# My Christmas Vacation: NYP-LRK-CHI-NYP



## sweet tea (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi gang,

I like reading the trip reports y’all post here, so I thought I’d write one of my own, about my Christmas/New Year’s travels. We went from New York to Little Rock, then to Chicago for a week, then back to New York. I’ll embed a few pictures, but you can see many more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/...57603643795179/

We started off in NYP, waiting for the LSL. …And waiting. There was a frozen switch at Sunnyside slowing everything down — turns out that the evening rush hour on the Friday before Christmas is rather a busy time at Penn, and a problem like that messes up A LOT of trains. We weren’t too fussed, as we had comfy seats in Club Acela. (No celebrity sightings this time — last year we saw John Waters.) The only unpleasant part was when we had to go back into the VERY crowded station to line up for the train. NYP is not set up well for boarding, imho. I wish they’d board sleepers from the lounge, the way they do in CHI. We finally got on our way about an hour late and it had been raining and snowing earlier, so it was pretty dark as we settled into our roommette, uncorked our bottle of wine, and took pictures of the Hudson anyway:







Even though it was too dark for many pictures, there was enough snow along the rails reflecting light from our train and various buildings that we enjoyed the view that night anyway. That night and the next day, we enjoyed looking at various old train cars and engines on display at various stations:






Don’t know if they always do those lights, or if it was for Christmas.











I wish I could remember whether our attendant’s name was Mike or Matt, because he was FABULOUS. We’ve ridden in roommette’s before, but his opening primer was still helpful, and full of good advice about how to be sure the toilet is working before you stink up your room, how to keep it clean, etc. When engine trouble (dum-da-dum-DUM...) and who-knows-what-else kept delaying and delaying our dinner reservation, until we were starving and not too happy about waiting until 10, I asked if we could eat in our room, which I’ve never done before. Mike/Matt (I’m leaning towards “Mike”) set us up with a table cloth and everything. He was a better waiter than most of the waiters! When he brought the menus, we asked him what he recommended, and he was honest, quick, and helpful. (“Best thing is the salmon, but it’s sold out, so I’d go with the chicken.” “What about the beef ribs?” “Good, but some people think they’re fatty.” … “That comes with green beans or corn, you don’t want the corn, get the beans.”) We had the chicken and the beef ribs, which were as he’d indicated. I thought that the ribs were good even though they were fatty, but I guess it might bother someone who wanted a bigger portion of meat (or wanted to pretend ribs are health food). We were thrilled to get ice cream for dessert — I thought the 4oz. portion size was good.

The ice cream was frozen rock-solid, and unfortunately, so was our roommette. Even with the heat all the way up, we were cold. When it was bedtime, we mentioned it to Mike, who brought us extra blankets — yay! He said the other rooms seemed okay, but I kind of doubt that since we were in the middle of the car and I could see that the vestibule door was held open with a duct tape strap (I assume it had stopped working properly) and that there was snow in the vestibule. In the night, though, I woke up warm and no longer in need of the extra blanket. In the morning, Mike said he’d cranked up the blower. (Also, though, the door seemed to be fixed.)

What with getting a late start, we were running a bit behind schedule. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to get to CHI close to on time, because I was hoping to hit the German Christmas fair at Daley Plaza in between our arrival on the LSL and our departure for LRK on the TE, about 4 hours. I figured our minimum necessary window to grab a bratwurst and some gluwein without needing to panic about missing the TE was 2 hours. The Christkindlmarkt is the only thing I miss about winter in Chicago, and the chance to stop by on our layover was something I’d been bragging to friends about as a benefit of downtown-to-downtown travel, since we’d never have been able to do that on a 4-hour layover at O’Hare.

