I would have posted this sooner, but shortly after I got home we had that October snowstorm and lost power for more than a week. Yuck.
My goal with this trip was to take the Coast Starlight SFO-LAUS, then the SW Chief LAUS-CHI, Then the Capitol Limited CHI-WAS, then NE Regional back to NY or NJ.
I missed a connection flying out and had to spend the night in Las Vegas, I suppose there are worse things!
Once in SF I set up camp in my brother's living room and spent a few days riding cable cars, Muni streetcars and BART. I hadn't been on BART since 1976, and it really brought back memories of how futuristic it seemed then. It's more rundown now but it goes more places and still works very well.
I spent the evenings going out for dinners and barhopping with my dissolute brother and his friends.
Early on Thursday October 20 we got a ride to the Amtrak office at the Ferry Building. They have a staffed counter there and the representative was friendly and helpful when I had to do a few things.
My brother decided to accompany me as far as Los Angeles, where he has some friends, especially since I had already paid for a roomette on the CS.
The bus dropped us off at the station in Oakland and soon the CS pulled in on time. We boarded and met our SCA Louie, a very nice guy although there wasn't much he needed to do for us since it was basically a very long day trip.
We immediately hit the dining car for breakfast. I had the vegetable omlette with cheese, which was good.
I have taken the Coast Starlight before, in the other direction, so I was looking forward to some different scenery. This is one ride that does not disappoint and the views of the California coast were mind-boggling. If you're from New Jersey, to see that much coastline with no houses or people is a great experience.
You see a lot of farming too. I learned a couple things, like how strawberries are picked, and that when they plant that baby lettuce for your salad bag, they plant the types right next to each other, in stripes, so it's mixed as it's picked. I don't know why I thought that was funny. Also: There sure are a lot of strawberry fields in California.
We were disappointed to find the true Pacific Parlor Car MIA. There was a diner lounge car filling in, and no WiFi. It was still a nice place to hang out, and the attendant kept our drinks fresh. We ate lunch in the pseudo PPC, I had the chicken and fresh mozz wrap, it was tasty.
Great views around Vandenberg AFB and we managed to spot a Titan launch tower and a test missile silo. I was sorry I didn't have binoculars to look for whales and sea otters offshore.
My brother has a pretty busy life, so it was nice to spend time on the train together where there was nothing to do but sightsee, eat, drink and talk about old times.
We had dinner in the dining car and each had the steak. My brother and I are both big and tall people and they did not seat anyone with us. Actually the train did not seem that full. I think the steak on the CS is better than other Amtrak steaks, but maybe I'm just suggestible. It had something on top like garlic butter. Very tasty.
We pulled into LA Union Station around 9:30 and made our way over to the Metro Plaza Hotel. It's a good place for the money. Our room was spotless and had a large bathroom.
My bed was kind of hard though and the tube (!) TV only got six stations, and only two of those were in English. In the morning there was a quite acceptable continental breakfast in the lounge, with plenty of food and decent coffee. We left our bags with the front desk and headed out to do some sightseeing around downtown LA.
It was fun to see all the Occupy LA people around the city center. You can tell the difference between them and the homeless, but you must look closely and there is some crossover. We took a self guided tour of the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is very cool-looking, but we both got tragically bored after 15 minutes and bailed out. We decamped to Philippe's for lunch, which was excellent. I had a double-dipped lamb, and JB went for the beef, and some salads, and some pickled eggs, and some beers. It was as good as ever!
Fully greased and gassed we walked over to little Tokyo to look at all the crazy stuff they have there. One thing we had trouble finding was a store to buy some relaxing libations for my trip. We ended up going to a Japanese supermarket where I paid $25 for a bottle of 12-year-old Ballantines Whisky, which was excellent.
LA Union Station is the most incredible station I have ever seen. It's really beautiful, with the wood seating and the little plazas with fountains and such. I don't know what you would call the style but I like it. I love Grand Central, but LAUS is a whole different thing! We sat at the nice, small, Traxx Bar and had some beers while we waited for the SWC. I said goodbye to my brother and he headed off to Burbank.
