printman2000
Engineer
Our trip began on June 28th with a drive from our home in Amarillo, Texas to Lamy, New Mexico to catch #4 the Southwest Chief. For most of our drive the train was on time, but it ended up losing an hour between Albuquerque and Lamy and arrived just a little over an hour late.
We were in the 430 sleeper roomettes 3 & 4. Once again we got a Superliner II sleeper. Our car attendant was Larry and he did a fine job. We are very independent on the train and do not require much so it is not hard to do a good job by us. Just keep the ice and drinks stocked and we are happy!
For the first time, we were not able to check our bags. We usually check two large bags and have two smaller on board bags. This time we had to take them all since Galesburg does not offer baggage service. Fortunately, there was space in the lower racks. I brought a cable lock to lock our bags together. I was not concerned about someone stealing them but more concerned about someone accidentally grabbing ours instead of theirs.
For dinner, I had steak as usual. It was good. My wife got the Salmon and it was also good. For dinner we had an orange cheesecake. It was good but I wish they would have just plain cheesecake.
There was some discussion on this board about there being door buzzers outside the rooms on Superliner sleepers. Sure enough, there are little buttons on the light fixtures which buzz into the room like doorbells. Both Superliner I & II's had them. The I's has more of a beeping sound instead of a buzz. You can see the buttons next to the lights.
Superliner I
Superliner II
After turning in, I found out the tracks in Kansas are of course still bad. Last time I went over them we were doing 79mph. Slower this time, but still rough. Will have to wait and see what the future holds for this route. Our sleeper was very warm overnight. It was not warm during the day so I suspect the temperature was adjusted. Fortunately, I bought a small battery operated fan because I seem to always get hot at night on the bottom bunk of the roomettes. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring batteries.
The next morning we were still an hour down. It was actually good for us since we had plenty of time for our connection in Galesburg and this would allow us to get lunch on board.
Both breakfast and lunch were good. I tried the Cuban sandwich for lunch and really liked it.
As we were arriving in Galesburg, we started to hear news of fires in Colorado effecting the California Zephyr. Something to worry about!
We detrained in Galesburg still about an hour behind schedule. It was HOT. Thanks goodness the station was air conditioned. My wife hung out there with all our bags while the boys and I went to the rail museum next door. It was small, but interesting. After that, my oldest and I walked about 10 minutes away to a store to get some batteries. We got held up by two freight trains on our way and on our way back. Did I mention it was HOT?
I am still wondering why Galesburg does not offer baggage service. Nice station with two people on duty.
The station agent informed me that they would be stopping our train in Denver and bus us to Salt Lake City. A quick Google search told me that is like an 8 hour bus trip. I decided to hold out hope that she was misinformed and this would not happen.
The #5 California Zephyr on June 29th (my birthday!) was right on time. We boarded the 532 sleeper into roomettes #9 & 10, the last two on the car. I have read concerns about these rooms being close to the end door and thus being noisy, but to me it was not any more noticeable than the other rooms. This sleeper was a refurbished Superliner I. It had the touch buttons for the light controls. This was by far our favorite sleeper. It was in really good shape and very comfortable.
We had an attendant named JR. He was great. We talked a lot. He has been with Amtrak for 38 years. Again, we don't need a lot (we make our own beds), but when we needed something he was there. Turns out he was based for a time at the Amarillo Air Force base (now the city airport) before being deployed to Vietnam.
This trip to Emeryville would be our first time to sleep two nights on the same train. We usually always change trains after one night. It was nice to really "move in" and know you were going to be there a while.
When we boarded, no one onboard knew anything about the fires so just more waiting to find out.
From the start, the dining car was a mess. For dinner, they called the 5:30 reservations and every table was full. It took over an hour for us to order or even get our drinks! It seems they were running things wrong. On other trains, all tables were rarely full at the same time. All I know is EVERY meal was like this with very long waits.
Our very own Jebr was getting on this train in Omaha. He reported that our train would be rerouted through Wyoming and not stopped in Denver. However, for all missed stops, there would be no alternate transportation provided. I talked with JR about this in Omaha. He figured he would let people sleep and tell them in the morning.