Unfortunately, when I woke up in the night at Erie, we were two hours behind. I spent a while trying to convince myself we were in Cleveland anyway (“That sign says “Erie Brewing Company” because Cleveland is on Lake Erie”). Somehow, though, we were on time when I got up in the morning! The front page of the newspaper Mike brought showed folks waiting in lines at O’Hare that made Penn look like Mayberry. Had a nice time teasing the chef in the open kitchen about winning the lottery — I’d seen him and Mike and a couple other crew members jumping around happily at Albany. (They did win, but not that much money.) Spirits rise despite regrettable breakfast fare.

As it turned out, we just barely made my two-hour window. We lost almost all the time right outside of CHI, due to a freight that had been smashed all over the rails. It had been carrying (among other things) UPS packages, which were scattered all over the place. There were UPS trucks pulled alongside, picking up the ones that weren’t torn open. We actually got past the scene very quickly (sorry no pics), but traffic was snarled up, I assume because a number of tracks were out of commission.

We jumped off the train at CHI, gave Mike double our usual tip, beat the rush to the Metropolitan Lounge, where we dumped our carry-ons before tearing out in search of a cab. And I got my brat. 






More to come next time I take a break from other work….


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## AlanB (Feb 19, 2008)

sweet tea said:


> The only unpleasant part was when we had to go back into the VERY crowded station to line up for the train. NYP is not set up well for boarding, imho. I wish they’d board sleepers from the lounge, the way they do in CHI. We finally got on our way about an hour late and it had been raining and snowing earlier, so it was pretty dark as we settled into our roommette, uncorked our bottle of wine, and took pictures of the Hudson anyway:


Up until about 4, maybe 5, years ago they used to escort people from the lounge down to the long distance trains. Not sure just why the stopped that practice, although I'm guessing it's due to lack of staffing.

Today your best bet, unless you know the station really well, is to just ask for a redcap. Tip the redcap a few bucks, let them roll your bags down for you, and you can skip the line at the gate.


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## sweet tea (Feb 19, 2008)

oh, the red cap makes sense. because we didn't check our luggage last year (we weren't going as far), we did have a red cap who walked us down. i think i got the idea that that was standard procedure. i'll keep that in mind next time.


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## sweet tea (Feb 19, 2008)

We returned from the Christkindlmarkt by taxi in plenty of time.






Happily full of bratwurst and gluwein, we hopped on board the Texas Eagle. Our attendant strolled by and glumly introduced himself — that’s all we saw of him until we had to hunt him down to set up our beds. Okay, technically we also saw his shoe tips, sticking out from the drawn curtain of his roommette, where he spent the trip hidden with the lights off.(Saved some money on tip there!)

Our roommette was in the crew dorm car. The crew part of the car was partitioned off by a saloon-style swinging door:






The other sleeper had a different (better) attendant, who had decorated the area by the upstairs bathroom with christmas lights and put out a basket of candies. We were a bit jealous when we walked through en route to the diner. The diner staff seemed to be in a great mood — they had decorated the car a bit, and the LSA was all decked out herself:






We sat with a very charming couple at dinner, a composer and his pianist wife who were on their way back to Austin following his receiving an award in Chicago. I had the steak, which was quite good. Hooray for cooked to order food!

Although the weather was typically midwestern in its grayness, there were a few sights worth seeing:






In Chicago, a front yard only a railfan could love.






A trip on the Texas Eagle means a trip through the Citgo refinery, which is a little creepy and a lot awesome






Downstate.

The track was quite rough, but we got a little sleep nonetheless. I always worry about missing the Little Rock stop, because there is only about a stop an hour beforehand, and our MIA attendant didn’t fill me with confidence. So I sat up after Walnut Ridge and graded papers. We came into LRK close to on time, as I recall. Our attendant did grumpily bang on our door, though he disappeared after that, so it was easy enough to avoid tipping him. (I got the impression that he had decided ahead of time that he would trade getting tipped for having to work.) A very pleasant conductor (?) who was getting off the train at LRK chatted with us by the door while we waited on the usual freight delays right outside the LRK station. He even opened the window as we went over the river so we could see the view.

