# EVR-(SEA)-LAX-CHI-NYP (The "Forced Stopover Resolution Tour")



## zephyr17 (Sep 18, 2013)

Finally on my way on the trip that kicked off the great forced stopover, you have to lay over in Albuquerque AGR debate a few months ago. I am planning to sort of blog it as I go along. Right now I got the attendent in the Pacific Parlour Car to reboot the router so we have wifi back. Sort of. Have a good strong wifi signal, but there is apparently not much of a wireless network out there to connect to. Being well past Oakridge in Willamette Pass probably isnt helping.

Started out at 6:00 am this morning, when a friend picked me up to take me to the Everett station to catch the 6:45 Sounder commuter train to King Street Station to catch the Starlight, so the trip is as exclusively rail as I can get it.

Ive only ridden between Everett and Seattle once before. I usually either go south out of Seattle or north or east out of Everett. The line is quite scenic, running along the Puget Sound to just north of Ballard, although I wasnt in much of a mood to appreciate it. I got up 2 out hours before I usually do, and didnt get to bed until 1, having stayed late at work and still needing to pack. Of course I had to dig up all the components of my Amtrak kit: scanner, Altamont Press timetables (4 this time, long trip), duct tape, off brand multi-tool, power strip, and an assortment of chargers. It wasnt that long ago that travel didnt involve a bunch of gadgets , mp3 player, smartphone, laptop, digital camera, scanner (well, Ive been carrying a scanner for awhile), all accompanied by their requisite chargers. Not to mention books. The friend who dropped me off picked up my backpack to help me and said What have you got IN this thing?!

The North Sounder line has gotten to be a political target because the ridership isnt as good as the south line from Lakewood/Tacoma. While there weren't that many people on it at Everett, by the time we got to Edmonds, my car pretty much full, so people are riding it, even with the mudslide factor.

King Street Station. Its the first time Ive been to King Street since the renovation. While it is recognizably the same place, it is day and night compared to the hacked up, grimy, florescent lit triumph of the Mid-60s Greyhound Grunge school of design it was before. It is really quite a gem now, and it is much more functional, with its entire original waiting room restored to service.

My run of bad Starlight luck appears to be over. We actually have a PPC, the Napa Valley, this trip. And despite some posts here, it still has a steam table across from the stairs, although they arent really using it except for using it to hold the cheese for the wine & cheese tasting. While the PPC attendant, Alexis, is pretty good in most respects, every other time Ive done it theyve done the wine tasting through the whole car. Alexis was determined to only use the tables, and turned some passengers away because it the wine tasting was full. To be completely fair though, every other time one of the SCAs was drafted to help, but this time Alexis was doing it all by herself.

The dining car is one of the best organized ones Ive been on. Reservations are called on time, service is genuinely quick. Maurice, who has been my server for both lunch and dinner is friendly, and professional. He is probably about the best waiter Ive on Amtrak in 42 years of riding Amtrak. I had the bratwurst for lunch and the turkey shank for dinner and both were excellent. No pictures, sorry. Feels too weird to take pictures of food at a communal table.

Weve got 3 Superliner II sleepers, and they are fine. While they dont have the updated bathrooms, they also dont have the glaringly bright white florescent hall lights of the Superliner I rebuilds, but rather have the old warm amber that doesnt get through every chink in the curtains.

So the trip is off to a good start. We actually have full internet connectivity leaving Klamath Falls (OT), so I am going to try to post quickly before it goes away.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 18, 2013)

King Street Station





Railfan roomette




Eugene




Really good internet in the PPC here in San Jose, so was able to upload some pictures


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## CHamilton (Sep 18, 2013)

Glad you are enjoying your trip! I love the pic of the "railfan roomette," although I'm not quite in that category...



zephyr17 said:


> Eugene
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I ran into the guy on the right a few days ago on CS 14, and he talked my ear off...talk about a foamer  (Hope that's not you!) :blink:


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## Steve4031 (Sep 18, 2013)

Keep it coming. This is gonna get me through the next few days.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 18, 2013)

CHamilton said:


> Glad you are enjoying your trip! I love the pic of the "railfan roomette," although I'm not quite in that category...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nope, that's not me. Haven't been on 14 for a couple of years.


