it's less than half the fare of taking Amtrak one-way. You'll also get dropped off at a real bus station instead of in front of a random bodega in the middle of midtown a la Fung Wah.
In a completely unrelated note, I overheard someone today describing his computer as being "rocket slow." WTF? Then again, he was from the dirty south (but not ATL), so it didn't come off as a total shock.