Part 1 - New Jersey to Chicago
We got dropped off at our local NJ Transit station, and then took the NJCL in to Penn. Once we got there, we checked our larger bags, and headed over to the very crowded Club Acela. Fortunately, an Acela and one of the Silvers boarded soon after we got there, so we then had plenty of room to spread out. We headed down to the LSL around 3:20 or so, and were shown to our roomettes by Sharon, our attendant.
I’ve been living in the NY area for about 15 years, but this would be my first trip out of Penn heading north to Albany, so I made sure to grab the room on the left-hand side of the train (the two girls would be more interested in their Nintendo DS and other games…). As expected, the ride north was incredibly beautiful as we emerged from the tunnel in Manhattan and headed towards the Tappan Zee Bridge. The views got even better as we pushed father north, and went near the Catskills and other mountains.
They didn’t have dinner reservations, so it was served on a first come, first served basis. We got in there right before Albany, and this was my first experience in the single level dining car, which I believe was one of the old Heritage models?? Wife got the lamb, I got rainbow trout, SIL got chicken, and the little one got pizza. We didn’t have power in ALB, so that delayed dessert a bit. I took advantage of the delay to look at the new consist of the train – it was quite a bit longer than I was expecting
{If memory serves, working from the back forward, there was the baggage car, followed by the NY consist of 2 sleepers, diner, and 3 coaches, joined by the Boston dinette car, 3 more coaches, the BOS sleeper, and the engines)
We finished dessert as we pulled out of Albany, then retired to our rooms for a little while before heading to the lounge to play some cards. I think we went to bed around 10, but there were some long delays in Utica and Rochester that night. Sleep finally came, and I woke up the next morning around 7 or so, took a shower, then headed for breakfast. Service was once again good. We then spent the rest of the ride back in our rooms as we arrived in Chicago almost exactly on time.
It took a little while to get our bags, but they came soon enough. We then took a cab to our hotel on E. Ohio Street, had a pizza a Gino’s East (yum), then took the L to that afternoon’s battle between the Padres and Cubs.
This was a great leg of the trip. Sharon was helpful, the Viewliner roomettes were better than I expected, and the train was on-time. I was happy to get to experience the old Horizon dining car, with its “star” lighting on the ceiling. The service in the car was excellent. The dinette/lounge car wasn’t quite what I was expecting (I thought it would have kind of a single-level SSL arrangement), but it was fine for its purposes. From the outside, both the diner and the dinette looked very old among the Amfleet-2 and Viewliner cars.
One gripe - they didn't have those route guides in the sleepers or in any of the other cars, as far as I could see. I was quite disappointed, since I had been planning on reading this on the train to learn about some of the sites/towns we would be seeing.
