# Where in the US is AlanB



## AlanB

I thought that I would steal part of that famous line from Waldo, and of course later Matt Lauer, “Where in the US is AlanB” Well as you may have already guessed from where I’ve made this post, I’m on a train. 

Since I can connect my laptop to the net, via my cell phone, I thought that I’d give you a bit of a running commentary from my trip. However, I’m not going to tell you where I’m going during this running narrative, only where I’ve already been.

So in that vein, I met my mother (since I couldn’t get my wife to join me), this morning at the Port Authority’s main bus terminal on 42nd Street in NY City. A quick ride on the A train to 34th street brought us to NY’s Penn Station. After checking into the Club Acela Lounge, we waited about an hour and a half to board Amtrak regional train #95. Train 95 was running a bit late out of Boston, so it pulled in just about the time it was scheduled to depart at 10:35 AM.

We therefore departed 10 minutes late at 10:45 AM. The ride by and large went without incident. Kevin Korell (aka Superliner Diner) joined us at Metro Park for the first leg of our trip to DC. Probably the biggest item of note for this trip, was our café attendant who definitely provided the example that all Amtrak employee’s should follow. He was polite, he was jovial, and he was quick and efficient.

As he was giving my mom her total for lunch, I mentioned to him that we were both in Business Class (since she hadn’t, even though she was holding her ticket stub). He proceeded to embarrass me by telling me that her name was Grace, since he had already seen her ticket, even though I didn’t think that he had been paying attention. Again, kudo’s to our café attendant for actually paying attention to the people he was serving.

Our arrival into WAS, was almost an hour late. We arrived at 2:36, scheduled was 1:48 PM. I haven’t stopped to see where we lost more time, but obviously we lost quite a bit.

After our arrival, I used my AGR Select Plus card to get Kevin into the DC Club Acela, while my mom and I entered using our first class sleeper tickets for the Capitol Limited. Kevin and I chatted for a while, even as I was busy checking on the various train boards.


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## Steve4031

Alan,

It looks like you will be coming through Chicago if you take the Capitol the whole way. But you could get off in Pittsburg and ride by to Philly too. If you do come through chicago, and want to have dinner around 5, call me.

Steve


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## AlanB

Around 3:35 or so, they called us for boarding on the Capitol and we said goodbye to Kevin. Kevin would return to Metro Park on Acela 2172, which in theory left exactly 5 minutes after we did.

My mom and I boarded train #29 in car 2901, and headed to our home for the night, room #13. We left WAS precisely on time at 3:55 PM. Our sleeping car attendant, Brenda, greeted us at the door and instructed us on where to go, even though I already knew. Shortly after departure, she came around to instruct us on our room and give us the info on dinner reservations and breakfast. Even though I already knew everything about the room and the train, I let Brenda go through her speech, such that my mother got the full treatment.

So far our ride has been largely uneventful, other than one passenger who didn’t listen to announcements at Martinsburg. Prior to every stop after leaving DC, the conductor would warn people of the upcoming station stop, and tell everyone to exit only where they saw a crew member. At Martinsburg, one passenger didn’t listen to that announcement as was seen running through the train by the AC (Assistant Conductor), who implored the Conductor not to depart until the passenger reached her door.

We made reservations for a 6:30 PM seating in the dinning car. This was to be my first experience with Simplified Dining Service (SBS). The service IMHO, was excellent! Our LSA (Lead Service Attendant) Suzanne was quite cheerful, polite, and happy to assist people. Even our waiter was right on the money overall and very prompt with the food. Almost too prompt. I barely had time to finish my salad, before he was serving the main course.

He did forget to bring me my water, but since I had ordered wine and he got everyone else at the table’s drinks, I forgave him. The food itself, left a bit to be desired, but it wasn’t terrible either. We both had Cod, with baked potato and broccoli. The food could have been a tad warmer, especially the cod, but again considering how it’s prepared, it wasn’t what I dreaded it might be.

That said, I still think that it was a mistake for Amtrak to try SBS, at least as far as the food prep is concerned. Since the overall service was very good, I have to applaud at least this crew, if not Amtrak for that part of SBS.

As I post this from Connellsville, PA area, we are currently running 45 minutes down and I’ll be signing off for the night. More come tomorrow.


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## AlanB

Steve4031 said:


> Alan,
> It looks like you will be coming through Chicago if you take the Capitol the whole way. But you could get off in Pittsburg and ride by to Philly too. If you do come through chicago, and want to have dinner around 5, call me.
> 
> Steve


Steve,

Alas, I'll be long gone from Chicago by 5:00 PM.


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## AlanB

Well it’s now morning and we are riding through Indiana, albeit rather slowly. When we first woke up around 6:15 AM EDT, we were doing ok with regard to freight interference, but now that we’re getting close to Chicago NS delays are increasing.

We were running just shy of 1 hour down at Waterloo, by Elkhart we were one hour and 4 minutes down. Then we really started getting dumped on by NS, as is the tradition in this area. By South Bend we had lost another 10 minutes and it’s been stop and go since then.

In any event after getting dressed, we headed for breakfast in the dining car, which was about half full when we first entered. However it filled up quickly after our arrival. I of course ordered my favorite breakfast food, French Toast. Like last night’s dinner, it was again served very quickly and it wasn’t too bad. Again SDS is a disappointment compared to the traditional Amtrak dining car, but still not the disaster that I was worried it might be.

The next update will either come from the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago or from our next train later tonight.


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## AlanB

And now for a few pictures:

The first, a quick shot from inside the Club Acela at WAS.







One of the bridges at Harpers Ferry.






Harpers Ferry Station under reconstruction.






Work continues on the rehabilitation of an old roundhouse and support buildings at Martinsburg.


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## MrFSS

NEAT pictures!


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## AlanB

Well our arrival into Chicago by my watch was at 10:04 AM, which puts us at 94 minutes late, not too bad for Amtrak and the Capitol Limited. As is usual for the Capitol we first took the wye, dropped our one ExpressTrak car on the first leg of the wye, and then proceeded to back into Union Station.

As I detrained, I gave Brenda our attendant a nice tip as her service had been just fine. While we were hardly demanding passengers, she was right on top of most things from what I could see. She had walked through the car at least 4 times the prior evening checking with each room to see if they were ready to have their beds put down. While we were off at breakfast, with no effort on my part, she had returned our room to its daytime configuration. So I was quite pleased with her performance.

Once off the train, our first order of business was to checkin at the Metropolitan Lounge, so that we could leave our bags there while wandering around Chicago. An attendant whose name I sadly don’t recall, but I’ve seen her before, was swift, polite, and courteous. Thank goodness Amtrak got rid of those old attendants who used to work the lounge some three or more years ago. They were horrible to the point where people sometimes dreaded going into the lounge.

Once checked in, we immediately handed our bags over to the redcap manning the luggage room, and off we went for a bit of a walking tour of the loop, with a side trip down to see Lake Michigan. I won’t bore you with those details.

After a very nice lunch at Giordano’s, we then returned to CUS and the lounge. I took advantage of the new Wi-Fi service in the lounge to do some non-train related web work. Hence this update is once again coming to you from our current train.


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## The Metropolitan

Glad to see that your trip is going reasonably smoothly, and that the Amtrak folk seem to be taking quite good care of you two.

It's a shame that a lot of people in their haste to get from point A to point B don't know just what they're missing by jetting over the country.


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## MrFSS

> After a very nice lunch at Giordano’s...


I ate there last week. GREAT food!!


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## Steve4031

AlanB said:


> Well our arrival into Chicago by my watch was at 10:04 AM, which puts us at 94 minutes late, not too bad for Amtrak and the Capitol Limited. As is usual for the Capitol we first took the wye, dropped our one ExpressTrak car on the first leg of the wye, and then proceeded to back into Union Station.
> As I detrained, I gave Brenda our attendant a nice tip as her service had been just fine. While we were hardly demanding passengers, she was right on top of most things from what I could see. She had walked through the car at least 4 times the prior evening checking with each room to see if they were ready to have their beds put down. While we were off at breakfast, with no effort on my part, she had returned our room to its daytime configuration. So I was quite pleased with her performance.
> 
> Once off the train, our first order of business was to checkin at the Metropolitan Lounge, so that we could leave our bags there while wandering around Chicago. An attendant whose name I sadly don’t recall, but I’ve seen her before, was swift, polite, and courteous. Thank goodness Amtrak got rid of those old attendants who used to work the lounge some three or more years ago. They were horrible to the point where people sometimes dreaded going into the lounge.
> 
> Once checked in, we immediately handed our bags over to the redcap manning the luggage room, and off we went for a bit of a walking tour of the loop, with a side trip down to see Lake Michigan. I won’t bore you with those details.
> 
> After a very nice lunch at Giordano’s, we then returned to CUS and the lounge. I took advantage of the new Wi-Fi service in the lounge to do some non-train related web work. Hence this update is once again coming to you from our current train.


Well . . . 10:04 a.m at Chicago Union Station beats the you know what out of Harlan Communiity Academy. Why you were checking into the metropolitan lounge, I was involved with a power struggle with a female student who was outraged that I asked her to take a seat rather than lean on the window sill where she could yell out the window. Want to trade places?


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## AlanB

Steve4031 said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well our arrival into Chicago by my watch was at 10:04 AM, which puts us at 94 minutes late, not too bad for Amtrak and the Capitol Limited.  As is usual for the Capitol we first took the wye, dropped our one ExpressTrak car on the first leg of the wye, and then proceeded to back into Union Station.
> As I detrained, I gave Brenda our attendant a nice tip as her service had been just fine.  While we were hardly demanding passengers, she was right on top of most things from what I could see.  She had walked through the car at least 4 times the prior evening checking with each room to see if they were ready to have their beds put down.  While we were off at breakfast, with no effort on my part, she had returned our room to its daytime configuration.  So I was quite pleased with her performance.
> 
> Once off the train, our first order of business was to checkin at the Metropolitan Lounge, so that we could leave our bags there while wandering around Chicago.  An attendant whose name I sadly don’t recall, but I’ve seen her before, was swift, polite, and courteous.  Thank goodness Amtrak got rid of those old attendants who used to work the lounge some three or more years ago.  They were horrible to the point where people sometimes dreaded going into the lounge.
> 
> Once checked in, we immediately handed our bags over to the redcap manning the luggage room, and off we went for a bit of a walking tour of the loop, with a side trip down to see Lake Michigan.  I won’t bore you with those details.
> 
> After a very nice lunch at Giordano’s, we then returned to CUS and the lounge.  I took advantage of the new Wi-Fi service in the lounge to do some non-train related web work.  Hence this update is once again coming to you from our current train.
> 
> 
> 
> Well . . . 10:04 a.m at Chicago Union Station beats the you know what out of Harlan Communiity Academy. Why you were checking into the metropolitan lounge, I was involved with a power struggle with a female student who was outraged that I asked her to take a seat rather than lean on the window sill where she could yell out the window. Want to trade places?
Click to expand...

No thanks, Steve. :lol:


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## AlanB

After watching the lounge empty out with the departure of passengers for first the Zephyr, then the Empire Builder, and finally the Texas Eagle, they called for our train. As usual everyone trouped out the back door of the lounge onto track #30. While 4 ExpressTrak cars had been added to the rear, this was otherwise the same train consist that had carried us into Chicago this morning.

I didn’t have time to walk the consist, so I can’t be sure if the two engines that pulled us into CUS are still on the head end or not. If they are however still there, one more P42 was tacked onto the head end as we now have three motors.

We left CUS right on time at 2:45 PM to start our long journey. At our last stop, LaPlata, we were running 7 minutes down, this despite two yellow flag zones, only one of which was planned. The crew had no warning about the second yellow flag, but thankfully they hadn’t yet even started to accelerate back to track speed from the first yellow flag.

