I tried to zoom in and clean up my picture a bit, but because of lighting and a bounce from the bus, this is the best I can do.
Where in the US is AlanB
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As we were climbing down the inside stairs, I could hear someone from the station telling the conductor to tell the passengers to look for buses from a company called Paradise. The conductor replied that making an announcement at that point would be useless, since half the people were already off the train and would not hear any announcement. I of course, unlike the rest of my fellow passengers knew what to look for thanks to that little exchange.
After getting out of the car, my mother and I rolled our suitcase down the ramp and right over to one of the Paradise buses that I had seen from the platform. They weren’t yet loading the buses and most people were still milling around and/or still coming off the train and the platform.
My best description of the transfer would be “controlled chaos”. Part of the chaos was caused by the fact that of the six buses Amtrak had contracted for; only three were actually at the station for our arrival. I’m not sure if that was due to the fact that they didn’t need 6 buses for train #4’s load or if those bus driver just took their buses and went looking for food while they were waiting.
The other part of the problem was that Amtrak had either not positioned the passengers from train #4 some place so as to not be in our way, or those passengers just didn’t follow their instructions. I’m not sure what happened there, but in any event this helped to create some confusion since we were commingling.
It did seem like Amtrak had pulled out all of the stops as it were and I’d bet that they had just about every worker assigned to the ABQ station there to assist people. There were even a couple of local policemen on hand to help out. I’m not sure why they were there, if they were also Amtrak employee’s part time and then officer’s full time, but nonetheless they were there.
I noticed one employee in part because I kept hearing her name on the scanner, Andy, who seemed to more or less be in charge of the operation. IMHO, she seemed to be doing a very good job under very difficult and trying circumstances. It can’t be east to coordinate the transfer of over 250 passengers on less than 10 hours notice. Andy certainly seemed to be every where and answering dozens of questions via the radio at the same time. My kudos to her.
Probably the biggest part of the confusion as I mentioned above, simply came from the fact that 3 of the buses were missing in action when we detrained. This slowed down the loading process considerably, as those who weren’t first in line at the other three buses were left standing on the sidewalk for a while. This was a bit of a problem since it was also threatening to rain on people.
Most, but not all of our OBS crew boarded one bus and we quickly boarded the bus that I had lined us up for after storing our luggage in the cargo area below, since I didn’t want to be stuck outside if it did start to rain. The OBS crew did walk around trying to assist pax, taking head counts on buses so as to let those in charge know how many box lunches to put on each bus, along with free water for everyone.
While there wasn’t much of a selection, either a ham sandwich or a roast beef sandwich, everyone did get something to eat for free. There was no difference between coach pax and sleeper pax at this point, everyone got something. Of course this meant that those of us in sleepers missed out on what I suspect would have been another great meal, despite the restrictions imposed by SDS. It was clear from dinner the night before, and even the cheeseburger that I’d had for lunch, that our chef knew what he was doing in the kitchen.
Thanks to the missing buses, despite our early arrival into ABQ, we didn’t leave until well after the scheduled departure time. Scheduled out of ABQ is 4:35 PM, our bus didn’t leave till 4:59 and ours was the second bus to depart. The bus carrying the OBS crew along with some pax left about 5 minutes before we did.
Our driver however had a bit more of a lead foot than did the driver of the first bus, as we passed them up about 20 minutes out of Gallup. So we in fact arrived first at Gallup, with the second bus about 2 or 3 minutes behind us. I’d say that the overall trip took just over 1 and a half hours. I’m not sure how much later the other 4 buses left ABQ, but it couldn’t have been too much later, as I’d say that all buses were in Gallup by around 7:40 to 7:45.
Our attendant Carol was on the third bus to arrive, about 5 minutes after ours and once she climbed into our new 331 car, she allowed us to start boarding. Since I knew which car would be the 331 car, I had started a line there and many others followed me. Several even asked me how I knew that would be our car.
We quickly settled back into our new room. Thanks to this transfer we had gone from Superliner I sleeper to a Superliner II sleeper. This also gave us a working shower, since the shower that I had used when our consist was the Capitol Limited, stopped working before we arrived in Trinidad. They couldn’t get it working in Trinidad, so I was forced to use the shower in the 330 car that morning.
Just about 8:00 PM the conductor made an announcement telling us that everyone was onboard, but that we were still waiting for the truck carrying the checked baggage to show up. Apparently either that driver didn’t have a lead foot or it took longer to transfer the bags, than it did to transfer the passengers. Finally about 8:10 I saw the truck drive down alongside the train and they started loading up the baggage car.
We finally highballed Gallup at 8:30 PM, just about an hour and a half down. However we would loose still more time before the night was over. I took this opportunity to walk through the train trying to write down the consist info. For some odd reason, it seemed that more than half the doors were not working on the train. In fact the door at our end of the car was one of them. It wouldn’t close under any circumstances.
This hindered my ability to write down some of the car numbers. I finally did manage to get almost all of them, except for the closed sightseer lounge, and they’ll appear in the final report. While the consist had been sitting, it would appear that they had taken the lounge out of the middle and tacked it onto the rear after the last coach. I have no idea why the lounge was out of action, but it was nonetheless closed for our use. And its door was open, so I never got that number.
Oddly enough, we were also going to bring three ExpressTrak box cars back to LA with us. I was kind of surprised by this, as I figured that they’d just leave them there for the next train running through to pick up. No clue if they were empties or full.
For at our next stop, Winslow, they would refuel our three loco’s. I’m not sure why it wasn’t done in Gallup, since the ponies were sitting there for several hours, but it wasn’t. So we spent 59 minutes fueling the engines, before moving into the station for 2 minutes work boarding/disembarking passengers. Our arrival was at 9:49, with our departure at 10:51 PM.
That was the last stop that I recall seeing as we went off to bed not too long after that. I’ll finish the final leg of this trip in my next installment, which I probably won’t get posted till tomorrow.
After getting out of the car, my mother and I rolled our suitcase down the ramp and right over to one of the Paradise buses that I had seen from the platform. They weren’t yet loading the buses and most people were still milling around and/or still coming off the train and the platform.
My best description of the transfer would be “controlled chaos”. Part of the chaos was caused by the fact that of the six buses Amtrak had contracted for; only three were actually at the station for our arrival. I’m not sure if that was due to the fact that they didn’t need 6 buses for train #4’s load or if those bus driver just took their buses and went looking for food while they were waiting.