As it turns out, that was a good choice. In the morning around 5:30am, I heard the conductor report on the radio (I had my scanner) that someone named Brian Perkins was able to work out bus transportation for the missed stops. Apparently this is hard to do last minute during the summer.
Just a note, I usually write these reports while still on the train. Well, I forgot, so the report from here on is what I remember after returning home.
As we were arriving into Denver, the engineer reported to the conductor that a "fine young man" threw a rock at the head end. The conductor was calling the police to report it and his description was of a "crack head".
After arriving into the temporary station in Denver, a lot of the train left. One coach was full of Amish and they all got off to get bused to their destination. We hung around Denver for a while. Some locals (non Amtrak employees) washed only one side of the trains windows.
The reroute was pretty uneventful. Scenery was not real impressive, but did have some beautiful spots. Actually, the Utah portion of the reroute had quite impressive scenery. When the reroute started, the conductor told everyone there would be no stops for passenger to get off so not smoking until Salt Lake City. He came on the PA at one point saying that the smoke smell in the coaches was obvious and gave a warning.
We had a good long stop in Salt Lake City as we were quite early. My wife and younger son went to bed and my older son and I walked around. We looked for a nearby store to buy a snack, but could not find anything near the station. As we returned, there was a large group of people boarding the sleepers. When I went upstairs, there were many kids in the group and they were being very loud. I went back downstairs and asked JR to please speak to them about being quiet (they might not have realized others were trying to sleep) and he said he would speak with the group leader. It did help.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. We arrived into Emeryville early. Our bus to the Ferry Building was not there. Another (non Amtrak) bus was there and after a phone call, he announced he was taking us into San Francisco.
When we arrived at the Ferry Building, my family stayed and grabbed our lugguage and I ran to a local Walgreens to get our MUNI passes.
We spent four days in San Francisco using MUNI streetcars, light rail and took BART to an Oakland A's game.
For our return trip, we would be taking the Coast Starlight from Oakland to Los Angeles, spend the night, then the Southwest Chief to Lamy. On the morning of July 5th, we got up early to prepare to leave SF. On the news, they were reporting a shooting on the Bay Bridge and eastbound lanes were down to one. Uh, oh.
When we arrived at the Ferry building to catch our bus to Oakland, the staff were working hard. Lots of people going to Emeryville and Oakland. The Emeryville passengers got their info first. That were to take BART to Richmond where they would meet up with their train. Finally, we heard our fate. Instead of our bus taking us to Oakland, it would take us to San Jose to meet up with the Coast Starlight. We were happy with that.
It was about an hour drive on an Amtrak California bus. We arrived into San Jose about an hour before the Coast Starlight was to arrive. We found a bench and waited it out. The station reminded me a lot of Sacramento. Course, they were both old Southern Pacific stations.
They opened the gates to platform 1 about ten minutes before arrival. That was nice as I enjoy being there when the train pull in. As the Coast Starlight pulled around the corner, I noticed the second locomotive was a P32. I then noticed there was no Parlour car and it had a CCC in replacement.
The Coast Starlight trip was pretty uneventful. We finally got to enjoy the coast from this train (last years trip was messed up by a late train). The CCC is not as comfortable as a Parlour car, but we enjoyed having it. The whole train was pretty empty so there was hardly ever anyone in there. This CCC was different than the one I had been in before. The dining car side had all four person booths. In the other one I had been in, it alternated bewteen the four person booths and the weird three person booths. It did have the three person booths on the other side that was used for Parlour car meals.
We had another Superliner I sleeper, but it was not as nice as the last one on the California Zephyr. Did not really matter as we would not be sleeping in this one. I tried the Crab Cakes for dinner. They were okay, but I would not order them again. I will stick with the Steak.
We arrived into Los Angeles Union Station a bit early. We grabbed our bags and off to our hotel.
We went back to LAUS around 8:00am and dropped all of our bags at the day baggage check. $3 per bag. We were going to check two but were afraid one was too heavy so we just carried it on. We spent the morning and afternoon in Hollywood.
