# Non-Functioning Toilets & Wild Dust Storms & Vanishing



## Sue in KY (May 2, 2010)

Back from our trip to Winslow, Arizona’s La Posada aboard the Southwest Chief — not an unqualified success, I’m afraid. When we boarded at Galesburg, IL, on Saturday the 24th, after having driven up from Kentucky the day before in a driving rainstorm, the rain was still pouring and continued to do so until we reached Kansas.

We had great service on the trip out, with star turns by both our SCA, Antonio, and our dining-car server, Shalita, who seemed to be just enjoying the daylights out of both her job and the passengers she served. (How lovely to see such dedication these days!) Food continues to improve aboard Amtrak trains, too, we notice, just since we began taking trains a little over a year ago: The lunch special chipotle beef over wild-rice pilaf and beef barbecue at dinner were excellent.

I never was able to fish out my camera in time to photograph them, but we saw several groups — herds, even! — of assorted wildlife on this trip west: antelope, deer, elk, bison, several red-tailed hawks, and in New Mexico even a few jackrabbits — which I hadn’t seen since my childhood in Texas — played games of chicken with the train. (I’m happy to report that the ones I saw always won.)

Unfortunately, the first thing to go wrong was that our entire sleeping car’s complement of toilets were non-functioning, and had been since the train left Chicago! Work crews at both Kansas City and Albuquerque tried, without success, to fix them. In fact, by the time we’d been on board for an hour, all except one of the toilets in ALL THREE SLEEPING CARS had quit working — so that one (thank goodness it was a “public” one and not one in someone’s private bedroom!) got quite a workout with upwards of 75 people all using it. Henry, the heroic SCA in the car with the one functional toilet, had a non-stop job in constant trips to throw the switch that kept it operating. No explanation for why the train left Chicago with so many non-working toilets — I assume there were just no replacement cars available.

In addition, neither of the electrical outlets in our bedroom worked, nor did the call button.

I felt rather sorry for the poor conductor who came on duty at Albuquerque and who kept coming on the p.a. system to apologize to those of us in all three cars for the sad state of affairs in our sleepers — it certainly wasn’t his fault, and I imagine he was dealing with several very irate first-and-probably-last-time train riders! He wanted to make sure that each of us called Customer Service at Amtrak and give his name and the train’s origination date from Chicago, and he kept assuring us that “Amtrak will make it right with you.” (I’ll call first thing tomorrow, after I’ve unpacked and caught my breath.)

The hotel, while certainly interesting and in some respects very beautiful, isn’t quite ready for prime time, we were disappointed to realize. The owners, a quirky husband-and-wife team, do deserve compliments for their hard work over the past 10 or more years in restoring this last and perhaps best of the Mary Colter-designed Harvey railroad hotels, but their attitude seems to be that guests should be so overawed by the chance to stay there, they shouldn’t expect such a thing as service too. (So, no bell staff, rude and unhelpful reception staff, lackadaisical housekeeping ....) On the other hand, the attached restaurant, owned separately by a talented English chef, was absolutely outstanding — although it was closed by electrical outage from a terrible dust- and windstorm that began just after noon of the last full day we were there, and reopened neither that night for dinner nor for breakfast the next day, leaving those of us without transportation also without a way to get either meal. (The hotel hadn’t regained electrical power by the time we — finally! — left about nine on Thursday morning.)

That freakish dust storm also delayed our leaving. The April 29th eastbound SW Chief was supposed to stop in front of the hotel at 6:09 a.m. — and repeated calls to Amtrak Julie at 4:45 a.m. and 5:45 and 6:15 kept getting us the same message: on time, on time, on time. After spending a VERY windy 45 minutes beside the tracks (sitting on our bags to keep them from blowing away), we finally learned at 6:45 that the poor train had left its previous stop, Flagstaff, at the normal time of 5:11 ... and then was forced to sit on a siding just after the station for the next three hours while a parade roared past of freight trains held up for 20 hours by the storm (which had also closed the nearby Interstate Highway 40 as well as the other roads between Flagstaff and Gallup, NM). That meant, of course, that again there were some pretty surly passengers already on board who couldn’t understand why Amtrak should “allow” freight trains to take precedence over trains with people on them — I heard a distressing number of disparaging comments about “the [email protected]#$%^&* federal government, and the [even worse [email protected]#$%^&*] party in power who wants even more of these stupid anachronisms wasting people’s hard-earned tax money that could be better spent on highways and bridges and keeping out illegal aliens and <mutter, mutter, mutter> ....”

Contrary to some of the complaints we overheard (that the train's staff were keeping everyone in the dark about the delays), the conductors were prompt to explain every slow order or stop we incurred; unfortunately, there were a number of each (including a stop because the crew ran out of hours before Albuquerque).