Last night on the Cap, we had the cycle #1 menu, tonight we seem to be using the cycle #3 menu. While last night’s meal was acceptable, especially given the mandates of SDS, tonight’s was outstanding. But for not having glassware, and no ice cream lol, frankly I couldn’t tell the difference between the old and the new. Either this chef knew what the heck he was doing, or the commissary out of Chicago is better than the one out of DC, or maybe a combination of both.

All I know is bravo! to the dining crew of the SW Chief. Everyone at my table enjoyed this meal. I made it a point to compliment the LSA Natasha and her crew for the excellent meal, when she came to collect for my bottle of wine.

In an odd coincidence we were seated with someone traveling back home to California from Pennsylvania. They had made the transfer last night in Pittsburgh to the Cap. In any event, it turns out that we have a mutual friend, even though neither of us had ever met. Talk about a small world to meet up with someone that knows the same person as you, on a specific date, on a specific train, at the same seating time when reservations are given at random, and then to end up at the very same table.

We crossed the mighty Miss while at dinner, and just shortly before nightfall. Hopefully connection pending, I’ll get some pictures up tomorrow. As I write this, we should be just about 20 minutes from Kansas City, so I’m going to close on that note so as to be ready to post this when we arrive.


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## AmtrakFan

Sounds like fun. So Far.


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## GG-1

Mahalo Allan This is a great way to wind down from Graduation season, Plus great pictures.


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## MrFSS

> In an odd coincidence we were seated with someone traveling back home to California from Pennsylvania. They had made the transfer last night in Pittsburgh to the Cap. In any event, it turns out that we have a mutual friend, even though neither of us had ever met. Talk about a small world to meet up with someone that knows the same person as you, on a specific date, on a specific train, at the same seating time when reservations are given at random, and then to end up at the very same table.


Remember the three degrees of Kevin Bacon theory!!!


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## Bill Haithcoat

Have a good weekend, Alan. Will be anxious to see what you report when I ocme back in Monday.

Gee, you and Amtrak P-42 are both traveling. Why am I just sitting here???


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## AlanB

Just a quick post from Gallup to let everyone know that thanks to a freight derailment west of ABQ, we were bused from ABQ to Gallup, while pax from train 4 reversed the procedure to ABQ. Both consists were turned to head back to their original starting points.

I'll try to post a more detailed update later tonight, if I have a signal.


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## AlanB

Here's a picture that I took from the bus of the derailment. I'll try to see if I can't clean it up some later tonight, but I wanted to get something up before leaving Gallup.






Just to the right of the center of the picture with the red section, topped by a white Road Railer, is a double stack now a quad stack.  And there were at least another 15 to 20 RR's in a large pile in that same area.


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## AlanB

A few more notes about the freight derailment, before I get out of range of on my cell signal. I believe that the conductor told us that 22 cars went on the ground and wiped out both mains for over 900 feet.

Amtrak is hoping that tomorrow's Chiefs in both directions will be able to run through, but BNSF has not guarenteed anything. So Amtrak is making contingency plans for tomorrow just in case, but I've no doubt that they are hoping that they don't have to bus tomorrow.


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## AmtrakFan

Alan,

Man What a mess, how did Amtrak do handling the Mess?


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## AlanB

AmtrakFan said:


> Alan,Man What a mess, how did Amtrak do handling the Mess?


I'll give you my impressions and thoughts when I finish writing the next installment. Not trying to tease you, but I kind of wanted to try and keep things in order.


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## Everydaymatters

Alan, thanks for the pictures. I've always loved that area by the round house and Harper's Ferry. It's been a couple of years since I've been there.


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## AlanB

Now returning to our regularly scheduled program. :lol:

Shortly after leaving Kansas City we had our attendant Carol make up our beds for us and we headed off to sleep.

Come morning we found ourselves still in Kansas, but not for long. Within 15 minutes of our waking up, we had entered Colorado. We had breakfast around 8:30 AM as we stopped at La Junta. At our next stop, Trinidad, I got off to take a few pictures of our train. We also picked up our National Park’ guides at Trinidad.

Around 11:00 AM I got a call from Steve (steve4031) who like others was busy following our progress. He warned us of a looming problem, a freight derailment just west of ABQ. Shortly before talking with Steve, the OSB team had an unusual meeting in the dining car. Unusual in the sense that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the whole OSB crew have a meeting. At the time they called the meeting I had no clue what was up, but once I spoke with Steve, I knew what their meeting was about.

I had heard some chatter on my radio shortly after the new operating crew took the train out of Trinidad, about things slowing down after ABQ, but I didn’t hear why. The engineer had told the dispatcher that he didn’t care about things after ABQ, since he would be relived there.

Steve called me again just about noon, as the dining car was starting their lunch service, to let me know that he had gotten an Amtrak agent on the phone who had told him that we would be bussed from ABQ to Gallup. Still no word of this from our crew yet, although one passenger in our sleeper later told us that Carol had made an announcement in the sleeping car, but since we were in the lounge we never heard that.

Finally just about 1:00 PM, I heard our conductor and the A/C start discussing when to make the announcement. They decided to make it just after we left Las Vegas, NM, which came at 12:48 PM. The dining car from that point forward proceeded to try and rush lunch, so that they had time to pack. Now I don’t mean that we were rushed out of the car, as we were given plenty of time to eat. But they did rush the remaining seatings trying to get people into the diner ASAP. For example they called our 1:30 seating at 1:20 and they called the 2:00 PM seating by 1:35.

Once we finished lunch, we headed back to our room to pack up our stuff in preparation for detraining. Sadly we missed the last part of the guided tour in the lounge car because of this, although we could have gone back to the lounge for the last part after we packed. But we just didn’t bother to do that.

We arrived into ABQ at 3:49 PM, where upon the mass exodus from the train started.


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## MrFSS

How many buses did it take to transfer the entire train load of passengers? Do they keep the sleeping car passengers together, or every person for himself? Do sleeping car passengers get to go first, so to speak? Does the crew go with the passengers or stay with the train?

Just curious.

Thanks!!


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## AlanB

I tried to zoom in and clean up my picture a bit, but because of lighting and a bounce from the bus, this is the best I can do.


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## AlanB

As we were climbing down the inside stairs, I could hear someone from the station telling the conductor to tell the passengers to look for buses from a company called Paradise. The conductor replied that making an announcement at that point would be useless, since half the people were already off the train and would not hear any announcement. I of course, unlike the rest of my fellow passengers knew what to look for thanks to that little exchange.

After getting out of the car, my mother and I rolled our suitcase down the ramp and right over to one of the Paradise buses that I had seen from the platform. They weren’t yet loading the buses and most people were still milling around and/or still coming off the train and the platform.

My best description of the transfer would be “controlled chaos”. Part of the chaos was caused by the fact that of the six buses Amtrak had contracted for; only three were actually at the station for our arrival. I’m not sure if that was due to the fact that they didn’t need 6 buses for train #4’s load or if those bus driver just took their buses and went looking for food while they were waiting.

The other part of the problem was that Amtrak had either not positioned the passengers from train #4 some place so as to not be in our way, or those passengers just didn’t follow their instructions. I’m not sure what happened there, but in any event this helped to create some confusion since we were commingling.

It did seem like Amtrak had pulled out all of the stops as it were and I’d bet that they had just about every worker assigned to the ABQ station there to assist people. There were even a couple of local policemen on hand to help out. I’m not sure why they were there, if they were also Amtrak employee’s part time and then officer’s full time, but nonetheless they were there.

I noticed one employee in part because I kept hearing her name on the scanner, Andy, who seemed to more or less be in charge of the operation. IMHO, she seemed to be doing a very good job under very difficult and trying circumstances. It can’t be east to coordinate the transfer of over 250 passengers on less than 10 hours notice. Andy certainly seemed to be every where and answering dozens of questions via the radio at the same time. My kudos to her.

Probably the biggest part of the confusion as I mentioned above, simply came from the fact that 3 of the buses were missing in action when we detrained. This slowed down the loading process considerably, as those who weren’t first in line at the other three buses were left standing on the sidewalk for a while. This was a bit of a problem since it was also threatening to rain on people.

Most, but not all of our OBS crew boarded one bus and we quickly boarded the bus that I had lined us up for after storing our luggage in the cargo area below, since I didn’t want to be stuck outside if it did start to rain. The OBS crew did walk around trying to assist pax, taking head counts on buses so as to let those in charge know how many box lunches to put on each bus, along with free water for everyone.

While there wasn’t much of a selection, either a ham sandwich or a roast beef sandwich, everyone did get something to eat for free. There was no difference between coach pax and sleeper pax at this point, everyone got something. Of course this meant that those of us in sleepers missed out on what I suspect would have been another great meal, despite the restrictions imposed by SDS. It was clear from dinner the night before, and even the cheeseburger that I’d had for lunch, that our chef knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

Thanks to the missing buses, despite our early arrival into ABQ, we didn’t leave until well after the scheduled departure time. Scheduled out of ABQ is 4:35 PM, our bus didn’t leave till 4:59 and ours was the second bus to depart. The bus carrying the OBS crew along with some pax left about 5 minutes before we did.

Our driver however had a bit more of a lead foot than did the driver of the first bus, as we passed them up about 20 minutes out of Gallup. So we in fact arrived first at Gallup, with the second bus about 2 or 3 minutes behind us. I’d say that the overall trip took just over 1 and a half hours. I’m not sure how much later the other 4 buses left ABQ, but it couldn’t have been too much later, as I’d say that all buses were in Gallup by around 7:40 to 7:45.

Our attendant Carol was on the third bus to arrive, about 5 minutes after ours and once she climbed into our new 331 car, she allowed us to start boarding. Since I knew which car would be the 331 car, I had started a line there and many others followed me. Several even asked me how I knew that would be our car.

We quickly settled back into our new room. Thanks to this transfer we had gone from Superliner I sleeper to a Superliner II sleeper. This also gave us a working shower, since the shower that I had used when our consist was the Capitol Limited, stopped working before we arrived in Trinidad. They couldn’t get it working in Trinidad, so I was forced to use the shower in the 330 car that morning.

Just about 8:00 PM the conductor made an announcement telling us that everyone was onboard, but that we were still waiting for the truck carrying the checked baggage to show up. Apparently either that driver didn’t have a lead foot or it took longer to transfer the bags, than it did to transfer the passengers. Finally about 8:10 I saw the truck drive down alongside the train and they started loading up the baggage car.

We finally highballed Gallup at 8:30 PM, just about an hour and a half down. However we would loose still more time before the night was over. I took this opportunity to walk through the train trying to write down the consist info. For some odd reason, it seemed that more than half the doors were not working on the train. In fact the door at our end of the car was one of them. It wouldn’t close under any circumstances.

This hindered my ability to write down some of the car numbers. I finally did manage to get almost all of them, except for the closed sightseer lounge, and they’ll appear in the final report. While the consist had been sitting, it would appear that they had taken the lounge out of the middle and tacked it onto the rear after the last coach. I have no idea why the lounge was out of action, but it was nonetheless closed for our use. And its door was open, so I never got that number.

Oddly enough, we were also going to bring three ExpressTrak box cars back to LA with us. I was kind of surprised by this, as I figured that they’d just leave them there for the next train running through to pick up. No clue if they were empties or full.

For at our next stop, Winslow, they would refuel our three loco’s. I’m not sure why it wasn’t done in Gallup, since the ponies were sitting there for several hours, but it wasn’t. So we spent 59 minutes fueling the engines, before moving into the station for 2 minutes work boarding/disembarking passengers. Our arrival was at 9:49, with our departure at 10:51 PM.