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## tonys96 (Sep 18, 2013)

Great start! Look forward to hearing about the entire trip. Good Luck!


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## Ryan (Sep 18, 2013)

Wow, the King Street waiting room is AMAZING.


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## Bob Dylan (Sep 18, 2013)

Great start to to a Fantastic Trip! I too look forward to sharing the Journey with you! (And Id like to get back to SEA to see King Street Station in its New Clothes but not sure when/if I'll mkae it back!  ) Happy Rails to you!


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## amtkstn (Sep 18, 2013)

Sounds like a great trip. Keep us updated on your experiences.


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## JoeRids (Sep 18, 2013)

Yes, I was on the Starlight in mid August and the attendant also allowed only the tables to be used for the wine tasting. However, there didn't seem to be much demand so the tables were enough, plus I had fun table mates so it worked out well.


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## shelzp (Sep 18, 2013)

Lovely photo of King Street Station!! Enjoying following along...


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## JayPea (Sep 18, 2013)

On the Coast Starlight portion of my recently completed four train, five day (that ended up being six) day journey to Washington DC, Alexis was the PPC attendant and Maurice our server. I'm for the most part antisocial so didn't spend time in the PPC to know anything about Alexis, but Maurice is also in my opinion one of the best servers I've ever had on Amtrak.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 19, 2013)

I didn't post last night because I didn't want to spend $13 for the in-room internet, and I was so tired I was cross-eyed and didn't want to go to the lobby where there's free internet . Getting up at 5 am two days running with very little sleep definitely had affected me. I know folks have complaints about the distance of the new platforms from the station at Sacramento. I have a different complaint. The blindingly bright LED platform lights are _right_ at the level of the upper level Superliner windows. Oh, and thanks for that nice, early 5:20 am arrival at Sac.

A couple of observations.

Target signals are fast disappearing. The classic SP signal bridge at Cascade Summit has a trilight on a pole with the head turned away, ready to go into service at any time. Trilights with their heads bagged are similarly waiting to go into service at Vancouver, WA (bad blurred shot alert).




Aisle passing etiquette. Okay, here at AU we ride trains a lot, and I would venture to guess most of us know that before starting down a narrow sleeper aisle, you check it is clear and wait in a corner or somewhere if someone is already coming down the aisle. I was coming down the roomette-end aisle towards the Parlour and a woman was coming down the Parlour. Since I was more than halfway down, I thought she'd step in between some of the swivel seats to let me pass. No, she kept coming, and we had to squeeze by each other IN THE DIAPHRAGM between the cars, probably the very worst place to pass someone. Grrr.

The entire day was gorgeous, and I enjoyed great short-rib meal while watching the sun set over the Pacific in the Parlour (still not taking pictures of the food, sorry). We made it up and arrived into LAUPT at about 8:35 or so. Arriving into LAUPT always profoundly feels like coming home, and that station is probably my favorite single place in the entire world. More about that in the next post, will shoot it some later today.

Didn't shoot much yesterday, but here are a few:







Interior of Salinas, CA SP station, proudly featuring the very latest in modern motive power:


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## Steve4031 (Sep 20, 2013)

There is a football drill for the aisle situation. It's called the Oklahoma drill. On my last trip on the Canadian, a lady was quite snippy towards my visually impaired buddy in the hall next to kitchen in the diner. Wish I had caught her. Would have blocked her like an offensive tackle, and kept on going till we got to the park car. Really annoyed me.


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## Bob Dylan (Sep 20, 2013)

Steve4031 said:


> There is a football drill for the aisle situation. It's called the Oklahoma drill. On my last trip on the Canadian, a lady was quite snippy towards my visually impaired buddy in the hall next to kitchen in the diner. Wish I had caught her. Would have blocked her like an offensive tackle, and kept on going till we got to the park car. Really annoyed me.


