Trip Info:
Route: Amtrak Cardinal 51 (Westbound)
Origin: New York City's Penn Station / Moynihan Hall (NYP)
Destination: Lafayette, Indiana (LAF)
Month: August 2023
Room: Viewliner 2 Roomette
Back in 2019, I made a trip report in which I took the Hoosier State from LAF to Chicago. Well now, I finally got to do the rest of the Cardinal route, but now in a roomette! It was my first time in one of Amtrak's sleepers, hence why my video focuses largely on reviewing the actual hard product.
NYC + Departure -
Bright and early back in August, my friend and I woke up and took a combination of subways to get to Moynihan train hall. We were there an hour or so early, but the Metropolitan Lounge only opens at 7 AM on weekends, so we unfortunately weren't able to try that out. (Seems like somewhat of an oversight, as we weren't the only long-distance train heading out that morning?) At about 6:30 AM, we were called to Track 8 and headed back to our roomette in a combo roomette-baggage car. We were in room 5, on the right side of the train. Promptly pushed out of NYP, and our attendant came around with menus for breakfast around Newark. We both tried the pancakes and sausages- they were fine, but I can see why people don't love the Flexible Dining. I've had plenty of economy meals on airplanes that have been better in terms of quality, so hopefully, Amtrak will step up the dining in the future.
NEC, Delay -
We continued on down the Northeast Corridor and made the two beds to get some rest given how early we'd woken up. I really loved the bed setup, especially since they both have windows. We pulled into DC for the train to switch from electric to diesel engine, and briefly explored the station. I hope that this station sees some renovations soon- some of the station was in spectacular shape and honestly amazing for a first-time visitor, but closer to the boarding area was very 80s/90s, and could use upgrades. An Amtrak employee also told us off for taking a few photos/videos of the train while on the platform, telling us that we didn't have permission to record the train. Not sure I've ever heard of anyone having issues recording Amtraks in the US, so we were quite surprised. We got back on the train after an hour, got about a mile away from DC Station, and then the train stopped. After a while, we were told that there was some issue with a computer system and backed into the station again.
Delayed, Lunch, Finally leaving DC -
While stopped in DC (again), we had lunch- tried the Salmon and the Chicken Parm. Salmon was fine, but Chicken Parm seemed to be more easily microwavable, and thus a bit better. We also tried both a buttercake (as many people had recommended us to do) and a brownie for dessert- and we absolutely loved the buttercakes. So much so, that we changed both of our dinner dessert orders to the buttercakes!
Anyway, besides walking outside and talking to other passengers and some Amtrak staff, we never got any formal updates or insight into what was going on. From Amtrak staff, we were able to determine that there were issues with the locomotives, and they were struggling to find a replacement. A long part of waiting in DC was without electricity or air conditioning, so I was certainly happy to be in a roomette with access to free water bottles. After roughly 4 hours of being delayed, we finally continued on into Virginia.
Dinner, Broken Shower -
A bit past Charlottesville, we had our scheduled dinner. This time, we tried the Enchiladas and the Beef Burgundy. Similar to what others had told us, the enchiladas weren't terribly impressive, but the beef burgundy was pretty good. Meals also come with a bun, but they didn't warm them up at all this time, so that was a bit disappointing. Side note- Amtrak also gave everyone in coach little snack packs as an apology for the delay. After dinner, I decided to try out the shower! Sadly, the showerhead was somewhat broken, so you had the entire pressure of a normal showerhead coming out of only ~6 nozzles. That made for a pretty unpleasant, somewhat painful shower, so I gave up after a minute or so of using it.
No Views
, Sleeping, Sunrise, and Breakfast -
After showering, we recorded a proper room tour for our video and then got ready for bed. Because of our delay, the sunset while we were still in Virginia- about halfway between Staunton and Clifton Forge. That also meant that we wouldn't see any of the classic Cardinal scenery in West Virginia, which we'd been really excited for. We went to bed and had a decent night's rest. I woke up every few hours and caught some glimpses of small towns, but nothing terribly interesting. I woke up just north of Cincinnati, at around 6:30 AM, catching some nice sunrise views. Right around Connersville, we had breakfast- one order of pancakes & sausages, and one of the omelets.
