# Texas Eagle trip report on 22



## Steve4031 (Dec 18, 2005)

On Friday, I was able to leave school about 2 hours early, (doctors appointment  ) which facilitated getting to Midway airport in a timely manner. I drove to Union Station, parked in the garage, and then walked over to catch the orange line at Quincy. As I climbed to the top fo the stairs at the station, I saw a train pull in. For some reason, he waited why I used my chicago card to get through the turn style, and onto the platform. Thus I left Quincy at 2:09 which got me to Midway by about 2:45 pm, which left plenty of time to clear security. My flight was at 6:15, but I thought their might be something earlier, but no luck. I had a nice dinner, Fried shirmp at the Illinois cafe, and a hot fudge brownie for desert at Hary Cary's. (Note to self: Hary Cary's is THEplace if you want a sit down meal at Midway. The plane did not leave until about 8 pm. The FAA had some sort control on, and my plane sat in Buffalo waiting for clearnace. Southwest airlines did a good job keeping me uptdate, though I found out the definition of a Southwest minue. 1 minute = 3 minutes. So if they say 15 minutes, plan on 45 LOL.

After a stop in Houston, arrived in San Antonio at 12:05. Was checked into the fairfiled Inn which is about 2 miles from Amtrak, and in bed by 12:45. Wake up at 6:20, shower, breakfast, and cabbed over to the station by 7:30. Momemnts later, we were allowed to board.

Consist was 1 engine, transition sleeper, diner, lounge(refurbished with tables on second level) 3 coaches and my sleeper. The sleeper was a superliner II, Tennesee. The state name was on the door that into the car on the second level, but it was not on the outside by the door where you enter from the platform. That seemd odd to me.

We backed out of the station on the ex sp main line, and then switched onto the line going north. The tracks were somewhat rough, and the scenery not that great. But I was on a train. 

The cold breakfast was adequate, as mentioned in earlier posts. If I had not iknown about it, I do not think I would have gotten it. The attendant never said anything. However, I think I was partly to blame. He made a brief appearance after I got on, noted that I had situated myself in the room, and said "well, you know your way around here I see." I said yes, and off he went. I was not thinking about breakfast at the time, so I forgot to ask. If you dont know the proceudre, you get it from the lounge car attendant.

The weather was cloudy and gray, thus the land scape was not coloful. This helped make the scenery seem boring. I did see an Antlope or dear. After Austin, the tracks run down the median of an expressway. That was kind of neat. We were on the last car, and I noticed concrete ties on this segment. Must be hard to maintain the tracks there.

Eventually, lunch was anounced. I was seated in with two people who were in room 10 accross the hall from me. I saw that one was reading Friday Night Lights which is about Texas high school footbal. We talked football throughtout lunch. I'm a Bears fan, they were 49's fans. You know i I talked some trash too since the Bears beat the 49's THIS YEAR.

The bad news . . . pre packaged meals are served on the Eagle too. The good news, the food was edible, and kind of good at times. Though not as good as freshly cooked meals, it was better than airline food. At breakfast, you do not get a choice of breakfast meats, you get what is prepackaged with the meal that you orders. I did not like this, because I like sausage, but I got ham instead.

The dining car crew was a mixed bag. The waiter was fun, the LSA was a jerk. He and I had the dining car AM dance at brekfast. I know full well that when a call isnot made, dont go in and ask. I always let some sucker go through first. I watch through the window, and if the person is seated, I shoot through the door and get a window seat. So I appled this approach this morning. The Am-idiot looked at me funny as I walked into the car. "What do you want?" I said, "Breakfast, I saw you that you seated those people, so I assumed th diner was open for service." He said sarcastically, "You assumed that". I said, "well it is a logical assumption. You sat them, the dining car is open" He responded, "I'm not logical." I responded, "Well that's obvious. Dont talk like that to me again. I didnt do anything to you." I went in and sat down. Needless to say, I was irritated.

The LSA and the waiter started talking trash about who was better at football. The waiter was getting the better of this conversation. When he brought my french toast, I added, "His butt never got off the bench, so he knows he coundnt tackle you. You can tell him that too." The wiater, however, had a good sense of humor and provided promp service. The LSA was slow cashing coach passengers checks out, and I doubt that there was a coach passenger who did not walk out of the diner irritated with this guy.

The porter in the sleeping car was pleasant. When I noticed that the toiliets in the car were not flusing, I told him. He made an effort to fix them, and then made arrangements for them to be fixed in Fort Worth. He thanked me for telling him.

The train had the usual freight issues, and we were 3 hours or more late for most of the trip. The scenery south of St. Louis is pleasant, especially where the train runs along the Mississippi.

The train status on a station by station basis lis listed below:

Dp san antonio 800 ot

dp san marcos 940 8min late

ar austin 1020

dp austin1031

ar taylor 1117

dp taylor 1126

ar temple 117 52 min late

dp temple 125 1hr late

dp mcgregor 200 1 hr 9 late

dp cleburne 319 1hr 19 late

dp. Ft worth 458 1 hr 38 late

dp dallas 621 1 hr 51 late

dp mineola 915 3hr 10 late

dp texarkana 1225 3 hr 12 late

dp poplar bluff 640 3 hrs 30

dp st louis 1151 3 hrs 21

dp springfield 217 3 hrs 47 late

dp lincoln 245 3 hrd 45 late

dp bloomington 315 3hrs 37 late

dp pontiac 355 3hrs 42 late

ar chicago 555 3hrs 41 late

Hope you ennjoyed the report.


