# Pittsburgh - Altoona on the Pennsylvanian



## jacob12345 (Jul 11, 2010)

My Dad and I decided to go on a day trip to Altoona. We got our tickets for Saturday July 10. This was my first ride on Amtrak, so I was excited. We live about an hour away from the station so we had to wake up at a very early 5 AM. We left the house at 5:30 and got to the station at 6:40. Pittsburgh once had a very nice station, Penn Station. Now the old station building is offices and apartments. Amtrak uses the basement of the old station. We used the Quik Trak kiosk and it was very easy, we had out tickets in seconds. My Dad and I decided to go up to track level and walk around for a bit.

They called our train; The Pennsylvanian number 42 was scheduled to depart at 7:20 AM. We got on the train at 7 AM. We waited and waited and waited, then I looked at my cell phone and it was 7:30. We left the station at 7:35, they said that the crew got to the station late. I got a Pepsi for $1.75 which is way overpriced, and I enjoyed the trip. By far the best part of the ride was going around the Horseshoe Curve. There wasn't anybody there because it was so early in the morning, but it was cool to be on the track and not watching for a change. It was cool to see how far we came down in elevation from the train. We pulled into Altoona at 10:10, 19 minutes late from scheduled arrival time of 9:51.

We went to Lakemont Park, a small amusement park about 3 miles from the Altoona Transportation Center. It is a 10 dollar cab ride if you ever want to go. Lakemont has the worlds oldest roller coaster in the world Leap the Dips. Then we made our way over to the Railroader's Museum. The museum is across the bridge from the train station. It is a very nice museum, I enjoyed watching one of the videos in the theatre about the Horseshoe Curve. After that we went over to the station to do some train watching. Surprisingly a lot of trains rolled by for a Saturday.

Its time to board the Pennsylvanian once again, this time train 43. The train was supposed to arrive at 5:06 PM, but it was late again arriving at 5:30. Just as I was walking on the train an intermodal train drove by on the track next to us. Why would I mention this you ask? This intermodal was led by three all Conrail power. It looked just like the 1990s. Unfortunately I could not get any pictures. I got a pizza and Pepsi for $7:30 way overpriced. Once again the Horseshoe Curve looked beautiful. Even though we left late we got to Pittsburgh a little early at 8:00 PM, because there wasn't anybody to pick up at Latrobe; which is a flag stop. All in all it was a great trip even though we left a little late in the morning. I would definitely ride Amtrak again.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Jul 11, 2010)

I'm glad you had a good trip! If you did take any photos please feel free to share them!


----------

