Well I’m back from my round about trip through the mid-west a day earlier than expected. Thanks to a silly, stupid mistake on my part I was forced to rework the end of my planned trip. While I will do a full trip report eventually, I did want to tell the a bit of my story. Additionally I wanted to address a few questions that had been asked on the BB recently. So to that end, here goes.
My original itinerary was as follows:
Leave NY on the Lake Shore Limited on Tuesday Feb 24th.
Transfer to the SW Chief in Chicago, riding that to Kansas City.
Then overnight in KC.
Catch the Ann Rutledge on Thursday, which runs back to Chicago via St. Louis
Check into a Chicago Hotel for 4 nights as a base of operations.
Ride the Wolverine to Pontiac, MI. on Friday, returning that night on the Twilight Limited.
Saturday & Sunday, riding CTA & METRA trains with a friend.
Monday the 1st, catch the International to Toronto.
Spend one night in TWO, then catch VIA’s Enterprise the overnight run between TWO & Montreal.
Returning home from Montreal to NY on Wednesday, via the Adirondack.
Well things went quite well for the first 6 days with most trains running very close to on time. The worst was the Ann Rutledge, which thanks to UP, was 3 hours late into St. Louis. My luck ran out on Monday morning, when I made the mistake of thinking that the International left at 9:50 AM. It leaves at 9:40 AM and I have no idea how I got that time into my head.
I was actually in Chicago Union Station long before that time. I stopped and grabbed breakfast at the McDonalds in CUS. Then I had a client page me and thinking that I still had time I decided to return that call from the McD’s since reception is better upstairs, than it is down in the waiting room. After talking for about 5 minutes, I ended the conversation since I knew that I was getting close. As I headed down the escalator, I heard the engineer of the International say goodbye to the gate agent.
My 10-minute mistake in departure times had cost me my ride. For that matter, had I not removed my earpiece for the scanner, I probably would have heard the call for passengers my scanner. But I had removed that for a few minutes so that I could better hear on the cell phone.
So after watching the taillights of my train fade into the distance, I sat and quickly considered my options. Trying to get to Toronto on my own, postponing my trip by one day, or just giving up and returning home. I decided that I would save the money and return home.
So I traded in my International & Adirondack tickets towards the price of a sleeper on the Lake Shore. I then went into the Metropolitan Lounge, got on-line with my laptop, and canceled my VIA reservations and my Toronto hotel reservation.
So word to the wise, always take your breakfast food to the waiting area.
Now moving on, while a decision was made to remove the TV screens from the Viewliner sleepers, this project is not moving all that quickly, as I screens in both of my sleepers. Additionally at least one report that I had seen, although I can’t find it right now, had stated that Amtrak would immediately stop showing movies in the cars, even if the screens had not yet been removed.
This has not happened, at least yet, as I had movies in both directions and I did not have the same car on my return that I had on the way to Chicago. So I don’t know when or if Amtrak plans to stop the movies, but it clearly hasn’t happened yet.
Next the NY Lake Shore connection to the Boston section, or lack thereof. Westbound there was quite clearly no across the platform transfer as promised by Amtrak. In fact the Boston section wasn’t even in the station when we arrived and the passengers from Boston were not visible on the platform. The Boston passengers boarded our train with the rest of the passengers boarding from Albany.
On the return however, there was indeed an across the platform transfer, as the Boston shuttle was sitting alongside the platform. The pitiful looking section can only be called a shuttle, as there were only 3 cars and 1 engine. One P42, one US mail car substituting as a baggage car, one Amfleet I Amcoach, and one Amfleet I Amcafe.
Next as a few others have already confirmed, sodas have indeed been removed from the sleepers. Only juice, water, and coffee are still provided. In an interesting twist however, when one rides business class on the mid-west trains (like the Ann Rutledge) soda is still included as a perk. Also juice, coffee, and tea are included. However, one can no longer get bottled water for free in business class.
Amtrak wants consistency and yet they have now instituted to completely different policies, even if the service classes are largely different. One of the reasons, supposedly, for the removal of soda from the sleepers was the fact that not all attendants would put the soda out. So to make things consistent Amtrak removed soda from the list of free things. Yet one can still get soda in business class for free, but not water, which one can still get for free in a sleeper. Go figure. :blink:
By the way in a final stunning end to my week on the rails, the so-called Late Shore was really the Lake Shore today. We arrived 9 minutes early today into Penn Station.