The other part of the problem was that Amtrak had either not positioned the passengers from train #4 some place so as to not be in our way, or those passengers just didn’t follow their instructions. I’m not sure what happened there, but in any event this helped to create some confusion since we were commingling.
It did seem like Amtrak had pulled out all of the stops as it were and I’d bet that they had just about every worker assigned to the ABQ station there to assist people. There were even a couple of local policemen on hand to help out. I’m not sure why they were there, if they were also Amtrak employee’s part time and then officer’s full time, but nonetheless they were there.
I noticed one employee in part because I kept hearing her name on the scanner, Andy, who seemed to more or less be in charge of the operation. IMHO, she seemed to be doing a very good job under very difficult and trying circumstances. It can’t be east to coordinate the transfer of over 250 passengers on less than 10 hours notice. Andy certainly seemed to be every where and answering dozens of questions via the radio at the same time. My kudos to her.
Probably the biggest part of the confusion as I mentioned above, simply came from the fact that 3 of the buses were missing in action when we detrained. This slowed down the loading process considerably, as those who weren’t first in line at the other three buses were left standing on the sidewalk for a while. This was a bit of a problem since it was also threatening to rain on people.
Most, but not all of our OBS crew boarded one bus and we quickly boarded the bus that I had lined us up for after storing our luggage in the cargo area below, since I didn’t want to be stuck outside if it did start to rain. The OBS crew did walk around trying to assist pax, taking head counts on buses so as to let those in charge know how many box lunches to put on each bus, along with free water for everyone.
While there wasn’t much of a selection, either a ham sandwich or a roast beef sandwich, everyone did get something to eat for free. There was no difference between coach pax and sleeper pax at this point, everyone got something. Of course this meant that those of us in sleepers missed out on what I suspect would have been another great meal, despite the restrictions imposed by SDS. It was clear from dinner the night before, and even the cheeseburger that I’d had for lunch, that our chef knew what he was doing in the kitchen.
Thanks to the missing buses, despite our early arrival into ABQ, we didn’t leave until well after the scheduled departure time. Scheduled out of ABQ is 4:35 PM, our bus didn’t leave till 4:59 and ours was the second bus to depart. The bus carrying the OBS crew along with some pax left about 5 minutes before we did.
Our driver however had a bit more of a lead foot than did the driver of the first bus, as we passed them up about 20 minutes out of Gallup. So we in fact arrived first at Gallup, with the second bus about 2 or 3 minutes behind us. I’d say that the overall trip took just over 1 and a half hours. I’m not sure how much later the other 4 buses left ABQ, but it couldn’t have been too much later, as I’d say that all buses were in Gallup by around 7:40 to 7:45.
Our attendant Carol was on the third bus to arrive, about 5 minutes after ours and once she climbed into our new 331 car, she allowed us to start boarding. Since I knew which car would be the 331 car, I had started a line there and many others followed me. Several even asked me how I knew that would be our car.
We quickly settled back into our new room. Thanks to this transfer we had gone from Superliner I sleeper to a Superliner II sleeper. This also gave us a working shower, since the shower that I had used when our consist was the Capitol Limited, stopped working before we arrived in Trinidad. They couldn’t get it working in Trinidad, so I was forced to use the shower in the 330 car that morning.
Just about 8:00 PM the conductor made an announcement telling us that everyone was onboard, but that we were still waiting for the truck carrying the checked baggage to show up. Apparently either that driver didn’t have a lead foot or it took longer to transfer the bags, than it did to transfer the passengers. Finally about 8:10 I saw the truck drive down alongside the train and they started loading up the baggage car.
We finally highballed Gallup at 8:30 PM, just about an hour and a half down. However we would loose still more time before the night was over. I took this opportunity to walk through the train trying to write down the consist info. For some odd reason, it seemed that more than half the doors were not working on the train. In fact the door at our end of the car was one of them. It wouldn’t close under any circumstances.
This hindered my ability to write down some of the car numbers. I finally did manage to get almost all of them, except for the closed sightseer lounge, and they’ll appear in the final report. While the consist had been sitting, it would appear that they had taken the lounge out of the middle and tacked it onto the rear after the last coach. I have no idea why the lounge was out of action, but it was nonetheless closed for our use. And its door was open, so I never got that number.
Oddly enough, we were also going to bring three ExpressTrak box cars back to LA with us. I was kind of surprised by this, as I figured that they’d just leave them there for the next train running through to pick up. No clue if they were empties or full.
For at our next stop, Winslow, they would refuel our three loco’s. I’m not sure why it wasn’t done in Gallup, since the ponies were sitting there for several hours, but it wasn’t. So we spent 59 minutes fueling the engines, before moving into the station for 2 minutes work boarding/disembarking passengers. Our arrival was at 9:49, with our departure at 10:51 PM.
That was the last stop that I recall seeing as we went off to bed not too long after that. I’ll finish the final leg of this trip in my next installment, which I probably won’t get posted till tomorrow.
One thing that I forgot to add to the above, while Matt's BNSF gets low marks for derailing a freight train in front of me; they definitely excelled at keeping us on time the whole rest of the time. We were basically on time from Chicago to ABQ, never more than 1 hour down at any point I believe.
And one of the conductors mentioned in his announcement about the derailment before we got to ABQ, that we would probably hit lots of freight interference out of Gallup. Well despite seeing a few dozen freights sitting on the tracks out of ABQ and on the other side of the derailment heading towards ABQ, we didn't hit any interference upon our departure from Gallup.
If we slowed for freight interference, it was in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.
BNSF did a great job to keep us from loosing anymore time out of Gallup, than we had already lost with the bussing. Kudos’ to the dispatcher(s) who somehow managed to park those trains out of our way.
And one of the conductors mentioned in his announcement about the derailment before we got to ABQ, that we would probably hit lots of freight interference out of Gallup. Well despite seeing a few dozen freights sitting on the tracks out of ABQ and on the other side of the derailment heading towards ABQ, we didn't hit any interference upon our departure from Gallup.
If we slowed for freight interference, it was in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.
BNSF did a great job to keep us from loosing anymore time out of Gallup, than we had already lost with the bussing. Kudos’ to the dispatcher(s) who somehow managed to park those trains out of our way.