We returned early for our 6:15 departure and hung out in the waiting room. Around 5:45 we headed down the tunnel to see if we could find the track the Southwest Chief would be leaving from since it was not yet announced. It was track 11 and we were up there as it backed in. We would have another Superliner II sleeper. There was not Transition sleeper. It was replaced by a Superliner I sleeper. Wouldn't you know, the nicest sleeper on the train was the transition sleeper replacement. The other two were Superliner II's.
I got some pics of the construction going on on the additional platforms.
After boarding and departing we got the earliest dinner reservations possible, 7:00. We enjoyed our last dinner on the train. I again had the steak. They had plain cheesecake on this train so I really enjoyed that.
It was already getting dark after dinner. The boys and I went to the lounge car and played Monopoly on the iPad again. After that, we all turned in. Our trip was too quickly coming to an end.
We got up and went to breakfast at 6:30, still on Pacific time. I think Arizona was the same as California this time of year. Between losing an hour and not many stops, the next thing we knew Albuquerque was the next stop. Wow, things were going fast.
We arrived into Albuquerque early, so we had over and hour there. We had noon lunch reservations so after walking about for a while, we reboarded and had our last meal. I had a Cuban sandwich which I liked very much. We started moving right after we got our food. Next stop was Lamy.
After eating, we went back to our rooms and packed up. The train was moving very slow, around 15mph. The conductor said there was track work between Albuquerque and Lamy and that was why. This is confusing to me since after the Railrunner tracks veer off, the track is the portion that no one wants to pay for repairs on. I also saw no evidence of track work. I wonder if the conductor just said that but in fact, they had to go slow because of track conditions. If that is the case, this slow order will stay in effect for a long time.
Our rooms were to be occupied in Lamy, so our attendant was trying to get things ready without kicking us out. We made sure to keep it clean.
We arrived into Lamy an hour late. It was raining slightly so we got under the cover of the station and watched our train pull away. We then made the four hour drive back to Amarillo.
It was a good trip. A few snags, but nothing disastrous. With the pricing I am seeing for the Southwest Chief next year, I am not sure we will be able to afford a trip next year. I was thinking Chicago but the cost right now would be $2400 round trip! I have gone to New York and back for less than that. We shall see. Thanks for reading.
You can see a lot of pictures of our whole trip on my travel blog at http://www.craigmashburn.com/travelblog
We were in the 430 sleeper roomettes 3 & 4. Once again we got a Superliner II sleeper. Our car attendant was Larry and he did a fine job. We are very independent on the train and do not require much so it is not hard to do a good job by us. Just keep the ice and drinks stocked and we are happy!
For the first time, we were not able to check our bags. We usually check two large bags and have two smaller on board bags. This time we had to take them all since Galesburg does not offer baggage service. Fortunately, there was space in the lower racks. I brought a cable lock to lock our bags together. I was not concerned about someone stealing them but more concerned about someone accidentally grabbing ours instead of theirs.
For dinner, I had steak as usual. It was good. My wife got the Salmon and it was also good. For dinner we had an orange cheesecake. It was good but I wish they would have just plain cheesecake.
There was some discussion on this board about there being door buzzers outside the rooms on Superliner sleepers. Sure enough, there are little buttons on the light fixtures which buzz into the room like doorbells. Both Superliner I & II's had them. The I's has more of a beeping sound instead of a buzz. You can see the buttons next to the lights.
Superliner I
Superliner II
After turning in, I found out the tracks in Kansas are of course still bad. Last time I went over them we were doing 79mph. Slower this time, but still rough. Will have to wait and see what the future holds for this route. Our sleeper was very warm overnight. It was not warm during the day so I suspect the temperature was adjusted. Fortunately, I bought a small battery operated fan because I seem to always get hot at night on the bottom bunk of the roomettes. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring batteries.
The next morning we were still an hour down. It was actually good for us since we had plenty of time for our connection in Galesburg and this would allow us to get lunch on board.
Both breakfast and lunch were good. I tried the Cuban sandwich for lunch and really liked it.
As we were arriving in Galesburg, we started to hear news of fires in Colorado effecting the California Zephyr. Something to worry about!
