# Silver Star from Miami to Richmond



## snvboy (Jan 11, 2015)

T'was the week before Christmas and all through our house,

not a creature was stirring,

because we went on a short cruise to the Bahamas and took the train back home.

I've been lurking for the past week or so and enjoying everybody's trip reports. But I'm not too much of a fan of the photo capabilities of the forum software (but am not REALLY complaining, since I'm new here). So, hopefully I'm not out of line linking out to the photos and the bulk of the travelogue at a different site:

https://snvboy.exposure.co/cruise-2014

look for the "All Aboard" headline halfway through if you don't care about the cruise.

A few other tidbits to add for the railfans:

Walking back from the beverage cubby just after pulling out of Miami, I said "Good Morning" to a little old lady in a roomette whose door was open. She caught my attention, and asked when her SCA would be by that she was hungry for lunch. She wasn't very mobile, so I hunted down our SCA and let him know that she needed some assistance and some lunch. After getting lunch ourselves in the diner, I was getting some more ice from the beverage cubby and checked in on her. She was fed, happy, and showered me with thanks for helping her out. +1 in my karma bucket.

I saw her later getting off the train at Winter Haven. A pretty short trip for getting a roomette, but hey, if it works for her then more power to her!

Ice. Why is it like pulling teeth to get an SCA to have ice on their station? Does anybody really want to be drinking warm OJ? It's another one of those little inconsistencies from one SCA to another. I gave up and just started taking it from the next sleeper, which had plenty of ice.

The new baggage cars really look sharp. We passed a bunch of them in the Hialeah yard, and later passed one of the test trains hauling them. This was my first time in a Viewliner sleeper. We had a bedroom, but I'm curious how many people actually use the commode in the roomette. I think they are probably making a good move taking them out on the new cars. Hopefully they will also be doing the "toilet in the corner" layout that the new Superliner equipment has. It makes for SO much more room - especially for a big guy like me. I'm amazed that the airlines haven't used this layout.

Cruisers. We weren't the only ones. I mention one of them that we had dinner with. We also had lunch with a couple that was returning from a two week cruise, and they cruise a lot. That might be an area for Amtrak to look at for some more marketing opportunities, especially if they could figure out a smooth way to transfer bags and passengers.

I hope you enjoy the travelogue above. Please let me know if there is any interest in posting some "in arrears" from trips I've taken in the past couple years.

Next up for me will be Charlottesville to Emeryville on the Cardinal and Zephyr. A note on that - when I was booking it, the bedrooms were a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the roomette. I jumped on it (of course) but don't know if that is a pricing glitch, or a strategy to fill the bedrooms with pax traveling the entire route so they can resell a roomette a couple times on the run.

Cheers,

Ben


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## Railroad Bill (Jan 11, 2015)

Enjoyed your trip report. We are leaving this week for a trip on the Meteor to Winter Park, FL. Hoping for good weather and a great train crew..


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## Alice (Jan 11, 2015)

Enjoyed both cruise and train parts. How about adding just a few shots from the writeup here?


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## caravanman (Jan 12, 2015)

Hi,

Enjoyed the report, the pics are very well displayed on that site...

Most of us rail fans enjoy reading about other folks trips, so if you fancy writing up about your past trips, please go ahead.

As to prices of bedrooms, etc, I imagine it is just one of those things... if a lot of roomettes are booked, then those remaining will cost a lot, while on the same train, the bedrooms may remain unsold, so remain in the low price bracket.

Cheers,

Ed 

ps, I gather that Amtrak are phasing out the ice in the sleepers, due to "food hygiene" reasons...


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## cirdan (Jan 12, 2015)

Great report, and great pictures!!


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## snvboy (Jan 12, 2015)

Thanks for the feedback!

As requested, here are a few photos as many photos as the forum will let me post here  . You can see all of them at https://snvboy.exposure.co/cruise-2014





Our travel mascot, Happy Turtle.




Loading baggage in Tampa.




An old Amtrak logo along with the new.




Viewliner selfie in bedroom B.




Crossing the James River headed into Richmond.


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## MrFSS (Jan 12, 2015)

snvboy said:


> Thanks for the feedback!
> 
> As requested, here are a few photos as many photos as the forum will let me post here  . You can see all of them at https://snvboy.exposure.co/cruise-2014
> 
> ...


You can post all you want - just start a new message to add more. A message in the thread only allows 7-8 I think.


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## bobnjulie (Jan 13, 2015)

Great report and wonderful photos! I still can't figure out how to post pictures in reports so I'm impressed all the way around!


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