Be nice Steve, she was probably a Yankee!  ( And Hook 'em Horns! It's Time for the Sooners to be Laters! :giggle: )


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## OlympianHiawatha (Sep 20, 2013)

Steve4031 said:


> There is a football drill for the aisle situation. It's called the Oklahoma drill. On my last trip on the Canadian, a lady was quite snippy towards my visually impaired buddy in the hall next to kitchen in the diner. Wish I had caught her. Would have blocked her like an offensive tackle, and kept on going till we got to the park car. Really annoyed me.


If that drill involves making yourself into a wide presence and growling I know it well  About those Longhorn Fans-we understand they are gathering all their loose change and such to try and coax them a new Coach and send Mack Brown packing on the next _*Texas Eagle*_ out.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 20, 2013)

WiFi has been non-existent today and even wireless network for my phone has been thin. We are in Lamar, CO and I have a wireless network signal for my phone here but won't as soon as we get out of town. Will upload my posts at the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago tomorrow.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 21, 2013)

Or not

Metropolitan Lounge WiFi is down. 4 was 41 minutes late, no biggie. Hard do more than short messages on the phone.

PS the drill sergeant is staffing the desk here again.


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## Steve4031 (Sep 22, 2013)

jimhudson said:


> Steve4031 said:
> 
> 
> > There is a football drill for the aisle situation. It's called the Oklahoma drill. On my last trip on the Canadian, a lady was quite snippy towards my visually impaired buddy in the hall next to kitchen in the diner. Wish I had caught her. Would have blocked her like an offensive tackle, and kept on going till we got to the park car. Really annoyed me.
> ...


At that point, I was not in the mood to be nice. Good thing I didn't see her later.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 23, 2013)

Finally have wifi, so here goes

ABOARD THE SOUTHWEST CHIEF

Had all day in and around LA. It is so much easier to get around without a car than it was back in 1990 when I left. One of the benefits of that is that it is really easy to get to Langer’s Deli from downtown (or Union Station). Langer’s is an LA institution, is generally regarded as having the best pastrami west of the Hudson, and it is arguably the equal of Carnegie or Katz’s. It also has fabulous “twice baked” rye bread, the second go round to give it a crispy, crunchy crust, but leaving the bread soft and moist. I haven’t been to Langer’s since I stopped working 6 blocks away from it in the mid 1980s. I decided to go to Langer’s instead of Phillipes for lunch.

Langer’s almost went under when the neighborhood around it changed, but the opening of the Red Line subway literally saved it. It is one stop from downtown, just a half block from the Westlake/MacArthur Park station. So people working downtown started scooting out to Langer’s for lunch and now business is booming. It is easy to get to from Union Station, just take any Red or Purple line train to Westlake station, turn right when you exit the station walk down Alvarado a half block, cross 7th at the light and there you are. It is only open until 4pm, and I am not sure it is open on weekends. The neighborhood is sketchy, but during the day that half block walk is fine.

After lunch I got back on the Red Line to Union Station to hang around and shoot it, and then hopped on Gold Line out to Pasadena. Somebody at LA Metro has a sense of history. Since I rode it last a couple of years ago, they’ve re-equipped some of the Red/Purple Line trains with horns that sound almost exactly like Pacific Electric’s “trombone” air horns.

Union Station Red Line Station




In the last few years they have put more vendors into Union Station, particularly in the concourse/former train gate area. I don’t much like that and while I would like to see the original floor plan and pedestrian flow retained, I understand that it is primarily a commuter terminal now, not the intercity station it was designed to be. Commuters need fast food and newsstands. Although looking through the sole remaining train gates, E and F, and seeing a fast food stand is a little disconcerting. With that said, the station is largely intact as designed, which you cannot say about Chicago Union or, God forbid, Penn. And the days when the pigeons outnumbered people in the waiting room happily are over. If the fast food stands are part of the price to pay for a busy and bustling station, rather than a deserted, though well-maintained hulk, I will gladly take that trade.

