It seems absurd, the idea of taking a train to Florida to get away from a hurricane, but I've done it twice now. As I have told several friends, I sat through 10 days of power outage during Hurricane Isabel back in 2003, which while interesting for the experience is also something I have no great desire to repeat.
The first time I left, for Hurricane Irene, wasn't an overreaction: The power was out almost the entire time I was gone, and the August heat being what it is, I would not have wanted to be around. This time, I dare say, it was a bit of an overdone move, but one that I am content to live with: I got two nights on the train, a few days in Florida, and a rather priceless phone call out of the deal.
On the way down, I boarded the Silver Meteor (train 97) for 10/28. I quite literally booked the train the night before, and it proved to be the last train out of Richmond before the hurricane shut down service north of Raleigh. As I would be boarding at about 9:45, dinner wouldn't be an option, so I grabbed an order of mac and cheese from a restaurant in Charlottesville while visiting friends there to consume onboard.
The train was more or less on time leaving Richmond (I didn't clock it precisely; it was a few minutes late getting in, but there's padding for a crew change at RVR and I think the entire delay went up in a wisp of quickly-changing crews), and I settled in, munching on my food before retiring.
As tends to happen, I was awakened by something in the night and had trouble falling back asleep (much as I am having trouble doing right now on the way back, hence my writing this), so I was up for a portion of the night, took a shower, and eventually made my way to breakfast as the dawn was rising in diner 8512. I opted for the continental breakfast and then headed back to my room to nap.
According to my travel plan, I was bound for Deland, FL. However, things were thrown for a bit of a loop: Not knowing whether I would be able to get a ride from the station there, I booked my ticket a bit long, to Orlando (the net cost of such an extended booking being only a few dollars as a rule) so that, in a pinch, I'd be able to phone in a rental car order on Sunday. Not wanting to deal with the hassle of cancelling one reservation and making a new one, I left the reservation be when I found out that I could get a ride.
So, as I laid down for a nap about 8 AM, I set my phone to trigger three alarms in the hour or so before my stop. Much to my frustration, I proved to be (as I often am) a much better sleeper in the mid-morning hours than in the late overnight hours, and my cue to wake up turned out to be the train pulling away from Deland. A scrambled phone call later, I was instead being picked up at Winter Park, the station seeming to have selected itself as neither being my intended stop nor the one on my ticket.
For my trip home, I ended up booking the Silver Meteor (train 97) on Halloween. The train was about 30 minutes late into Orlando, but as near as I can tell all of that time was made up by the time we got to Savannah, and we're currently sitting in Petersburg, VA burning unused pad time. There was one bit that did mar my return trip: There was a small swarm of DHS/TSA officers at the Orlando station, doing a great deal of nothing. I would definitely have been more irate had they decided to make themselves "useful" in the fashion that they are wont to do, but I'm still quite annoyed that they were present.
The trip back was nice; though I had an Italian Sausage (and the nearly impossible to find Tradewinds Iced Tea) at the Orlando station (the train was just late enough that I couldn't be sure of lunch onboard), I also grabbed the meatloaf for lunch and the steak for dinner. I also had the peanut butter and chocolate pie, which the diner staff warmed for us and which was delicious. As an added bonus, the diner was #8502 (the ex-California Zephyr diner Amtrak still runs), always a particularly unique treat. Though outfitted like most other Heritage diners, I must admit that it's one I have a special place for.
Afterwards, I went back to my roomette and dozed for a bit longer, before waking up late at night and (as before) finding myself unable to sleep. As of right now (when I'm writing), it is 3:45 AM and we pulled out of Petersburg about 30 seconds ahead of the timetable per my phone (which likely just means that CSX time is running a little ahead of Verizon time).
I did find one oddity in my roomette: The ashtray on one side of the roomette was unsealed, and out of curiosity, I popped it open. Yep, cigarette ash was in there...stuff that has presumably been making the rounds on Amtrak for the last 15 years or so.