That was the last stop that I recall seeing as we went off to bed not too long after that. I’ll finish the final leg of this trip in my next installment, which I probably won’t get posted till tomorrow.


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## AlanB

One thing that I forgot to add to the above, while Matt's BNSF gets low marks for derailing a freight train in front of me; they definitely excelled at keeping us on time the whole rest of the time. We were basically on time from Chicago to ABQ, never more than 1 hour down at any point I believe.

And one of the conductors mentioned in his announcement about the derailment before we got to ABQ, that we would probably hit lots of freight interference out of Gallup. Well despite seeing a few dozen freights sitting on the tracks out of ABQ and on the other side of the derailment heading towards ABQ, we didn't hit any interference upon our departure from Gallup.

If we slowed for freight interference, it was in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.

BNSF did a great job to keep us from loosing anymore time out of Gallup, than we had already lost with the bussing. Kudos’ to the dispatcher(s) who somehow managed to park those trains out of our way.


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## Steve4031

Alan, keep up with the trip reports. I am enjoying this immensley. I even shared part of your report with a colleague. Did you get to see Cajon pass?


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## AmtrakFan

Alan,

The Lounge was 33029 the Deadhead One, I did see a Photo of that car in LA after the trains were turned.


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## GG-1

Steve4031 said:


> Alan, keep up with the trip reports.  I am enjoying this immensley.


Aloha Alan

I Agree. Reading your reports helps take the edge off of not being able to go to Philadephia and the extras I wanted to do over the July Holidays.

Mahalo

Mahalo and Aloha


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## Bill Haithcoat

Alan, I enjoyed the details of the transfer immensely. It feels as if I were there, you wrote it so well.

And, BTW, it does seem they did an extremely commendable job of things with what they had to do. Nice to know things sometimes work out. You will have a great memory of this from now on.

Great report.


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## AlanB

Morning arrived for us, with our arrival into Victorville. We were awoken by an announcement just about 7:00 AM from the crew, reminding people that the train is non-smoking. We had had a similar announcement on the first day, as apparently there was at least one passenger who didn’t believe that the rules applied to him or her. I don’t think that they ever caught the person who was sneaking into the toilets to smoke.

So with that announcement we got dressed and headed for the dining car and breakfast. I of course had my usual, RR French Toast with turkey sausage, while my mother had the quiche. Both were quite good once again, making me once again lament the missed dinner from the night before. The service was a bit slow however, but that was understandable, since they had abandoned the SDS reservation system in an effort to serve as many people as possible, prior to closing the diner to ready it for our arrival.

They in fact filled the dining car up and started a waiting list. By about 7:45 or so, he announced that he had enough names to carry them right through 8:30 and that he would stop taking names within the next 10 minutes. So if you wanted breakfast in the dining car, you needed to hurry down and get your name on that list or it would be off to the café car for you.

While eating our breakfast we were slipping through the Cajon pass, one of the highest points on our journey, and starting our long weaving way down the mountains into San Bernardino. We probably passed at least a dozen freight trains busy climbing their way up the mountains on that same winding ROW. But once again BNSF dispatchers had our track completely clear for us.

San Bernardino came and went without much fuss, other than a fair amount of people detraining. We continued to drop off more passengers at the other stops along the way to LAUS. Just before we got to LAUS, I gave Carol a nice tip for all of her hard work the day before. In fact I felt so bad for her on Friday that I had actually made up our beds out of Winslow, just to lighten her load a bit.

It seems that the attendant for that car on train #4 didn’t quite understand how things were supposed to work with the transfer. So Carol went nuts trying to find pillow cases, I think that she barely managed to scrounge up enough for everyone in the car. She had no juice, no bottled water, no bar soap for the shower (she had to resort to putting a bottle of hand soap in the shower). I don’t know if the other attendant took this stuff with her or just what happened, but poor Carol was going nuts trying to take care of her charges.

And all of that was on top of helping people to move in the first place and needing to pack/unpack all of her own stuff as well as move it. I thought that Carol had done a good job the first day and night out of Chicago, but she really outdid herself and earned her pay that second night.

In any event, thanks to some padding into LAX, we only ended up being 52 minutes behind schedule, which is not bad considering our little detour in New Mexico. We arrived on track #12, detrained, thanked Carol once again (she looked exhausted, like she needed to sleep for two days just to catch up), and then rolled our suitcases into the station proper.

We secured a couple of seats in the waiting room and then I left my mom guarding the luggage while I went off to buy us tickets to Rancho Cucamonga on the Metrolink San Bernardino line. A wait of about an hour and a half occurred, before they called our next train for boarding. It was an uneventful ride out to Rancho, where a few of my mom’s friends met us at the station.

Not having enough room in the car for 5 people, my mom stayed at the station with two of her friends to chat for a bit, while the area hostess and another friend drove me over to my hotel the Hilton Ontario Airport. Her friends then drove back and picked up the rest of the gang and proceeded to the house where they were all staying. They were headed off to an Andrea Bocelli concert.

I would camp out at the hotel for the next two days and try to get in a bit of train riding in LA. We’ll cover that in the next installment.


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## gswager

Since you were busitition from ABQ to Gallup, I have a question. Are the coach seats facing to the rear of the train on a trip from Gallup to LAX?


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## Steve4031

Alan . . . it does not get any better than Breakfast going over Cajon pass. Keep up the updates, you are helping me survive the last days of school,


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## battalion51

Greg I think they turned the whole train on the wye.


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## gswager

battalion51 said:


> Greg I think they turned the whole train on the wye.


Is there a wye in Gallup?


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## AlanB

I can tell you that the coach seats were properly orientated for our direction of travel. However, I have no clue if there is a wye or not, and if not how they got the seats to face the right way.

It was also interesting that they somehow managed to get the Sightseer Lounge out of it's normal position in the consist and tacked onto the rear of the last coach, with the Express Trak boxcars on the bottom of the lounge.


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## battalion51

It is possible to turn the seats in the coaches, they do it daily on Auto Train, and there really is no "forward" end on a Superliner, so they need to be able to be turned anyway. Same holds true for any of the coaches in the system as well.


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## AlanB

Come Sunday morning I walked over to the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station and caught a 10:24 train into LAX. After a quick pit stop, I purchased an all day pass for $3 from one of the TVM’s in the station. I then rode the new Gold Line in its entirety and returned to LAUS a little over an hour later. The Gold Line seems to give you a little bit of everything from street running, to brand new concret flyovers, to running down the middle of a major freeway.

Upon my return to LAX, I was off to explore the Red line next. I had toyed with the idea of trying to ride both the Blue line and the Green line, but decided to pass on those as I didn’t want to take the later train back to my hotel. So it was to be the Red line and only the Red line for my other LA Metro transport. The first train at the station was the shorter line to Wilshire and Western.

After changing ends at Wilshire and Western, I rode back two stops to Wilshire/Vermont. I decided that some lunch might be in order at this point, so I headed upstairs in search of something. A walk around the block quickly revealed that I had chosen the wrong place to find something to eat, as there were no places that I could see to grab a quick bite to eat. So back downstairs into the Metro I went.

This time as luck would have it, a Red line train to North Hollywood was just pulling in. So I quickly jumped on it, so that I could complete my riding of all of the Red line. Once again upon reaching North Hollywood, I headed back upstairs in search of something to eat. Again, I was to return to the Metro disappointed as there was nothing but a Denny’s in the area and I didn’t have enough time for that.

So walking back to the Metro station, I grabbed a hot dog from a little street cart vendor right by the station. Finding a spot in the shade, I sat down and had my quasi lunch. Ten minutes later, I was back in the Metro and boarding a train to return to Union Station. After a wait of 20 minutes or so, I was onboard the 3:55 San Bernardino Metrolink train. A little more than an hour later, I had detrained at Rancho Cucamonga and was starting the long walk back to my hotel.

With that, I concluded my rail activities for the next few days. Come Monday morning, I caught the hotel’s shuttle to the Ontario Airport where I rented a car for a few days. I won’t bore your with a detailed account, but after picking up my mom, we headed for Lake Havasu City in Arizona for two and a half days to visit my uncle, mom’s brother.

I didn’t get to ride any trains, but I did get to see some along the highways, as well as some HO trains in my uncle’s garage. Being a railfan himself, my uncle and I also talked about trains during our visit. But that was the extent of anything train orientated during this portion of my trip.


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## AlanB

My mom and I returned to the LA area on Wednesday afternoon, checked into the same Hilton hotel and returned the rental car. This was a good thing in part for me, as my cell phone connection just didn’t see to work too well from my uncle’s place. In fact, I had better luck on the train most of the time than I did at his house. So returning to the hotel, meant playing catch up with things.

Thursday morning saw us catching an early morning Metrolink commuter train, the 6:53 AM out of Rancho Cucamonga to LAX. After hanging out at the station for a few minutes, we boarded a Southbound Surfliner, train #566 departing at 8:30 AM. Our business class car was right behind the engine. In addition to free coffee and juice, a selection of muffins and pastries was also available in the BC car.

Thanks to some heavy ridership, in particular out of Irvine, and an intermittent door problem, we were about 7 minutes late into San Diego. At one point we had been down almost 15 minutes, thanks to two unscheduled stops to try and find the open door that kept showing up. They finally did isolate and lock out the offending door, just south of Solana Beach.

As we pulled into the station, I could see HaRRy Sutton (RailHaRRy) sitting one platform over, awaiting our arrival. HaRRy had graciously agreed to be our host and tour guide in San Diego for a few hours. After a quick visit inside the station, where I exchanged our tickets for train #589 the 5:50PM departure to the 4:00 PM, train #785. When I had first booked the later train, I thought that I had more time for connecting between the Surfliner and the last San Bernardino Metrolink train.

I was uncomfortable with only a ten minute window between the two trains, and considering that both of our Surfliner’s that day were late, I think that I made the right choice. After finishing the ticket exchange, it was back out to the tracks to buy a ticket for the San Diego Trolley.

HaRRy led us onto a Blue line trolley north to Old Town transit center. There we switched to a Green line trolley and rode that almost to the end of the line getting off at Gillespie Field. Our plan was to switch at Gillespie Field for an inbound Orange line trolley. However, so engrossed in railfan talk, neither HaRRy nor I were paying much attention to the signs. Assuming that we wanted to ride inbound, we crossed over to the inbound platform. However since Orange line trains terminate at this station, while Green line trains go on one more stop to Santee Town Center, we were standing on the wrong platform.

We assumed that the Orange line train, just like the Green line train we had arrived on, would go past the station. Instead the next Orange line train turned on the outbound platform and of course left us standing on the inbound platform. It seems only Green line trains serve that inbound platform. So after crossing back over to the outbound platform, waiting another 15 minutes and watching another Green line train come and go first, we finally boarded an inbound Orange line train.

We rode that back to America Plaza basically completing a loop of the downtown area, before detraining. We all then jumped into HaRRy’s car and headed off for lunch at a place that HaRRy knew on the bay. After all were sated, it was back to HaRRy’s private transportation company for a quick drive back to the San Diego station. This left us with about 15 minutes to kill prior to catching our northbound train back to LAX.

As luck would have it though, we had more time to kill, since the southbound train that would turn as our northbound was running late. The southbound arrived at 4:05, already past our departure time. Once they detrained everyone from 774, they started boarding for our northbound train. Having cheated by avoiding the line that Amtrak prefers people to wait in, we were amongst the first to board the train, once again in the business class car.

We finally started rolling north at 4:18, almost 20 minutes late. We would never recover that time, and in fact would loose even more due to meets and a red signal at Oceanside. Again the train was quite full, in part thanks to a Padre’s afternoon game in San Diego. We finally coasted to a stop in LAX at 7:22, 33 minutes late, and far too late to make the 7:00 PM San Bernardino train that I had hoped for. So we killed some time in the waiting room at LAUS, and then boarded the 8:00 PM San Bernardino train instead.

