SAS-DAL

[City of Miami]

I took the Tx Eagle up to Dallas Thursday and returned to San Antonio Friday. We departed SAS on time, no seat assignments and a light load of pax all the way. I got the very talkative conductor again who STILL loves to talk about Crawford and the Bushes. We lost time little by little (about as usual) until we arrived less than an hour late into DAL due to very short dwell in FTW. I had plenty of time to walk to my hotel (Sheraton) shower, eat and get to the world premier of a new opera (Moby-Dick) at the brand new Winspear Opera House. Oustanding!

Yesterday #21 arrived in DAL an hour late but due to the extra long dwell in FTW we departed on time. The train was pretty much full most of the way. There were two CCCs instead of a sightseer lounge. All was well until Temple - we proceeded 30-40 mph all the way to Taylor thereby losing over an hour. There was a lot of evidence of track work, like piles of old crossties, but I didn't see any actual work going on. :unsure: Hour late into Austin (8:10pm) even with the '1 hour later' temporary sched. We made good time into SAS until we got to the very slow passage through the westside to finally get into the station - it takes about half an hour. Home by midnight.

I'm going to try it again next Tues to AUS to go to my old dentist. As long as we pull in by midnight I'm good.

I'll try it again Memorial weekend to FTW to go to the opera there, hoping the track work will be over by then and the schedule unpadded and January's 100% OTP restored to its rightful place.

 

[stntylr]

I believe you have your trains mixed up #22 is the northbound train and #21 is the southbound train.

It's been my personal observation that TE #21 runs close to full between DAL and SAS.

 

[City of Miami]

I had my second go in a week on the TE yesterday. I went up to Austin for the day. It was an entirely satisfactory trip.

I took my local map with me. I observed that my objective feeling that the southbound entry into SAS is much slower than the NB departure is incorrect. It took us 40 minutes to get to the 1604 Loop road going north, and last night approx 40 minutes after passing under 1604 (on the other more western route) we pulled into Sunset Station. We made the southbound trip is just over 2 hrs. Like I said, entirely sstisfactory.

My observation about the passenger load is different. Usually the 21 load steadily decreases and is actually quite light after Austin; this is with the exception of the LAX bound cars, of course.