Took a few pictures around the station while looking for my parents.






Our train






LRK station porch

The burgeoning Christmas crowds (maybe 30 or 40 people, at the most, including passengers and those meeting them) threw the station master for a loop, so getting our checked bags took quite some time. He was very pleasant on our trip back north, so I mean him no disrespect, but it was strange to see someone so flustered by such a tiny crowd compared to the one at NYP. I’ve never checked bags to LRK before, but his system, this time at least, was terrible: the bags were arrayed across a side room, and he would let one person at a time in to wander around and find theirs. We had misplaced our check tags, which I thought might give him a heart attack, but we all survived.


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## sweet tea (Feb 19, 2008)

We had a nice visit in LRK.






Gratuitous picture of my parents’ cat helping me grade my papers.

The TE was more or less on time headed north. The station master seemed much calmer tonight. After we’d boarded, my parents were still talking to me on the cell phone as we pulled away, and then I heard them talking to someone else, a woman with a young child who’d run up too late to catch the train. We were _barely_ out of the station; I think our back cars may even have been at the platform still. I quickly told the attendant, who said, “Well, I guess next time they’ll be on time for the train.”

Nonetheless, the train stopped and rolled back into the station. The station master had radioed. Even though I know that person should have been on time, it really made me happy to see a compassionate exception get made, and it took less than 5 minutes.

Didn’t matter much to our time keeping, since we sat in the rail yard north of the station for 30 minutes or so anyway. It was too dark for my little camera, but we did have a cool view, as we were pulled up next to a UP engine cab. (I’ll have to convince my girlfriend to put some of her pics online.) We were near a refueling station — maybe we were refueling? — which didn’t smell so wonderful, though.

The trip up to CHI was pretty uneventful, though we lost a lot of time on sidings close to CHI. Met interesting people in the diner, including a young Indian man, his Ukrainian wife, and their toddler, taking a long weekend in Chicago from Dallas. He kept talking about how he was perfectly used to the cold, but his eyes bugged out when I described a typical February in Chicago. His wife seemed very pleased to hear someone else tell him about places that are colder than India.

Breakfast was…enh, food wise. Thank God for the grits, I’d have gotten little in me without them. I am now convinced that french toast is the only decent hot option, which is a pity. Maybe I’m too picky. At lunch, they’d run out of practically everything. Turkey burgers were just about it. Not outstanding, but okay. BUT one of the diner staff had made fantastic iced tea. So smooth it barely needed sugar. (Note my screen name; this is saying a lot.) When I complimented him on it (and asked to take a glass back to my room), he said, “Thank you. I am particularly proud of my tea.” And it showed. I’m almost glad it isn’t on the regular menu, since I’m afraid they’d stock some wretched powder.

Pictures:






Can’t remember where this was. Someplace in downstate IL, I think.






Winter in the Midwest: what a scenic thing to move through (and not live through anymore  )






We were a couple of hours late, so it was nearly night when we arrived.






They were forklifting the big benches out of the main room of CUS— preparing for an event?


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## AlanB (Feb 19, 2008)

sweet tea said:


> They were forklifting the big benches out of the main room of CUS— preparing for an event?


Yup, Amtrak often rents out the great hall for events. When we held the first AU Gathering in Chicago last October, they held a gala event that Saturday, black tie and such. So a few of us got to watch them taking the benches out to prep for that event.


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## Galls (Feb 19, 2008)

I took the same trip for Thanksgiving Texas Eagle, arrived at one in the morning. I was coming from the Ozark mountains early, took one look at the area and went and got a hotel room to stay at. Little Rock, not a great place! Oh well, glad you enjoyed your trip, I did as well. One thing though, the crew on the texas eagle was much better than the crew on the Lake Shore Limited, for me, I assume the eagle's crew is not based out of chicago.