Thanks to a timely pickup by the Hilton’s shuttle van, we were back at the hotel by 9:30 PM and our day was over. Both this section, as well as the prior section of this ongoing trip report was posted from the train we’re riding today out of LAX, since I’m still playing catch-up on my reporting. In the next report, I’ll of course cover where we are as of today.


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## AlanB

And now for a few pictures.

The engines on #3 at Trinidad, before we were bussed to the #4 consist.






The rest of #3 at Trinidad.






Climbing up to Raton Pass, one of the sharp curves shows our ponies.






Ever wonder what the middle of the Raton tunnel looks like? Wonder no more. :lol:






A flash doesn't help to much either.


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## AlanB

The main waiting room in LAX.






One of the flowered gardens off the main waiting room.






A Metrolink train.






Did I mention that my uncle was a railfan? Anyone need an insulator?






Here's his semaphore.






His signal.






Part of his layout. Still a work in progress, but operational.


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## AlanB

A San Diego trolley.






The Coaster.






A few shots from our northbound Surfliner train.
















Our Surfliner train.






And that pretty much catches us up to date.


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## AlanB

Once again we woke early at our hotel, but unlike yesterday, this time we were checking out of the hotel. We again used the hotel’s shuttle to get us and our luggage to the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station. We caught a slightly later train today, later by 20 minutes. This put us into LAX at 8:20, although we were a few minutes late due to congestion at the station.

Once again down into the tunnel and into the station where we parked ourselves and our luggage in the main waiting room. Shortly after arrival, I proceeded up to the information desk to checkin for our next train. It continues to amaze me that some big-wig at Amtrak in conjunction with the Dept. of Homeland security continues to think that he’s done his job and made trains safer by requiring photo Id’s for Amtrak travel.

First, I’d defy any Amtrak conductor, none of whom have received any special training, to tell me that my license is valid or phony. This is especially true when there are over 50 different licensees; some states have more than one.

Second, there is no way that some guest services personnel at a desk is going to know if my license is valid.

Third, one of the highjacker’s who flew into the WTC had a valid New Jersey driver’s license. So having a photo ID proves nothing.

Finally I’m annoyed by Amtrak’s inconsistent enforcement of this policy. The official policy is, random ID checks based upon the last digit of your ticket number. Yesterday’s number at least here in California was supposed to be 5. The conductor going down on the Surfliner to San Diego was checking ID’s for those whose ticket # ended in a 5. On the way home, the conductor couldn’t be bothered with it. My ticket ended in a 5, and he never asked me for ID.

Now this morning, the clerk at the desk was checking everyone’s ID. That’s not random and I suspect that the ACLU may want to talk to him. I had left my mom with the luggage, so he told me to bring her by with her ID. However, since he stamped both of our tickets “Id checked”, I ignored his advice and never sent her up to the counter as I saw no reason to waste her time on a useless endeavor.

And now that I’ve ranted enough, back to our story.

They were supposed to have started the boarding process at 9:00 AM for our 9:30 AM departure time. I’m not sure if it was due to laziness or the late arrival of northbound Surfliner #763, which of course is a continuing train and therefore needed to board ahead of us. But in any event, they didn’t start boarding us until almost 9:15 AM, and of course they boarded the sleeping car passengers first, followed by the coach pax.

This resulted in our departure being delayed by six minutes. That of course meant that we had missed our window, so we sat on the track at the platform for another 8 minutes, until we could get a lineup to leave the station. So already we’re off to a bad start, instead of a 45 minute early departure, we were only a half an hour ahead of schedule now. This schedule change while temporary is supposed to be do to track work, but when you’ve blown 1/3 of that time just getting out of the gate, it’s not a good thing.

The second problem was far more major IMHO, no Pacific Parlour car.  Even worse, no Sightseer lounge substituting for the Parlour car. Our attendant did at least have a selection of pastries available in room #10, something normally available in the Parlour car, but somehow that didn’t ease the pain of no Parlour car.

With that, it’s time for me to call it a night (Friday night seems like a good name for it. :lol: ) I’ll pick this up tomorrow morning hopefully.


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## battalion51

Great pictures Alan, and great report so far.


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## GG-1

Great Pictures, one is the same area I shot but you had more sun I am jealos

Mahalo, Aloha

Eric


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## AlanB

After our late start, we moved along pretty well on Metrolink’s tracks, however when we got to the end of their tracks, UP wasn’t quite ready for us. So we sat for 3 minutes at that point till they could take us. From there and on up the coast, UP kept us moving right along through their territory. We did have one quick slow to a crawl at MP 83.3, because they were worried about a spring switch not working properly, but otherwise things went well on this part of UP’s tracks.

It was interesting to note that two different UP dispatcher’s at either end of the UP stretch commented that we were running early again. Both times the engineer had to tell them that this would be schedule for the next two months or so. I found it odd that Amtrak is leaving 45 minutes earlier from LAX at UP’s request, yet none of the dispatchers seem to have gotten that memo. Or at least they failed to read it.

Our first major problem, which totally killed the extra half an hour that we had been carrying, was thanks to Caltrain. They weren’t ready for us just past the Salinas stop. We got to their junction at 6:15 or so, and there we sat waiting for a commuter train that was scheduled to arrive at 6:47 PM. This delay put us out of San Jose almost perfectly on the original schedule printed in the timetable.

Caltrain again dropped us in the dumper just past San Jose, where we lost another 15 minutes or so, again waiting for one of the commuter trains. We then made an unscheduled stop in Hayward, but I never heard why we stopped there. So by the time we cleared Emeryville, we were now almost a half an hour behind the normal schedule and of course even further behind the temporary schedule.

Just after Martinez we had our attendant put our beds down for the night and settled in for the evening.

Come morning, we woke around 6:15 or so to find ourselves running through the mountains in northern California. After quickly dressing, we headed for breakfast in the diner. While eating we spent a good portion of time following a small river/stream, winding our way up into the mountains. We also made a stop in Dunsmuir while at breakfast. I’m not sure what time we were supposed to reach here under the revised schedule, but under the normal schedule we were 2 hours and 14 minutes late at this point.

So somewhere in the night, we had lost almost another two hours. I’m guessing that it was more do to slow orders, as opposed to waiting for freight trains, as I’ll often wake up when the train stops and I didn’t wake up much at all during the night. So far today, UP has done rather well at keeping its freights out of our way. We did get put into the siding once at Grass Lake to wait for a freight, but that only cost us about 10 minutes or so. There was one other occasion where we slowed for a freight and our conductor even made an announcement that we would have to stop for a freight, but thankfully the both the freight train and signal cleared, just before we would have needed to stop. So other than a bit of slow rolling, we squeaked through that meet.

We also stopped to take on a new conductor at a rural RR crossing near MP 394. I think that’s near the small town or Worden, but I’m not positive. Perhaps someone else knows just where MP 394 is. We picked up our new conductor at 9:55 AM, after a 3 minute stop, and just in the nick of time as our conductor expired at 10:13 AM.

So thanks to some slow orders, a 10 MPH, a 20, and 2 – 30’s, plus those extra stops, we left Klamath Falls just shy of three hours late. We’re still chugging northbound, albeit a bit slowly as I write this.

The dining car, just like the train, seems to be running behind. Both last night for dinner, and now for lunch, they are running behind on seating people at their reserved times. The attendant blames people for taking to long at the tables, but frankly that doesn’t wash with me. The first lunch seating was at 11:45 AM and by 12:15 PM, Gus was already making announcements about the diner running behind. There is no way that those initial tables could be expected to be done eating in time for a 12:15 PM seating.

So I’m not sure what the crew is doing, but somehow they aren’t handling the load properly. They may be a bit busier here, by comparison to the SW Chief, but frankly I don’t think that they are that much busier, so I don’t know why they keep falling behind.

The service in the car has been a bit slow IMHO, but the food quality is still excellent IMHO. So I don’t know if the food quality for SDS is just getting better, or if the crews are getting better at preparing the food, or what. I do know that Amtrak continues to make changes to the SDS idea, but regardless of what the reasons are; IMHO SDS is not a disaster. It is a shame that we have lost the old way of doing things, as thanks to the staggered seating Amtrak now gets less passengers into the dining car and therefore sells less food than they used to.

So despite cutting the costs of running the dining car, the net result may not be what Amtrak intended, since they are also taking in less revenue. Hopefully some middle ground could be found, so that the crew could be increased enough to one again utilize the full capacity of the dining car, while perhaps keeping the current meal service in an effort to hold down costs.

And that wraps up this section of my report. I probably won’t post another update or any pictures, until we reach our hotel for the night in Portland.


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## AlanB

Old style baggage carts sit unused at the Salinas station.






I was also a bit impressed with just how wide this tree is, not the palm tree in the foreground, at the Salinas station.






Launch towers at Vandenburg AFB.






We start our climb into the mountains shortly after leaving the coast. This pictures shows where our train had been just a minute before, after going around a 180 degree loop.






Here's what happens when you can't afford a nice motorcoach for your long distance travels, and refuse to take Amtrak. :lol: Three porta-potties chase a bus down a California highway.


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## AlanB

Our engines for the Coast Starlight await a crew change at Salinas.






A baggage handler awaiting the new conductor's arrival to open the baggage car seeing me taking the above picture of the ponies, does Amtrak proud by offering to take a picture for me.






Looking the other way down the platform at Salinas.






The Salinas station itself.






Shot from the table in the diner at breakfast, the stream we were following on our way to Dunsmuir.






Mount Shasta makes its first apperance.






Mt. Shasta would remain in our view for the better part of an hour I'd say. Here's a few more shots of it.


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## AlanB

Next we go by Grass Lake. Basically everything that you see across the road up to the far tree line, is part of the lake. However, thanks to the grass growing in the lake, it's hard to actually see all the water in the lake.












An interesting rock formation.






A small stream rushes by.






The snow capped peak to the right is Mt. Scott, which was formed after the eruption of Mt. Mazama.






The snow cap just to the left of Mt. Scott in the above photo is what's left of Mt. Mazama. On the other side of that snow cap, is one of our nation's most famous National Parks, Crater Lake. The lake was also formed as a result of Mt. Mazama basically blowing its top off.

This is Upper Klamath Lake, one of the largest freshwater lakes, west of the Rockies.


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## gswager

The picture that shows 180 degrees slope after the coast is located just north of San Luis Obispo. This cropland is part of Cal Poly which I've attended.

The huge tree with wide trunk is an oak tree.


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## Anthony

Didn't know your uncle was a railfan :lol:


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## Bill Haithcoat

Neat report! Neat shots!! Neat neat Neat

What a great way to begin a Monday morning, find all this.

Thanks a lot.


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## AlanB

Well sadly I didn’t get a chance to update everyone from Portland, since thanks to UP, we were late into Portland. So by the time I caught up on my moderating duties, emails, and such, it was time for bed.

Where UP really killed us, and it was totally unnecessary was during our decent down from the mountains into Eugene. The first time that UP cost us time was at a meet with a freight train. Now I do understand that that is their business, but here’s the problem. The freight was too long for the siding, so it remained on the main and we pulled into the siding. Almost as soon as we had cleared the switch behind us, the freight started moving forward so as to clear the switch ahead of us and back onto the main.