Alan, keep up with the trip reports. I am enjoying this immensley. I even shared part of your report with a colleague. Did you get to see Cajon pass?
AmtrakFan
Conductor
Alan,
The Lounge was 33029 the Deadhead One, I did see a Photo of that car in LA after the trains were turned.
The Lounge was 33029 the Deadhead One, I did see a Photo of that car in LA after the trains were turned.
Aloha AlanSteve4031 said:
I Agree. Reading your reports helps take the edge off of not being able to go to Philadephia and the extras I wanted to do over the July Holidays.
Mahalo
Mahalo and Aloha
Alan, I enjoyed the details of the transfer immensely. It feels as if I were there, you wrote it so well.
And, BTW, it does seem they did an extremely commendable job of things with what they had to do. Nice to know things sometimes work out. You will have a great memory of this from now on.
Great report.
And, BTW, it does seem they did an extremely commendable job of things with what they had to do. Nice to know things sometimes work out. You will have a great memory of this from now on.
Great report.
Morning arrived for us, with our arrival into Victorville. We were awoken by an announcement just about 7:00 AM from the crew, reminding people that the train is non-smoking. We had had a similar announcement on the first day, as apparently there was at least one passenger who didn’t believe that the rules applied to him or her. I don’t think that they ever caught the person who was sneaking into the toilets to smoke.
So with that announcement we got dressed and headed for the dining car and breakfast. I of course had my usual, RR French Toast with turkey sausage, while my mother had the quiche. Both were quite good once again, making me once again lament the missed dinner from the night before. The service was a bit slow however, but that was understandable, since they had abandoned the SDS reservation system in an effort to serve as many people as possible, prior to closing the diner to ready it for our arrival.
They in fact filled the dining car up and started a waiting list. By about 7:45 or so, he announced that he had enough names to carry them right through 8:30 and that he would stop taking names within the next 10 minutes. So if you wanted breakfast in the dining car, you needed to hurry down and get your name on that list or it would be off to the café car for you.
While eating our breakfast we were slipping through the Cajon pass, one of the highest points on our journey, and starting our long weaving way down the mountains into San Bernardino. We probably passed at least a dozen freight trains busy climbing their way up the mountains on that same winding ROW. But once again BNSF dispatchers had our track completely clear for us.
San Bernardino came and went without much fuss, other than a fair amount of people detraining. We continued to drop off more passengers at the other stops along the way to LAUS. Just before we got to LAUS, I gave Carol a nice tip for all of her hard work the day before. In fact I felt so bad for her on Friday that I had actually made up our beds out of Winslow, just to lighten her load a bit.
It seems that the attendant for that car on train #4 didn’t quite understand how things were supposed to work with the transfer. So Carol went nuts trying to find pillow cases, I think that she barely managed to scrounge up enough for everyone in the car. She had no juice, no bottled water, no bar soap for the shower (she had to resort to putting a bottle of hand soap in the shower). I don’t know if the other attendant took this stuff with her or just what happened, but poor Carol was going nuts trying to take care of her charges.
And all of that was on top of helping people to move in the first place and needing to pack/unpack all of her own stuff as well as move it. I thought that Carol had done a good job the first day and night out of Chicago, but she really outdid herself and earned her pay that second night.
In any event, thanks to some padding into LAX, we only ended up being 52 minutes behind schedule, which is not bad considering our little detour in New Mexico. We arrived on track #12, detrained, thanked Carol once again (she looked exhausted, like she needed to sleep for two days just to catch up), and then rolled our suitcases into the station proper.
We secured a couple of seats in the waiting room and then I left my mom guarding the luggage while I went off to buy us tickets to Rancho Cucamonga on the Metrolink San Bernardino line. A wait of about an hour and a half occurred, before they called our next train for boarding. It was an uneventful ride out to Rancho, where a few of my mom’s friends met us at the station.
Not having enough room in the car for 5 people, my mom stayed at the station with two of her friends to chat for a bit, while the area hostess and another friend drove me over to my hotel the Hilton Ontario Airport. Her friends then drove back and picked up the rest of the gang and proceeded to the house where they were all staying. They were headed off to an Andrea Bocelli concert.
I would camp out at the hotel for the next two days and try to get in a bit of train riding in LA. We’ll cover that in the next installment.
So with that announcement we got dressed and headed for the dining car and breakfast. I of course had my usual, RR French Toast with turkey sausage, while my mother had the quiche. Both were quite good once again, making me once again lament the missed dinner from the night before. The service was a bit slow however, but that was understandable, since they had abandoned the SDS reservation system in an effort to serve as many people as possible, prior to closing the diner to ready it for our arrival.
They in fact filled the dining car up and started a waiting list. By about 7:45 or so, he announced that he had enough names to carry them right through 8:30 and that he would stop taking names within the next 10 minutes. So if you wanted breakfast in the dining car, you needed to hurry down and get your name on that list or it would be off to the café car for you.
While eating our breakfast we were slipping through the Cajon pass, one of the highest points on our journey, and starting our long weaving way down the mountains into San Bernardino. We probably passed at least a dozen freight trains busy climbing their way up the mountains on that same winding ROW. But once again BNSF dispatchers had our track completely clear for us.
San Bernardino came and went without much fuss, other than a fair amount of people detraining. We continued to drop off more passengers at the other stops along the way to LAUS. Just before we got to LAUS, I gave Carol a nice tip for all of her hard work the day before. In fact I felt so bad for her on Friday that I had actually made up our beds out of Winslow, just to lighten her load a bit.
It seems that the attendant for that car on train #4 didn’t quite understand how things were supposed to work with the transfer. So Carol went nuts trying to find pillow cases, I think that she barely managed to scrounge up enough for everyone in the car. She had no juice, no bottled water, no bar soap for the shower (she had to resort to putting a bottle of hand soap in the shower). I don’t know if the other attendant took this stuff with her or just what happened, but poor Carol was going nuts trying to take care of her charges.
And all of that was on top of helping people to move in the first place and needing to pack/unpack all of her own stuff as well as move it. I thought that Carol had done a good job the first day and night out of Chicago, but she really outdid herself and earned her pay that second night.