And what else can I say? I love Los Angeles Union Station. I get a feeling of well being just being there and it feels like home. The first time I remember being there, I was three years old to catch the Coast Daylight with my mother, and I can’t count the number of times since. It has nothing but pleasant memories for me. Plus, it is one of the two most beautiful still-functioning big city train stations in the country. LAUPT and GCT are in a class by themselves.

LAUPT South Patio:




Front Entrance




"Now Departing Through Gate F, Pretzels"




I got back to Union Station about 4 and grabbed a beer at the Traxx Lounge. They started boarding the Southwest Chief at 5:45 and I headed down the tunnel and up the ramp to Track 11.




Amtrak 4, ready to highball Los Angeles




The Southwest Chief had 2 Superliner I rebuilds and had a feature I have never seen before. New touch panel controls for the lights and attendant call, with new LED reading lights. However, it is entirely missing the speaker control. You can’t turn it off and you can’t even turn it down.




Amtrak has also started a monumentally stupid (even for them) new method of cost control. Don’t stock the train. They send out trains with very little in booze, mixers, beer and wine. This was both on the Starlight and the Chief. The café attendant on the Chief told me they gave him ONE CAN of tonic water, for example. The dining car ran completely out of beer, liquor and wine by the last dinner sitting on the second day. Look for food beverage service to start posting even bigger loses since they are about to drastically reduce the liquor revenue which is one of the few things that buoy it up.

The dining car crew was really good, with only 2 servers, including the LSA. Again, reservations were called on time. Orders were taken quickly and food arrived quickly. The first night they were serving the limited menu of steak, chicken or the vegetarian pasta, but nothing on the menu indicated that and it caused some consternation for my tablemates. I had the steak, which was fine. The other meals were equally good, the second night I had the barbeque ribs, which were surprisingly good. I didn’t have a lot of expectations for them. Amtrak seems to be having one of its periodic upswings in its meal quality. The food on both the Chief and Starlight has been consistently quite good.

The Glorieta and Raton Subs are really beginning to show the lack of maintenance. There are a lot of slow orders, particularly on Glorieta Pass between Lamy and Las Vegas. I was spending a lot of time at the rear of the train, getting some really bad video of the semaphores. I did finally get some less bad (but still bad) video of the semaphores at Watrous just north of Las Vegas. After that I gave up. But one thing that stands out staring out the rear is that ties are in rough shape and are badly in need of replacement.

"Along the Way" signs that Santa Fe put up look pretty good 42 years after they got out of the passenger business







Smokers contemplate the mystery of a speed restriction sign at Raton




We were about ½ hour late into Las Vegas and Raton and all of it was due to the slow orders. We knocked it down to about 10/15 minutes late at La Junta and we were into Kansas City early at about 7:10. One nice thing about the line through western Kassas is it is still jointed rail, so I went to sleep listening to the musical clickety-clack of stick rail.

Bedtime in the railfan roomette




Dawn in Kansas City




We were running on time today until Galesburg. We were on time out of Ft.Madison, but were held a bit west of Cameron for a long time, I don’t know why since I was in the diner so I wasn’t listening to the scanner. We were about 45 minutes late at Galesburg. Amtrak.com is saying 27 minutes late into Chicago, which is nothing. I have been on too many 12 hour late trains for 27 minutes to cross my eyes. As far as I am concerned that is on time.

By the time I post this I’ll be at the Metropolitan Lounge, we’ll know.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 23, 2013)

Will post the Chicago/Lakeshore editions tomorrow. It is late and it takes awhile to chose which pictures upload them into the post, especially because the internet here is kind of variable.


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## bobnjulie (Sep 23, 2013)

We had the touch screen in our roomette on the Chief. I wasn't sure if it was old or new. Thanks for answering the question!


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## roomette (Oct 28, 2013)

Hope that power supply cord didn't come loose over bumby track!


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