All of this worked perfectly and was well choreographed. The problem was that after the freight cleared the switch, the UP dispatcher didn’t seem inclined to bother lining the switch and setting up the signal for us. So for close to 20 minutes after the freight had cleared the switch, we sat there for no reason. The engineer tried to wake up the UP dispatcher both by cell phone and by radio, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally as I mentioned above, 20 minutes later without a word from the dispatcher the signal suddenly cleared and we were able to proceed. Our second run in with I assume the same dispatcher, occurred a few more miles away still going down the mountain. This time we just sat at a red signal, with nary a freight train in sight. Again it took repeated phone calls and radio calls, before the signal mysteriously cleared itself about 10 minutes later, without any answer or reason from the dispatcher. :angry:

We had a few other slowdowns for meets after that, but thankfully no more stops either for meets or for mysteriously red lights. Even so, we had no hope of regaining any of our lost time. This of course meant that where they could, the conductors were trying to hurry up whenever possible at the reaming station stops. Consequently, despite two warnings prior to reaching Eugene not to stray far from the train (it’s a smoking stop), not 5 minutes after we left Eugene the station master was on the radio telling our conductor that we’d left someone behind. They made arrangements to collect the unfortunate’s things and turn them in at Seattle, his ultimate destination.

I have no idea what arrangements, if any were made to get this individual to Seattle though. After all we were too late into Eugene for him to have caught the last Thruway connection to Portland. So I’m guessing he spent the night in Eugene or had to rent a car on his own. We finally made it to Portland 4 hours and 8 minutes off the advertised, at 7:48 PM. In checking with Amtrak, I learned that the train finally made it to Seattle at 12:12 AM, three hours and 42 minutes late.

I’m so glad that I had elected not to go all the way to Seattle, as I would not have wanted to go looking for my hotel at that hour. As it was, we walked the 15 blocks or so to our hotel and were fast asleep by 11:00 PM, after I did some online work.


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## AlanB

Having run ourselves ragged with early morning risings for the last three days, we slept in a bit Sunday morning. Consequently I never got to ride the lightrail in Portland, since we were too late on Saturday night to go riding like I had planned. Oh well, it gives me an excuse to return sometime in the future.

After catching breakfast in the hotel, we walked back to the train station. I did get to see a lightrail train go by as we were walking, but that is as close as I got to one. After checking in to get our seat assignments, with no ID check here (once again no consistency in Amtrak policy on this matter), we sat down to wait for boarding, which was to start in about 10 minutes.

Silly me however, I forgot all about the Metropolitan Lounge until we started walking out. Had I remembered it, we could have used the lounge to relax in for a bit. Again, there’s always next time. Business Class of course boards first, before coach, so we were sent out through one set of doors, while the coach passengers waited in a rather long line at yet another door.

I’ve never quite understood the logic of standing in line for 30 minutes to be the first to board the train, when you already have an assigned seat. :huh:

In any event, we left PDX right on time at 12:30 PM. This was the one train that had bothered me during the booking process, since it only gives a 45 minute window to connect with the Empire Builder out of Seattle. You might ask, “Why didn’t I take train #500 earlier that morning?” I wanted to and in fact requested that train during the booking process. However, I was told that Amtrak considers train #506 to be the connecting train. So if I wanted the earlier train, I would either have to pay for it with more points or buy the tickets separately from my main reservation with AGR.

So I choose to take 506. You may also ask, “Why didn’t I just take the EB straight out of PDX?” Yet another fair question. Answer, because the sleeper was sold out and because it gave me an excuse to ride my first Talgo train ever. 

I had been reassured by someone on the Coast Starlight that I’d be ok with this connection, and of course it is Amtrak’s guaranteed connection. But that didn’t help my heart as we got later and later at each subsequent station. At Kelso, I saw both the conductor and the engineer walk towards the rear of the train. Never did find out why or hear anything on my scanner about that, but it delayed us at least 5 minutes there.

We lost still more time in a meet with the southbound Coast Starlight. Once again at Olympia the engineer walked towards the rear of the train. I couldn’t tell how far, since we were in the first car, but it’s never a good thing when your engineer isn’t in the cab. Then for the coup-de-tat, bridge #14 had opened for a boat and had trouble closing. This cost us another 12 minutes, before the bridge tender locked things by hand and issued the necessary paperwork for both us and southbound sister train #507 to pass the red signals and cross the bridge.

While we were waiting for the bridge, the engineer took a call from Seattle asking that the conductor encourage anyone on our train heading for Edmonds to detrain and ride the EB to Edwards, as they had oversold the train out of Seattle. The oversell was due to the Mariners game that was expected to end prior to the departure of northbound Cascades train #516. This of course started to reassure me that we would make the connection, but I wasn’t 100% certain about what I had heard on the radio.

So when one of the conductors came through to tell those detraining in Tacoma that their stop was coming up, I took the opportunity to mention to him our little dilemma. He assured me that we would make it in time and if not, that they would hold the EB for connecting passengers. He also told me that the EB would be on the other side of the platform that we would arrive on, making it a simple cross platform transfer. By the time we reached Tacoma we were 41 minutes late.

Our conductor did indeed make an announcement about the oversold #516 prior to our arrival; however she misunderstood the message and encouraged all people traveling to Everett to switch over to the EB. As an after thought, she also encouraged those traveling to Edmonds to do the same. The later was what she was supposed to have encouraged, not the former.

We finally did arrive in Seattle, with just minutes to spare at 4:36, 36 minutes late on a window of 45 minutes. We detrained and quickly crossed the platform, walked about two cars forward to reach our sleeper and boarded it. As it was, the EB would still leave 2 minutes late because of the late running Talgo, but that’s another chapter. :lol:


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## AlanB

Sorry that updates have taken so long, but I've not been as fortunate with getting cell phone signals on the EB as I was on the SW Chief. The last two installments were written a while back, but I only managed to get them posted at Minneapolis.

Hopefully I can get caught up in CUS later today and get some more pictures up.


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## AlanB

As I mentioned in our last episode, thanks to the late arrival of Cascades #506 and several connecting passengers, train #8 the eastbound Empire Builder left 2 minutes late at 4:47 PM. For this leg, as well as our next, we’re back in a roomette. Our home this time would room #14 on the lower level of the 30 car. This would be the only leg where we didn’t have to walk through another sleeper to reach the dining car.

Our ride up the shoreline was largely uneventful, although I did manage to catch yet another glimpse of a Sounder train; my first had come just a bit earlier when we had waited on one for a few minutes just out of the Tukwila station. Of course technically, my first real sighting of a Sounder train came a few years ago when I saw one and later rode on one being leased by VRE. :lol:

Shortly after making our stop in Edmonds, we made a right hand turn starting our eastbound journey and headed into a tunnel taking us off the shoreline. Shortly on the heals of that, was the Everett station, which is where I saw the Sounder sitting on the adjacent track.

After Everett the first few miles seemed rather flat, but then we started our long climb up into the mountains to reach Steven’s Pass in the Cascade Mountains. To save climbing all the way up to the top of the pass, we pass through the 7.79 Cascade Tunnel, which according to the onboard guide is the longest tunnel in the US. It was completed in 1929 and sits 4,061 feet above sea level.

Had we gone through Steven’s Pass proper, we would have needed to climb yet another 500 feet higher. The tunnel eliminated the need to climb those extra feet. The train also follows the Skykomish River for much of the 65 miles from Everett to the top of the mountains. Hopefully time will permit my posting some photos from the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago later today.

We took dinner at the 6:30 seating and for the first time on our trip, tried the old style of dining car food and service. The service was just fine and with one exception, all in the dining car were very nice, polite, and pleasant. One waitress, while always polite to the patrons in the car, seemed a bit gruff when she was in the service area. At time she even was telling the LSA what to do. I’m not quite sure why he didn’t tell her to stop it, since he seemed perfectly capable of doing his job and running the crew.

Perhaps he just felt that it was easier to not fight with her. She wasn’t unpleasant like I said and was very efficient; I just got the impression that she was a know-it-all who thought that she should be in charge. We were only served by her once. Most of the time we were served by Clasina (I hope that I spelled that correctly), whom I thought was doing a very nice job considering that she had just rotated back to dining car service from sleeper service and she was on her 8th day of work in a row. 

Jason the LSA/dining car steward quickly came to know his regulars and was always wonderfully polite and pleasant. He kept all passengers informed of dining car hours, when there was a waiting list, calling those on the list to the diner, and generally keeping the show running smoothly.

I probably should have tried the Salmon shank that they had as a special the first night out as a comparison, but instead I opted for the turkey medallions. They were a bit dry, but otherwise ok. Everything else was just perfect on the plate. My mom opted for the steak and was quite pleased with her choice. We both had ice cream for desert. By the way, I forgot to mention that the Coast Starlight also had ice cream. Both only had vanilla, which was fine by me as I’m not a chocolate fan.

Shortly after dinner we reached Wenatchee, just as the sun was setting. We then continued on through the night to our next stop at Ephrata. Shortly after Ephrata, we turned in for the night. I did wake up for our stop at Spokane, but didn’t get up to look out or note the times.


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## AlanB

Ok, time for a few more pictures while my feet are on terra-firma.

One of 22 tunnels that the CS runs through on its decent out of the mountains prior to arriving in Eugene. We had just exited the tunnel when I snapped this.






The mountains around us as we decend on the CS.











Our train turns onto a bridge to cross the Willamette River and head into the Portland station. This is a very unique bridge as it is a bi-level bridge. Amtrak and freight trains use the lower level, while cars and Tri-Met's Max light rail trains use the upper level. Making things even more unique, is the fact that the lower level can be raised for small boats, without opening the upper level. Larger boats of course require that both levels be raised.






A gentlemen with whom we had lunch with, told me that UP has been trying to sell this bridge to the city of Portland. They've gone as low as one dollar trying to unload the bridge, but the city won't take the offer.

The track side of Portland's station.






The street side of Portland station.






For a short period of time, the Talgo's run right in the median of an interstate highway as they run north to Seattle.


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## AlanB

Our late arriving Talgo, parked next to the Empire Builder.






The head end of our Talgo, parked in Seattle next to yet another Talgo trainset.






A southbound Sounder sits at Everett.






As we approach the Cascades for our climb, a farmer plows his field.






The Skykomish River largely parallels our route up into the mountains.






As night falls the EB pauses at Wentchee.


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## AlanB

We cross the Wenatchee River, just as the last of the light fades from the sky.






I believe that these are called the Ribbon Falls, but I'm not 100% sure. If anyone knows better, please correct me. They are located in the Rockies.






Some snow capped peaks in the Rockies.






The red boxes are a BNSF freight that we are passing during our climb into the Rockies.






Here's us actually passing the freight train.






The rear of the freight has two helper's tacked on and has just emerged from a snow shed. Sorry about the reflection of people inside the Sightseer Lounge.






One final shot of the freight train that we passed, framed by a very tall mountain.






The monument that marks the Continental Divide. This is the point where all streams and rivers flow in opposite directions.


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## AlanB

Just an odd rock formation that I saw.






Track equipment was just being started up at East Glacier, waiting on us to leave, so that they could get out and start working.






We've reached the plains, where they plant the fields in sections. This is done in part because of the lack of rain (they average about 10 to 15 inches a year), and in part to prevent overuse of the soil and plant disease.






I forgot to write down where I saw this exhibit, although I think it was at Havre.
















Another interesting rock formation.


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## AlanB

Morning broke with us approaching Whitefish, Montana. We got dressed and headed for the dining car, only to discover that he was full. Mind you the diner wasn’t actually at capacity as there were empty tables, but I guess that he felt too many had been seated at one time and it was overwhelming the kitchen. So we left our name with name on the list with Jason and returned to our car for a few minutes.

Less than 10 minutes later, Jason was calling our name and we returned to the diner. I of course had my usual, RR French Toast. Other than the fact that the bread used seemed thinner, I could detect no difference from the French Toast on the SDS trains and the turkey sausage was equally good on both.

