RailFanLNK
Conductor
Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to grab some quad points with the latest program with AGR, I decided to take a quick trip last night from LNK to HAS. Now, to most of you, it doesn't sound that odd, but what makes this odd is I departed my hometown of LNK at 12:15am and went to Hastings NE with an arrival of 2:00am, (15 minutes late) I then awaited the #6 CZ which arrived at 2:45am and was back in LNK "early" at 4:30am. (11 minutes early) I was going to do this trip on NTD, but I have taken enough trips to garner the quad points on this trip. Also, a friend of Brenda's and I called early last week saying, "I'm going to go apply for a job in Aspen CO and will be taking Amtrak for the first time, can you help me out?!?" 
So I decided on Thursday night to book the trip for $28 RT and get some points.
When we boarded, I had already given our friend a "tip" sheet that we have made of about 40 tips on riding the rails. She was a tad bit overwhelmed until I started (quietly) showing her things onboard. ie: Where the bathrooms are, what the Sightseer Lounge car is, where the Lounge car is, the Dining Car etc. After about 20 minutes onboard, we both crashed out. Both of us got two whole seats so she could sprawl out as well as I. I slept for about 1hr and 10 minutes and then chatted with the Station Manager in HAS named Greg. He has 32 years with Amtrak and was very kind and humorous. On the way back the #6 was packed. I was squished into one seat near someone who was quite contorted so I didn't sleep as well. But still managed about 45 minutes of sleep. The neat thing was hearing Brenda and I's friend constantly say, "I'm so glad the airfare was $550!" We had her pretty excited by her first train trip and she arrived in Glewood Springs today about 20 minutes early. All in all, what lil' interaction I had with the crews was excellent. The station manager in Hastings was very kind and had a good sense of humor. Everyone that heard that I was doing this thought I was nuts, but thats ok! I've did crazier! My best friend (for my whole life) lives in HAS so if this all blew up, I had a place to stay as well. Also there was some PV on the back of the #5, the "blue iris" or something like that. I will have to take a quick looksee to see what it was!
So I decided on Thursday night to book the trip for $28 RT and get some points.When we boarded, I had already given our friend a "tip" sheet that we have made of about 40 tips on riding the rails. She was a tad bit overwhelmed until I started (quietly) showing her things onboard. ie: Where the bathrooms are, what the Sightseer Lounge car is, where the Lounge car is, the Dining Car etc. After about 20 minutes onboard, we both crashed out. Both of us got two whole seats so she could sprawl out as well as I. I slept for about 1hr and 10 minutes and then chatted with the Station Manager in HAS named Greg. He has 32 years with Amtrak and was very kind and humorous. On the way back the #6 was packed. I was squished into one seat near someone who was quite contorted so I didn't sleep as well. But still managed about 45 minutes of sleep. The neat thing was hearing Brenda and I's friend constantly say, "I'm so glad the airfare was $550!"
We had her pretty excited by her first train trip and she arrived in Glewood Springs today about 20 minutes early. All in all, what lil' interaction I had with the crews was excellent. The station manager in Hastings was very kind and had a good sense of humor. Everyone that heard that I was doing this thought I was nuts, but thats ok! I've did crazier! My best friend (for my whole life) lives in HAS so if this all blew up, I had a place to stay as well. Also there was some PV on the back of the #5, the "blue iris" or something like that. I will have to take a quick looksee to see what it was!
