JCTakoma
Train Attendant
Sunny in the 70s at 10am, a beach full of chairs but largely empty of people. The crowds on the southern tip of South Beach tend not to wander north to the pricier and more family oriented restaurants of Lincoln Road, not to mention the top end hotels, on the northern part of South Beach. The bartender was just turning on the pina colada machine poolside, and we were sorely tempted. Sad, too, we couldn’t take one more stroll on Miami Beach’s beautiful winding beach walk shrouded in oleander, bougainvillea, and palmettos.
35 minutes by taxi to the train station, which is also not far from Miami’s international airport. Miami mandates a flat rate of $35 to and from the airport but we were on the meter to the train station, $41. Our driver, of Cuban descent, has lived in and around Miami all of his life, and had lots to say about Uber drivers, mostly favorable: “They make us taxis better.”
The station is in a dilapidated, quite poor part of Miami, but was itself clean and functional, if rather old and desperate for renovation or replacement. The fixtures in the men’s had been recently upgraded; masks certainly helped in there.
The station personnel we encountered were exceptional. A staffer popped out of an employees-only door and offered us a cheery good morning. A kindly station manager strolled through the masked crowd quietly advising passengers not to wait in the ticket line if they already had e-tickets, where to check their luggage, and how the boarding process would unfold. Our train awaited on the tracks outside.
We’d been booked automatically by the reservations system into a sleeper just behind the dining car. We called and asked to switch to the last car, which we’d heard was more likely to be one of the newer models. We paid a bit for the change, not that Amtrak is charging extra for the newer sleepers, but because prices in general had risen since or initial booking. We were excited to find ourselves in a brand new sleeper bedroom compartiment, happy that our gamble paid off, but laughed when we learned the train actually has three sleepers: a new, an old, and another new.
The physical quality of the room itself certainly exceeds anything one could get on the most exclusive first class flight. Lots of 120-v outlets. Bright overhead and vanity lighting, reading lights in every corner, and a pleasant blue night light. The ventilation fan speeds are easily controlled with simple shutters. Plenty of storage space for up to four carry-on roll-a boards, and more space under the sofa for hand bags. The closet could hold two suiters. The combo toilet and shower has decent elbow room and is simple to operate. There’s a ladder to the upper bunk. I do like these one-level cars for their roominess in the top bunk.
It’s all what the cruise ship industry would call a “refresh”. Structurally, it feels the same, but everything is, well, nice. The colors and shapes are minimalist modern rather than Orient Express, roughly comparable to what we saw recently on the Austrian night train between Vienna and Venice or the Caledonian between London and Inverness, a sure step above France’s 2003 night train between Toulouse and Paris.
What the manufacturer has done with the refresh strikes me as quite fine. As for the Amtrak linens and service, I’d suggest it be called minimalist. The towels are fine but not plush. The pillows are light foam. A topper for the lower bunk adds welcome cushion, and has a kind of foam lip, perhaps to keep the occupant from rolling onto the floor. The top bunk mattress is thicker than I remember from the Crescent. Ask me again tomorrow morning.
Most welcome, the dining car (aka the “First Class Lounge” according to the onboard announcement) is open for sleepers. Every other table is blocked off. There is no table service, but sleeper passengers are welcome to dine on their takeaway meals at these tables or in their compartments. The dining car is one of the newer ones, with the same wood finish trim and deco lighting as the new sleepers. The pull-down sunscreens are lovely. (I’ve been on other trains recently, specifically the Crescent, where staff have commandeered the dining car for their own lounge, no passengers allowed.)
We’ll get to know Preston, our sleeping car attendant, over the next two days. He’s a veteran of Amtrak, cheerful, very friendly, and so far has popped in three times to make sure everything’s ok, what I’d expect from first-class service. The food and drink service, alas, is international economy class at best, prepackaged meals warmed in an oven, served on a tray or in a bag. More on that after we’ve sampled dinner, but we presume it’ll be precisely what we had recently on the Crescent.
Haven’t figured out the dining car attendant’s name yet, but she and Preston have a jovial rapport that livens things up considerably. The service style throughout Amtrak’s system, when it’s working well, is what I like to call “American Neighborly”, as compared to Europe’s often “Cordially Efficient”. I rather like both, each in their own place.
For lunch as we passed West Palm Beach (still on time), we dined in our compartment on delicious “pizza rustica” and “pizza gran” delivered to our hotel the previous day by our Florida cousin. As the train headed inland toward Central Florida, the scenery quickly turned almost desert like, with scrubby pines and bushes, beautiful in its own way.
Around the town of Okeechobee, we moved to the dining car, where a complementary Barefoot Merlot perfectly accompanied a plastic-wrapped chocolate brownie. I get another “free” alcoholic drink tonight for dinner since my traveling companion is a teetotaler. We’ll forgo dessert at dinner in favor of a bag of Italian homemade pie crust cookies.