We detrained in Galesburg still about an hour behind schedule. It was HOT. Thanks goodness the station was air conditioned. My wife hung out there with all our bags while the boys and I went to the rail museum next door. It was small, but interesting. After that, my oldest and I walked about 10 minutes away to a store to get some batteries. We got held up by two freight trains on our way and on our way back. Did I mention it was HOT?
I am still wondering why Galesburg does not offer baggage service. Nice station with two people on duty.
The station agent informed me that they would be stopping our train in Denver and bus us to Salt Lake City. A quick Google search told me that is like an 8 hour bus trip. I decided to hold out hope that she was misinformed and this would not happen.
The #5 California Zephyr on June 29th (my birthday!) was right on time. We boarded the 532 sleeper into roomettes #9 & 10, the last two on the car. I have read concerns about these rooms being close to the end door and thus being noisy, but to me it was not any more noticeable than the other rooms. This sleeper was a refurbished Superliner I. It had the touch buttons for the light controls. This was by far our favorite sleeper. It was in really good shape and very comfortable.
We had an attendant named JR. He was great. We talked a lot. He has been with Amtrak for 38 years. Again, we don't need a lot (we make our own beds), but when we needed something he was there. Turns out he was based for a time at the Amarillo Air Force base (now the city airport) before being deployed to Vietnam.
This trip to Emeryville would be our first time to sleep two nights on the same train. We usually always change trains after one night. It was nice to really "move in" and know you were going to be there a while.
When we boarded, no one onboard knew anything about the fires so just more waiting to find out.
From the start, the dining car was a mess. For dinner, they called the 5:30 reservations and every table was full. It took over an hour for us to order or even get our drinks! It seems they were running things wrong. On other trains, all tables were rarely full at the same time. All I know is EVERY meal was like this with very long waits.
Our very own Jebr was getting on this train in Omaha. He reported that our train would be rerouted through Wyoming and not stopped in Denver. However, for all missed stops, there would be no alternate transportation provided. I talked with JR about this in Omaha. He figured he would let people sleep and tell them in the morning.
As it turns out, that was a good choice. In the morning around 5:30am, I heard the conductor report on the radio (I had my scanner) that someone named Brian Perkins was able to work out bus transportation for the missed stops. Apparently this is hard to do last minute during the summer.
Just a note, I usually write these reports while still on the train. Well, I forgot, so the report from here on is what I remember after returning home.
As we were arriving into Denver, the engineer reported to the conductor that a "fine young man" threw a rock at the head end. The conductor was calling the police to report it and his description was of a "crack head".
After arriving into the temporary station in Denver, a lot of the train left. One coach was full of Amish and they all got off to get bused to their destination. We hung around Denver for a while. Some locals (non Amtrak employees) washed only one side of the trains windows.
The reroute was pretty uneventful. Scenery was not real impressive, but did have some beautiful spots. Actually, the Utah portion of the reroute had quite impressive scenery. When the reroute started, the conductor told everyone there would be no stops for passenger to get off so not smoking until Salt Lake City. He came on the PA at one point saying that the smoke smell in the coaches was obvious and gave a warning.
We had a good long stop in Salt Lake City as we were quite early. My wife and younger son went to bed and my older son and I walked around. We looked for a nearby store to buy a snack, but could not find anything near the station. As we returned, there was a large group of people boarding the sleepers. When I went upstairs, there were many kids in the group and they were being very loud. I went back downstairs and asked JR to please speak to them about being quiet (they might not have realized others were trying to sleep) and he said he would speak with the group leader. It did help.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. We arrived into Emeryville early. Our bus to the Ferry Building was not there. Another (non Amtrak) bus was there and after a phone call, he announced he was taking us into San Francisco.
When we arrived at the Ferry Building, my family stayed and grabbed our lugguage and I ran to a local Walgreens to get our MUNI passes.
We spent four days in San Francisco using MUNI streetcars, light rail and took BART to an Oakland A's game.
For our return trip, we would be taking the Coast Starlight from Oakland to Los Angeles, spend the night, then the Southwest Chief to Lamy. On the morning of July 5th, we got up early to prepare to leave SF. On the news, they were reporting a shooting on the Bay Bridge and eastbound lanes were down to one. Uh, oh.
