Seaboard92
Engineer
Trip Planning
For starters in August we entered into an agreement to buy the railcar Pacific Park at Beech Grove, IN from it's owner. This trip we are making now is related to getting the car ready for work. At the end of the report I'll post more about the car and the plans for the car.
The planning for the last trip of 2020 started in November. My friends and I floated dates starting in October for our second trip to Beech Grove. Honestly we regretted putting it off to December as the first two days were too cold to get a lot done. With the new tri weekly schedule in effect it makes it very difficult to get around on national network trains.
Usually I would take the Crescent to Manassas and connect to the Cardinal there after having breakfast in town. When you want to do a work week starting on Monday it eliminates taking the Silver Meteor because it doesn’t run north on weekends.
So that left me with having to overnight in DC on the way to Beech Grove. Which left me with three options.
Further into this planning my other friend Brian decided he would want to ride with me. So he booked a flight to DC so he could ride the Cardinal with me. Now that I had a friend to split the cost of the roomette with on the Cardinal I decided to splurge on the Silver Star for my first and final legs of the trip. Normally I would board at Camden because it is closest to where I live but I needed to check a bag so Columbia won my business this time.
Coming back I would take the Blue Water and the Capitol Limited from the Midwest.
Day Zero
I woke up at the same time I normally would wake up on my day off which is about ten am planning to pack in the morning. I pulled my suitcase out in the morning but that was about the only progress I made. At seven PM five hours after my goal to be finished with packing tools I started gathering from my tool collection. It only took an hour to have all of my tools gathered in the old army tool bag my dad gave me from his days in the service.
I didn’t start packing my actual suitcase till 11 and finished at 12:30 after careful consideration of the weather in Indy. I am not used to long prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures outside. The Silver Star leaves Columbia a few minutes after four and I wanted to make sure I left my house at 2:30 so I had extra time to make it to the station.
For starters in August we entered into an agreement to buy the railcar Pacific Park at Beech Grove, IN from it's owner. This trip we are making now is related to getting the car ready for work. At the end of the report I'll post more about the car and the plans for the car.
The planning for the last trip of 2020 started in November. My friends and I floated dates starting in October for our second trip to Beech Grove. Honestly we regretted putting it off to December as the first two days were too cold to get a lot done. With the new tri weekly schedule in effect it makes it very difficult to get around on national network trains.
Usually I would take the Crescent to Manassas and connect to the Cardinal there after having breakfast in town. When you want to do a work week starting on Monday it eliminates taking the Silver Meteor because it doesn’t run north on weekends.
So that left me with having to overnight in DC on the way to Beech Grove. Which left me with three options.
- The Palmetto with two nights in DC
- The Carolinian with one night in DC
- The Silver Star with one night in DC
Further into this planning my other friend Brian decided he would want to ride with me. So he booked a flight to DC so he could ride the Cardinal with me. Now that I had a friend to split the cost of the roomette with on the Cardinal I decided to splurge on the Silver Star for my first and final legs of the trip. Normally I would board at Camden because it is closest to where I live but I needed to check a bag so Columbia won my business this time.
Coming back I would take the Blue Water and the Capitol Limited from the Midwest.
Day Zero
I woke up at the same time I normally would wake up on my day off which is about ten am planning to pack in the morning. I pulled my suitcase out in the morning but that was about the only progress I made. At seven PM five hours after my goal to be finished with packing tools I started gathering from my tool collection. It only took an hour to have all of my tools gathered in the old army tool bag my dad gave me from his days in the service.
I didn’t start packing my actual suitcase till 11 and finished at 12:30 after careful consideration of the weather in Indy. I am not used to long prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures outside. The Silver Star leaves Columbia a few minutes after four and I wanted to make sure I left my house at 2:30 so I had extra time to make it to the station.