1st Trip

[Arush99153]

My 5 year old son is a train fanatic and so we've decided to take him on a short trip on Amtrak. it's our first time to travel by rail. we'll be taking the Texas Eagle from Marshall to Dallas and then returning two days later on the same route. Can anybody tell me what to expect. the Amtrak website isn't very helpful. do they have a obsveration car on this route and how kid friendly is it? do we need to bring our own food or do they have a dining area where we can purchase something if he gets hungry? any and all help would be greatly appreciated. the trip is only 4 hours which is about as long as he could take anyway but i want to know what to expect if anybody could help.

Thank you!

 

[Acela150]

You can expect delays or the train being canceled due to flooding along the Mississippi river which the train follows for quite some time. Their is a sightseer lounge which is a main attraction for passengers. Passengers often grab a seat and sit there all day. But your five year old will love it the windows which are from floor to roof. Breakfast should still be served when you board the train, ask your attendant if breakfast is still being served in the dining car. If your riding in sleeper service your meals are free but, if your riding in coach you will pay for a full breakfast. Prices vary on the food. If breakfast is not being served you can go to the sightseer lounge which serves egg McMuffins which I call egg McAmtrak, muffins, danish, and other items for a maximum price of $5 per item. Juices, coffee and tea are also served.

I hope that your son has fun on his first Amtrak ride. I would bring along a story or music that he likes seeing that the trip is four hours or more. You can check the train status on Amtrak's web site Amtrak.com. On the main page scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a box that says train status. Enter the arrival city and train number in your case you put can put Marshall, TX or the station code which is MHL and the train number which is 21 and the status should pop up. I typically check the status of that train that I will ride for a month ahead to average it's arrival time.

I hope you have fun. I would like to know how your trip was and how your son thought it was, you can drop me an e-mail at amtrak1971 at yahoo.com

Best wishes,

Acela150

Edited the email to keep the spam bots from picking it up.

 

Moderator

 

[AlanB]

You can expect delays or the train being canceled due to flooding along the Mississippi river which the train follows for quite some time.

Unless the trip is within the next 5 or 6 days, the flooding shouldn't be a issue, unless still more heavy rain falls on the area later this week.

I hope you have fun. I would like to know how your trip was and how your son thought it was, you can drop me an e-mail at amtrak1971 at yahoo.com

If you just enable emails in your profile, it won't be necessary to post your email in the clear and risk getting spam. Members will be able to click on your name to the left of your posts and send you either an email or a PM.

Although I suspect that all of our members here would love to hear how the trip went, so I would encourage Arush to simply make a post in our Trip report forum, rather than emailing you directly.

Arush, even though you're only taking a short trip, you might wish to review these Hints & Tips from On Track On Line.

 

[AKA]

Arush, you may want to bring along a favorite food or snack or toy. Its only four hours but it could turn into a long four hours and something familiar might be welcome for a 5 year old. I hope he likes the trip. We can use a new long time passenger.

 

[Arush99153]

thank you for the help. we're not leaving until sometime in may so i'm hoping the flooding issues will be over by then. i just wanted to make sure that the staff on the train wasn't going to have problems with a 5 year old wanting to look out the windows and ask questions during the trip. i've read a few stories about staff being rude and unreseptive to young children on the trains and i wanted to make sure i wasn't going to encounter a problem with it. he really wants to travel on an amtrak train and i wanted to make his first experience a positive one.

 

[user 1215]

No matter what, I'm sure you'll enjoy your trip. Be sure to call "Julie" (Amtrak's automated reservation system) about an hour or two before your departure to ensure it is running on time. Your "reserved seats" don't mean reserved seats, but rather a reservation on the train. They may seat you if they are close to being full, or they may just tell you to find a seat. In that case, find a few seats together that don't have a white paper tag on the overhead bin - those are seat checks, and those seats are taken.

I suggest that when you get to Dallas, you buy a 2-zone day pass to ride DART. The 2-zone will allow you to go on to Fort Worth on the Trinity Railway Express (make sure you check the schedules!) and will also give you full access to the little yellow DART trains in Dallas (they run every 10 minutes or so and hard to get abandoned on unless you're playing after 10 PM or so).

Take some time to enjoy the historical station at Marshall. It's been well preserved. When I went to College in Longview, I wish that I had taken the train instead of the dumb Greyhound bus from Dallas to Longview. I'll never make that mistake again.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

What we were referring to, with respect to children, is children, more infants and young toddlers, screaching, carrying on, whining, and so forth, without parents seeming to do anything to get them to stop, and particularly during hours people normally sleep. For the most part, most of us generally enjoy children on trains.