On top of everything, this eastbound train seemed to be staffed by only one sleeping car attendant, “Simon Jr.,” who, upon our boarding the train, complained that his knees were killing him and then promptly disappeared for the rest of our trip. Luckily, we were able to make up and take down our beds, having watched the process during other trips — but judging from the constant “bing-BONG” of call buttons pushed in other bedrooms and roomettes near us, other passengers were decidedly unable or unwilling to do so. (Don’t know how they managed, because Simon Jr. never reappeared that we could tell, until time to detrain.)

So this third time for us aboard the Southwest Chief wasn’t the proverbial charm. But even though we never made up any of the three hours the train lost outside of Flagstaff, and we’d actually lost another hour by the time we detrained at Galesburg late Friday afternoon ... hey, the toilets worked the whole way back! (And we have two more train holidays planned for this summer and next fall ....)


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## Ryan (May 2, 2010)

Hey, we were on the train together! Sorry that we missed you!

We had Mike (the younger black guy) in the 0430 car and were very happy with the service that we got.


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## Ryan (May 2, 2010)

After sitting on the siding after Flagstaff (I woke up while we were stopped there) we also had to stop and pick up 3 outlawed BNSF crews before we got to Winslow and drop them off at the BNSF crew base there before we made it to the passenger station to pick you guys up.


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## Sue in KY (May 2, 2010)

Ryan said:


> After sitting on the siding after Flagstaff (I woke up while we were stopped there) we also had to stop and pick up 3 outlawed BNSF crews before we got to Winslow and drop them off at the BNSF crew base there before we made it to the passenger station to pick you guys up.


Ryan -- yes, I saw, just before I posted my travelogue, that you were on the same train! So you did make it in to Chicago before missing your connection? Several people we'd met at meals were worried about theirs on the LSL, or CL, or whichever it was that left at 6:30ish.

P.S. And that Simon Jr. ... he said he was the only SCA for the entire three sleepers!


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## greatcats (May 3, 2010)

I'm sorry that you had such difficulties on your trip to Winslow. If only one toilet was working amongst three sleepers, I think I would have bailed off that train. This is deplorable.


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## Ryan (May 3, 2010)

We did make it, we walked off the train, over to the next platform and onto the CL at about 6:05, plenty of time to make the 6:40 departure.

Simon Jr lied to you - we had an excellent attendant in our car! You guys were next to the trans-dorm, so if there was anyone in there they were his as well, but it certainly wasn't as bad as he made it out to be! It interesting, I even commented to Amy at one of the smoke stops (KC, I think) that it looked like the other attendant really had his stuff together because he took the time to wipe off the hand rails next to the sleeper door because it had rained and they were all wet and grimy. Guess I was wrong!!!


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## Ispolkom (May 3, 2010)

Thanks for the trip report, and I'm sorry that there were so many problems.

Thanks especially for the review of La Posada. We'll stay at an Econo Lodge (250 AGR points) and eat at the restaurant if we end up in Winslow this summer.


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## Sue in KY (May 3, 2010)

greatcats said:


> I'm sorry that you had such difficulties on your trip to Winslow. If only one toilet was working amongst three sleepers, I think I would have bailed off that train. This is deplorable.


Yes, it is, isn't it!

(But we couldn't bail out, because the train had already left the station by the time we realized we had no toilet in our bedroom -- and we did want to get to our destination!)


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## Sue in KY (May 3, 2010)

Ispolkom said:


> Thanks for the trip report, and I'm sorry that there were so many problems.
> Thanks especially for the review of La Posada. We'll stay at an Econo Lodge (250 AGR points) and eat at the restaurant if we end up in Winslow this summer.


You're welcome. It's a shame that La Posada isn't quite up to snuff. Some people have had better experiences there than we did (there are some nice reviews on TripAdvisor). The restaurant, though, really is stellar (when it's not closed due to power outages!) -- service and food both outstanding.


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## amtrakwolverine (May 3, 2010)

how can all toilets quit working at once in all 3 cars. and this is from Chicago where the train originates. smells like sabotage to me.


