Recent content by GoldenSpike

The cover of the July issue of Trains magazine shows an April 30, 1971 photo of the last SF El Capitan waiting to depart Dearborn station as a SF Chief arrives.

Amtrak doing their part to aid in easing the congestion shown in this photo of the detour: http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/2013/05/24/2021053418.jpg

Our dinner mates on the e/b EB last week was an excutive of the Amtrak engineer school in Delaware along with his wife. He spoke of the roll-out and the shortage of candidates for the school. His wife revealed his position after learning of my lust for Amtrak travel and earning rewards.

My wife and I were on that train on a AGR freebie. She became a part of the delay. We boarded at MSP. The EB was about 30 minutes late arriving. Power/ventilation was lost and became stuffy. I couldn't sleep. Instead of a 11:15 pm departure we left at 4:45 a.m. due to the isssues mentioned by...

MrFSS - Saving Rule #1 for later today. In the meantime I was hoping to learn if others are also facing this.

Last night I called AGR to modify a rewards trip. The choices shown on Arrow for Naperville, IL (NPV - outside of Chicago) to Tacoma (TAC) are: NPV-CHI-PDX-TAC EB – Cascade. NPV-CHI-SAC-TAC CZ - CS NPV-LAX-TAC SWC - CS I opted for the LAX option. The agent said I couldn’t...

230,000 after after spending 20K for a STL-KCY-LAX-PDX-SPK trip later this month.

Another long article about Amtrak on the Atlantic side. It is a part of the Sunday Train series.   Meander down the tracks to read it HERE.

Long article on plans that Amtrak has developed for the five weakest of its fifteen long distance corridors: the California Zephyr, the Capitol Limited, the Cardinal, the Sunset Limited, and the Texas Eagle.   HERE.

Excerpt:   LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas Railway Express, which plans to begin luxury rail passenger service between suburban Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 2013, announced Tuesday it had "executed an agreement with a private owner to acquire its first set of passenger railcars for its 'X' Train...

There is a one-hour gap between the CS arrival in PDX and the EB's departure. Did you mean the CS arrived in PDX 4 minutes after the EB was due to leave which would explain the need to run to the EB?

Opportunity to ride one of the oldies: The Illinois Railway Museum, in cooperation with Amtrak and BNSF Railway, will operate the Nebraska Zephyr, powered by CB&Q 9911A "Silver Pilot", on an excursion between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois on September 22nd and 23rd.   Schedule and ticket info  

Amtrak had a bar car on the EB in their early days. I recall the smoke-filled car had a long sit up at the counter arrangement almost the length of the car. What was amazing the pax partied hardily until 4 a.m. when last call was made. Maybe it was done to dull the pain of going through...

Know the feeling. I went from CVA to an AKA. I always equated the difference like going from a Winnebago RV to a VW bug.

You:   Me:   You:   I understand your wishful thinking, but see my response.   The operative words are ALL PASSENGERS (coach and sleeper) are subject to the new rules.