During August 2013, my wife and I traveled from Los Angeles to Temple Texas to visit family at Fort Hood. The trip was via the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle (422/421) in sleepers 2230-E and 2130-D. The outbound trip was briefly described here…
http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/56359-sunset-limitedtexas-eagle-42214-trip/
This describes our return trip to Los Angeles. On Wednesday, August 21, Train 21 from Chicago was almost 3 and ½ hours late arriving at Temple where we boarded. Earlier in the day, #21 was a little more than 5 hours behind schedule. I was monitoring the progress of trains #21 and #1 via status alert emails from the Amtrak Status Map website.
Because the southbound Texas Eagle was so late Charity, the Amtrak station attendant at Temple, took our dinner order and passed it via phone to “JJ”, the conductor onboard the train. “JJ” passed that on to our SCA Tony who placed our order with the dining car. A very nice gesture! She offered to do this -- it didn’t occur to me to even ask. Shortly after we boarded at 8:00 pm, dinner was brought to our room in the 2130 car. The trip from Temple to San Antonio was uneventful and we arrived at 11:59 pm, about 2 hours late. “JJ” the conductor did his usual announcements of the sights we were passing and information about them. When we arrived in San Antonio, the westbound Sunset Limited #1 was already in the station. Tony, our SCA, was a pleasure to have attending to our requests. Interestingly, we were in the exact same sleeping car that we had for the first leg of our trip … #32106 formerly “Pennsylvania”.
After switching maneuvers to place the 2130 sleeper and 2115 coach on the rear of the Sunset Limited, we departed San Antonio on time and headed west. We were pretty much on time until Maricopa where, even though we arrived on time, were 30 minutes late departing. With multiple spots and, from what I could gather from listening to the scanner, it sounded like some complications with the crew change. We were over an hour late at Yuma and Palm Springs and arriving 5 minutes early at Los Angeles on Friday morning.
Jesus, our SCA, was very responsive to our requests. We had him bring our meals to our room and each time put down a table cloth (napkin), real metal eating utensils and, salt and pepper shakers. At dinner he brought the salads, etc. first and returned 15 minutes later with the entrée. He really earned my show of appreciation that I presented when we arrived in Los Angeles.
Except for the extra wait at Temple Texas to board the train, the experience was very good. Visiting with Charity and several other passengers helped to pass the time. By the way, there is a very interesting railroad museum co-located at the depot…the Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum.
Look forward to doing it again.
PS…I’ll describe the switching moves in San Antonio in an upcoming post. As there seems to be a lot of questions regarding this, I paid particular attention to this on both legs of the trip.
Photo: Station stop in Alpine, Texas Thursday August 22. Our sleeper was blocking the street!
http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/56359-sunset-limitedtexas-eagle-42214-trip/
This describes our return trip to Los Angeles. On Wednesday, August 21, Train 21 from Chicago was almost 3 and ½ hours late arriving at Temple where we boarded. Earlier in the day, #21 was a little more than 5 hours behind schedule. I was monitoring the progress of trains #21 and #1 via status alert emails from the Amtrak Status Map website.
Because the southbound Texas Eagle was so late Charity, the Amtrak station attendant at Temple, took our dinner order and passed it via phone to “JJ”, the conductor onboard the train. “JJ” passed that on to our SCA Tony who placed our order with the dining car. A very nice gesture! She offered to do this -- it didn’t occur to me to even ask. Shortly after we boarded at 8:00 pm, dinner was brought to our room in the 2130 car. The trip from Temple to San Antonio was uneventful and we arrived at 11:59 pm, about 2 hours late. “JJ” the conductor did his usual announcements of the sights we were passing and information about them. When we arrived in San Antonio, the westbound Sunset Limited #1 was already in the station. Tony, our SCA, was a pleasure to have attending to our requests. Interestingly, we were in the exact same sleeping car that we had for the first leg of our trip … #32106 formerly “Pennsylvania”.
After switching maneuvers to place the 2130 sleeper and 2115 coach on the rear of the Sunset Limited, we departed San Antonio on time and headed west. We were pretty much on time until Maricopa where, even though we arrived on time, were 30 minutes late departing. With multiple spots and, from what I could gather from listening to the scanner, it sounded like some complications with the crew change. We were over an hour late at Yuma and Palm Springs and arriving 5 minutes early at Los Angeles on Friday morning.
Jesus, our SCA, was very responsive to our requests. We had him bring our meals to our room and each time put down a table cloth (napkin), real metal eating utensils and, salt and pepper shakers. At dinner he brought the salads, etc. first and returned 15 minutes later with the entrée. He really earned my show of appreciation that I presented when we arrived in Los Angeles.
Except for the extra wait at Temple Texas to board the train, the experience was very good. Visiting with Charity and several other passengers helped to pass the time. By the way, there is a very interesting railroad museum co-located at the depot…the Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum.
Look forward to doing it again.
PS…I’ll describe the switching moves in San Antonio in an upcoming post. As there seems to be a lot of questions regarding this, I paid particular attention to this on both legs of the trip.
Photo: Station stop in Alpine, Texas Thursday August 22. Our sleeper was blocking the street!
