Our transcontinental adventure

Our itinerary:

• New York Penn station to Washington DC on Northeast regional train 141 business class
• Washington DC to Chicago on the Capitol Limited in bedrooms
• Chicago to Seattle on the Empire Builder in bedrooms

My parents are getting older (82 and 78 respectively) and I have long wanted to take them and my family on a big trip. However, as things happened, my wife could not make it and my two teenage daughters were not keen on a long train journey. However, my father-in-law was enthusiastic about the idea so he joined us. So ultimately, it was four of us who went on this trip.

After much dithering and asking questions on this forum, I came up with this set of trains for several reasons:

• The chance of making connections seemed to be the best. The Capitol Limited seems to be the best in terms of on-time performance among the westbound Chicago trains
• The Capitol Limited has a full dining car instead of Cafes like the Lakeshore Limited and the Cardinal
• Finally, I have always been fascinated by the Superliners and wanted to maximize my experience

Here is a Flickr album of the trip (click on photo to view):




I'll post the details of the trip shortly

We left pretty early on the morning of August 12 from my home in northern New Jersey in a taxi. Even though our train was only supposed to leave at 9:35am, we left home at about 6:45am. Traffic over the George Washington Bridge can be very unpredictable. Also, my mother had a hip replacement operation last year and can't walk too fast. As things turned out, traffic was not too bad we reached Penn station in about 40 minutes.

Now, train 141 does not have checked baggage service, so I had called Amtrak the previous day and verified that we would be able to check baggage directly to Seattle - with the bags going on the Lake Shore Limited. To my relief, the guy at the baggage counter in Penn Station made no fuss - he remarked that this was pretty common and assured me our bags would reach Seattle along with us. Spoiler alert - our bags arrived with no problem in Seattle.

We then went over to the Acela Lounge. Its small but comfortable [there's a photo of the lounge in the album]. The person in charge, Bernie Myers, saw my mother using a walking stick and on his own initiative came over to say that he had arranged a wheelchair for my mother both in New York and Washington. It was very considerate of him - I did leave a nice report about him on the Amtrak employee recognition web page. Then as luck would have it, I ran into an old childhood friend whom I hadn't seen for years in the Acela lounge so time passed quickly.

Train 141 comes from Springfield, Ma and was about 15 minutes late getting into Penn station, not a big deal. The train was really crowded and lots of people got on and off at every stop. I went to the cafe car and got some drinks for my group. Walking back through four cars with a wobbly tray full of bottles was not much fun. Its been a number of years since I last travelled on the Northeast corridor but to be honest, not much was really new. The business car was clean but the air conditioning was not effective throughout the car - the day was blistering hot (93 degrees). I had a brief panic attack as I thought I had lost my wallet but it had merely slipped out of my pocket when I was moving seats. I was able to get it back thankfully.

Interesting point: Our e-ticket was scanned only on the first leg and furthermore the conductor did not ask for an id. For the rest of the journey, I merely showed my ticket printout at the various lounges and and was allowed to board the trains.

The train finally arrived in Washington Union station right on time - starting the journey off on a good note. In fact, by a miracle, all three trains were either on time or early. As promised by Bernie, a red cap was waiting with a golf cart on the platform so my parents had very little walking to do. We dropped off our hand baggage at the Acela lounge and went to get some lunch.

My parents were paralyzed by the choices available in the enormous food court in Union station :mellow: So I had to break the tie and got some sandwiches and soup from Pret-a-Manger. This was a big hit with them. I love this chain as they have an outlet right across from my office in Manhattan where work. I always go there on the days I don't bring my lunch from home. After much, we went back to the Acela lounge to hang around until our train was called.

Beautiful photos--thanks for posting them! I have taken 141 from Connecticut to New Jersey, and by the time it gets to New York, it is very crowded. It sounds like you got the worst one over with first and the Cap. and Empire Builder would be better!

Looking forward to your description of the rest of the trip.

Mystic River Dragon said:

Beautiful photos--thanks for posting them! I have taken 141 from Connecticut to New Jersey, and by the time it gets to New York, it is very crowded. It sounds like you got the worst one over with first and the Cap. and Empire Builder would be better!

Looking forward to your description of the rest of the trip.

Click to expand...

Apologies - I have been too busy at work. Hope to complete the trip report later today

Work does get in the way, doesn't it? No rush--we love trip reports, whenever they are posted!

The second leg of the journey was what i was really looking forward to being the first ever trip by sleeper on Amtrak. My last overnight journey on Amtrak was on the Auto Train back in 1991 - in coach no less. This was in a heritage coach car - long before Superliners were introduced on that route.

Interestingly they took dinner reservations right in the Acela lounge itself - we selected 6:30pm. At boarding time, my parents were whisked from the lounge to the train by red caps in a golf cart while I and my father-in-law walked behind the cart. The sleeping car attendant greeted us warmly (I wish I had caught his name - he was super friendly and welcoming). We had the "A" bedrooms in two adjacent cars - however the two cars were in mirror image so the two bedrooms actually turned out to be very close together. The next time, I travel in such a configuration, I will try hard to get two adjacent bedrooms that can be combined. That would have been even better. Also - the "A" bedrooms are a little smaller than the other ones although not by much.