In any event, thanks to some padding into LAX, we only ended up being 52 minutes behind schedule, which is not bad considering our little detour in New Mexico. We arrived on track #12, detrained, thanked Carol once again (she looked exhausted, like she needed to sleep for two days just to catch up), and then rolled our suitcases into the station proper.
We secured a couple of seats in the waiting room and then I left my mom guarding the luggage while I went off to buy us tickets to Rancho Cucamonga on the Metrolink San Bernardino line. A wait of about an hour and a half occurred, before they called our next train for boarding. It was an uneventful ride out to Rancho, where a few of my mom’s friends met us at the station.
Not having enough room in the car for 5 people, my mom stayed at the station with two of her friends to chat for a bit, while the area hostess and another friend drove me over to my hotel the Hilton Ontario Airport. Her friends then drove back and picked up the rest of the gang and proceeded to the house where they were all staying. They were headed off to an Andrea Bocelli concert.
I would camp out at the hotel for the next two days and try to get in a bit of train riding in LA. We’ll cover that in the next installment.
Since you were busitition from ABQ to Gallup, I have a question. Are the coach seats facing to the rear of the train on a trip from Gallup to LAX?
Alan . . . it does not get any better than Breakfast going over Cajon pass. Keep up the updates, you are helping me survive the last days of school,
battalion51
Engineer
Greg I think they turned the whole train on the wye.
Is there a wye in Gallup?battalion51 said:
I can tell you that the coach seats were properly orientated for our direction of travel. However, I have no clue if there is a wye or not, and if not how they got the seats to face the right way.
It was also interesting that they somehow managed to get the Sightseer Lounge out of it's normal position in the consist and tacked onto the rear of the last coach, with the Express Trak boxcars on the bottom of the lounge.
It was also interesting that they somehow managed to get the Sightseer Lounge out of it's normal position in the consist and tacked onto the rear of the last coach, with the Express Trak boxcars on the bottom of the lounge.
battalion51
Engineer
It is possible to turn the seats in the coaches, they do it daily on Auto Train, and there really is no "forward" end on a Superliner, so they need to be able to be turned anyway. Same holds true for any of the coaches in the system as well.
Come Sunday morning I walked over to the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station and caught a 10:24 train into LAX. After a quick pit stop, I purchased an all day pass for $3 from one of the TVM’s in the station. I then rode the new Gold Line in its entirety and returned to LAUS a little over an hour later. The Gold Line seems to give you a little bit of everything from street running, to brand new concret flyovers, to running down the middle of a major freeway.
Upon my return to LAX, I was off to explore the Red line next. I had toyed with the idea of trying to ride both the Blue line and the Green line, but decided to pass on those as I didn’t want to take the later train back to my hotel. So it was to be the Red line and only the Red line for my other LA Metro transport. The first train at the station was the shorter line to Wilshire and Western.
After changing ends at Wilshire and Western, I rode back two stops to Wilshire/Vermont. I decided that some lunch might be in order at this point, so I headed upstairs in search of something. A walk around the block quickly revealed that I had chosen the wrong place to find something to eat, as there were no places that I could see to grab a quick bite to eat. So back downstairs into the Metro I went.
This time as luck would have it, a Red line train to North Hollywood was just pulling in. So I quickly jumped on it, so that I could complete my riding of all of the Red line. Once again upon reaching North Hollywood, I headed back upstairs in search of something to eat. Again, I was to return to the Metro disappointed as there was nothing but a Denny’s in the area and I didn’t have enough time for that.
So walking back to the Metro station, I grabbed a hot dog from a little street cart vendor right by the station. Finding a spot in the shade, I sat down and had my quasi lunch. Ten minutes later, I was back in the Metro and boarding a train to return to Union Station. After a wait of 20 minutes or so, I was onboard the 3:55 San Bernardino Metrolink train. A little more than an hour later, I had detrained at Rancho Cucamonga and was starting the long walk back to my hotel.
With that, I concluded my rail activities for the next few days. Come Monday morning, I caught the hotel’s shuttle to the Ontario Airport where I rented a car for a few days. I won’t bore your with a detailed account, but after picking up my mom, we headed for Lake Havasu City in Arizona for two and a half days to visit my uncle, mom’s brother.
I didn’t get to ride any trains, but I did get to see some along the highways, as well as some HO trains in my uncle’s garage. Being a railfan himself, my uncle and I also talked about trains during our visit. But that was the extent of anything train orientated during this portion of my trip.
Upon my return to LAX, I was off to explore the Red line next. I had toyed with the idea of trying to ride both the Blue line and the Green line, but decided to pass on those as I didn’t want to take the later train back to my hotel. So it was to be the Red line and only the Red line for my other LA Metro transport. The first train at the station was the shorter line to Wilshire and Western.
After changing ends at Wilshire and Western, I rode back two stops to Wilshire/Vermont. I decided that some lunch might be in order at this point, so I headed upstairs in search of something. A walk around the block quickly revealed that I had chosen the wrong place to find something to eat, as there were no places that I could see to grab a quick bite to eat. So back downstairs into the Metro I went.
This time as luck would have it, a Red line train to North Hollywood was just pulling in. So I quickly jumped on it, so that I could complete my riding of all of the Red line. Once again upon reaching North Hollywood, I headed back upstairs in search of something to eat. Again, I was to return to the Metro disappointed as there was nothing but a Denny’s in the area and I didn’t have enough time for that.
So walking back to the Metro station, I grabbed a hot dog from a little street cart vendor right by the station. Finding a spot in the shade, I sat down and had my quasi lunch. Ten minutes later, I was back in the Metro and boarding a train to return to Union Station. After a wait of 20 minutes or so, I was onboard the 3:55 San Bernardino Metrolink train. A little more than an hour later, I had detrained at Rancho Cucamonga and was starting the long walk back to my hotel.
With that, I concluded my rail activities for the next few days. Come Monday morning, I caught the hotel’s shuttle to the Ontario Airport where I rented a car for a few days. I won’t bore your with a detailed account, but after picking up my mom, we headed for Lake Havasu City in Arizona for two and a half days to visit my uncle, mom’s brother.
I didn’t get to ride any trains, but I did get to see some along the highways, as well as some HO trains in my uncle’s garage. Being a railfan himself, my uncle and I also talked about trains during our visit. But that was the extent of anything train orientated during this portion of my trip.
