Crescent discussion

[glensfallsse]

I’m on the northbound Crescent, currently sitting at 30th Street with some kind of mechanical issue. Sure would be nice to have 245 back to protect me on the final leg to Albany in case we get in late. Looks like that’ll be the last train that comes back, if at all.
Not much of a train if you’re taking it for train’s sake. Meals still delivered to rooms — I feel for the SCA, who has to do two jobs — so there’s little to do but sit in your room, eat and look out the window at 10 million trees. Two bag dorms on the end, for those keeping score at home.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I’m on the northbound Crescent, currently sitting at 30th Street with some kind of mechanical issue. Sure would be nice to have 245 back to protect me on the final leg to Albany in case we get in late. Looks like that’ll be the last train that comes back, if at all.
Not much of a train if you’re taking it for train’s sake. Meals still delivered to rooms — I feel for the SCA, who has to do two jobs — so there’s little to do but sit in your room, eat and look out the window at 10 million trees. Two bag dorms on the end, for those keeping score at home.

I know the engineer you have. He, too, will have a late night as he needs to catch a train back to WAS once he reaches NYP.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Two bag dorms on the end, for those keeping score at home.

We clearly are keeping score at home!

 

[glensfallsse]

I know the engineer you have. He, too, will have a late night as he needs to catch a train back to WAS once he reaches NYP.

It’s going to be a close call for me anyway and … why does this long-distance train stop at New Brunswick?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

It’s going to be a close call for me anyway and … why does this long-distance train stop at New Brunswick?

Filling in for missing regionals, I believe. The NEC is not yet back to pre-COVID service. More engineer and conductor classes are graduating soon so hopefully more trains will be put back into service.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

It’s going to be a close call for me anyway and … why does this long-distance train stop at New Brunswick?

Looks like you made it in time for 243.

 

[glensfallsse]

Looks like you made it in time for 243.

With 10 minutes to spare. Good thing I went the safe route and got a hot dog on the Crescent rather than gambling on the newsstand at NYP … which was closed. On the other hand … no Metropolitan Lounge for me. Again.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

The Crescent was running late this morning, (color me shocked as I am sure everyone is reading this) and I had a great opportunity to take a quick video so I could count the cars and see where some of us have rooms vis-a-vis the bag dorm car as that has been part of the discussion on this thread of late.
And .... I missed it by about 2 minutes on the north side of Greensboro near Lake Townsend Park. I know the Track a Train websites are a bit delayed but I was also tracking on TrainMon5 and knew it was going to be close, but just missed it. Maybe next weekend I will not oversleep or it will also be about the same lateness as it was this morning.

 

[TheVig]

I saw 20 this morning when it hit CLT around 7am this morning. Same ol consist that it has had lately. Two sleepers, and 1 bag dorm.

We'll be on it next Saturday in a roomette, going to NYP.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Here’s 19 (05/01/2023). The last car is not a regular car in the consist.
View attachment IMG_7896.mov

 

[GaSteve]

Here’s 19 (05/01/2023). The last car is not a regular car in the consist.
View attachment 32335

Looks like somebody's private varnish.

 

[west point]

Looks like somebody's private varnish.

New York Central -------- NYC 3

 

[Hytec]

A friend sent me a photo of ATK diner 68022 on #20 leaving NOL today. I hope this is for real. I'll be on #20 this coming Thursday, 5/11. My prayers for diner menu meals, especially "Dinner In The Diner", with apologies to the writers and performers of Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

 

[zephyr17]

A friend sent me a photo of ATK diner 68022 on #20 leaving NOL today. I hope this is for real. I'll be on #20 this coming Thursday, 5/11. My prayers for diner menu meals, especially "Dinner In The Diner", with apologies to the writers and performers of Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

Just because a Viewliner dining car may be back on doesn't necessarily mean service will move to traditional dining at the same time. Actually, I kind of doubt it will, initially. It can be used as a "sleeper lounge" like on the Lake Shore, where you can be served your Flex meal in it but also hang out in it like a lounge car.

Don't get me wrong, it is still a big improvement over just having an Amcafe. But I'd temper my expectations and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Brian Battuello]

I've never taken the Crescent (at least not in 40 years) but would seriously consider it if/when full dining is back. Heck, I'd even spring for a bedroom so I'd have a place to pee!