Indianapolis, More delays, Crawfordsville, and Arriving -
At 9:30 AM, we pulled into Indianapolis' Union Station. Some of the small towns in Indiana have pretty nice stations, so I was shocked to see how sad the state of this station is. Even with only a few departures/arrivals a week, a city like Indianapolis deserves at least a somewhat decent-looking station. It really felt like an abandoned train shop. Now, because of issues with restrooms in coach, we added another hour to our delay before heading out. We passed through Crawfordsville (a somewhat newly renovated, yet small station), and finally pulled into Lafayette, Indiana at ~12:40 PM.
Final Thoughts:
For starters, I can't even describe how excited I'd been for this trip. I've wanted to take an Amtrak sleeper trip since I was a kid, so taking one of the most scenic routes directly to my childhood hometown was great. However, that excitement honestly set me up to be quite disappointed.
1. Poor handling of delay + Lack of Customer Service
Routes like this on Amtrak are practically synonymous with long delays, so I wasn't too surprised that it happened. Naturally, I was disappointed to miss most of the scenery, but I suppose I'll have other chances to take this route. More importantly, though, it seemed like Amtrak didn't handle the delay very well at all. With the exception of one post on Twitter, there was no indication of our delay anywhere, and we were never formally informed of what was happening. Every 90 minutes or so, someone would come on the PA just to remind us that "they were working on it," but nothing else. For a decent while, the lack of information honestly made it seem like the train was going to be canceled or delayed for some extreme amount of time. Some people ended up just getting off the train and ditching it entirely, and honestly, had I been sitting in one of the hot, AC-less coach cars, I may have as well.
I was also surprised with how they dealt with the food in situations like this. I had assumed that, given that we would now be on the train until ~12:40 PM the next day, and had breakfast at ~7 AM that next morning, we'd also get to eat lunch before arriving at LAF. However, when I asked an Amtrak attendant about lunch, they seemed really confused as to why we'd ask about such a thing and offered us more of the "snack packs" or the option of paying for cafe car food. That was just an annoyance for us, as it meant that we were pretty hungry upon arrival, but that seems like a huge inconvenience for the other passengers who were booked all the way through to Chicago. They ended up arriving at ~4 PM Eastern Time iirc, and presumably were given no food.
Lastly, after the whole trip, I was surprised that I never got any follow-up from Amtrak about our trip- not even the classic feedback survey. I ended up filling out one of the complaint forms, discussing the poor information about the delay, broken shower, and lack of wifi (described below). Two months later, I still haven't heard anything back (beyond the automatic "we've received your message" email). I didn't care too much about this until I heard from someone who had automatically received AGR points as an apology for their Acela being delayed a couple of hours. I suppose the Acela is a much more important route to them, but I'm shocked at just how big the disparity is with customer service. One route automatically emails customers apologizing for, and compensating for a delay of a couple of hours, while the other route is entirely ignored.
2. Bad state of the car
I also was surprised at the state of the car, especially since these are relatively new. Our room's closing mechanism didn't work properly, so the door wouldn't fully close. Even when latched into position, there was a decently large gap between the door and wall, which meant our room wasn't sound insulated very well. As described before, the showerhead wasn't in a reasonably usable state, and the wifi never once worked while we were on the train. I know that Amtrak wifi isn't the best, but this was the first time ever that we weren't even able to connect to the wifi network. At one point, our phones actually connected to another Amtrak train that was stopped near us, so it seems that this was more of an issue with our specific train/car.
------------------------------------------------
Anyway, I'd love to hear from others about their experiences - is that state of cars to be expected, and is customer service always like this? I still love traveling by train and could see myself seeking out another sleeper car experience in the future. I'm also curious as to how sleeping in the upper bunk in other, non-viewliner roomettes is! I feel like it might be weird, but I suppose when you're asleep it doesn't matter too much. Also, are Viewliner 1's still used on any routes, or are those older roomettes history now?