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## sweet tea (Feb 20, 2008)

i've enjoyed little rock on my visits there, but it is different coming to stay with family versus finding a hotel room near the train station.

i agree with you that the TE crew was mainly great, notwithstanding our weird sleeper attendant. (i got the impression that the rest of the crew didn't think much of him, either -- they were a very friendly bunch, but they only spoke to him in that careful way you use for people you don't like.) our attendant on the way back north was fine, too, although the man in the diner with the tea was my favorite on that trip. 

unfortunately, we didn't get to tip our sleeper attendant -- even though we were the first off the train in chicago, since the family meeting us had not listened to our advice re: the train being late, she was already off the train and down the ramp that seems to lead to a crew-only area on the lower level.


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## sweet tea (Feb 20, 2008)

After a visit with family and friends, back on board the LSL home to NYP on the evening of January 2nd.

This ended up being my least favorite leg of the trip. Not just because it was the end of vacation and not just because I was getting over the stomach flu, either.

This was our first time riding the LSL eastbound since its schedule changed to leave at 10pm. This entailed several changes; I think I liked the old way better.

Instead of dinner on the train, sleeper passengers board early for wine and cheese. This is a change I did like. The wine was surprisingly good—Penfolds, as I recall—and there were fresh grapes as well as cheese. (Too bad my stomach was too dodgy to drink more than a few sips of wine.) It was a very relaxing atmosphere, too. Only about half the car was full, and there was none of the hustle and bustle for the crew associated with a full meal. We had a nice chat with a couple of other passengers for about half an hour before heading back to our roommette.

I’m not sure if this is possible, but I think we took a different path out of CHI than I am used to. I loved the view as we went through the industrial landscape along the south shore of Lake Michigan, and I don’t think I’d seen those particular places before. It was EXTREMELY cold, as a huge snow storm had come through on New Year’s Eve and Day, so the steam coming out of factory smoke stacks was particularly huge and billowing, like another world floating in the sky. We went past pools of water (at a treatment plant?) that had steam rising out of them. I suppose they may have to heat them in the winter so they don’t freeze. This part of the trip reminded me of Chris Van Alsburg’s illustrations. Unfortunately, it was too dark for pictures after we left the station.






Fancy car in CUS






This is what our train looked like BEFORE we left CHI. In the area just beyond the station, it looked like there were little sets of flames under the rails in places, I guess to warm them up? What were those?

Through the night, we were sometimes in snow and sometimes just in places with so much snow that the movement of the train picked it up in a cloud around us. We were snug as bugs, though.

Morning came soon, and we got to see places I’ve never seen in daylight from the LSL before, like the Erie station:






I’ve seen Buffalo in daylight, but I’ve never seen it in winter SUNlight. I took lots of pictures to prove it happened. 











No sun in Rochester, though.






Since my girlfriend is a photographer, we always make note of the home of the Great Yellow Father, Kodak.

Around Rochester, things started to go downhill. After we ate lunch, we seemed to be doing a lot of sitting around, and I didn’t always notice freights going by. Sometimes we just went REALLY slowly, which was scenic, but not ideal. Figured at that point that it might be residual weather issues.






Did I mention that it was a little cold?






But pretty.

As we crawled through New York state, not yet far off schedule, this ride started to feel REALLY long. That’s one of the problems I have with the new schedule: even though it takes the same amount of time as ever, the trip east just feels longer now. Partly, this has to do with how meals punctuate the trip— it’s a long time between lunch and NYP now.

Just outside of Croton-Harmon, now about two hours down, we came to a halt. It got steadily colder and colder in the car. Eventually, the conductor came on the PA to say that our engine had conked out. They were going to try to fix it, but we might have to sit around without power until Metro-North could bail us out.