Note: Got to RVR five minutes early. Got home about 10 minutes ago.
The first time I left, for Hurricane Irene, wasn't an overreaction: The power was out almost the entire time I was gone, and the August heat being what it is, I would not have wanted to be around. This time, I dare say, it was a bit of an overdone move, but one that I am content to live with: I got two nights on the train, a few days in Florida, and a rather priceless phone call out of the deal.
On the way down, I boarded the Silver Meteor (train 97) for 10/28. I quite literally booked the train the night before, and it proved to be the last train out of Richmond before the hurricane shut down service north of Raleigh. As I would be boarding at about 9:45, dinner wouldn't be an option, so I grabbed an order of mac and cheese from a restaurant in Charlottesville while visiting friends there to consume onboard.
The train was more or less on time leaving Richmond (I didn't clock it precisely; it was a few minutes late getting in, but there's padding for a crew change at RVR and I think the entire delay went up in a wisp of quickly-changing crews), and I settled in, munching on my food before retiring.
As tends to happen, I was awakened by something in the night and had trouble falling back asleep (much as I am having trouble doing right now on the way back, hence my writing this), so I was up for a portion of the night, took a shower, and eventually made my way to breakfast as the dawn was rising in diner 8512. I opted for the continental breakfast and then headed back to my room to nap.
According to my travel plan, I was bound for Deland, FL. However, things were thrown for a bit of a loop: Not knowing whether I would be able to get a ride from the station there, I booked my ticket a bit long, to Orlando (the net cost of such an extended booking being only a few dollars as a rule) so that, in a pinch, I'd be able to phone in a rental car order on Sunday. Not wanting to deal with the hassle of cancelling one reservation and making a new one, I left the reservation be when I found out that I could get a ride.
So, as I laid down for a nap about 8 AM, I set my phone to trigger three alarms in the hour or so before my stop. Much to my frustration, I proved to be (as I often am) a much better sleeper in the mid-morning hours than in the late overnight hours, and my cue to wake up turned out to be the train pulling away from Deland. A scrambled phone call later, I was instead being picked up at Winter Park, the station seeming to have selected itself as neither being my intended stop nor the one on my ticket.
For my trip home, I ended up booking the Silver Meteor (train 97) on Halloween. The train was about 30 minutes late into Orlando, but as near as I can tell all of that time was made up by the time we got to Savannah, and we're currently sitting in Petersburg, VA burning unused pad time. There was one bit that did mar my return trip: There was a small swarm of DHS/TSA officers at the Orlando station, doing a great deal of nothing. I would definitely have been more irate had they decided to make themselves "useful" in the fashion that they are wont to do, but I'm still quite annoyed that they were present.
The trip back was nice; though I had an Italian Sausage (and the nearly impossible to find Tradewinds Iced Tea) at the Orlando station (the train was just late enough that I couldn't be sure of lunch onboard), I also grabbed the meatloaf for lunch and the steak for dinner. I also had the peanut butter and chocolate pie, which the diner staff warmed for us and which was delicious. As an added bonus, the diner was #8502 (the ex-California Zephyr diner Amtrak still runs), always a particularly unique treat. Though outfitted like most other Heritage diners, I must admit that it's one I have a special place for.
Afterwards, I went back to my roomette and dozed for a bit longer, before waking up late at night and (as before) finding myself unable to sleep. As of right now (when I'm writing), it is 3:45 AM and we pulled out of Petersburg about 30 seconds ahead of the timetable per my phone (which likely just means that CSX time is running a little ahead of Verizon time).
I did find one oddity in my roomette: The ashtray on one side of the roomette was unsealed, and out of curiosity, I popped it open. Yep, cigarette ash was in there...stuff that has presumably been making the rounds on Amtrak for the last 15 years or so.
Note: Got to RVR five minutes early. Got home about 10 minutes ago.
