I decided to follow the suggestions of Palmland and Seaboard92 (as well as some other posters) for this trip. I had a good time, but I would not recommend doing this in the summer when the temperatures hit 90 F plus. Apparently, there was an unusual heatwave down there last week, that made wandering about outside unpleasant. Thus, I missed seeing soaking in some of the scenery in downtown Salisbury and Greensboro. Plus, I had to sit outside the Salisbury train station (air conditioned) waiting room for an hour and a half before it was reopened after the lunch break. Fortunately, there's lots of shade at the Salisbury Station, and I did have a bottle of water with me. My return trip to Baltimore was marred by a weather-related delay that I have described elsewhere and won't spend too much time reporting on it here.
My plan was this: Baltimore to Charlotte on the Carolinian (79), business class, Tuedsay. Spend the night in downtown Charlotte, up early on Wednesday to see the last hurrah of the replica streetcars on the CityLynx Gold Line, then over to Amtrak to ride the Piedmont (74) to Salisbury. Take a cab/uber to the NC Transportation Museum, have lunch in Salisbury and then take the next Piedmont (76) to Greensboro. Check out the Greensboro Station and get dinner there, and then take the last Piedmont to Raleigh. Spend the night in Raleigh, then home on the Carolinian (80). I thought about taking the Silver star, but it's scheduled departure is 845 AM, and I thought that with a 10 PM arrival in Raleigh, I might want to sleep in. Also, a roomette on the Star was priced at double the cost of business class on the Carolinian.
Southbound 79 left Baltimore on time, and even with the NEC trackwork, arrived in Washington in about 30 minutes, about as fast as the Acela. After our engine change and reception of passengers, we left Washington, and headed south. While the trip was uneventful, by the time we got to Raleigh, we were an hour late. I don't know if it was heat restrictions or what, as I don't remember getting held for freight trains or anything. Our BC car was sold out between Alexandria and Wilson, and I had a seatmate for that section. I'm glad I had business class because there was enough room on the floor in front to the seat for my backpack and my legs, which means I didn't have to put my backpack in the overhead rack and have to bother my seatmate any time I wanted to retrieve any thing from it. At Wilson, an empty seat pair opened up ,and my seatmate (who was also going to Charlotte) hopped up quickly and claimed it, so we both had seats to ourselves for the rest of the trip.
The Carolinian business class has a car attendant who periodically passes out drinks (non alcoholic). I'm not sure if I think this service is so great, because this is the only way you can get your free business class drink. So if you want to have lunch in between the times the attendant rolls the cart down the aisle, you have to pay for a drink or remember to have one on hand earlier. Frankly, I prefer the system on the Northeast Regional trains where you just show the cafe car attendant your BC ticket and get the free drink, and you get it when you want to get it. Now, if this attendant were able to also take order for stuff from the cafe car car for you, that would be a different thing... I suspect that the state of North Carolina is paying for this extra, and I wonder if its the best use of their money.
After we left Raleigh, we got held up outside of Cary for a while for a Piedmont train. Then, right outside of Durham, we were considerably delayed for a very slow moving freight train. That's when I overheard a lady sitting a few rows in front of me saying, "next time, I'm taking a freight train." We were running kind of slow all the way to Greensboro, but after Greensboro, the engineer put on the gas and we were running at 70-75 mph the rest of the way (except stops, of course). We got into Charlotte about an hour and a half late. There were no taxicabs waiting, but through the magic of Uber, I soon had a ride to a highrise apartment nearby, which was my Airbnb room. A rather odd place. Nice, but odd. The tenants all appeared to be millenials, and my presence there was going to make a big difference in the average age of the people sleeping there. The airbnb host sent a text warning me not to have anything to do with the residents or building staff (except, of course for the concierge who handed me the keys). I had a nice, if small 1 bedroom apartment on the 19th floor (alas, facing away for the downtown skyline), and I quickly went to sleep, setting my alarm for early rising so I could check out the CityLynx trolley, yet still make my 10:30 train to Salsibury.
-more to come
My plan was this: Baltimore to Charlotte on the Carolinian (79), business class, Tuedsay. Spend the night in downtown Charlotte, up early on Wednesday to see the last hurrah of the replica streetcars on the CityLynx Gold Line, then over to Amtrak to ride the Piedmont (74) to Salisbury. Take a cab/uber to the NC Transportation Museum, have lunch in Salisbury and then take the next Piedmont (76) to Greensboro. Check out the Greensboro Station and get dinner there, and then take the last Piedmont to Raleigh. Spend the night in Raleigh, then home on the Carolinian (80). I thought about taking the Silver star, but it's scheduled departure is 845 AM, and I thought that with a 10 PM arrival in Raleigh, I might want to sleep in. Also, a roomette on the Star was priced at double the cost of business class on the Carolinian.
Southbound 79 left Baltimore on time, and even with the NEC trackwork, arrived in Washington in about 30 minutes, about as fast as the Acela. After our engine change and reception of passengers, we left Washington, and headed south. While the trip was uneventful, by the time we got to Raleigh, we were an hour late. I don't know if it was heat restrictions or what, as I don't remember getting held for freight trains or anything. Our BC car was sold out between Alexandria and Wilson, and I had a seatmate for that section. I'm glad I had business class because there was enough room on the floor in front to the seat for my backpack and my legs, which means I didn't have to put my backpack in the overhead rack and have to bother my seatmate any time I wanted to retrieve any thing from it. At Wilson, an empty seat pair opened up ,and my seatmate (who was also going to Charlotte) hopped up quickly and claimed it, so we both had seats to ourselves for the rest of the trip.
The Carolinian business class has a car attendant who periodically passes out drinks (non alcoholic). I'm not sure if I think this service is so great, because this is the only way you can get your free business class drink. So if you want to have lunch in between the times the attendant rolls the cart down the aisle, you have to pay for a drink or remember to have one on hand earlier. Frankly, I prefer the system on the Northeast Regional trains where you just show the cafe car attendant your BC ticket and get the free drink, and you get it when you want to get it. Now, if this attendant were able to also take order for stuff from the cafe car car for you, that would be a different thing... I suspect that the state of North Carolina is paying for this extra, and I wonder if its the best use of their money.
After we left Raleigh, we got held up outside of Cary for a while for a Piedmont train. Then, right outside of Durham, we were considerably delayed for a very slow moving freight train. That's when I overheard a lady sitting a few rows in front of me saying, "next time, I'm taking a freight train." We were running kind of slow all the way to Greensboro, but after Greensboro, the engineer put on the gas and we were running at 70-75 mph the rest of the way (except stops, of course). We got into Charlotte about an hour and a half late. There were no taxicabs waiting, but through the magic of Uber, I soon had a ride to a highrise apartment nearby, which was my Airbnb room. A rather odd place. Nice, but odd. The tenants all appeared to be millenials, and my presence there was going to make a big difference in the average age of the people sleeping there. The airbnb host sent a text warning me not to have anything to do with the residents or building staff (except, of course for the concierge who handed me the keys). I had a nice, if small 1 bedroom apartment on the 19th floor (alas, facing away for the downtown skyline), and I quickly went to sleep, setting my alarm for early rising so I could check out the CityLynx trolley, yet still make my 10:30 train to Salsibury.
-more to come
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