When we arrived at the Ferry building to catch our bus to Oakland, the staff were working hard. Lots of people going to Emeryville and Oakland. The Emeryville passengers got their info first. That were to take BART to Richmond where they would meet up with their train. Finally, we heard our fate. Instead of our bus taking us to Oakland, it would take us to San Jose to meet up with the Coast Starlight. We were happy with that.
It was about an hour drive on an Amtrak California bus. We arrived into San Jose about an hour before the Coast Starlight was to arrive. We found a bench and waited it out. The station reminded me a lot of Sacramento. Course, they were both old Southern Pacific stations.
They opened the gates to platform 1 about ten minutes before arrival. That was nice as I enjoy being there when the train pull in. As the Coast Starlight pulled around the corner, I noticed the second locomotive was a P32. I then noticed there was no Parlour car and it had a CCC in replacement.
The Coast Starlight trip was pretty uneventful. We finally got to enjoy the coast from this train (last years trip was messed up by a late train). The CCC is not as comfortable as a Parlour car, but we enjoyed having it. The whole train was pretty empty so there was hardly ever anyone in there. This CCC was different than the one I had been in before. The dining car side had all four person booths. In the other one I had been in, it alternated bewteen the four person booths and the weird three person booths. It did have the three person booths on the other side that was used for Parlour car meals.
We had another Superliner I sleeper, but it was not as nice as the last one on the California Zephyr. Did not really matter as we would not be sleeping in this one. I tried the Crab Cakes for dinner. They were okay, but I would not order them again. I will stick with the Steak.
We arrived into Los Angeles Union Station a bit early. We grabbed our bags and off to our hotel.
We went back to LAUS around 8:00am and dropped all of our bags at the day baggage check. $3 per bag. We were going to check two but were afraid one was too heavy so we just carried it on. We spent the morning and afternoon in Hollywood.
We returned early for our 6:15 departure and hung out in the waiting room. Around 5:45 we headed down the tunnel to see if we could find the track the Southwest Chief would be leaving from since it was not yet announced. It was track 11 and we were up there as it backed in. We would have another Superliner II sleeper. There was not Transition sleeper. It was replaced by a Superliner I sleeper. Wouldn't you know, the nicest sleeper on the train was the transition sleeper replacement. The other two were Superliner II's.
I got some pics of the construction going on on the additional platforms.
After boarding and departing we got the earliest dinner reservations possible, 7:00. We enjoyed our last dinner on the train. I again had the steak. They had plain cheesecake on this train so I really enjoyed that.
It was already getting dark after dinner. The boys and I went to the lounge car and played Monopoly on the iPad again. After that, we all turned in. Our trip was too quickly coming to an end.
We got up and went to breakfast at 6:30, still on Pacific time. I think Arizona was the same as California this time of year. Between losing an hour and not many stops, the next thing we knew Albuquerque was the next stop. Wow, things were going fast.
We arrived into Albuquerque early, so we had over and hour there. We had noon lunch reservations so after walking about for a while, we reboarded and had our last meal. I had a Cuban sandwich which I liked very much. We started moving right after we got our food. Next stop was Lamy.
After eating, we went back to our rooms and packed up. The train was moving very slow, around 15mph. The conductor said there was track work between Albuquerque and Lamy and that was why. This is confusing to me since after the Railrunner tracks veer off, the track is the portion that no one wants to pay for repairs on. I also saw no evidence of track work. I wonder if the conductor just said that but in fact, they had to go slow because of track conditions. If that is the case, this slow order will stay in effect for a long time.
Our rooms were to be occupied in Lamy, so our attendant was trying to get things ready without kicking us out. We made sure to keep it clean.
We arrived into Lamy an hour late. It was raining slightly so we got under the cover of the station and watched our train pull away. We then made the four hour drive back to Amarillo.
It was a good trip. A few snags, but nothing disastrous. With the pricing I am seeing for the Southwest Chief next year, I am not sure we will be able to afford a trip next year. I was thinking Chicago but the cost right now would be $2400 round trip! I have gone to New York and back for less than that. We shall see. Thanks for reading.
You can see a lot of pictures of our whole trip on my travel blog at http://www.craigmashburn.com/travelblog
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