The Superliners on the Capitol Limited are refurbished Superliner 1s and as such created a great first impression. All of the switches were touch operated - the bathroom and basin were clean and everything worked perfectly in both bedrooms.

After passing Rockville Md, I took my father and father-in-law to the sightseer lounge for some beer and snacks. This was also my first experience in the sightseer lounge and and loved it. The dinner service was a little delayed by about 15 minutes as the diner was running a little slow but that was fine as we had had a heavy lunch. Dinner itself was excellent but service was rather slow as the dumbwaiter that transfers the food between the kitchen and dining are was not working. I noticed that the wait staff had to walk up the narrow staircase with dishes. While we were having dinner, a terrific thunderstorm was raging outside.

Sometime after passing Cumberland, the sleeping car attendant made up the beds. My parents were comfortably able to share the lower berth in their bedroom while to took the upper berth in my bed room. You do need to be somewhat limber to climb up to the upper berth. 70+ age group travelers would definitely find the climb hard. Also, its not possible for an adult to sit up in a Superliner upper berth so this makes getting in and out a little challenging. It was not a problem for me since I do flexibility exercises in my gym every day

I slept early and very soundly and only awoke at about 5:30am - I should mention that I'm an early riser by nature and usually get up at about 4am on ordinary days so 5:30am is really late by my standards! We went and had breakfast as the train stopped in Elkhart so I was able to see the New York Central Railroad museum which is next to the station. I had scrambled eggs with potatoes and biscuit which was excellent. All of the breakfast items were that my party had were appreciated. The sleeping car attendant made up the beds while we were at breakfast. The run along Lake Michigan in northern Indiana was fascinating and we actually arrived about 30 minutes early in Chicago.

Happy that the ride on the Cap went so smooth for ya'll.

And you are so correct about the Upper Bunk on Superliners but the one in the Bedrooms is a breeze compared to the coffin in a Roomette!

Look forward to the next report, thanks for sharing!

Sounds fun. I want to take another sleeper trip myself. My first was quite the adventure.

Glad you liked the Cap. and that you had such a good trip on it!

Before I get on with the rest of the journey - a brief bit about my first morning of the journey. Taking a shower on the Capitol Limited in our private bathroom was a novel experience for sure. I think this is the first time, I have taken a shower on a moving vehicle (unless of course you count the Earth itself as a moving vehicle :giggle: ). The water was hot and despite the cramped quarters, the shower turned out to be really refreshing.

It took a while for the red caps to arrive with the golf cart for my parents so we started walking slowly down the platform. Thankfully the god cart arrived before we had gone too far. We dropped our hand baggage in the baggage room at the Metropolitan lounge but had to wait for a few minutes to get approved to enter (had to show the e-ticket printout). After resting for a few minutes, we wandered around Union Station and then walked across the river to the Willis Tower. By good luck we got there before the big tourist hoards so we had a nice view of Chicago from the deck. After this visit, we had an early lunch at the Corner Bakery and Cafe on Jackson Boulevard. We then waited in the lounge for a couple of hours for our train to be called. During our wait, we enjoyed a wine tasting session.

As in Washington, my parents were taken to the train in a golf cart. In this case, the walk would have been simply too much for my mother. The Empire Builder alone among the long distance trains leaves from the north side platforms. We were again given rooms in adjacent cars but the sleeping car attendant arranged a swap with some people in one of the cars so both bedrooms were now in the same car. However, the SCA did this without getting permission from the conductor so this caused a minor issue as Veronica the SCA in our car discovered this "unapproved" swap. She had to get this sorted out with the conductor and fortunately the swap was okayed before the train actually left Chicago so all was well

The cars in the Empire Builder were actually newer than the cars on the Capitol Limited but were not refurbished. As a result, they looked a little ragged around the edges although they were clean enough. My parents had the "E" bedroom while I and my father-in-law were in the "A" bedroom. That was when we discovered how much smaller the "A" bedroom was! This is a result of having to provide clearance for the corridor outside. Furthermore, the "D"and "E" bedrooms can be combined together by opening a connecting door. If i ever travel with such a group, thats what i would sure book the the next time.

The run to Milwaukee through outer suburbs of Chicago was fascinating and very smooth. The only problem was that there was a flat spot on one of the wheels in the truck directly under the "A" bedroom but thankfully not too bad. Flat spots can form if wheels lock during hard braking. I took my my father and father-in-law to the Sightseer lounge for our afternoon beer. We got there just as they were opening the cafe on the lower level so I had to wait for a while in a queue. However, with the Heinekens and some peanuts, we had an enjoyable time there.

At Milwaukee, I went to explore the car and saw that the "vacuum leak" was lit in the control panel for the car. I wondered about this with some slight concern - as it happens, this was to cause some anxiety the next day. More in the next posting!

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