Lots of orange trees out the window, Tampa cigars up next, no sign yet of Mickey. So far a thoroughly pleasant and relaxing ride. And did I mention we’re only three minutes late on our first pass by Lakeland?
35 minutes by taxi to the train station, which is also not far from Miami’s international airport. Miami mandates a flat rate of $35 to and from the airport but we were on the meter to the train station, $41. Our driver, of Cuban descent, has lived in and around Miami all of his life, and had lots to say about Uber drivers, mostly favorable: “They make us taxis better.”
The station is in a dilapidated, quite poor part of Miami, but was itself clean and functional, if rather old and desperate for renovation or replacement. The fixtures in the men’s had been recently upgraded; masks certainly helped in there.
The station personnel we encountered were exceptional. A staffer popped out of an employees-only door and offered us a cheery good morning. A kindly station manager strolled through the masked crowd quietly advising passengers not to wait in the ticket line if they already had e-tickets, where to check their luggage, and how the boarding process would unfold. Our train awaited on the tracks outside.
We’d been booked automatically by the reservations system into a sleeper just behind the dining car. We called and asked to switch to the last car, which we’d heard was more likely to be one of the newer models. We paid a bit for the change, not that Amtrak is charging extra for the newer sleepers, but because prices in general had risen since or initial booking. We were excited to find ourselves in a brand new sleeper bedroom compartiment, happy that our gamble paid off, but laughed when we learned the train actually has three sleepers: a new, an old, and another new.
The physical quality of the room itself certainly exceeds anything one could get on the most exclusive first class flight. Lots of 120-v outlets. Bright overhead and vanity lighting, reading lights in every corner, and a pleasant blue night light. The ventilation fan speeds are easily controlled with simple shutters. Plenty of storage space for up to four carry-on roll-a boards, and more space under the sofa for hand bags. The closet could hold two suiters. The combo toilet and shower has decent elbow room and is simple to operate. There’s a ladder to the upper bunk. I do like these one-level cars for their roominess in the top bunk.
It’s all what the cruise ship industry would call a “refresh”. Structurally, it feels the same, but everything is, well, nice. The colors and shapes are minimalist modern rather than Orient Express, roughly comparable to what we saw recently on the Austrian night train between Vienna and Venice or the Caledonian between London and Inverness, a sure step above France’s 2003 night train between Toulouse and Paris.
What the manufacturer has done with the refresh strikes me as quite fine. As for the Amtrak linens and service, I’d suggest it be called minimalist. The towels are fine but not plush. The pillows are light foam. A topper for the lower bunk adds welcome cushion, and has a kind of foam lip, perhaps to keep the occupant from rolling onto the floor. The top bunk mattress is thicker than I remember from the Crescent. Ask me again tomorrow morning.
Most welcome, the dining car (aka the “First Class Lounge” according to the onboard announcement) is open for sleepers. Every other table is blocked off. There is no table service, but sleeper passengers are welcome to dine on their takeaway meals at these tables or in their compartments. The dining car is one of the newer ones, with the same wood finish trim and deco lighting as the new sleepers. The pull-down sunscreens are lovely. (I’ve been on other trains recently, specifically the Crescent, where staff have commandeered the dining car for their own lounge, no passengers allowed.)
We’ll get to know Preston, our sleeping car attendant, over the next two days. He’s a veteran of Amtrak, cheerful, very friendly, and so far has popped in three times to make sure everything’s ok, what I’d expect from first-class service. The food and drink service, alas, is international economy class at best, prepackaged meals warmed in an oven, served on a tray or in a bag. More on that after we’ve sampled dinner, but we presume it’ll be precisely what we had recently on the Crescent.
Haven’t figured out the dining car attendant’s name yet, but she and Preston have a jovial rapport that livens things up considerably. The service style throughout Amtrak’s system, when it’s working well, is what I like to call “American Neighborly”, as compared to Europe’s often “Cordially Efficient”. I rather like both, each in their own place.
For lunch as we passed West Palm Beach (still on time), we dined in our compartment on delicious “pizza rustica” and “pizza gran” delivered to our hotel the previous day by our Florida cousin. As the train headed inland toward Central Florida, the scenery quickly turned almost desert like, with scrubby pines and bushes, beautiful in its own way.
Around the town of Okeechobee, we moved to the dining car, where a complementary Barefoot Merlot perfectly accompanied a plastic-wrapped chocolate brownie. I get another “free” alcoholic drink tonight for dinner since my traveling companion is a teetotaler. We’ll forgo dessert at dinner in favor of a bag of Italian homemade pie crust cookies.
Lots of orange trees out the window, Tampa cigars up next, no sign yet of Mickey. So far a thoroughly pleasant and relaxing ride. And did I mention we’re only three minutes late on our first pass by Lakeland?