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## MichigantoTexasbyrail (Dec 18, 2005)

Steve4031,

Thanks for the interesting report.

Did they kill ALL of the fresh-cooked food on the Texas Eagle, or just some of it? The food was awsome back in October. We were already looking forward to eating on the train again next year.

The veiws south of St. Louis is the best on the trip. Following the mighty Mississippi was neat, but the best scenery was a couple of hours south-west of St. Louis. The rocky cuts are cool, except where boulders fall on to the tracks in front of the rain, as they did once last summer.

Too bad the train running was late. Then again, so was your airplane. They lost, as they did last fall, almost all of the time in Texas. You did a really good job of keeping track of the status of the train. If the UP would just give the passenger train a break in Texas, on-performance for the whole trip would be pretty good. If not, the train should get a name change. Texas Turtle, maybe?

-Les in MI.


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## Trogdor (Dec 19, 2005)

Please report that LSA to Amtrak Customer Service. The description you gave here should suffice (the paragraph where you discuss the encounter with the LSA at breakfast, but leave out the "Am-idiot" part in the official complaint).

As for sleeper names, as the cars go through Beech Grove for a repaint, the names are being removed. Not entirely sure why. Probably because it costs more to put the name on than to not do so.


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## Sam Damon (Dec 19, 2005)

Robert,

There is at least one report out there that suggests the names are being taken off the cars simply because silly passengers think the car is actually travelling to the state the car is named for, and not recognizing it as a car name!

Maybe Amtrak should revive the "Glen" or "Rapids" series of car names?


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## Sam Damon (Dec 19, 2005)

Steve4031 said:


> The dining car crew was a mixed bag.  The waiter was fun, the LSA was a jerk.  He and I had the dining car AM dance at brekfast.  I know full well that when a call isnot made, dont go in and ask.  I always let some sucker go through first.  I watch through the window, and if the person is seated, I shoot through the door and get a window seat.  So I appled this approach this morning.  The Am-idiot looked at me funny as I walked into the car. "What do you want?"  I said, "Breakfast, I saw you that you seated those people, so I assumed th diner was open for service."  He said sarcastically, "You assumed that".   I said, "well it is a logical assumption.  You sat them, the dining car is open"  He responded,  "I'm not logical."  I responded, "Well that's obvious.  Dont talk like that to me again.  I didnt do anything to you."  I went in and sat down.  Needless to say, I was irritated.


Funny, I've never had that happen to me.

OTOH, my times in full dining cars, with the exception of my last Amtrak roundtrip, were always during nice, normal daylight hours.

On my most recent Amtrak trip on #29, I simply guessed that owing to the scheduling, the diner would open at 6:00a. After checking my cellphone clock (synched to the GPS clock), and making sure it was 6:01a or so, I simply walked in and asked if they were open. Maybe I just had a go-to crew.

I'd also like to think years in the journo trenches have given me the "don't screw with me" type of customer attitude. <_<


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## racer1735 (Dec 19, 2005)

Were the dining car meals pre-packaged throughout the trip, or just South of Fort Worth? If they were like that the entire trip, that's taken place since Dec. 1, as the meals on my trip on Dec. 1 was excellent. Seem's I've read posts regarding the downgrading of the meals within the past of week.


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## Steve4031 (Dec 19, 2005)

The meals were pre-packaged the whole trip. I really did not know until Breakfast. I had assumed that lunch and dinner were cooked as usual. One interersting thing was that the cheeseburger came with a bag of chips rather than just a few placed on the plate. I thought that the hamburger was similar to before. I did not like diner, but that was because the meat was more like pot roast than what I expected. I thought the quality was ok, but I did not like the preparation. I just did not read the menu carefully.

A note on the menus. Each table gets two xeroxed or typed menus where the pring is very smalll and hard for most passengers to read. This was rather strange to me.

As far as reporting the LSA, I thought about it, and I may still do it. It seams that most of these are getting weeded out.


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## battalion51 (Dec 19, 2005)

Well this guy won't be among them unless you speak up Steve! As the great Adam Ferrara said:

Female Voice: "If you don't know what you did wrong, I'm not going to tell you ."

Male Voice: "Fine then don't be surprised when this crap happens again!"


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## Steve4031 (Dec 19, 2005)

battalion51 said:


> Well this guy won't be among them unless you speak up Steve! As the great Adam Ferrara said:
> Female Voice: "If you don't know what you did wrong, I'm not going to tell you ."
> 
> Male Voice: "Fine then don't be surprised when this crap happens again!"


Ok, you got that right. I guess I will send a letter in to customer service. I really hate having to do this . . . and I hate having problems with goof balls on the train. Most of them try to do a good job and be pleasant.


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## Sam Damon (Dec 22, 2005)

Steve, it's a cliche, but you really do catch more flies with honey instead of vinegar.

Be sure to mention you're a loyal Amtrak customer... many employees give 110% every day... but this LSA just "had" to be the bad apple in the bunch.

It's quite possible this guy could get weeded out after your letter, if you write it correctly.


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## Steve4031 (Dec 22, 2005)

Sam Damon said:


> Steve, it's a cliche, but you really do catch more flies with honey instead of vinegar.
> Be sure to mention you're a loyal Amtrak customer... many employees give 110% every day... but this LSA just "had" to be the bad apple in the bunch.
> 
> It's quite possible this guy could get weeded out after your letter, if you write it correctly.


Well,

I went into the diner in a good mood. My strategy usually works. So this guy really caught me off guard. What was funny about this the football conversation. The waiter really took him apart.  At the time, I was thinking that it would be nice to run the ole nutcracker drill right there in the diner.


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