My mom and I returned to the LA area on Wednesday afternoon, checked into the same Hilton hotel and returned the rental car. This was a good thing in part for me, as my cell phone connection just didn’t see to work too well from my uncle’s place. In fact, I had better luck on the train most of the time than I did at his house. So returning to the hotel, meant playing catch up with things.
Thursday morning saw us catching an early morning Metrolink commuter train, the 6:53 AM out of Rancho Cucamonga to LAX. After hanging out at the station for a few minutes, we boarded a Southbound Surfliner, train #566 departing at 8:30 AM. Our business class car was right behind the engine. In addition to free coffee and juice, a selection of muffins and pastries was also available in the BC car.
Thanks to some heavy ridership, in particular out of Irvine, and an intermittent door problem, we were about 7 minutes late into San Diego. At one point we had been down almost 15 minutes, thanks to two unscheduled stops to try and find the open door that kept showing up. They finally did isolate and lock out the offending door, just south of Solana Beach.
As we pulled into the station, I could see HaRRy Sutton (RailHaRRy) sitting one platform over, awaiting our arrival. HaRRy had graciously agreed to be our host and tour guide in San Diego for a few hours. After a quick visit inside the station, where I exchanged our tickets for train #589 the 5:50PM departure to the 4:00 PM, train #785. When I had first booked the later train, I thought that I had more time for connecting between the Surfliner and the last San Bernardino Metrolink train.
I was uncomfortable with only a ten minute window between the two trains, and considering that both of our Surfliner’s that day were late, I think that I made the right choice. After finishing the ticket exchange, it was back out to the tracks to buy a ticket for the San Diego Trolley.
HaRRy led us onto a Blue line trolley north to Old Town transit center. There we switched to a Green line trolley and rode that almost to the end of the line getting off at Gillespie Field. Our plan was to switch at Gillespie Field for an inbound Orange line trolley. However, so engrossed in railfan talk, neither HaRRy nor I were paying much attention to the signs. Assuming that we wanted to ride inbound, we crossed over to the inbound platform. However since Orange line trains terminate at this station, while Green line trains go on one more stop to Santee Town Center, we were standing on the wrong platform.
We assumed that the Orange line train, just like the Green line train we had arrived on, would go past the station. Instead the next Orange line train turned on the outbound platform and of course left us standing on the inbound platform. It seems only Green line trains serve that inbound platform. So after crossing back over to the outbound platform, waiting another 15 minutes and watching another Green line train come and go first, we finally boarded an inbound Orange line train.
We rode that back to America Plaza basically completing a loop of the downtown area, before detraining. We all then jumped into HaRRy’s car and headed off for lunch at a place that HaRRy knew on the bay. After all were sated, it was back to HaRRy’s private transportation company for a quick drive back to the San Diego station. This left us with about 15 minutes to kill prior to catching our northbound train back to LAX.
As luck would have it though, we had more time to kill, since the southbound train that would turn as our northbound was running late. The southbound arrived at 4:05, already past our departure time. Once they detrained everyone from 774, they started boarding for our northbound train. Having cheated by avoiding the line that Amtrak prefers people to wait in, we were amongst the first to board the train, once again in the business class car.
We finally started rolling north at 4:18, almost 20 minutes late. We would never recover that time, and in fact would loose even more due to meets and a red signal at Oceanside. Again the train was quite full, in part thanks to a Padre’s afternoon game in San Diego. We finally coasted to a stop in LAX at 7:22, 33 minutes late, and far too late to make the 7:00 PM San Bernardino train that I had hoped for. So we killed some time in the waiting room at LAUS, and then boarded the 8:00 PM San Bernardino train instead.
Thanks to a timely pickup by the Hilton’s shuttle van, we were back at the hotel by 9:30 PM and our day was over. Both this section, as well as the prior section of this ongoing trip report was posted from the train we’re riding today out of LAX, since I’m still playing catch-up on my reporting. In the next report, I’ll of course cover where we are as of today.
Thursday morning saw us catching an early morning Metrolink commuter train, the 6:53 AM out of Rancho Cucamonga to LAX. After hanging out at the station for a few minutes, we boarded a Southbound Surfliner, train #566 departing at 8:30 AM. Our business class car was right behind the engine. In addition to free coffee and juice, a selection of muffins and pastries was also available in the BC car.
Thanks to some heavy ridership, in particular out of Irvine, and an intermittent door problem, we were about 7 minutes late into San Diego. At one point we had been down almost 15 minutes, thanks to two unscheduled stops to try and find the open door that kept showing up. They finally did isolate and lock out the offending door, just south of Solana Beach.
As we pulled into the station, I could see HaRRy Sutton (RailHaRRy) sitting one platform over, awaiting our arrival. HaRRy had graciously agreed to be our host and tour guide in San Diego for a few hours. After a quick visit inside the station, where I exchanged our tickets for train #589 the 5:50PM departure to the 4:00 PM, train #785. When I had first booked the later train, I thought that I had more time for connecting between the Surfliner and the last San Bernardino Metrolink train.
I was uncomfortable with only a ten minute window between the two trains, and considering that both of our Surfliner’s that day were late, I think that I made the right choice. After finishing the ticket exchange, it was back out to the tracks to buy a ticket for the San Diego Trolley.
HaRRy led us onto a Blue line trolley north to Old Town transit center. There we switched to a Green line trolley and rode that almost to the end of the line getting off at Gillespie Field. Our plan was to switch at Gillespie Field for an inbound Orange line trolley. However, so engrossed in railfan talk, neither HaRRy nor I were paying much attention to the signs. Assuming that we wanted to ride inbound, we crossed over to the inbound platform. However since Orange line trains terminate at this station, while Green line trains go on one more stop to Santee Town Center, we were standing on the wrong platform.
We assumed that the Orange line train, just like the Green line train we had arrived on, would go past the station. Instead the next Orange line train turned on the outbound platform and of course left us standing on the inbound platform. It seems only Green line trains serve that inbound platform. So after crossing back over to the outbound platform, waiting another 15 minutes and watching another Green line train come and go first, we finally boarded an inbound Orange line train.