I know train travel entails this kind of thing sometimes, but I admit I was a little frustrated to be stuck SO CLOSE to NYP. I know there are money and equipment issues involved, but it was frustrating that we were getting stranded by engine problems on the same line we’d had engine problems on 2 weeks before. It didn’t help that our sleeper attendant, who had spent the whole trip on her hands-free cell phone, had a kind of “who cares” attitude about everything. I don’t know how to explain it — obviously, there was nothing she could have done. She was not unfriendly during the trip, but she also made no effort to connect to the passengers, in a way that was borderline rude.

Eventually, we limped into Croton-Harmon. No one knew what was going on. People would think we were supposed to get off the train, then the conductor would say over the PA to stay put. We packed everything in a rush. Rumors swirled about the sleeper car; people were trying to figure out whether they should cut their losses and buy a Metro-North ticket. The attendant was nowhere, and we couldn’t understand all of the announcements. Finally, the attendant waltzed through the car, basically said “See Ya!” and left the train, without telling us what we were supposed to do or whether anyone would come to find us. I guess she had another ride home.

Another Amtrak train pulled into the station, and, since we saw the coach passengers lining up, we went outside. We were crammed onto the train, which was already very full. Luckily, we found a couple of seats in the cafe, where the conductors had their paperwork out, but they were very nice once they came through and didn’t ask us to leave. Lots of people didn’t have seats. In the scheme of things, this wasn’t a big deal — Amtrak didn’t abandon us; we didn’t have to wait all that long — but it felt scary and upsetting anyway because we didn’t know what was happening. Communication could have been A LOT better. It wouldn’t have changed the situation, but it would have been nice if someone had said “We’re sorry this is happening.” I’m a pretty big Amtrak fan, but if this had been my first trip, I don’t think it would have left a good impression.

What WAS cool was that while we were crammed into the cafe car, someone found out that Obama had won the Iowa caucus. People were really happy. We had a nice chat with an old man on his way back to SC, whose children had gone to school with Obama.

We got to NYP about 2 hours late, which is not so bad for the LSL. This brings me to the other problem with new schedule: dinner. We were STARVING by the time we got to Penn. Everything in the station was closed, so we couldn’t eat there. Our baggage was still on our original train, which made it to NYP about a half an hour after we did. I assume it was towed. (I don’t know the logistics, but if it had been possible to do so, I would have preferred that they just leave us on the original train. Perhaps this was impossible.) Baggage claim, at least, went really fast. So, all told, we left NYP about 2.5 hours after we had planned to, which is pretty typical of the LSL, at least in my experience. Once we had our luggage, we weren’t in any shape to go looking for an open restaurant. We hopped into a cab and whizzed back to Brooklyn with little traffic, but even so, it was almost midnight by the time we scrounged what little was left in the house after two weeks away and got some dinner. (Restaurants near us were closed.) That is LATE, even for me. I bet the LSL is this late pretty often. It’s a shame to have people leaving Amtrak with their blood sugar plummeting. Not a good last impression.






It was good to see Little Italy again.






And even better to be back in the BK.


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## AlanB (Feb 20, 2008)

sweet tea said:


> In the area just beyond the station, it looked like there were little sets of flames under the rails in places, I guess to warm them up? What were those?


Switch heaters. They keep the switches from freezing up, and help to keep the snow from jamming them up.



sweet tea said:


> Our baggage was still on our original train, which made it to NYP about a half an hour after we did. I assume it was towed. (I don’t know the logistics, but if it had been possible to do so, I would have preferred that they just leave us on the original train. Perhaps this was impossible.)


My guess is that they weren't sure just how long it would take to get a tow. And then there was the issue of no power, which meant no heat. So I'm guessing that they figured that it would be best to move everyone over to the other train.

Did you actually see the LSL arrive into the station? If not, then it is also possible that they either transfered the luggage to another train, or trucked it down to Penn.