We called at Whitefish, slightly late, but nothing serious. We also picked up a Rails and Trails guide there. So right after breakfast, we went into the lounge car to listen to his guided tour. Much like the guides on the SW Chief, it was interesting to have him pointing out things that we might otherwise have missed, and to hear his take on certain things.

He was quite surprised that come Essex, the only flag stop on the EB’s route, we did not stop. There was no one onboard who wished to detrain there, no one on the manifest wishing to get on, and no one in sight to the engineer. The guide mentioned that in 17 trips so far this year that he had made on the EB, this was the first time that he blew by that stop.

It’s a beautiful trip through Glacier National park, especially with the guide pointing out things. For example the continental divide and its monument marking the spot, how the streams and river flow in different directions from that point, the Izaak Walton Inn in Essex where guests stand out on the front porch to wave at the passing passenger trains (he even encouraged us to wave back), to goats on a hillside. And through it all is the simple majesty of the mountains.

Lunch saw me eating the Angus burger and I couldn’t tell the difference between the SDS version of the burger and the old/EB way of doing things. My mom had the Quiche Lorraine, something that she also had on the SW Chief. She too couldn’t find any difference between the SDS version and the EB version. We finished things with more Amtrak ice cream.

Since we had hit the great plains east of the mountains, before we had went to lunch, we headed back to our room. I managed to get some more on my report written, even though I was unable to post much of it. Just past Malta a freight train that we passed radioed us to tell us that the ditch light on the conductor’s side was not working. This would get fixed at Minot.

Just around 3:00 PM or so I went back up to the dining car to take in the wine and cheese tasting. This one was a bit more elegant than the two I participated in, when we were back on the Coast Starlight.

The Coast Starlight used plastic glasses for the wine (this despite the fact that they used real wine glasses for dinner), and poured both the reds and the whites into the same glass as we went along. For those who may not know, putting a red in the same glass (even an empty one) as a white is a big no-no. I personally wasn’t upset, since I considered the fact that we were indeed on a moving train. Also we had to go and get our own cheese and crackers.

On the EB, they used real wine glasses at the wine tasting, and they gave us two glasses one for the whites and one for the reds. They also already had a plate of cheese and crackers on every table, so one did not have to serve your self. What I did find odd is that they made no mention, at least that I heard, of our being able to buy a bottle if we liked it. On the Coast Starlight, mention was made more than once that you could buy the wines, and many people did, myself included.

None of the above is intended as a complaint, as I think that it is nice of Amtrak to do something like this, I’m simply making the comparison for others to learn from. Frankly I’d love to see this idea expanded to some of the other trains, as it provides a nice afternoon interlude. By the way, the EB served only wines from Washington State, while the CS served wines from California.

For dinner we took a 7:00 PM reservation, since there was no 6:30 tonight. I decided that pasta seemed like the right thing for tonight, so I had the tri-color tortellini. This was quite good IMHO. Mom tried the turkey medallions and had the same comment that I had, they were a bit dry. I went back to my favorite desert, cheese cake with strawberry topping.

Returning to our room after dinner, we watched the sun set from our windows, while I continued typing reports and my mom read her book. As a general rule, we were never more than 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule at any point during the day. Shortly after Rugby came and went, we decided that it was time for bed.

We hadn’t seen Tom (our attendant) since he had checked in with us about an hour before, and I for one don’t like the call bells, I just feel that they are too impersonal. So I decided that I’d head to the bathroom, take care of business and brush my teeth. Upon my arrival, I noticed that the last person had not bothered to flush, or at least that’s what I thought initially.

However, I quickly realized that it probably was not the last person’s fault, since pushing the button only released a small amount of water. It did not however, invoke the vacuum system to suck out the water and waste. I quickly brushed my teeth anyhow just to get that done and then dropped my stuff in our room and went in search of Tom since I knew that this could quickly become a big problem.

When Tom saw me coming he immediately assumed that we were ready for bed. I confirmed that, but also gave him the bad news about bathroom #2. So we returned to the lower level of our car, whereupon he tried what I had tried, with the same dismal results. Tom then proceeded to open the circuit breaker panel and reset the breaker for the vacuum system hoping that would help. Another quick test by me quickly proved that it did not.

At that moment someone in bathroom #1 proceed to successfully flush his toilet, so there was some consolation there that at least it wasn’t the entire vacuum system that was down. But it didn’t help the problem in bathroom #2. It was at that point that Tom mentioned that room #3, the one on the same side as the shower was also out of commission. Apparently that room had failed almost immediately after our departure from Seattle. I had just never noticed that it was locked.

Reluctantly Tom did the only other thing he could do, lock room #2 and hope that whatever the problem was, would not spread to the two remaining toilets that were working room #1 and the upstairs bathroom, which I believe is room #4.

Tom then proceeded to quickly make up our beds for us, thanked me for alerting him to the problem, along with the bit of help that I provided. Mom and I then got ready for bed and drifted off to sleep, even as I noted that we appeared to be running on stick rail, not welded rail.


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## tp49

Alan, I was thinking that maybe a couple of the pictures you identified as Salinas station might be San Jose as they look an awful lot like Diridon Station. I could be wrong since I've never been to Salinas though.

You were within 6 blocks of my place when you came through Sacramento, although from the report you were probbaly asleep and late. If you ever swing through town let me know and I'll take you to the California State Railroad Museum.


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## Trogdor

tp49 said:


> Alan, I was thinking that maybe a couple of the pictures you identified as Salinas station might be San Jose as they look an awful lot like Diridon Station. I could be wrong since I've never been to Salinas though.


Funny you mention that. I thought I remmebered that large tree being in Santa Barbara. However, I'll admit that it's been a couple of years since I've been out that way.


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## GG-1

Aloha Alan

The Display is at the Haver Station just pased the end of the building



behind the tree.


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## AlanB

Morning broke for us sometime after we had passed through St. Cloud, MN. I don’t think that I actually work up for it, but we were up probably within a half an hour of passing through St. Cloud. So we headed off for our final Superliner breakfast, where once again I had my favorite RR French Toast. For some reason, this time around it was a bit tough to cut through, but otherwise still enjoyable.

We arrived into the Twin Cities, Minneapolis – St. Paul early, while we were just finishing up breakfast. The early arrival allowed me to get a few minutes outside, after leaving the dining car, so that I was able to collect the number of the 808 car that gets added here. I was also able to take some pictures of some old rail equipment sitting at the station.

I made the poorly timed choice of taking a shower shortly before La Crosse, WI. and therefore missed our crossing of the Mississippi, although I did hear the bridge as we went over it. :lol:

A little while later, just after 12:00 PM, I headed up to put our name on the waiting list for lunch, but got lucky and snagged the final two seats left in the diner, despite Jason having just announced that he had started the waiting list. So I quickly ran back to the sleeper to get my mom, and off we went for our final lunch in a Superliner Diner. We both had the ham and Swiss cheese sandwich. It was nothing special to write home about, but it was also nothing terrible. But it did provide me a break from the Angus Burger, which I suspected would be my final Amtrak meal tomorrow.

Columbus came and went, but required a triple spot with its short platform vs. our long consist. I also noticed someone coming out of bathroom #2, which greatly surprised me since it had been down last night. After finding Tom, I asked him if the crews in MSP had managed to fix it for him. He told me that using a trick that I won’t describe in room #3, he and the conductor managed to get room #2 back online. Room #3 however still remained out of service.

The remainder of our trip was uneventful, although I did get a quick glimpse at the new station for the Milwaukee Airport. When I last rode the Hiawatha service, this station did not exist. We passed our westbound sister shortly before our arrival into Glenview, and then it was off to our final stop, Chicago Union Station. We arrived into CUS 12 minutes early. Thanks BNSF! 

After giving Tom a nice tip for his efforts in taking care of us, we rolled our bags into the station and right into the Met Lounge. We checked in at the desk, and then checked our bags with the redcap manning the room. A quick trip upstairs to the newsstand so that my mother could by a book, she’d read the one’s that she’d brought from home. I picked up the new Trains while in the store.

Then it was back to the lounge to relax for a few hours, as neither of us felt like walking around the city. Plus the weather was threatening and we really didn’t have all that much time, unlike our first visit to the Windy City. I got some posting done from the lounge, as well as trying to play catch-up on my BB reading. And that brings us to our final train.


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## MrFSS

Here is the new Milwaukee Airport Station.






They need to cut their grass.


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## AlanB

MrFSS said:


> They need to cut their grass.


I think in an effort to save money, an Amtrak manager furloughed the cows that are normally in charge of that duty. :lol: :lol: And they probably hired another manager just to make sure that they didn’t come back to work unexpectedly.  :blink:


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## AmtrakFan

I think that is suppose to be Prarie Grass actually because it looked like it hadn't been trimed last time I rode on the Hiawahta.


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## mama to a toddler train fan

Bill Haithcoat said:


> Alan, I enjoyed the details of the transfer immensely. It feels as if I were there, you wrote it so well.


Me too! I have been savoring this travel log over the past couple of days which is giving me an even greater feeling I am there too! Excellent writing skills! Thanks also for pointing me here Alan!


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## Anthony

rmadisonwi said:


> tp49 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Alan,  I was thinking that maybe a couple of the pictures you identified as Salinas station might be San Jose as they look an awful lot like Diridon Station.  I could be wrong since I've never been to Salinas though.
> 
> 
> 
> Funny you mention that. I thought I remmebered that large tree being in Santa Barbara. However, I'll admit that it's been a couple of years since I've been out that way.
Click to expand...

The Moreton Bay Fig Tree at SBA is far larger 

http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?L=calbirdma...&AID=974764&G=Y


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## mama to a toddler train fan

AlanB said:


> And now for a few pictures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ever wonder what the middle of the Raton tunnel looks like?  Wonder no more.   :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A flash doesn't help to much either.


LMBO!! Love the pictures!


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## AlanB

Ok, now that I’ve left everyone sitting in the lounge for the last two weeks, with my apologies here is the final installment of my report.

While we were sitting in the lounge, the Capitol Limited left on time, which helped to empty the lounge considerably. Around 6:30 or so I’d say, I didn’t note the time, an announcement was made for all passengers planning to ride the City of NOL, to come up to the front desk. It appears that they were having trouble with the dining car and that there was some doubt as to whether the train would leave CHI with a diner in the consist or if its departure would be delayed due to the problems.

In any event, all passengers holding sleeping car tickets were given money to go upstairs and buy themselves dinner, as it would not be served on the train out of CHI. I never did hear if the CONL left with a working diner or not.

Right around 7:00 PM when I expected them to start calling for our train, an announcement was made telling us that our train was not yet in the station, so boarding would be delayed a bit. Just about 7:10 or so, I could hear them backing our train in on the scanner. So there was still hope of an on time departure, even if our dinner would be a bit later than expected.

Around 7:15 they made a call for those riding the CONL and escorted them out to their train. Almost immediately after that group left, they made the announcement for our train. For reasons that I didn’t understand, train #50 still had not been called when we left. It was almost like they were boarding in reverse order, with the trains scheduled to leave first, being boarded last. I suppose that the Cardinal had no sleeping car pax in the lounge, which might also be why it wasn’t announced.

Regardless, we followed the attendant out to track #22 and boarded the 11 car, our home for our final night on the rails. We met our attendant outside the car who collected our tickets and once again in a useless gesture, proceeded to ask for my ID. We then quickly settled into our room, storing our luggage in the cubby hole above the hallway. I still find the design of the Viewliner bedroom to be superior to that of the Superliner.

I can only hope that if there is to be a new Superliner Sleeper built in the future, that they can find a way to incorporate some of the Viewliner’s better features. On the other hand, the Sightseer lounge and Superliner diners still retain the advantage over their single level counterparts. On the other hand, the Viewliner’s are sadly showing the wear and tear, no doubt caused by years of lack of maintenance. 