Route: Amtrak Cardinal 51 (Westbound)
Origin: New York City's Penn Station / Moynihan Hall (NYP)
Destination: Lafayette, Indiana (LAF)
Month: August 2023
Room: Viewliner 2 Roomette
Back in 2019, I made a trip report in which I took the Hoosier State from LAF to Chicago. Well now, I finally got to do the rest of the Cardinal route, but now in a roomette! It was my first time in one of Amtrak's sleepers, hence why my video focuses largely on reviewing the actual hard product.
NYC + Departure -
Bright and early back in August, my friend and I woke up and took a combination of subways to get to Moynihan train hall. We were there an hour or so early, but the Metropolitan Lounge only opens at 7 AM on weekends, so we unfortunately weren't able to try that out. (Seems like somewhat of an oversight, as we weren't the only long-distance train heading out that morning?) At about 6:30 AM, we were called to Track 8 and headed back to our roomette in a combo roomette-baggage car. We were in room 5, on the right side of the train. Promptly pushed out of NYP, and our attendant came around with menus for breakfast around Newark. We both tried the pancakes and sausages- they were fine, but I can see why people don't love the Flexible Dining. I've had plenty of economy meals on airplanes that have been better in terms of quality, so hopefully, Amtrak will step up the dining in the future.
NEC, Delay -
We continued on down the Northeast Corridor and made the two beds to get some rest given how early we'd woken up. I really loved the bed setup, especially since they both have windows. We pulled into DC for the train to switch from electric to diesel engine, and briefly explored the station. I hope that this station sees some renovations soon- some of the station was in spectacular shape and honestly amazing for a first-time visitor, but closer to the boarding area was very 80s/90s, and could use upgrades. An Amtrak employee also told us off for taking a few photos/videos of the train while on the platform, telling us that we didn't have permission to record the train. Not sure I've ever heard of anyone having issues recording Amtraks in the US, so we were quite surprised. We got back on the train after an hour, got about a mile away from DC Station, and then the train stopped. After a while, we were told that there was some issue with a computer system and backed into the station again.
Delayed, Lunch, Finally leaving DC -
While stopped in DC (again), we had lunch- tried the Salmon and the Chicken Parm. Salmon was fine, but Chicken Parm seemed to be more easily microwavable, and thus a bit better. We also tried both a buttercake (as many people had recommended us to do) and a brownie for dessert- and we absolutely loved the buttercakes. So much so, that we changed both of our dinner dessert orders to the buttercakes!
Anyway, besides walking outside and talking to other passengers and some Amtrak staff, we never got any formal updates or insight into what was going on. From Amtrak staff, we were able to determine that there were issues with the locomotives, and they were struggling to find a replacement. A long part of waiting in DC was without electricity or air conditioning, so I was certainly happy to be in a roomette with access to free water bottles. After roughly 4 hours of being delayed, we finally continued on into Virginia.
Dinner, Broken Shower -
A bit past Charlottesville, we had our scheduled dinner. This time, we tried the Enchiladas and the Beef Burgundy. Similar to what others had told us, the enchiladas weren't terribly impressive, but the beef burgundy was pretty good. Meals also come with a bun, but they didn't warm them up at all this time, so that was a bit disappointing. Side note- Amtrak also gave everyone in coach little snack packs as an apology for the delay. After dinner, I decided to try out the shower! Sadly, the showerhead was somewhat broken, so you had the entire pressure of a normal showerhead coming out of only ~6 nozzles. That made for a pretty unpleasant, somewhat painful shower, so I gave up after a minute or so of using it.
No Views
, Sleeping, Sunrise, and Breakfast -After showering, we recorded a proper room tour for our video and then got ready for bed. Because of our delay, the sunset while we were still in Virginia- about halfway between Staunton and Clifton Forge. That also meant that we wouldn't see any of the classic Cardinal scenery in West Virginia, which we'd been really excited for. We went to bed and had a decent night's rest. I woke up every few hours and caught some glimpses of small towns, but nothing terribly interesting. I woke up just north of Cincinnati, at around 6:30 AM, catching some nice sunrise views. Right around Connersville, we had breakfast- one order of pancakes & sausages, and one of the omelets.