And that will wrap up my mini-report.
My original itinerary was as follows:
Leave NY on the Lake Shore Limited on Tuesday Feb 24th.
Transfer to the SW Chief in Chicago, riding that to Kansas City.
Then overnight in KC.
Catch the Ann Rutledge on Thursday, which runs back to Chicago via St. Louis
Check into a Chicago Hotel for 4 nights as a base of operations.
Ride the Wolverine to Pontiac, MI. on Friday, returning that night on the Twilight Limited.
Saturday & Sunday, riding CTA & METRA trains with a friend.
Monday the 1st, catch the International to Toronto.
Spend one night in TWO, then catch VIA’s Enterprise the overnight run between TWO & Montreal.
Returning home from Montreal to NY on Wednesday, via the Adirondack.
Well things went quite well for the first 6 days with most trains running very close to on time. The worst was the Ann Rutledge, which thanks to UP, was 3 hours late into St. Louis. My luck ran out on Monday morning, when I made the mistake of thinking that the International left at 9:50 AM. It leaves at 9:40 AM and I have no idea how I got that time into my head.
I was actually in Chicago Union Station long before that time. I stopped and grabbed breakfast at the McDonalds in CUS. Then I had a client page me and thinking that I still had time I decided to return that call from the McD’s since reception is better upstairs, than it is down in the waiting room. After talking for about 5 minutes, I ended the conversation since I knew that I was getting close. As I headed down the escalator, I heard the engineer of the International say goodbye to the gate agent.
My 10-minute mistake in departure times had cost me my ride. For that matter, had I not removed my earpiece for the scanner, I probably would have heard the call for passengers my scanner. But I had removed that for a few minutes so that I could better hear on the cell phone.
So after watching the taillights of my train fade into the distance, I sat and quickly considered my options. Trying to get to Toronto on my own, postponing my trip by one day, or just giving up and returning home. I decided that I would save the money and return home.
So I traded in my International & Adirondack tickets towards the price of a sleeper on the Lake Shore. I then went into the Metropolitan Lounge, got on-line with my laptop, and canceled my VIA reservations and my Toronto hotel reservation.
So word to the wise, always take your breakfast food to the waiting area.
Now moving on, while a decision was made to remove the TV screens from the Viewliner sleepers, this project is not moving all that quickly, as I screens in both of my sleepers. Additionally at least one report that I had seen, although I can’t find it right now, had stated that Amtrak would immediately stop showing movies in the cars, even if the screens had not yet been removed.
This has not happened, at least yet, as I had movies in both directions and I did not have the same car on my return that I had on the way to Chicago. So I don’t know when or if Amtrak plans to stop the movies, but it clearly hasn’t happened yet.
Next the NY Lake Shore connection to the Boston section, or lack thereof. Westbound there was quite clearly no across the platform transfer as promised by Amtrak. In fact the Boston section wasn’t even in the station when we arrived and the passengers from Boston were not visible on the platform. The Boston passengers boarded our train with the rest of the passengers boarding from Albany.
On the return however, there was indeed an across the platform transfer, as the Boston shuttle was sitting alongside the platform. The pitiful looking section can only be called a shuttle, as there were only 3 cars and 1 engine. One P42, one US mail car substituting as a baggage car, one Amfleet I Amcoach, and one Amfleet I Amcafe.
Next as a few others have already confirmed, sodas have indeed been removed from the sleepers. Only juice, water, and coffee are still provided. In an interesting twist however, when one rides business class on the mid-west trains (like the Ann Rutledge) soda is still included as a perk. Also juice, coffee, and tea are included. However, one can no longer get bottled water for free in business class.
Amtrak wants consistency and yet they have now instituted to completely different policies, even if the service classes are largely different. One of the reasons, supposedly, for the removal of soda from the sleepers was the fact that not all attendants would put the soda out. So to make things consistent Amtrak removed soda from the list of free things. Yet one can still get soda in business class for free, but not water, which one can still get for free in a sleeper. Go figure.
:blink:By the way in a final stunning end to my week on the rails, the so-called Late Shore was really the Lake Shore today. We arrived 9 minutes early today into Penn Station.
And that will wrap up my mini-report.
