Recent content by fillyjonk

Apparently the Temple to Ft. Worth bus bridge is still going, I went to check the train status map (IDK, I prefer it) before leaving for the station in Mineola (I have a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive) and was flummoxed to see the train was still near McGregor but apparently they just stop tracking when...

as someone whose adopted home is in the South......well, no, this is bait, I ain't taking it. On topic: every time I used to get grits they either came plain, or already had butter on them. Most often they were plain and you added butter/salt/pepper to taste (though as I remember, they were...

I'm not vegan - I'm kind of what they call "flexitarian" (usually eat lacto-ovo vegetarian but will eat meat). But I would happily eat vegan meals if (a) they didn't contain any of my food-intolerance or allergy foods (peanuts, but I also have bad reactions to carrots and celery if eat them in...

the "flex type" pasta dishes vary a LOT. If they're prepared right, they're not bad. But too often recently they've come out either gluey, or with crunchy overdone/dried out noodles on top. It's just that the food is so disappointing. I mean, right after the pandemic I'd gotten so used to...

So the sleepers are still at the end, for both 21 and 22? Guess I take my cane (sigh). (I sustained a bone bruise earlier this spring and while it has MOSTLY healed, if I have to sit for a long time or in an awkward position, it hurts, and that knee is very stiff, and I'd rather not fall trying...

I wonder how long this will continue? (I take the TE out of MIN on Wednesday). Upside for me is it's more likely to be on time if it originates in FTW. Downside might be there will be dining-car-restocking-mishaps

Honestly customer service everywhere is so much worse in recent years. I will admit once or twice when traveling on Amtrak when one of those inexplicable things happened and we got snapped at and given very little information it was bad enough that I wound up in tears - travel is stressful...

"First class" means something VERY different from what it once did.. I take the eastbound leg of the TE and I'm not sure how many more flex meals I can choke down. (Next travel is in May). The meatballs and pasta in the earlier days of Flex weren't so bad, and I had fried cod once that was...

On my Thanksgiving trip up, it was that way - I kind of like it, quieter (less horn/whistle) and no chance of diesel fumes, though you do have to troop through the coaches to get to the diner. Coming back home (on Friday after Thanksgiving) the sleeper was in the usual place, just before the...

Yeah, on the trip up on the Texas Eagle, that's what they did with the "Continental Breakfast" stuff - just put it out on a central table and said "This trip terminates at Chicago, so have at it." hot meals were still possible upon request so I had pancakes and sausage. Coming home, they still...

To me, it feels like the eastern leg of the TE is very much the afterthought train. Like we're not good enough for real meals and often not even good enough for properly heated flex meals. I think the northbound time this time was one of the few times the flex meal was actually kinda good, and...

I had the enchiladas on the TE last week. On the leg up, with Rachel (who is one of the best dining car workers I've seen) they were really quite good - properly heated and all. Coming back the edges were burnt and they seemed to have been left in the oven too long. That may be the issue with...

I travel next week and was hoping for news of traditional dining being back on the eastern leg of the Eagle, but oh well. I was willing to put up with it during the pandemic when fewer were traveling and we mostly ate in our rooms but now? the whole "slopped into a single bowl" thing, yeah. Also...

Yeah I suspect if the Eagle EVER gets trad dining back on the eastern leg, they'll be the last one to. I just looked up the new menu (am traveling next week for T-giving) and will have to, I guess, decide between enchiladas or chicken parm - a lot of the other things MIGHT include allergy/food...

Its been bad here. I lost part of a tree (southern Oklahoma) last week in a storm, we had bad storms again several days later in the week.. I didn't sleep much Saturday night because of loud severe thunderstorms. Much of Shreveport was out of power earlier last week, and now NE Oklahoma is...