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## sweet tea (Feb 20, 2008)

AlanB said:


> sweet tea said:
> 
> 
> > In the area just beyond the station, it looked like there were little sets of flames under the rails in places, I guess to warm them up? What were those?
> ...


cool! thanks



AlanB said:


> sweet tea said:
> 
> 
> > Our baggage was still on our original train, which made it to NYP about a half an hour after we did. I assume it was towed. (I don’t know the logistics, but if it had been possible to do so, I would have preferred that they just leave us on the original train. Perhaps this was impossible.)
> ...


i didn't see the train (we were upstairs), and your explanation makes a lot of sense.


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## sweet tea (Feb 20, 2008)

You know, I just realized something: we were almost exactly as late to CHI on the LSL as we were to NYP on the way back. I hadn't put that together, because we were so unhappy on the way back, and not really worried on the way to CHI, even though it was in CHI that we had time-sensitive plans.

The big difference between those two late arrivals was the attendant's attitude.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 20, 2008)

Do the inside of cars freeze up like that? O_O

I guess you could have had dinner in the Cafe.


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## sweet tea (Feb 21, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Do the inside of cars freeze up like that? O_O


Evidently...although most of that came in as blowing snow. It was cold enough in the vestibule to keep the snow from melting, but it isn't as if just moisture in the inside air was condensing and freezing.



Green Maned Lion said:


> I guess you could have had dinner in the Cafe.


Yeah, we could have. We could also have carried more of our own food. (We had some, thank goodness.) We'll probably do so in the future. But I think that, since we'd paid for a sleeper, we shouldn't have to do those things.

I'm also not sure, from a practical perspective, if the cafe was operational by the end of our trip, given the problems we were having. But that's not really my point -- I wouldn't mention the no-dinner problem if I thought it was unique to our trip, since we were having unexpected difficulties. My point is that it's a problem even if the engine doesn't conk out.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 21, 2008)

When I go on the LSL in 10 days (and 10 hours, 48 minutes, and 22 seconds as of me typing this- I am such a dork) I will be in coach, but I hope to get meals in the diner-lite. I'm not going to argue with you- Amtrak picked this schedule to eliminate an expensive meal among other things, and it was not particularly responsible on their part. That being said, I doubt a diner-lite dinner would be anything to write home about. Perhaps they should have offered the option of a small meal in the Cafe, though.

(Question for those who might know: how do I get breakfast? Would getting up early do it?)


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## AlanB (Feb 21, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> When I go on the LSL in 10 days (and 10 hours, 48 minutes, and 22 seconds as of me typing this- I am such a dork) I will be in coach, but I hope to get meals in the diner-lite. I'm not going to argue with you- Amtrak picked this schedule to eliminate an expensive meal among other things, and it was not particularly responsible on their part. That being said, I doubt a diner-lite dinner would be anything to write home about. Perhaps they should have offered the option of a small meal in the Cafe, though.
> (Question for those who might know: how do I get breakfast? Would getting up early do it?)


While I'm sure that Amtrak isn't crying over the fact that they are saving money by not having to serve dinner, that's not the main reason it was done. The depature time was changed for two reasons, the first being a request from NS to seperate the LSL from the Capitol by more than an hour. NS was having problems dealing with two fast trains in a row.

The second major reason was to save money for Amtrak, but not on the diner, 10:00 PM was chosen to cut down on the number of broken connections from late running west coast trains. That two hour time change has probably saved thousands of dollars, since Amtrak didn't have to put people up in hotels and provide meal allowances for many people connecting from the west. Yes, there are still some failures, but not nearly as many as there used to be.

As for breakfast in the diner-lite car, you'll get seated much faster if you get there early, pre 7:00 AM. Otherwise you might end up on a waiting list if the train is really busy. And a Diner-Lite dinner is still better than anything in the cafe car, IMHO.


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## sweet tea (Feb 21, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> I doubt a diner-lite dinner would be anything to write home about.


actually, i thought our dinner on the WB LSL was quite good. Maybe not as good as MY cooking  , but certainly a big step up from the cafe car.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 21, 2008)

Nothing in the world compares with my g/fs cooking, but I still imagine the non-DL stuff to be a big leap over DL.


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