 

[BlackDiamond]

My prayers for diner menu meals, especially "Dinner In The Diner", with apologies to the writers and performers of Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

Even "Ham and Eggs going through Carolina" would be nice

 

[margo]

We just returned from a round trip on the Crescent to Baltimore. We live in Lake Charles, LA and have always rode the Sunset LTD to NOL, spent the night, then caught the Crescent. We really didn't want to do that again, so we drove to Picayune, MS to catch the train. The drive took the same amount of time as a drive to NOL. The Picayune station is fairly new with lighted free parking. We left our car there for 8 days. It was much more pleasurable than staying in NOL, paying for parking and worrying about our car. Thank you Picayune.

 

[cassie225]

How was the trip Margo?

 

[margo]

It was good. We arrived on time to Baltimore. It's not a very scenic route, mostly woods. The ride is pretty rough at times. We learned we could get off at BWI airport, instead of going on into Penn Station. We were picking up our rental car at BWI. For some reason, we couldn't start at BWI on our return trip, though.
We drove to Gettysburg (moving), Letchworth State Park (beautiful), Niagara Falls(expensive), Finger Lakes waterfalls, (great and accessible) and Strasburg for Amish country and Sight and Sound Play, Moses (all very interesting).
we were about 2 hours late returning to Picayune. We had a roomette going up and a bedroom coming home.
We love traveling on Amtrak, but it's getting harder at our age (80).
Thank you for asking.

 

[JoeRids]

Does anyone know if the diner has returned at least as a "sleeper lounge'?

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Does anyone know if the diner has returned at least as a "sleeper lounge'?

Wife and I won a cheap bid-up for our weekend to DC over Memorial Day. We had the flex meal in our roomette and was not given an option to eat in a diner. I asked one of the employees,I think it was a SCA, and was told it might be another year. (We have a roundtrip GRO-NYP later in the summer and used the AGR credit card sign up bonus for a sleeper so I was very interested and we will have 5 or 6 meals.) No guarantee they are 100% in the know themselves but I can 100% vouch that the diner was not on the train less than 3 weeks ago.

 

[Hytec]

The May 15/16 #19 did not have a diner. The SCA told me that sleeper pax could use the café car as a lounge. However, when I got there, the sleeper end was all taken up by crew. They told me that I could use the coach end as a lounge. Unfortunately, it was filled by coach pax eating their café meals, So much for Amtrak treating sleeper pax as first class passengers on trains east of the Mississippi.

 

[railiner]

The May 15/16 #19 did not have a diner. The SCA told me that sleeper pax could use the café car as a lounge. However, when I got there, the sleeper end was all taken up by crew. They told me that I could use the coach end as a lounge. Unfortunately, it was filled by coach pax eating their café meals, So much for Amtrak treating sleeper pax as first class passengers on trains east of the Mississippi.

Sorry to hear about this current state of affairs on too many of Amtrak long distance trains. Takes away much of the “pleasure “ aspect of riding.

I don’t know if it is a matter of selfish crews monopolising passenger space, or of Amtrak not providing adequate crew space, but either way it should change. Perhaps a crew office and or lounge could be added to the baggage cars? I don’t believe the entire car is needed for baggage…

 

[Hytec]

Sorry to hear about this current state of affairs on too many of Amtrak long distance trains. Takes away much of the “pleasure “ aspect of riding.

I don’t know if it is a matter of selfish crews monopolising passenger space, or of Amtrak not providing adequate crew space, but either way it should change. Perhaps a crew office and or lounge could be added to the baggage cars? I don’t believe the entire car is needed for baggage…

Please understand that this situation exists only on trains east of the Mississippi. The trains originating in Chicago and New Orleans traveling to west coast destinations are given first-class service. This includes full menu diner meals served with wine by gracious servers, observation cars with swivel lounge chairs and adult beverage availability. No expense spared for a first-class rail travel experience.

 

[west point]

Twitter has locked non members out to access Amtrak alerts national and Amtrak north east alerts. Well Both 19 and 20 did not show on tracking from NOL to ATL today. any idea what happened and does anyone have a shortcut to getting this info in the future? Yes, refuse to rejoin twitter due to previous very bad incident.