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## greatcats (May 3, 2010)

I have stayefd at La Posada overnight twice and enjoyed the place. I don't recall rude service, but they did kind of leave the guests to their own devices. The building and what has been done with it are fascinating, and it still is a work in progress. I have told them that the front doors to the otherwise beautiful hotel need refurbishing - they look shabby. I have dined there several times and have always been impressed with the food. The owner of the building is Alan Affeldt, who is ( or was ) the mayor of the town of Winslow and has helped bring it back from decline. His wife is an artist ( I believe she is Oriental ) and her works are on display throughout the building. The railroad station building is part of the property. There is a waiting room open, but the trackside door was locked and the waiting room was filthy when I was there several weeks ago. I don't know who is responsible for its upkeep

Meanwhile, I am awaiting my substantial refund for the cancelled Capitola Limited of April 19 and may have to be talking to Via Rail about the fare they have charged me when the Vancouver Isliand trian did not make it the other day.


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## JayPea (May 4, 2010)

Sorry to hear about the issues with the toilets. That issue seems to be the source of the greater percentage of problems on Amtrak. I had Henry for a SCA on my one and only trip on the SWC in 2006 and I thought he gave top-notch service, even though he kept calling my uncle and I by the wrong names.  and despite the fact we scared him to death when, after getting off to wander around in Kansas City, we got back on the train and went directly to the lounge car. He didn't see us in our room until later and had thought we'd missed the train.

And sabotage???? What possible motive would someone have to sabotage the toilets?? Since only sleeper car passengers are allowed in the sleepers, why would a passenger sabotage the toilets in his own car???


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## greatcats (May 4, 2010)

JayPea said:


> Sorry to hear about the issues with the toilets. That issue seems to be the source of the greater percentage of problems on Amtrak. I had Henry for a SCA on my one and only trip on the SWC in 2006 and I thought he gave top-notch service, even though he kept calling my uncle and I by the wrong names.  and despite the fact we scared him to death when, after getting off to wander around in Kansas City, we got back on the train and went directly to the lounge car. He didn't see us in our room until later and had thought we'd missed the train.
> And sabotage???? What possible motive would someone have to sabotage the toilets?? Since only sleeper car passengers are allowed in the sleepers, why would a passenger sabotage the toilets in his own car???



Yes, sabotage. Disgruntled employees, not just railroad employees, have been known to do nasty things out of warped reasoning.


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## Sue in KY (May 4, 2010)

JayPea said:


> Sorry to hear about the issues with the toilets. That issue seems to be the source of the greater percentage of problems on Amtrak. I had Henry for a SCA on my one and only trip on the SWC in 2006 and I thought he gave top-notch service, even though he kept calling my uncle and I by the wrong names.  and despite the fact we scared him to death when, after getting off to wander around in Kansas City, we got back on the train and went directly to the lounge car. He didn't see us in our room until later and had thought we'd missed the train.
> And sabotage???? What possible motive would someone have to sabotage the toilets?? Since only sleeper car passengers are allowed in the sleepers, why would a passenger sabotage the toilets in his own car???


Isn't Henry great? In addition to his toilet-switch-throwing duties, he kept up a running commentary over the p.a. system the entire way west about the sights along the route. Sort of a one-man Trails & Rails volunteer, starting with the former Sheafer Pen Company buildings (as well as the owner's house) in Fort Madison, Iowa. He had at least one story to tell about every little town we went through, with some of 'em just the teensiest bit apocryphal.


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## AlanB (May 4, 2010)

I didn't realize this earlier, until the mention of Henry doing a semi rails & trails presentation, but he was on my train two years ago when I was heading west to the Second Annual AU Gathering in LA. Alas he wasn't my attendant, although as I recall mine was quite good too, but I made it a point to thank Henry personally for going above and beyond the call of duty by playing rails & trails guide.

I can't recall now who told me, could have been an SA in the dining car or my SCA, but someone mentioned that Henry wasn't even feeling well that day as we went over Raton and that he hadn't slept much at all, yet he still did his bit for all riding on that train that day.


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## Sue in KY (May 5, 2010)

AlanB said:


> I didn't realize this earlier, until the mention of Henry doing a semi rails & trails presentation, but he was on my train two years ago when I was heading west to the Second Annual AU Gathering in LA. Alas he wasn't my attendant, although as I recall mine was quite good too, but I made it a point to thank Henry personally for going above and beyond the call of duty by playing rails & trails guide.
> I can't recall now who told me, could have been an SA in the dining car or my SCA, but someone mentioned that Henry wasn't even feeling well that day as we went over Raton and that he hadn't slept much at all, yet he still did his bit for all riding on that train that day.


We recognized Henry as having been the other car's SCA on our first trip on the Southwest Chief, about a year and a half ago. But we don't remember his acting as a tour guide on that trip.

Antonio, about the same age as Henry but rail-thin to Henry's rotundness, was our SCA this time. He was also very good at his SCA job, but he acted as Henry's straight man during the "Rails & Trails" schtick, feeding him lines. Amtrak's version of Martin & Lewis, or Rowan & Martin .... :lol:


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