We rode that back to America Plaza basically completing a loop of the downtown area, before detraining. We all then jumped into HaRRy’s car and headed off for lunch at a place that HaRRy knew on the bay. After all were sated, it was back to HaRRy’s private transportation company for a quick drive back to the San Diego station. This left us with about 15 minutes to kill prior to catching our northbound train back to LAX.
As luck would have it though, we had more time to kill, since the southbound train that would turn as our northbound was running late. The southbound arrived at 4:05, already past our departure time. Once they detrained everyone from 774, they started boarding for our northbound train. Having cheated by avoiding the line that Amtrak prefers people to wait in, we were amongst the first to board the train, once again in the business class car.
We finally started rolling north at 4:18, almost 20 minutes late. We would never recover that time, and in fact would loose even more due to meets and a red signal at Oceanside. Again the train was quite full, in part thanks to a Padre’s afternoon game in San Diego. We finally coasted to a stop in LAX at 7:22, 33 minutes late, and far too late to make the 7:00 PM San Bernardino train that I had hoped for. So we killed some time in the waiting room at LAUS, and then boarded the 8:00 PM San Bernardino train instead.
Thanks to a timely pickup by the Hilton’s shuttle van, we were back at the hotel by 9:30 PM and our day was over. Both this section, as well as the prior section of this ongoing trip report was posted from the train we’re riding today out of LAX, since I’m still playing catch-up on my reporting. In the next report, I’ll of course cover where we are as of today.
And now for a few pictures.
The engines on #3 at Trinidad, before we were bussed to the #4 consist.
The rest of #3 at Trinidad.
Climbing up to Raton Pass, one of the sharp curves shows our ponies.
Ever wonder what the middle of the Raton tunnel looks like? Wonder no more. :lol:
A flash doesn't help to much either.
The engines on #3 at Trinidad, before we were bussed to the #4 consist.
The rest of #3 at Trinidad.
Climbing up to Raton Pass, one of the sharp curves shows our ponies.
Ever wonder what the middle of the Raton tunnel looks like? Wonder no more. :lol:
A flash doesn't help to much either.
The main waiting room in LAX.
One of the flowered gardens off the main waiting room.
A Metrolink train.
Did I mention that my uncle was a railfan? Anyone need an insulator?
Here's his semaphore.
His signal.
Part of his layout. Still a work in progress, but operational.
One of the flowered gardens off the main waiting room.
A Metrolink train.
Did I mention that my uncle was a railfan? Anyone need an insulator?
Here's his semaphore.
His signal.
Part of his layout. Still a work in progress, but operational.
A San Diego trolley.
The Coaster.
A few shots from our northbound Surfliner train.
Our Surfliner train.
And that pretty much catches us up to date.
The Coaster.
A few shots from our northbound Surfliner train.
Our Surfliner train.
And that pretty much catches us up to date.
Once again we woke early at our hotel, but unlike yesterday, this time we were checking out of the hotel. We again used the hotel’s shuttle to get us and our luggage to the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station. We caught a slightly later train today, later by 20 minutes. This put us into LAX at 8:20, although we were a few minutes late due to congestion at the station.
Once again down into the tunnel and into the station where we parked ourselves and our luggage in the main waiting room. Shortly after arrival, I proceeded up to the information desk to checkin for our next train. It continues to amaze me that some big-wig at Amtrak in conjunction with the Dept. of Homeland security continues to think that he’s done his job and made trains safer by requiring photo Id’s for Amtrak travel.
First, I’d defy any Amtrak conductor, none of whom have received any special training, to tell me that my license is valid or phony. This is especially true when there are over 50 different licensees; some states have more than one.
Second, there is no way that some guest services personnel at a desk is going to know if my license is valid.
Third, one of the highjacker’s who flew into the WTC had a valid New Jersey driver’s license. So having a photo ID proves nothing.
Finally I’m annoyed by Amtrak’s inconsistent enforcement of this policy. The official policy is, random ID checks based upon the last digit of your ticket number. Yesterday’s number at least here in California was supposed to be 5. The conductor going down on the Surfliner to San Diego was checking ID’s for those whose ticket # ended in a 5. On the way home, the conductor couldn’t be bothered with it. My ticket ended in a 5, and he never asked me for ID.
Now this morning, the clerk at the desk was checking everyone’s ID. That’s not random and I suspect that the ACLU may want to talk to him. I had left my mom with the luggage, so he told me to bring her by with her ID. However, since he stamped both of our tickets “Id checked”, I ignored his advice and never sent her up to the counter as I saw no reason to waste her time on a useless endeavor.
And now that I’ve ranted enough, back to our story.
They were supposed to have started the boarding process at 9:00 AM for our 9:30 AM departure time. I’m not sure if it was due to laziness or the late arrival of northbound Surfliner #763, which of course is a continuing train and therefore needed to board ahead of us. But in any event, they didn’t start boarding us until almost 9:15 AM, and of course they boarded the sleeping car passengers first, followed by the coach pax.
This resulted in our departure being delayed by six minutes. That of course meant that we had missed our window, so we sat on the track at the platform for another 8 minutes, until we could get a lineup to leave the station. So already we’re off to a bad start, instead of a 45 minute early departure, we were only a half an hour ahead of schedule now. This schedule change while temporary is supposed to be do to track work, but when you’ve blown 1/3 of that time just getting out of the gate, it’s not a good thing.
The second problem was far more major IMHO, no Pacific Parlour car. Even worse, no Sightseer lounge substituting for the Parlour car. Our attendant did at least have a selection of pastries available in room #10, something normally available in the Parlour car, but somehow that didn’t ease the pain of no Parlour car.
With that, it’s time for me to call it a night (Friday night seems like a good name for it. :lol: ) I’ll pick this up tomorrow morning hopefully.
Once again down into the tunnel and into the station where we parked ourselves and our luggage in the main waiting room. Shortly after arrival, I proceeded up to the information desk to checkin for our next train. It continues to amaze me that some big-wig at Amtrak in conjunction with the Dept. of Homeland security continues to think that he’s done his job and made trains safer by requiring photo Id’s for Amtrak travel.
First, I’d defy any Amtrak conductor, none of whom have received any special training, to tell me that my license is valid or phony. This is especially true when there are over 50 different licensees; some states have more than one.
Second, there is no way that some guest services personnel at a desk is going to know if my license is valid.
