Just a couple of days ago, the main waiting room at King Street Station in Seattle had been closed for renovation, and replaced by temporary space carved out of the old baggage area at the north end of the station. The result was confusion, and a shortage of places to sit. The Amtrak station agent apologized in her boarding announcement, and asked us to bear with them. Generally, people seemed to be in a good mood at the beginning of a holiday weekend.
It was a bit longer walk than usual to the train, but everyone got aboard okay, and I settled into bedroom D of car 0830. It had been a long time since I had been in a bedroom, but I had gotten quite a reasonable deal when I made the reservation a while back. We were in a nicely-refurbished Superliner I, and everything seemed to work pretty well.
Train 8 left on time at 4:40 pm. We were making our way along Puget Sound when the train stopped unexpectedly. In a series of announcements, we were told that the engineer and conductor couldn't fix the issue, and that someone was coming up from Seattle to work on it. While all of that was going on, SCA Brent was making the rounds and explaining how everything worked to a full car, with a lot of Brits returning from Alaska cruises, and a sprinkling of other folks. LSA bob (who I think i remember as the SCA that traveled with me on a bustitution to Spokane several years ago) on Bob came around with reservations, and I was surprised to find that the first seating wouldn't be until 6:15, which is what I selected.
I discovered why during dinner. It turns out that the whole OBS crew was working overtime or coming off the extra board to work this trip. Not Surprising given the problems 7 and 8 had had a few days ago. Our server Terry was working hard, and I gave her a good tip, but she said that she doesn't usually work the diner. I know I've seen her before, so she's not new to Amtrak, but she managed to miss taking the orders of the table behind us for quite a while. She was very apologetic, and the folks she'd missed we're forgiving, so no harm done.
This was apparently the first trip with the new menu, although the entrees were all items I've had before, so I stuck with the steak, good as usual. Some new desserts, though, including marionberry cake, which I had and was really more like cheesecake. Yummy! Everyone else at my table had chocolate peanut butter torte, which they enjoyed.
I ate with a couple of ladies who were going to Leavenworth for the weekend, and had sprung for a sleeper for the short trip, along with a slightly grumpy guy who was returning to Ohio from a vacation, and was already worrying about missing his connection to the Cap.
We were eating when the conductor announced that they had hopefully fixed the engine problem, and everyone cheered when we got moving again. We stopped at Edmonds and were just finishing dessert at Everett, about two hours late. So we saw the last of daylight west of the Cascade Tunnel.
I rang for Brent after Leavenworth, and settled in. I'm so used to roomettes that sleeping sideways takes getting used to. But I slept pretty well, waking at Spokane while the power was out during coupling with 27. I was up warly enough to see Libby in more daylight than I'm used to. By now, we were just over an hour down.
After the discussion on AU about crab cakes for breakfast, I had to try them when offered, and I was very pleased. They were served on a biscuit with Hollandaise sauce (no eggs though) and they were appropriately spicy -- not too much, not too little -- with enough crabmeat so that I could tell. They wouldn't win awards at a Maryland crab house, but quite good. I ate with a couple from Manchester, England, who probably thought I was crazy for ordering them, but who were too polite to say so. He'd worked on the railroad until becoming a Methodist minister -- going from horizontal to vertical transportation, as he put it.
His wife didn't even crack a smile, so I suspect that she'd heard that one a lot.
We got to Essex about 1:20 late, and I've been relaxing at the Izaak Walton Inn today. It's too early in the season for a red bus tour, and the weather isn't great, so I've been sitting by the fire writing this on my iPad. I'll go downstairs and see whether their wifi actually works in a while.
It was a bit longer walk than usual to the train, but everyone got aboard okay, and I settled into bedroom D of car 0830. It had been a long time since I had been in a bedroom, but I had gotten quite a reasonable deal when I made the reservation a while back. We were in a nicely-refurbished Superliner I, and everything seemed to work pretty well.
Train 8 left on time at 4:40 pm. We were making our way along Puget Sound when the train stopped unexpectedly. In a series of announcements, we were told that the engineer and conductor couldn't fix the issue, and that someone was coming up from Seattle to work on it. While all of that was going on, SCA Brent was making the rounds and explaining how everything worked to a full car, with a lot of Brits returning from Alaska cruises, and a sprinkling of other folks. LSA bob (who I think i remember as the SCA that traveled with me on a bustitution to Spokane several years ago) on Bob came around with reservations, and I was surprised to find that the first seating wouldn't be until 6:15, which is what I selected.
I discovered why during dinner. It turns out that the whole OBS crew was working overtime or coming off the extra board to work this trip. Not Surprising given the problems 7 and 8 had had a few days ago. Our server Terry was working hard, and I gave her a good tip, but she said that she doesn't usually work the diner. I know I've seen her before, so she's not new to Amtrak, but she managed to miss taking the orders of the table behind us for quite a while. She was very apologetic, and the folks she'd missed we're forgiving, so no harm done.
This was apparently the first trip with the new menu, although the entrees were all items I've had before, so I stuck with the steak, good as usual. Some new desserts, though, including marionberry cake, which I had and was really more like cheesecake. Yummy! Everyone else at my table had chocolate peanut butter torte, which they enjoyed.
I ate with a couple of ladies who were going to Leavenworth for the weekend, and had sprung for a sleeper for the short trip, along with a slightly grumpy guy who was returning to Ohio from a vacation, and was already worrying about missing his connection to the Cap.
We were eating when the conductor announced that they had hopefully fixed the engine problem, and everyone cheered when we got moving again. We stopped at Edmonds and were just finishing dessert at Everett, about two hours late. So we saw the last of daylight west of the Cascade Tunnel.
I rang for Brent after Leavenworth, and settled in. I'm so used to roomettes that sleeping sideways takes getting used to. But I slept pretty well, waking at Spokane while the power was out during coupling with 27. I was up warly enough to see Libby in more daylight than I'm used to. By now, we were just over an hour down.
After the discussion on AU about crab cakes for breakfast, I had to try them when offered, and I was very pleased. They were served on a biscuit with Hollandaise sauce (no eggs though) and they were appropriately spicy -- not too much, not too little -- with enough crabmeat so that I could tell. They wouldn't win awards at a Maryland crab house, but quite good. I ate with a couple from Manchester, England, who probably thought I was crazy for ordering them, but who were too polite to say so. He'd worked on the railroad until becoming a Methodist minister -- going from horizontal to vertical transportation, as he put it.
His wife didn't even crack a smile, so I suspect that she'd heard that one a lot.We got to Essex about 1:20 late, and I've been relaxing at the Izaak Walton Inn today. It's too early in the season for a red bus tour, and the weather isn't great, so I've been sitting by the fire writing this on my iPad. I'll go downstairs and see whether their wifi actually works in a while.
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