Texas Eagle- Capitol Limited - 3/2019

[RidinRails]

I rode the Texas Eagle and the Capitol Limited mid-March 2019. Had roomettes on both trains...Arkansas to Washington, DC.
-The Amtrak station staff was very friendly and helpful... Little Rock, Chicago and DC.
-The Metro Lounge in Chicago was very nice. A great place to wait for the train.
-The service on both trains was excellent. The diner, lounge and car attendants were friendly and very helpful. No complaints.
-The food on the Texas Eagle dining car was very good. The food on the Capitol Limited...well...let's say I am not a fan of boxed dinners. They need a dining car. I'll leave it at that.
-The roomettes were clean, comfortable, and quiet. Very relaxing.

This was the second time in the last 6 months I rode the Texas Eagle and Capitol Limited to DC. The service was just as good the first time so my experience wasn't just a 'one-off' deal.

I don't know the politics and accounting of Amtrak, but the experience for me has been good. Each train didn't have a shortage of riders.

 

[OBS]

Thanks for the report.

 

[Gary Behling]

I rode the Texas Eagle and the Capitol Limited mid-March 2019. Had roomettes on both trains...Arkansas to Washington, DC.
-The Amtrak station staff was very friendly and helpful... Little Rock, Chicago and DC.
-The Metro Lounge in Chicago was very nice. A great place to wait for the train.
-The service on both trains was excellent. The diner, lounge and car attendants were friendly and very helpful. No complaints.
-The food on the Texas Eagle dining car was very good. The food on the Capitol Limited...well...let's say I am not a fan of boxed dinners. They need a dining car. I'll leave it at that.
-The roomettes were clean, comfortable, and quiet. Very relaxing.

This was the second time in the last 6 months I rode the Texas Eagle and Capitol Limited to DC. The service was just as good the first time so my experience wasn't just a 'one-off' deal.

I don't know the politics and accounting of Amtrak, but the experience for me has been good. Each train didn't have a shortage of riders.

I have a question as to how other Amtrak riders would have handled a problem I encountered a year ago.
......My wife and I took the Texas Eagle (Family Bedroom) from Tucson to Chicago. When we arrived at San Antonio, all of us in the cars that normally would be connected to the Texas Eagle train a few hours later, for the northern leg of the trip were told that the train we were supposed to be connected to hit a pedestrian somewhere and simply wasn't at San Antonio to pull our cars. Amtrak had buses waiting to take us to Dallas where we would then ride coach to Chicago on an Amtrak train.
.......I paid plenty for that Family Bedroom and had no intention to ride a bus----or go coach. Plus, my wife has back issues where she needs to lay down for much of the trip and constant sitting isn't an option. This is why I took the Family Bedroom on the lower floor. All this took place at 1am in San Antonio with Amtrak people trying to herd the cattle to the buses as fast as they could.
.......What would you do?

 

[OBS]

If I had the time to travel, wait for next day's train if space was available; or ask for refund and fly.

 

[Bob Dylan]

If I had the time to travel, wait for next day's train if space was available; or ask for refund and fly.

Redacted!

 

[F900ElCapitan]

I have a question as to how other Amtrak riders would have handled a problem I encountered a year ago.
......My wife and I took the Texas Eagle (Family Bedroom) from Tucson to Chicago. When we arrived at San Antonio, all of us in the cars that normally would be connected to the Texas Eagle train a few hours later, for the northern leg of the trip were told that the train we were supposed to be connected to hit a pedestrian somewhere and simply wasn't at San Antonio to pull our cars. Amtrak had buses waiting to take us to Dallas where we would then ride coach to Chicago on an Amtrak train.
.......I paid plenty for that Family Bedroom and had no intention to ride a bus----or go coach. Plus, my wife has back issues where she needs to lay down for much of the trip and constant sitting isn't an option. This is why I took the Family Bedroom on the lower floor. All this took place at 1am in San Antonio with Amtrak people trying to herd the cattle to the buses as fast as they could.
.......What would you do?

So my question would be why didn’t they have sleeper space for you? Did you catch up to the previous day’s train maybe? I ask because no matter the day of the week, the Texas Eagle has a similar trainset whether it has the LA cars or not. So if you rode the bus up to Dallas to catch the train and it was the previous day’s 21 trainset (whose sleeper would have been dropped and yours added in SAS had it made it all the way), just turned around, then it should have had the sleeper on it that would have gone to SAS and depending on the day, go to LA. So my point is they still should have had your sleeper room available since you had already purchased it, it just wouldn’t have been the same through car.