Ispolkom
Engineer
I just got back from riding the Cardinal with Amtrak's sole remaining dome car from Chicago to Washington (or, actually, Alexandria).
The good:
1) The dome car. It was great to eat dinner in the dome car riding through the twilight south of Chicago, seeing over the cars in front of us to watch the signals change. It was also great to have the superior view from the dome car while going through the New River Gorge and into Virginia.
2) The Viewliner roomette. This was the first time I had a chance to sleep in the upper bunk of a viewliner roomette, and it's vastly superior to the Superliner equivalent, both in the width of the bunk, the amount of headroom you have, and, especially the windows you can look out of if you can't sleep.
3) AGR's response. I was traveling on the Empire Builder from Minot, No. Dak., to connect to the Cardinal, on a two-zone AGR award. Since the westbound #7 is turned around and becomes the eastbound #8, I knew on Thursday afternoon that Friday evening's westbound Empire Builder would be too late to connect to Saturday evening's Cardinal. (In the end it was more than 5 hours late.) It took 45 minutes talking to both an agent and her supervisor, but I did get moved to the previous day's train. Sure, I had to find my own accommodations in Chicago for a night, but this is the first time I've ever convinced AGR to let me spend the night in Chicago.
4) The sleeping car attendant, Brian, and the dinette-lounge attendants. They were always working hard, but still were very friendly, and put up with those of us who took our meals back to the dome.
The indifferent:
The food on the Cardinal. Saturday's pot roast dinner was perfectly fine (it's hard to screw up reheating pot roast), but those French toast sticks are nasty! And boy that one-car lounge dinette is not optimal at all.
The bad:
The conductors. I've never been a big fan of Amtrak conductors, whose demeanor ranges from mediocre to downright hostile, but people have been complaining about imperious conductors since they first strode the passenger cars. I'm sure there are many excellent conductors on Amtrak, but I've encountered enough bad apples that I would never, for instance, bother to try for an on-board upgrade.
Their behavior on this train, though, was really suboptimal. It ranged from claiming that the great dome wasn't on the manifest, to that it was closed, to "Well, I'm not going to announce that this car is on the train because those coach passengers would just trash it." (Quoted from memory, but not made up.) I went to bed relatively early, and only went back to the dome later the next morning, so other riders had to argue with the conductors about riding in the car that was, of course, the whole point of the trip.
Heck, since the sleeper was at the front of the train and the Great Dome was the last Amtrak car on the train (there were two private cars at the end of the consist), I walked through the cars at least half a dozen times. I noticed that the conductors, or the attendants, or someone, kept pushing coach passengers into the first three, or even first two coaches. Really. I'd walk through two crowded coaches, and then two empty ones. I'm sure that this is more convenient for the crew, but it's wretched customer service if the crew's convenience trumps passenger comfort. And what's the point of having the Dome car on, if you're not going to tell passengers about it? Especially if it's isolated by one or two coaches passengers have been told not to sit in.
Good idea, poor execution.
The good:
1) The dome car. It was great to eat dinner in the dome car riding through the twilight south of Chicago, seeing over the cars in front of us to watch the signals change. It was also great to have the superior view from the dome car while going through the New River Gorge and into Virginia.
2) The Viewliner roomette. This was the first time I had a chance to sleep in the upper bunk of a viewliner roomette, and it's vastly superior to the Superliner equivalent, both in the width of the bunk, the amount of headroom you have, and, especially the windows you can look out of if you can't sleep.
3) AGR's response. I was traveling on the Empire Builder from Minot, No. Dak., to connect to the Cardinal, on a two-zone AGR award. Since the westbound #7 is turned around and becomes the eastbound #8, I knew on Thursday afternoon that Friday evening's westbound Empire Builder would be too late to connect to Saturday evening's Cardinal. (In the end it was more than 5 hours late.) It took 45 minutes talking to both an agent and her supervisor, but I did get moved to the previous day's train. Sure, I had to find my own accommodations in Chicago for a night, but this is the first time I've ever convinced AGR to let me spend the night in Chicago.
4) The sleeping car attendant, Brian, and the dinette-lounge attendants. They were always working hard, but still were very friendly, and put up with those of us who took our meals back to the dome.
The indifferent:
The food on the Cardinal. Saturday's pot roast dinner was perfectly fine (it's hard to screw up reheating pot roast), but those French toast sticks are nasty! And boy that one-car lounge dinette is not optimal at all.
The bad:
The conductors. I've never been a big fan of Amtrak conductors, whose demeanor ranges from mediocre to downright hostile, but people have been complaining about imperious conductors since they first strode the passenger cars. I'm sure there are many excellent conductors on Amtrak, but I've encountered enough bad apples that I would never, for instance, bother to try for an on-board upgrade.
Their behavior on this train, though, was really suboptimal. It ranged from claiming that the great dome wasn't on the manifest, to that it was closed, to "Well, I'm not going to announce that this car is on the train because those coach passengers would just trash it." (Quoted from memory, but not made up.) I went to bed relatively early, and only went back to the dome later the next morning, so other riders had to argue with the conductors about riding in the car that was, of course, the whole point of the trip.
Heck, since the sleeper was at the front of the train and the Great Dome was the last Amtrak car on the train (there were two private cars at the end of the consist), I walked through the cars at least half a dozen times. I noticed that the conductors, or the attendants, or someone, kept pushing coach passengers into the first three, or even first two coaches. Really. I'd walk through two crowded coaches, and then two empty ones. I'm sure that this is more convenient for the crew, but it's wretched customer service if the crew's convenience trumps passenger comfort. And what's the point of having the Dome car on, if you're not going to tell passengers about it? Especially if it's isolated by one or two coaches passengers have been told not to sit in.
Good idea, poor execution.