I had hoped that we’d quickly be sent to the dining car, as it was getting late in the evening. However, when our attendant came around to introduce herself and talk about the room, she did not send us right back to the dining car. So we remained in our room, where around 7:35 I heard the south gate talking with the Glass House about holding the CONL for the connecting Texas Eagle. Initially there was no mention of our train, but within a few minutes it was confirmed that they were going to hold #48, #50, and #58 for train #22 to connect.

Our conductor reminded them that delaying us could break the connections in Detroit. The reply was that was a risk that they were willing to take, as it was added at that point that we were also going to hold for #6 too. Apparently both the Eagle and the Zephyr were running quite late. So even though the South gate had cleared us as far as boarding passengers were concerned, we weren’t going anywhere for a while. Around 7:45 our attendant came by to tell us that we could head for the dining car and our dinner. We had the good fortune to be sat with two people that we already knew from the EB, having taken a meal with them on that train.

Approximately around 8:00 PM or so, I heard the Eagle over the radio and knew that it was approaching. Sure enough train #22 pulled in a moment later on track 26, and it was being pulled by lone P42 #22. I just love it when they mange to do that.  The connecting passengers were quickly routed to their correct trains, but that still left us waiting for train #6. I’m not sure if the Glass House actually realized just how late #6 would be. I heard later from someone on the train, that they had been told that they would arrive right around 8:00 PM, but then they ended up behind yet another freight train.

This kept them from arriving until 8:30 PM, well past the departure times of all the holding trains. To make things worse, we waited for two passengers who needed to claim their bags from the baggage check. Why Amtrak couldn’t have found a way to get that done at trackside is beyond me, unless the passengers didn’t tell anyone before stepping off of #6. I actually think that I know who it was too, as they were the last people that I saw board our train and into our sleeping car no less.

They had huge suitcases too, ones that were clearly over Amtrak’s size limits and I bet over the weight limits, and of course were in everyone’s way all the way to NY. Why they didn’t check their bags to NYP, I’ll never know. Of course their big bags weren’t the only problem; the three ladies had two young kids with them. Kids that they made little effort to restrain, keep from screaming, or otherwise bothering the rest of the car. It was like they expected Amtrak to baby sit for them, while they relaxed.

All of the connecting pax and the luggage transfer/pickup from baggage claim inside the terminal, led to our departure being 1 minute shy of an hour late from CUS. It was an hour that sadly we would never get back and an hour that would cost us dearly.

Returning to dinner, we landed one of the unrefurbished Heritage diners. Thankfully we had a very good crew on our train.  Both SA’s we polite and pleasant, and the LSA was exceptionally nice and hard working. She had a very pretty, but unusual name, one that I’d never heard before and sadly can’t recall at this point, and this despite my having asked her how she pronounced it. I really wish that I could remember, as I’d love to give her credit for her well run diner.

Since she knew that both my mom and I, as well as the two ladies that we were seated with had come off the EB, she was of course curious as to what we thought about the new SBS concept and food, especially by comparison to the traditional service on the EB. Our dinner companions as well as my group were quite pleased with both the service and the food. I had a delicious piece of Cajun Catfish, it may well have been the best fish that I had during my trip, although that Salmon on both the CS and the Chief was also very good.

Our companions told her that they thought that she and her crew were doing just fine and had no complaints. I of course got into a bit of a discussion with the LSA, and my dinner companions on the idea’s that I’ve expressed elsewhere in this thread, that this entire SBS idea isn’t really going to save Amtrak money. While she of course wasn’t going to stick her neck out, just in case I was some sort of spy or her manager was listening, I could tell that she was pleased to see that I had figured out that SBS is not the answer towards saving money on food service.

In any event I digress, after a wonderful dinner, it was topped off by cheesecake for everyone at the table, strawberry topping for all but my mom who opted for chocolate topping. Our companions finished first and started their long walk back to the 12 sleeper where they were located at. It was their hope to reach their room before we started moving since one has a slight mobility issue, but I suspect that they only got to the 11 car, before we were underway.

Mom and I returned to our room about 10 minutes later as we were already speeding past the outer suburbs of Chicago. An unwelcome surprise greeted us when we opened our door, only to find that our attendant had already made up our beds for us, even though it wasn’t even 9:00 PM CDT. Yes, very shortly we would be into EDT, which would cost us an hour. But neither of us was anywhere’s close to being ready for bed.

So I quickly started undoing her handy work, returning our room to its daytime configuration. I had already placed the mattress up on the top bunk, returned that bed to it’s fully up position and was working on the first seat when she came by and saw what I was doing. Her comment “Oh, you weren’t ready for bed yet?” To which we both replied in the negative.

While I’ll grant you that there was little left to do, she didn’t offer to finish the other seat and she didn’t exactly seem pleased. I don’t know if she wasn’t happy because she was worried that we’d call her to do it all again later, or if she was wondering who I was and how I knew what to do.

Our room back the way we wanted it, I settled down for some computer work, while mom pulled out her book. Just after we passed Elkhart running 1 hour and 7 minutes down, we decided that with the time change, as well as our early wake up calls the past few days to get more daylight riding time, we should turn in. Since she hadn’t seemed happy earlier with my resetting the room, I didn’t even bother to push the call button. I don’t really like doing that anyhow, just a pet peeve for me.

So I kicked mom out into the hall and quickly made up the room. Then I briefly shut the door, took care of business, changed, and climbed up into my favorite Amtrak bunk. I just love the Viewliner upper bunk with its extra windows as well as its extra headroom, important for someone just shy of six feet tall.


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## AlanB

I woke the next morning around 6:20AM, noting that we had stopped, but unsure what stop we were actually at. I did make note of the time we started moving, 6:23, knowing that I would figure out what stop that had been. Turned out it was Cleveland and we were now over 2 hours late. About 6:45 or so, we woke up for good, got dressed and headed off for the diner in the hopes of getting breakfast before they got too busy.

The diner was filling up, but there was still room for us at that point. We probably got there about 7:00 or so and within 15 to 20 minutes of that, they were full. However, before anyone else came, which would have meant waiting list, a couple of tables left and they were able to keep seating people. Erie, PA. came and went while we were at breakfast at 7:53. It’s the first time that I’ve ever seen the Erie station on the LSL; I’ve never been awake at this point on any of my other rides on the LSL.

So like my mom, at this point I was seeing scenery that I’d never seen before. I had my usual traditional RR French Toast and just like the last day on the EB, this one came out of the kitchen a bit tough. Again it was still hot and delicious; it just didn’t cut very easily. In fact, for the first time on my trip, I actually cracked the plastic plate trying to cut it. I suspect that it was a combination of things, as these tables have a heavy padding that doesn’t support well when you push down, plus I was probably just bit too heavy handed, as well as the tough French Toast.

An elderly gentleman at the table immediately behind us collared the new manager that Amtrak has hired to ensure that SDS doesn’t save any money, oh sorry, I meant to say that he was hired to make sure that the reduced crew still does their jobs. :lol: In any event, the man who was probably at least 60 was complaining to the manager that whoever had designed the tables was an idiot and should be fired, as he had banged his leg on the table legs.

He even requested a different table after his initial arrival, because he had hit his legs there too. On and on he went to this manager about the poor design of the car and that Amtrak should get this fixed and fire the man who designed it. I finally turned my head and told him that the manager he was talking to hadn’t even been born, he looked about 30 to 35, when the car we were in was designed and built.

I went on to say that I’d be shocked if the designer of that car still worked in the industry and for that matter was still alive. But regardless, who ever designed and built that car was not working for Amtrak at that time. This shut him up for a while, but he did grumble once more at the manager on the way out of the diner. I again heard him complaining later at lunch to his table companions, but I didn’t bother to correct him again as this time at least he wasn’t actually blaming Amtrak for the poor design. He was only complaining that it was a stupid design.

I was pleased to see that upon our return to our room that our attendant had made up the beds and such. I broke out the computer again to try and get some writing done in the hope that I could post the prior update when we got to Buffalo. Our deficit was two and ½ hours upon departure from BUF, thanks to some track work between Erie and Buffalo. I sadly wasn’t quite ready with my update, but did manage to get some other web work done while I had a connection.

Approximately 15 to 20 minutes out of Buffalo we came to a stop thanks to single tracking ahead due to track work. We sat for maybe 5 minutes before a freight train heading west went by us. CSX then moved us up one signal, but was unable to get the switch that we needed to use to cross over, to operate. So there we sat for another 25 minutes while they cleared the work crew off of the track ahead of us, since they couldn’t cross us over.

In the meantime we were lapped by an Empire Corridor train heading east, whom they crossed over at the switch behind us. Finally, track work cleared temporarily, we started heading east once again. Rochester comes next and we would loose still more time here. This time though it would be thanks to our inefficient US Customs agents.

We would loose another 30 minutes here thanks to US Customs boarding the train to look for someone. Let’s just think about how this makes sense. First, the LSL never crosses the boarder. Second, if someone did slip over the boarder, well guess who failed to stop them in the first place? So what do we do, we delay over 200 people because we didn’t do our jobs properly. Simple common sense would be to put a few agents on the train, release the train and allow the agents to search the train while it moves onto the next station.

Arrangements could have been made to take the agents and anyone that they might find, off at either the next station or even at a crossing in some town down the line. But no, we give our agents the power to delay 200 citizens and/or legal residents so that they can fix the mistake that they made in the first place. Makes sense to me. Not.

So finally cleared by customs on a train that doesn’t need to go through customs, we left Rochester now down almost 4 hours. With still more track work and the associated slow orders, we continue to loose even more time between Rochester and Syracuse. I don’t recall our actually needing to stop, thankfully, but it still costs us. Our departure out of Syracuse now finds us running 5 hours late.

From Syracuse to Albany things would by and large stay status quo. Shortly before arriving in Schenectady we passed through yet another work zone, where the engineer noticed that the bell was no longer working on the lead engine. So he leaned on the horn a bit more going through that work zone. Then coming into SDY, we had to take the siding track, since there was another Amtrak train coming west on the single track out of Albany.

So after doing our station work, we had to pull forward to the limits of the siding, so as to clear the switch behind us. Without clearing that, they couldn’t get the west bound into the station. So he was holding outside the station waiting for his high ball into the station. Once he got into the station, they were then able to setup the switch to get us out of the siding and on our way. Thankfully, this dance didn’t take too long, as all the station work including a double spot, as well as waiting for the line to clear only took 9 minutes.

From there it was a straight shot into Albany with no further delays. Our arrival into Albany saw us at basically 4 hours and 50 minutes down. The northbound Ethan Allen was just pulling out from the other side of the platform, as we were pulling in. The Ethan of course forced the connecting train to Boston, #448, to the far platform, instead of the opposite side of the center island platform. Therefore every connecting pax had to haul their stuff up stairs and then back down to the other platform. Sitting in front of the Boston section, was a P32 AC-DM motor that would become our power for the rest of the run.

It still amazes me that Albany continues to be one of the slowest places to change power. The inbound conductor had of course warned all of us on the PA, not to venture into the station as the crews would try to hurry things up and get us out of the station as fast as possible. At Albany, at least in my experience as fast as possible means that they will take the exact amount of time allotted on the schedule. Sure enough, they took every one of the 30 minutes allotted in the schedule.

I’ve seen Silver Service train have engines changed as well as freight cut off, both in DC and in Philly, and when a train is late 90% of the time those crews seem to get things done in less time than the schedule allows. So I’m not sure why Albany can’t seem to figure out how to do things faster, but they still can’t.  While not the sole reason, the delays encountered at Albany with combining and/or breaking apart the LSL, did contribute to 448 becoming a stub train instead of running though.

