Albany-->Denver

[keelhauled]

Boarded the Lake Shore Limited in Albany on the evening of the 13th. In keeping with the fine Amtrak tradition of efficiency and timeliness, they didn't start combining the two halves until about ten of seven. They began boarding a little after seven (at about the time we were supposed to be leaving). To their credit, boarding went quickly, and we left about twenty minutes late.

I decided to spend the money on a roomete for this leg, so I after the SCA (Leroy) introduced himself, I went to dinner. I hadn't had dinner on Amtrak for several years, so I was a little apprehensive given the fuss about budget cuts.

I had mixed feelings about the cuts. They were noticeable, but at the same time I think some of the sky is falling attitudes are overreacting. I really don't care about paper tablecloths or plastic plates. If anything, I thought that some of that made the diner more efficient-the servers could just pull off a sheet of paper to clean the table, for example. And given the number of people who were eating, I will happily take some trade offs in terms of class or style or whatever you want to call it for getting people through quickly.

On the other hand I do think that some of the actual food cutbacks have gone a little far. I had the steak, which I thought was perfectly fine, but the woman I was seated with had a lasagna that looked a little...shall I say sparse. To be fair I have no idea what people who complain about the salad are talking about, it was totally fine.

Anyway, I finished dinner somewhere between Schenectady and Utica. We stopped for a while before Utica. And again after Utica. And again. And again. I fell asleep for a while, woke up at Rochester (at which point we were about two and a half hours behind), then fell asleep until we reached Cleveland at daybreak. Now I have nothing against Cleveland, but I don't really want to see it when we were supposed to have been long gone under the cover of darkness. It was about then that I started getting concerned about the Chicago connection. Especially when we sat at the Sandusky station for most of my breakfast (which was as good as I remember, no complaints there). After that though we made decent time, lost another half an hour by Indiana, but I guess the schedule into Chicago is padded some, because we made that back up and arrived at one almost exactly, a little over three hours late. Kudos to Norfolk Souther dispatchers. CSX could learn something from them.

There was about forty minutes before they started boarding the California Zephyr. From the Great Hall, which was the first time that had happened to me. Although it has been a while since I've been in Union Station, maybe it's common practice for long distance trains now, the Texas Eagle also boarded there.

I am now sitting in coach (couldn't really justify two nights in sleeper) on the CZ, somewhere in Chicago suburbia. We left right on time, and promptly came to a stop within five minutes. We got going again pretty quickly though, with a little luck the timekeeping will be better than the Lake Shore, which definitely earned the "Late for sure Limited" nickname.

 

[MrEd]

thanks for the trip report and enjoy the rest of your journey.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Nice trip report! Looking forward to Part II on the Zephyr in Coach to Denver!!

 

[neroden]

To be fair I have no idea what people who complain about the salad are talking about, it was totally fine.

Well, I was complaining about its absence! It's fine when it's *present*!

 

[keelhauled]

The California Zephyr was very uneventful, which is just how I like my travel to be. We left on time, and pretty much stayed that way the whole time, arriving in Denver about ten minutes early. Seemed like half the train was getting off there, at least in coach. With some people, but not a ton, boarding to go west, it must have been a pretty empty train over the Rockies. (As an aside, the LSL was packed. From what I could see the sleepers were pretty full, and a crew member I talked to said there was hardly an empty seat in coach).

This was my first time in a Superliner train, and I was very impressed. Having the full length of the diner for seating was a night and day difference from the Heritage diners. So much more efficient and pleasant. The lounge car was also very pleasant, I spent most of the evening there before I went back to my seat to go to sleep. Probably I'll spend most of the trip back in there. I don't know if it was just due to being higher, but it did seem to ride a little rougher than the single level equipment. I guess it could also be because we were going faster, we seemed to be almost always doing the full 79 mph, rather than how the LSL seems to speed up and slow down every few minutes.

I'll be doing the whole thing again backwards on my way home next weekend, will update again then.

 

[amtkstn]

Most of the CZ route does not see a lot of freight trains.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

After riding the CZ in late January, I realized that the dining cars are now serving a larger tossed salad instead of the small salads that use to be already on the table when you entered. The difference is that the salad is no longer included in the entree price for coach passengers. It a separate item and still included in the sleepers meal. You just have to let the waiter know you want it. When I was on the CZ, the waiter asked if I wanted the salad so I did not have to personally request it.

 

[keelhauled]

A belated update, before I completely forget everything.

I left Denver Saturday night. Waited in the station for a little while, first time I've spent much time there since the renovation. It's a little odd to be decorated like a giant living room, but I guess it works, place was busy. And the building looks beautiful, they did a very good job with the restoration. It's also weird to stand in a large platform complex with one train, but once the commuter rail starts up, it should look like a proper station. The Zephyr was about half an hour late, which wasn't unexpected. Although apparently no one told the station personnel, they said boarding was starting a little before seven, when the train wasn't even in the station yet. It seemed to take forever to get out of Denver, I didn't think it had been that slow entering, and we lost some time to Fort Morgan. I fell asleep after that, and woke up a little before Omaha. I didn't bother with breakfast (bought a pizza from the cafe late morning), but found a seat in the lounge and stayed there for pretty much the whole way into Chicago. We gradually made up time through Illinois, and actually arrived about ten minutes ahead of schedule.