Third, one of the highjacker’s who flew into the WTC had a valid New Jersey driver’s license. So having a photo ID proves nothing.
Finally I’m annoyed by Amtrak’s inconsistent enforcement of this policy. The official policy is, random ID checks based upon the last digit of your ticket number. Yesterday’s number at least here in California was supposed to be 5. The conductor going down on the Surfliner to San Diego was checking ID’s for those whose ticket # ended in a 5. On the way home, the conductor couldn’t be bothered with it. My ticket ended in a 5, and he never asked me for ID.
Now this morning, the clerk at the desk was checking everyone’s ID. That’s not random and I suspect that the ACLU may want to talk to him. I had left my mom with the luggage, so he told me to bring her by with her ID. However, since he stamped both of our tickets “Id checked”, I ignored his advice and never sent her up to the counter as I saw no reason to waste her time on a useless endeavor.
And now that I’ve ranted enough, back to our story.
They were supposed to have started the boarding process at 9:00 AM for our 9:30 AM departure time. I’m not sure if it was due to laziness or the late arrival of northbound Surfliner #763, which of course is a continuing train and therefore needed to board ahead of us. But in any event, they didn’t start boarding us until almost 9:15 AM, and of course they boarded the sleeping car passengers first, followed by the coach pax.
This resulted in our departure being delayed by six minutes. That of course meant that we had missed our window, so we sat on the track at the platform for another 8 minutes, until we could get a lineup to leave the station. So already we’re off to a bad start, instead of a 45 minute early departure, we were only a half an hour ahead of schedule now. This schedule change while temporary is supposed to be do to track work, but when you’ve blown 1/3 of that time just getting out of the gate, it’s not a good thing.
The second problem was far more major IMHO, no Pacific Parlour car.
Even worse, no Sightseer lounge substituting for the Parlour car. Our attendant did at least have a selection of pastries available in room #10, something normally available in the Parlour car, but somehow that didn’t ease the pain of no Parlour car.With that, it’s time for me to call it a night (Friday night seems like a good name for it. :lol: ) I’ll pick this up tomorrow morning hopefully.
battalion51
Engineer
Great pictures Alan, and great report so far.
Great Pictures, one is the same area I shot but you had more sun I am jealos
Mahalo, Aloha
Eric
Mahalo, Aloha
Eric
After our late start, we moved along pretty well on Metrolink’s tracks, however when we got to the end of their tracks, UP wasn’t quite ready for us. So we sat for 3 minutes at that point till they could take us. From there and on up the coast, UP kept us moving right along through their territory. We did have one quick slow to a crawl at MP 83.3, because they were worried about a spring switch not working properly, but otherwise things went well on this part of UP’s tracks.
It was interesting to note that two different UP dispatcher’s at either end of the UP stretch commented that we were running early again. Both times the engineer had to tell them that this would be schedule for the next two months or so. I found it odd that Amtrak is leaving 45 minutes earlier from LAX at UP’s request, yet none of the dispatchers seem to have gotten that memo. Or at least they failed to read it.
Our first major problem, which totally killed the extra half an hour that we had been carrying, was thanks to Caltrain. They weren’t ready for us just past the Salinas stop. We got to their junction at 6:15 or so, and there we sat waiting for a commuter train that was scheduled to arrive at 6:47 PM. This delay put us out of San Jose almost perfectly on the original schedule printed in the timetable.
Caltrain again dropped us in the dumper just past San Jose, where we lost another 15 minutes or so, again waiting for one of the commuter trains. We then made an unscheduled stop in Hayward, but I never heard why we stopped there. So by the time we cleared Emeryville, we were now almost a half an hour behind the normal schedule and of course even further behind the temporary schedule.
Just after Martinez we had our attendant put our beds down for the night and settled in for the evening.
Come morning, we woke around 6:15 or so to find ourselves running through the mountains in northern California. After quickly dressing, we headed for breakfast in the diner. While eating we spent a good portion of time following a small river/stream, winding our way up into the mountains. We also made a stop in Dunsmuir while at breakfast. I’m not sure what time we were supposed to reach here under the revised schedule, but under the normal schedule we were 2 hours and 14 minutes late at this point.
So somewhere in the night, we had lost almost another two hours. I’m guessing that it was more do to slow orders, as opposed to waiting for freight trains, as I’ll often wake up when the train stops and I didn’t wake up much at all during the night. So far today, UP has done rather well at keeping its freights out of our way. We did get put into the siding once at Grass Lake to wait for a freight, but that only cost us about 10 minutes or so. There was one other occasion where we slowed for a freight and our conductor even made an announcement that we would have to stop for a freight, but thankfully the both the freight train and signal cleared, just before we would have needed to stop. So other than a bit of slow rolling, we squeaked through that meet.
We also stopped to take on a new conductor at a rural RR crossing near MP 394. I think that’s near the small town or Worden, but I’m not positive. Perhaps someone else knows just where MP 394 is. We picked up our new conductor at 9:55 AM, after a 3 minute stop, and just in the nick of time as our conductor expired at 10:13 AM.
So thanks to some slow orders, a 10 MPH, a 20, and 2 – 30’s, plus those extra stops, we left Klamath Falls just shy of three hours late. We’re still chugging northbound, albeit a bit slowly as I write this.
The dining car, just like the train, seems to be running behind. Both last night for dinner, and now for lunch, they are running behind on seating people at their reserved times. The attendant blames people for taking to long at the tables, but frankly that doesn’t wash with me. The first lunch seating was at 11:45 AM and by 12:15 PM, Gus was already making announcements about the diner running behind. There is no way that those initial tables could be expected to be done eating in time for a 12:15 PM seating.
So I’m not sure what the crew is doing, but somehow they aren’t handling the load properly. They may be a bit busier here, by comparison to the SW Chief, but frankly I don’t think that they are that much busier, so I don’t know why they keep falling behind.
The service in the car has been a bit slow IMHO, but the food quality is still excellent IMHO. So I don’t know if the food quality for SDS is just getting better, or if the crews are getting better at preparing the food, or what. I do know that Amtrak continues to make changes to the SDS idea, but regardless of what the reasons are; IMHO SDS is not a disaster. It is a shame that we have lost the old way of doing things, as thanks to the staggered seating Amtrak now gets less passengers into the dining car and therefore sells less food than they used to.
