RandyJay
Train Attendant
Just got in from a quick up-and-back weekend on the Eagle from San Antonio to Dallas. A good trip overall, but was surprised to see that there was no Sightseer Lounge car on the northbound #22 as we boarded Saturday morning. In its place was a Coach / Cafe car. Our attendant said he was told the lounge was "down for maintenance". OK - no problem as I know cars are in short supply these days. Later on while sitting in the Fort Worth station for our service stop, the southbound #21 backed in - with the same consist - no Sightseer lounge. Not a good sign. The next day our #21 heading back home was ditto - a Cafe Coach subbing for the lounge. I was able to chat with the conductor for a few minutes and he very apologetically told us that to his knowledge, none of the Eagles were running with Sightseers any more due to car shortages. To top it off, he said the current rumor was that this change was likely to be permanent. Of course that did not make my day!
But at least the trip had some high spots too - our sleeper out of San Antonio was a Superliner II (good), but the vacuum system was down so we had no toilets (bad), so they opened the transition sleeper to us (good). Finally got to roam around a transition car and even snap a few pictures - looks like the crew has it pretty good! And every Amtrak employee that we met was pretty upbeat about things as well, speaking highly of David Gunn, which I really was glad to see. As with our previous trip on the same route both coaches and sleeper were running at less than 50% occupancy which made for a nice quiet ride, the food and dining car service was very good (but I can see how the new standard menu could get old quickly!) and - get this - we were only 13 minutes late back into San Antonio!
Now if only we could get the Sightseers back . . . . . .
But at least the trip had some high spots too - our sleeper out of San Antonio was a Superliner II (good), but the vacuum system was down so we had no toilets (bad), so they opened the transition sleeper to us (good). Finally got to roam around a transition car and even snap a few pictures - looks like the crew has it pretty good! And every Amtrak employee that we met was pretty upbeat about things as well, speaking highly of David Gunn, which I really was glad to see. As with our previous trip on the same route both coaches and sleeper were running at less than 50% occupancy which made for a nice quiet ride, the food and dining car service was very good (but I can see how the new standard menu could get old quickly!) and - get this - we were only 13 minutes late back into San Antonio!
Now if only we could get the Sightseers back . . . . . .