Indianapolis, More delays, Crawfordsville, and Arriving -
At 9:30 AM, we pulled into Indianapolis' Union Station. Some of the small towns in Indiana have pretty nice stations, so I was shocked to see how sad the state of this station is. Even with only a few departures/arrivals a week, a city like Indianapolis deserves at least a somewhat decent-looking station. It really felt like an abandoned train shop. Now, because of issues with restrooms in coach, we added another hour to our delay before heading out. We passed through Crawfordsville (a somewhat newly renovated, yet small station), and finally pulled into Lafayette, Indiana at ~12:40 PM.
Final Thoughts:
For starters, I can't even describe how excited I'd been for this trip. I've wanted to take an Amtrak sleeper trip since I was a kid, so taking one of the most scenic routes directly to my childhood hometown was great. However, that excitement honestly set me up to be quite disappointed.
1. Poor handling of delay + Lack of Customer Service
Routes like this on Amtrak are practically synonymous with long delays, so I wasn't too surprised that it happened. Naturally, I was disappointed to miss most of the scenery, but I suppose I'll have other chances to take this route. More importantly, though, it seemed like Amtrak didn't handle the delay very well at all. With the exception of one post on Twitter, there was no indication of our delay anywhere, and we were never formally informed of what was happening. Every 90 minutes or so, someone would come on the PA just to remind us that "they were working on it," but nothing else. For a decent while, the lack of information honestly made it seem like the train was going to be canceled or delayed for some extreme amount of time. Some people ended up just getting off the train and ditching it entirely, and honestly, had I been sitting in one of the hot, AC-less coach cars, I may have as well.
I was also surprised with how they dealt with the food in situations like this. I had assumed that, given that we would now be on the train until ~12:40 PM the next day, and had breakfast at ~7 AM that next morning, we'd also get to eat lunch before arriving at LAF. However, when I asked an Amtrak attendant about lunch, they seemed really confused as to why we'd ask about such a thing and offered us more of the "snack packs" or the option of paying for cafe car food. That was just an annoyance for us, as it meant that we were pretty hungry upon arrival, but that seems like a huge inconvenience for the other passengers who were booked all the way through to Chicago. They ended up arriving at ~4 PM Eastern Time iirc, and presumably were given no food.
Lastly, after the whole trip, I was surprised that I never got any follow-up from Amtrak about our trip- not even the classic feedback survey. I ended up filling out one of the complaint forms, discussing the poor information about the delay, broken shower, and lack of wifi (described below). Two months later, I still haven't heard anything back (beyond the automatic "we've received your message" email). I didn't care too much about this until I heard from someone who had automatically received AGR points as an apology for their Acela being delayed a couple of hours. I suppose the Acela is a much more important route to them, but I'm shocked at just how big the disparity is with customer service. One route automatically emails customers apologizing for, and compensating for a delay of a couple of hours, while the other route is entirely ignored.
2. Bad state of the car
I also was surprised at the state of the car, especially since these are relatively new. Our room's closing mechanism didn't work properly, so the door wouldn't fully close. Even when latched into position, there was a decently large gap between the door and wall, which meant our room wasn't sound insulated very well. As described before, the showerhead wasn't in a reasonably usable state, and the wifi never once worked while we were on the train. I know that Amtrak wifi isn't the best, but this was the first time ever that we weren't even able to connect to the wifi network. At one point, our phones actually connected to another Amtrak train that was stopped near us, so it seems that this was more of an issue with our specific train/car.
------------------------------------------------
Anyway, I'd love to hear from others about their experiences - is that state of cars to be expected, and is customer service always like this? I still love traveling by train and could see myself seeking out another sleeper car experience in the future. I'm also curious as to how sleeping in the upper bunk in other, non-viewliner roomettes is! I feel like it might be weird, but I suppose when you're asleep it doesn't matter too much. Also, are Viewliner 1's still used on any routes, or are those older roomettes history now?