After spending a little time in Chicago, I went back to Union Station about 8:00, and waited in the lounge there since I was in sleeper on the way back to Albany. It's very pleasant. Miraculously, since that day's 49 had arrived in the middle of the afternoon (it was sitting in the station a couple tracks over from where the Zephyr arrived), the yard crew apparently got the trainset cleaned and stocked quickly, and we left on time. This was by far the most impressive and surprising part of the trip east, since I think pretty much every other 48 in the days on either side of my trip left Chicago late.

I fell asleep very quickly, somewhere before South Bend, and slept straight through till somewhere between Erie and Buffalo. In another shocking turn of events, we were actually pretty much on time at that point. Unfortunately, it didn't last. New York state was a struggle again. I'm not sure how much of that was CSX's fault, I don't remember us actually stopping that much, and how much was Amtrak's--every stop turned into at least ten minutes of sitting at the station. The train was very full, so I guess there were a lot of people getting on and off, but still, I don't see any reason for station stops to take that long. And if it's regular, then Amtrak should really revise the schedule to take it into account.

By the time we reached Albany we were a little over an hour late. And then we sat on the west side of the Hudson bridge for about twenty minutes. I have no idea why. Then they split the train in the yard before the station, which killed another half hour before they finally brought the train up to the platform. So in the space of about half a mile we went from an hour late to almost two. I was not impressed at all. And looking at the status maps, this was actually one of the best eastbound runs recently.

I was very happy with the on board crew on all legs of the trip. Especially the conductor on the eastbound Zephyr, who was very good at communicating with the passengers. Every time we stopped for any reason, he would immediately get on the PA and tell us exactly why. I wish all crews did that. I personally don't have any issues with Amtrak's on board service. But even the best crew in the world means a lot less to me than the perpetual struggles with on time performance, especially on the Lake Shore Limited. I personally use Amtrak as transportation, first and foremost. Yes, there's a leisure component--I don't get away from home that much, so I do trade the speed of flying for getting to see more of the country than the tops of clouds. But I will never take a train just for the sake of taking the train, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the majority here. I think it's safe to say that long distance coach passengers aren't taking joyrides for the fun of it, and even if every sleeper passenger save me is (also not the case, based on my conversations with sleeper passengers on this trip and past ones, I think it's a fairly even split), they're still outnumbered by those in coach.

I will admit to being an Amtrak apologist in some cases. But there are no excuses for continued extreme tardiness. This is not a new problem. I get that there are factors outside Amtrak's immediate control that will cause random, if maybe spectacular, cases of late trains. But in the case of the LSL (I am biased here, it's the long distance I've taken more than any other, by a huge margin), it's not random. This train has literally been consistently late for years. To be honest, I have no idea why it's still so popular. There is no justification for Amtrak to accept this. And it's frustrating to see such wasted potential. People are still riding this train. Both directions were full in both coach and, I'm pretty sure, sleeper (the diner stayed busy, and according to a conversation I overheard in Chicago's lounge, there was only a single bedroom available on the train, at least end to end). But they are being pathetically failed by Amtrak, who apparently has decided that as long as they still sell tickets there's no reason to try and improve anything. Why have they not gone after CSX and NS for continued failure to get trains over the road the way they did CN in Illinois? Why are the yards (especially Sunnyside recently) apparently wholly incompetent at getting trains out on time? Why are there no contingency plans for when things go down the tubes? Hell, as far as I'm concerned they might as well do some triage on the system and kill the Cardinal to get the LSL more capacity. Or enough protect cars to get a fourth consist made up if needed.

I know that's probably never going to happen. Maybe it's a good thing it won't. But I plan on taking another trip west again next winter, and as much as I enjoy riding Amtrak, I might just fly, at least to Chicago. Because as far as I'm concerned, if Amtrak can't get me where I'm going reliably, then I'll find some way that can. I suppose they'll always a market of people that will ride trains just because they can. But if Amtrak can't get their operations sorted out to provide effective transportation, than I worry that maybe that's eventually all that the long distance routes will shrink to. And if that happens, well, I don't really think I could justify supporting subsidizing them. I don't really want to see my taxes go to supporting land cruises. It seems to me like in some ways the next few years are make or break for the long distance trains. The market has never been bigger, but I think there's a real risk of it plunging again if customers keep experiencing the same inconsistent service they get now.

Maybe this has been said as long as Amtrak has existed. I wouldn't know, I've only been riding trains for less than a decade. It's entirely possible that this this just the grumblings of one temporarily disgruntled customer (I have had by far more positive experiences on Amtrak than negative), and by the time it comes to book my next long distance trip I'll have smoothed over the rough memories. But still, there's no way to deny that Amtrak definitely left me with a bad taste in my mouth this time.