So despite cutting the costs of running the dining car, the net result may not be what Amtrak intended, since they are also taking in less revenue. Hopefully some middle ground could be found, so that the crew could be increased enough to one again utilize the full capacity of the dining car, while perhaps keeping the current meal service in an effort to hold down costs.
And that wraps up this section of my report. I probably won’t post another update or any pictures, until we reach our hotel for the night in Portland.
It was interesting to note that two different UP dispatcher’s at either end of the UP stretch commented that we were running early again. Both times the engineer had to tell them that this would be schedule for the next two months or so. I found it odd that Amtrak is leaving 45 minutes earlier from LAX at UP’s request, yet none of the dispatchers seem to have gotten that memo. Or at least they failed to read it.
Our first major problem, which totally killed the extra half an hour that we had been carrying, was thanks to Caltrain. They weren’t ready for us just past the Salinas stop. We got to their junction at 6:15 or so, and there we sat waiting for a commuter train that was scheduled to arrive at 6:47 PM. This delay put us out of San Jose almost perfectly on the original schedule printed in the timetable.
Caltrain again dropped us in the dumper just past San Jose, where we lost another 15 minutes or so, again waiting for one of the commuter trains. We then made an unscheduled stop in Hayward, but I never heard why we stopped there. So by the time we cleared Emeryville, we were now almost a half an hour behind the normal schedule and of course even further behind the temporary schedule.
Just after Martinez we had our attendant put our beds down for the night and settled in for the evening.
Come morning, we woke around 6:15 or so to find ourselves running through the mountains in northern California. After quickly dressing, we headed for breakfast in the diner. While eating we spent a good portion of time following a small river/stream, winding our way up into the mountains. We also made a stop in Dunsmuir while at breakfast. I’m not sure what time we were supposed to reach here under the revised schedule, but under the normal schedule we were 2 hours and 14 minutes late at this point.
So somewhere in the night, we had lost almost another two hours. I’m guessing that it was more do to slow orders, as opposed to waiting for freight trains, as I’ll often wake up when the train stops and I didn’t wake up much at all during the night. So far today, UP has done rather well at keeping its freights out of our way. We did get put into the siding once at Grass Lake to wait for a freight, but that only cost us about 10 minutes or so. There was one other occasion where we slowed for a freight and our conductor even made an announcement that we would have to stop for a freight, but thankfully the both the freight train and signal cleared, just before we would have needed to stop. So other than a bit of slow rolling, we squeaked through that meet.
We also stopped to take on a new conductor at a rural RR crossing near MP 394. I think that’s near the small town or Worden, but I’m not positive. Perhaps someone else knows just where MP 394 is. We picked up our new conductor at 9:55 AM, after a 3 minute stop, and just in the nick of time as our conductor expired at 10:13 AM.
So thanks to some slow orders, a 10 MPH, a 20, and 2 – 30’s, plus those extra stops, we left Klamath Falls just shy of three hours late. We’re still chugging northbound, albeit a bit slowly as I write this.
The dining car, just like the train, seems to be running behind. Both last night for dinner, and now for lunch, they are running behind on seating people at their reserved times. The attendant blames people for taking to long at the tables, but frankly that doesn’t wash with me. The first lunch seating was at 11:45 AM and by 12:15 PM, Gus was already making announcements about the diner running behind. There is no way that those initial tables could be expected to be done eating in time for a 12:15 PM seating.
So I’m not sure what the crew is doing, but somehow they aren’t handling the load properly. They may be a bit busier here, by comparison to the SW Chief, but frankly I don’t think that they are that much busier, so I don’t know why they keep falling behind.
The service in the car has been a bit slow IMHO, but the food quality is still excellent IMHO. So I don’t know if the food quality for SDS is just getting better, or if the crews are getting better at preparing the food, or what. I do know that Amtrak continues to make changes to the SDS idea, but regardless of what the reasons are; IMHO SDS is not a disaster. It is a shame that we have lost the old way of doing things, as thanks to the staggered seating Amtrak now gets less passengers into the dining car and therefore sells less food than they used to.
So despite cutting the costs of running the dining car, the net result may not be what Amtrak intended, since they are also taking in less revenue. Hopefully some middle ground could be found, so that the crew could be increased enough to one again utilize the full capacity of the dining car, while perhaps keeping the current meal service in an effort to hold down costs.
And that wraps up this section of my report. I probably won’t post another update or any pictures, until we reach our hotel for the night in Portland.
Old style baggage carts sit unused at the Salinas station.
I was also a bit impressed with just how wide this tree is, not the palm tree in the foreground, at the Salinas station.
Launch towers at Vandenburg AFB.
We start our climb into the mountains shortly after leaving the coast. This pictures shows where our train had been just a minute before, after going around a 180 degree loop.
Here's what happens when you can't afford a nice motorcoach for your long distance travels, and refuse to take Amtrak. :lol: Three porta-potties chase a bus down a California highway.
I was also a bit impressed with just how wide this tree is, not the palm tree in the foreground, at the Salinas station.
Launch towers at Vandenburg AFB.
We start our climb into the mountains shortly after leaving the coast. This pictures shows where our train had been just a minute before, after going around a 180 degree loop.
Here's what happens when you can't afford a nice motorcoach for your long distance travels, and refuse to take Amtrak. :lol: Three porta-potties chase a bus down a California highway.
Our engines for the Coast Starlight await a crew change at Salinas.
A baggage handler awaiting the new conductor's arrival to open the baggage car seeing me taking the above picture of the ponies, does Amtrak proud by offering to take a picture for me.
Looking the other way down the platform at Salinas.
The Salinas station itself.
Shot from the table in the diner at breakfast, the stream we were following on our way to Dunsmuir.
Mount Shasta makes its first apperance.
Mt. Shasta would remain in our view for the better part of an hour I'd say. Here's a few more shots of it.
A baggage handler awaiting the new conductor's arrival to open the baggage car seeing me taking the above picture of the ponies, does Amtrak proud by offering to take a picture for me.
Looking the other way down the platform at Salinas.
The Salinas station itself.
Shot from the table in the diner at breakfast, the stream we were following on our way to Dunsmuir.
Mount Shasta makes its first apperance.
Mt. Shasta would remain in our view for the better part of an hour I'd say. Here's a few more shots of it.
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