Coast Starlight

[supergrandmother]

I boarded the Coast Starlight on June 9 in Seattle and noticed that there were three private cars attached. I was with a rather large group and none of them had ever been on Amtrak before. It was interesting to see their reactions to the roomettes. Most were not happy because they are older and it was difficult to climb into the upper bunk. I've ridden quite a bit in roomettes but never in the top bunk on a superliner. It is a little close. I had prepared my friend who was with me for the train ammenties so we had a great time. Apparently none of the others in the group knew anything and no one directing the tour had thought to advise them. The good news is that we did have a PPC so most folks were happy between the wine tasting and bed time! The bad news was that several folks had taken their champagne with them and had it confiscated at the San Francisco airport 3 days later! Sorry.....I had offered to take care of everyone's champagne but I guess they would rather give to the TSA!

Since we were hustling to board, I did not have a lot of time to ask questions about the private cars but one was the Pullman Pacific Sunset. One of the Amtrak staff told me that he thought it was like a rolling B&B. Anyone know about this? The other two were the Canadian National Burrard and the Central Pacific Promontory Point.

We boarded in Seattle and I did get a chance to see the King Street Station. The ticket area and baggage carousel were finished and look nice but the passenger waiting area was still like a warehouse.

 

[the_traveler]

I do not know specially about any of those PV's, but I do know that they (genericly) can be seen often on the CS. They sometimes are rented out and can be enjoyed.

It's too bad that nobody previously explained about the room sizes.

 

[supergrandmother]

You know..at first I felt bad about the folks who did not know about the room sizes, showers,toilets, meals, etc. But, then I remembered that before I took my first train trip, I was all over Amtrak.com finding out information about what to expect. These folks were part of a 7 day Alaska Inside Passage cruise with the Amtrak trip to Martinez to visit the vineyards and then on to San Francisco for two nights. They spent some bucks on this trip and mostly booked it online so it's not like they are uneducated or computer illiterate. I think both the travel agency and the individuals had a responsibility to find out. In a group of more than 50 folks, I was the only one who had ridden on Amtrak before. Some of them were interested in future train trips once they found out you could get bedrooms, etc.