Within a few minutes of our arrival, the P32 pulled down on the mainline to await the P42 engines being cutoff our train. This of course cleared the Boston section and about 15 minutes after our arrival, it was on its way to Boston. Just prior to the Boston section’s departure, the P42’s that had pulled us all the way from Chicago rolled by on the track between the two sections of the LSL.

Finally, with our new P32 engine on the head end and power restored to the train, we pulled out of Albany 4 hours and 48 minutes late. Our ride down the Hudson was uneventful by and large, although we did get held a few minutes at Poughkeepsie to wait for a Metro North train.

The ride down the Hudson was of course as beautiful as ever. This is without a doubt one of the most scenic trips in the Northeast on an Amtrak train. Unfortunately our view was a bit hampered thanks to the low angle of the sun, which of course was due to our lateness. It really put a crimp on picture taking, since trying to get an angle where the sun didn’t shine directly into the lens was very tough.

Cutting off Metro North on to the Empire Line was also uneventful. We did however slow down and eventually stop at the last interlocking before the Empire tunnel, the tunnel built between Penn Station and what was the old Westside freight line that created the Empire connection. The Empire connection is what allowed Amtrak to start running trains to/from Albany into Penn Station. Prior to this connection, all trains to/from Albany went into Grand Central Station.

Within a few minutes a northbound Empire Corridor train emerged from the tunnel. Several minutes later though, we were still sitting there waiting for the signal. The engineer had to call PSCC on the radio to wake them up and remind them that we were sitting there. A short move brought us into the tunnel, or at least the front half of the train made it in, I’m not sure about the rear half.

We paused there again for a few minutes awaiting switch alignments, a crossing NJT train, and for another train to clear our intended platform. Our long Amtrak journey was over when we finally came to rest on track #8 in NY’s Penn Station at 8:30 PM, 5 hours and 5 minutes late.

Upon detraining I tipped our attendant, as overall she had done her job well, even if she had been a bit premature in dropping our beds. In fact she even offered to take a picture of the two of us, although sadly it didn’t come out too well with the bright sunlight behind us as we rolled down the Hudson.

I made my mom wait with the luggage for a minute, while I ran up to the head end to get the baggage car’s number, the only number I was missing from the consist. I had managed to collect all the rest along the way. Then it was upstairs and a mad dash for the subway, so as to get my mom to the next departing bus back to PA. We managed to get there just about 5 minutes before they started boarding and with just about 10 minutes to spare before it departed.

Despite the lateness of our arrival, sleeping car passengers were left to fend for themselves regarding dinner. There was no mention, at least none that we heard, of any provision for us. The diner certainly was not setup to serve dinner, as I walked through it to take a few pictures of it. The café was open for a while, but I’m not sure just when that was closed down and again there seemed to be no allowance for sleeping car passengers.

Thankfully we had a few snacks, and we’d had a later lunch since we were running so late. But still, it was bad enough for me as I’d be home by 9:30, even worse for my mom however as she wouldn’t get home to Pennsylvania till after 11:00 PM.

After watching my mom board her bus, it was back to the subway for me, where a short 30 minute ride on the #7 subway had me back home. And with my arrival home came the end of a wonderful two weeks of train riding around the US and its incredible natural beauty.

I’m of course already ready for my next trip, this despite late trains, the uncertainty of SDS (which thankfully proved not to be a disaster), derailments ahead of us, and an unscheduled bus ride. Sadly I don’t have either the points or the time to set off on yet another trip right away. But there’s always next month or the one after that.


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## MrFSS

Great reporte, Alan. I'm exhausted from reading these last two. What a trip!!!


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## AlanB

Now for the final round of pictures:

Some private varnish sitting at the MSP station:


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## AlanB

Running along the mighty Miss on our way to Chicago. It's not a sunset or a sunrise, simply a stormy morning.











I just love these shots where my car lands in the middle of the crossing and I get to look at the waiting traffic.






We must be getting near Chicago.


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## AlanB

Jumping to the Lake Shore Limited now:

The poor old Buffalo station. 











A CN caboose sitting at Utica.






Some Adirondack Scenic RR equipment:


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## AlanB

Crusing through downtown Albany.






Crossing the Hudson River from Albany into Rensselaer, looking north.






Looking south.
















The rear of our train as we make the sharp curve just off the bridge and into the Albany/Rensselaer station. The bridge towers are visible over the tree tops.


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## AlanB

P32 AC-DM waits at Albany to haul us south to NY City.






Running south alongside the Hudson River.











Metro North P32 AC-DM sits just north of Poughkeepsie station. Sadly I was a hair too quick on the trigger. 






Bannerman's Castle sits on an Island in the Hudson River.






West Point sits on the opposite shore. Sadly the lateness of the hour and the angle of the sun made this shot less than it should be.






As we prepare to round a small bay in the river just before Peekskill, one can make out the containment domes for the Indian Point Nuclear power plant.


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## AlanB

A new M7 Metro North train set sits in Croton Harmon yard.






The Tappan Zee Bridge sits in the distance as we zip through Metro North's Tarrytown station.






A few more shots of the Tap.











Metro North tracks curve off towards Spuyten Duyvil, the Bronx, and their junction with the Harlem and New Haven lines.






The Henry Hudson bridge and the East River as it flows south from the Hudson.






The George Washington Bridge comes into view. Almost home.











And last but not least, running alongside the West Side Highway, with New Jersey in view on the other side of the River. Right after this, it's underground and into Penn Station.






And that wraps up the photos.


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## had8ley

AlanB said:


> As I mentioned in our last episode, thanks to the late arrival of Cascades #506 and several connecting passengers, train #8 the eastbound Empire Builder left 2 minutes late at 4:47 PM. For this leg, as well as our next, we’re back in a roomette. Our home this time would room #14 on the lower level of the 30 car. This would be the only leg where we didn’t have to walk through another sleeper to reach the dining car.
> Our ride up the shoreline was largely uneventful, although I did manage to catch yet another glimpse of a Sounder train; my first had come just a bit earlier when we had waited on one for a few minutes just out of the Tukwila station. Of course technically, my first real sighting of a Sounder train came a few years ago when I saw one and later rode on one being leased by VRE. :lol:
> 
> Shortly after making our stop in Edmonds, we made a right hand turn starting our eastbound journey and headed into a tunnel taking us off the shoreline. Shortly on the heals of that, was the Everett station, which is where I saw the Sounder sitting on the adjacent track.
> 
> After Everett the first few miles seemed rather flat, but then we started our long climb up into the mountains to reach Steven’s Pass in the Cascade Mountains. To save climbing all the way up to the top of the pass, we pass through the 7.79 Cascade Tunnel, which according to the onboard guide is the longest tunnel in the US. It was completed in 1929 and sits 4,061 feet above sea level.
> 
> Had we gone through Steven’s Pass proper, we would have needed to climb yet another 500 feet higher. The tunnel eliminated the need to climb those extra feet. The train also follows the Skykomish River for much of the 65 miles from Everett to the top of the mountains. Hopefully time will permit my posting some photos from the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago later today.
> 
> We took dinner at the 6:30 seating and for the first time on our trip, tried the old style of dining car food and service. The service was just fine and with one exception, all in the dining car were very nice, polite, and pleasant. One waitress, while always polite to the patrons in the car, seemed a bit gruff when she was in the service area. At time she even was telling the LSA what to do. I’m not quite sure why he didn’t tell her to stop it, since he seemed perfectly capable of doing his job and running the crew.
> 
> Perhaps he just felt that it was easier to not fight with her. She wasn’t unpleasant like I said and was very efficient; I just got the impression that she was a know-it-all who thought that she should be in charge. We were only served by her once. Most of the time we were served by Clasina (I hope that I spelled that correctly), whom I thought was doing a very nice job considering that she had just rotated back to dining car service from sleeper service and she was on her 8th day of work in a row.
> 
> Jason the LSA/dining car steward quickly came to know his regulars and was always wonderfully polite and pleasant. He kept all passengers informed of dining car hours, when there was a waiting list, calling those on the list to the diner, and generally keeping the show running smoothly.
> 
> I probably should have tried the Salmon shank that they had as a special the first night out as a comparison, but instead I opted for the turkey medallions. They were a bit dry, but otherwise ok. Everything else was just perfect on the plate. My mom opted for the steak and was quite pleased with her choice. We both had ice cream for desert. By the way, I forgot to mention that the Coast Starlight also had ice cream. Both only had vanilla, which was fine by me as I’m not a chocolate fan.
> 
> Shortly after dinner we reached Wenatchee, just as the sun was setting. We then continued on through the night to our next stop at Ephrata. Shortly after Ephrata, we turned in for the night. I did wake up for our stop at Spokane, but didn’t get up to look out or note the times.


GREAT pictures, great report...I'm jealous of your ice cream. I'll just ask for chocolate syrup if I make it to the EB this winter.


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## Guest

Alan,

They certainly know the difference between an active duty military ID card and one that's not. Everytime I purchase a ticket I produce the ID, watch them twist it back and forth, eyeball me and then I explain to the station agent why I deserve an active duty discount. There was no way I would ever visit the area in question were it not for my spouse about to leave for Iraq and in training. I also told the agent exactly how many hours of "you know what" would take place once I got to see said spouse to make my point that there was nothing else in that area worth paying money to see. His face turned red and he gave me my discount. FYI, there are more things to do at the moment than update my id from reserves to active and I do travel with the perfectly filled in form, dutifully signed in triplicate, etc. that authorizes an active duty id as well as my spouse's Iraq orders.

-Guest



> It continues to amaze me that some big-wig at Amtrak in conjunction with the Dept. of Homeland security continues to think that he’s done his job and made trains safer by requiring photo Id’s for Amtrak travel.
> First, I’d defy any Amtrak conductor, none of whom have received any special training, to tell me that my license is valid or phony.
> 
> Second, there is no way that some guest services personnel at a desk is going to know if my license is valid.


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## JayPea

I know this is from last year, but the details of the trip on the EB still get me excited, as I'm taking the EB on its entire Seattle-Chicago run in six weeks. In fact, I'm going to catch the train in Spokane, ride to Seattle, and then back to Chicago. That way I can say I've ridden the train for its whole length, and also see the Cascades during daylight hours, as it should be sunup just as the westbound EB reaches the mountains and it will be dark through the Cascades on its eastbound run. Can hardly wait!


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## CA Amtrak

AlanB said:


> A new M7 Metro North train set sits in Croton Harmon yard.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Tappan Zee Bridge sits in the distance as we zip through Metro North's Tarrytown station.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A few more shots of the Tap.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Metro North tracks curve off towards Spuyten Duyvil, the Bronx, and their junction with the Harlem and New Haven lines.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Henry Hudson bridge and the East River as it flows south from the Hudson.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The George Washington Bridge comes into view. Almost home.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And last but not least, running alongside the West Side Highway, with New Jersey in view on the other side of the River. Right after this, it's underground and into Penn Station.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And that wraps up the photos.


I really like the photos. I wish I could take that kind of trip, but I don't have time.


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## CA Amtrak

AlanB said:


> A new M7 Metro North train set sits in Croton Harmon yard.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Tappan Zee Bridge sits in the distance as we zip through Metro North's Tarrytown station.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A few more shots of the Tap.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Metro North tracks curve off towards Spuyten Duyvil, the Bronx, and their junction with the Harlem and New Haven lines.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Henry Hudson bridge and the East River as it flows south from the Hudson.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The George Washington Bridge comes into view. Almost home.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And last but not least, running alongside the West Side Highway, with New Jersey in view on the other side of the River. Right after this, it's underground and into Penn Station.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And that wraps up the photos.


BTW, what camera did you use?


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## AlanB

CA Amtrak said:


> BTW, what camera did you use?


A Kodak EasyShare DX3900.


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