What was I doing getting up at 4:30 AM and leaving the house at 5? I retired specifically so I wouldn't have to do that any more. Unfortunately, because of limited COVID service on the NEC, this is what I needed to do if I wanted to have enough time in New York for my first post-vaccination adventure. Northeast Regional train 180 (leaving Baltimore at 6:10) isn't running, and the next train is 172, which doesn't get into the Big Apple until around 10. Thus, it was my old standby for my trips to Boston, Acela 2150. It wasn't a bed fare, either, $125. (Regionals were going for about $60, senior fare.) I used one of my upgrade coupons, and so I was set to ride first class. Didn't make my return rezzies. I was headed for Staten Island, and I didn't want to be stuck far out of the way worrying over whether I was going to get back to Penn Station in time for my train. When I looked at schedules, it seems like it takes nearly 2 hours to ride by public transportation from Penn Station to Tottenville, the end of the line for the Staten Island Railway. That means there are people who live in New York City whose commutes are as long as the one I used to do between Baltimore and Washington. (But they do get a scenic ferry ride included.)
I headed away from the house in my 20-year old Honda CR-V that I volunteered to leave at the station garage so that the rest of the family could have the better cars for their daily use. A good thing, because as I tooled down I-83 into the city, I noticed that the brake light was on. Fortunately, the brakes seemed to be working fine. (The car is now sitting in the shop getting looked at, so don't worry.) The early morning traffic, such as it was, wasn't much different from what I usually experienced in the days when I had to make this drive. But, the parking garage at Baltimore Penn Station was as empty as it's been during sinve the pandemic struck. I got to park right by the stairs.
Ah, here's the kind of departure board I like to see:
Everything's running on time!
The station actually had a few more people waiting for trains than when I went to New York in September and Philly in October. Note that my favorite commuter train, MARC 407, which use to leave at 5:55 is now leaving at 5:35 and there's no other MARC train until 6:30.
Soon enough it's down on the platform:
Acela 2150 right on time.
I find my seat, the conductor scans my ticket, and now it's time for some on-board service:
While the service has definitely been downgraded due to the pandemic loss of traffic, this offering is still better than what they had when I last rode in October. I got a cup of coffee and the omelet.
Here it is, served in a flex-dining tray. The omelet was a bit odd, but certainly edible. The potatoes were "meh," but I ate them too. A little ketchup helped. The croissant was OK, especially with the butter I liberally applied to it. The coffee was Dunkin, what more can you say?
Dawn started creeping into the sky about the time we crossed the Susquehanna River. It was lightening up when we stopped at the Joe Biden Amtrak station in Wilmington. We had a very short stop in Philly. Nobody boarded, well, in first class, at least. We were making decent time, but then, after we passed Trenton, we started slowing down. It was a little odd, going slowly through the stretch of New Jersey where they spent all that money on the constant-tension catenary so the trains can go 160 and we're doing maybe 80. (To be fair, on the return trip, we blew through that section at 135, so I think the issue was traffic congestion from morning commuter trains, though why there's traffic congestion with everyone running reduced pandemic schedules is a question worth answering.) In any event, we got into New York about 5 minutes late.
As I mentioned in my Moynihan Train Hall post, the new train hall is located over the extreme west ends of the platforms. Thus, unless you make an effort to get to that end of the platform, you're going to go up an escalator into the old Penn Station. There is some waymarking at the platform level, but mostly for "8th Avenue." The signs directing one to "Moynihan Train Hall" are actually on the ground at your feet. In any event, I think I was about the only person that actually made an effort to go in that direction, and at least our first class car was on the very west end of the train. In any event, I got the effect of riding the escalator up into the new train hall:
It's very nice, but you still scurry into the city like a rat.
More to come.
I headed away from the house in my 20-year old Honda CR-V that I volunteered to leave at the station garage so that the rest of the family could have the better cars for their daily use. A good thing, because as I tooled down I-83 into the city, I noticed that the brake light was on. Fortunately, the brakes seemed to be working fine. (The car is now sitting in the shop getting looked at, so don't worry.) The early morning traffic, such as it was, wasn't much different from what I usually experienced in the days when I had to make this drive. But, the parking garage at Baltimore Penn Station was as empty as it's been during sinve the pandemic struck. I got to park right by the stairs.
Ah, here's the kind of departure board I like to see:
Everything's running on time!
The station actually had a few more people waiting for trains than when I went to New York in September and Philly in October. Note that my favorite commuter train, MARC 407, which use to leave at 5:55 is now leaving at 5:35 and there's no other MARC train until 6:30.
Soon enough it's down on the platform:
Acela 2150 right on time.
I find my seat, the conductor scans my ticket, and now it's time for some on-board service:
While the service has definitely been downgraded due to the pandemic loss of traffic, this offering is still better than what they had when I last rode in October. I got a cup of coffee and the omelet.
Here it is, served in a flex-dining tray. The omelet was a bit odd, but certainly edible. The potatoes were "meh," but I ate them too. A little ketchup helped. The croissant was OK, especially with the butter I liberally applied to it. The coffee was Dunkin, what more can you say?
Dawn started creeping into the sky about the time we crossed the Susquehanna River. It was lightening up when we stopped at the Joe Biden Amtrak station in Wilmington. We had a very short stop in Philly. Nobody boarded, well, in first class, at least. We were making decent time, but then, after we passed Trenton, we started slowing down. It was a little odd, going slowly through the stretch of New Jersey where they spent all that money on the constant-tension catenary so the trains can go 160 and we're doing maybe 80. (To be fair, on the return trip, we blew through that section at 135, so I think the issue was traffic congestion from morning commuter trains, though why there's traffic congestion with everyone running reduced pandemic schedules is a question worth answering.) In any event, we got into New York about 5 minutes late.
As I mentioned in my Moynihan Train Hall post, the new train hall is located over the extreme west ends of the platforms. Thus, unless you make an effort to get to that end of the platform, you're going to go up an escalator into the old Penn Station. There is some waymarking at the platform level, but mostly for "8th Avenue." The signs directing one to "Moynihan Train Hall" are actually on the ground at your feet. In any event, I think I was about the only person that actually made an effort to go in that direction, and at least our first class car was on the very west end of the train. In any event, I got the effect of riding the escalator up into the new train hall:
It's very nice, but you still scurry into the city like a rat.
More to come.
