Have you ever ridden Amtrak before?

If you have, I have a few questions that I need answered. I want to take an Amtrak trip, but I have several questions.

First things first, how on earth do you get to an Amtrak station? We live nowhere near an Amtrak. I'm at least an hour away and driving my car there would be out of the question, if there is no parking lot, or no security etc. Last thing I need is to come back from a trip and find that my car is gone.

Secondly, I have read comments on Youtube that it's better to call the 1-800 Amtrak number versus using the website. My problem here is that it looks like on the website, everytime you have to change trains, you need a new ticket for that train you changed to.

What I'm looking at is this: I want to get a sleeper car and go south on the east coast. Maybe to North Carolina. If I have to switch trains, do I need a new ticket or not? And how does all of that work? Is it better to get tickets using the 1-800 number? Can you get tickets from inside the train station? Like a kiosk?

Thank you in advance for any answers you can provide regarding this :)