Amtrak personnel in LAUS were helpful. Although they have no special waiting area for sleeper pax, they told me to sit in a certain area and the Redcaps would show up with a cart to take me with my luggage out to the train. They show up before the train is announced. I am a fit person and only had one big suitcase, but it is a lonnnnng way to the platform and I was happy to ride. Once we were up there and sorted, I got to my sleeper and met Paul, who would be the SCA for our car. I was in roomette 5. The car was a refurbed Superliner I with some fresh touches like LED reading lights and touch switches. Everything in the car worked well and it was comfortable during the ride.
We got started and almost immediately stopped and were delayed for some hours at Fullerton CA due to a minor truck vs. freight train event ahead. If I had known how long we would be sitting there, I would have gotten dinner at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse that occupies the historic Santa Fe depot there. Instead I ate in the motionless dining car. The special was a kind of "chipotle braised pot-roast"? It tasted like beef with barbecue sauce and I liked it. Eventually we got going again. Paul the SCA asked when I would like my room made up and I crashed out around 10.
Paul was an excellent SCA, very businesslike. Coffee was fresh and bathrooms were kept clean the whole way. He has been working in sleeping cars for a long time and on the SWC for 13 years and clearly enjoys his job. Asked if I wanted coffee brought in the AM which I declined.
Me: "What's the dumbest question anyone's ever asked you in the sleeping car?"
Paul: ""What's the dumbest question anyone's ever asked you in the sleeping car?""
Serves me right, I guess.
Woke up to find that BNSF's computers had crashed during the night, putting us further behind. We were 3 or 4 hours late at this point. I saw the Williams Arizona stop at like 5:30AM. I don't think there's an actual station there, the Grand Canyon Railroad had people waiting in a 15 passenger van. I guess if the SWC is on time they have to be there in the middle of the night.
I don't want to go too much into the scenery. Sort of like a Roadrunner cartoon. Sometimes very beautiful but not the equal of the California Zephyr. Lots of interesting stuff as you pass though the Indian reservations, lots of horses. At one point I saw a big heard of pronghorn. I enjoy looking at almost anything from a moving train. The train follows the old Route 66 for a good ways, so it's like the song, only in reverse: Gallup New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona, don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino...
I saw a road sign for Winona, it's not a stop. Lots of places where you can see abandoned sections of old Route 66, and some of its celebrated businesses.
I have an old route guide book called "Rail Ventures" which is helpful in interpreting the things seen along the way.
That one very narrow canyon (Apache Canyon) comes and goes quickly, so if you're sitting in your room all you see is that the train is passing very close to some rock walls. I wish I'd been in the lounge to see that one.
My fellow passengers were very friendly and there were introductions made back and forth. I met a couple who work for the Toro Lawnmower Company and we discussed my beloved Toro lawnmower.
In Albuquerque there was a fuel stop. It was long enough to hit the snack bar and vending machines in the station, which has an insulting Greyhound plastered on it. There were the native American vendors set up down the platform. I was not impressed with the things they were selling, some of it was clearly junk, but I bought my wife a pair of silver earrings anyway.
As the sun set we stopped at Las Vegas -- New Mexico -- which had some cool old historic buildings and not much else.
Steak for dinner, then off to sleep.
I had breakfast with an unkempt elderly man who was initially congenial but gradually became a bit crazed. He told me he had been travelling in coach for three days, having seen his sister in San Francisco, and was headed back to his home in Florida. When the waitress asked if he wanted breakfast meat he shouted "NO! I'M A VEGETARIAN!!" We chatted over our meals. Eventually he started to loudly rant and rave about the Chinese government's plot against America, and I excused myself.
We were still hours late. When we got to Kansas City there were a lot of private cars there. Ten our more, quite a display. I thought it was an exhibit until I saw they were occupied. A whole string of them needed to be attached to the back of the SWC, and they put a total of 4 engines on the front to pull the load. I have some pictures I will add for those who care. One of the dome cars they added was called "SIERRA HOTEL." I wonder if he has another car called Lima Foxtrot. It was paired with a matched dome called Puget Sound. When I got home I looked up the websites for those cars and the Northern Sky cars. Oh internets, you take all the mystery out of life. I couldn't find those UP cars though.
Another cool thing seen in KC was a matched trio of bright yellow Union Pacific cars, a dome and two others, sleepers maybe.
The stop went on a lot longer than it would have as they hooked up the other cars. Eventually we dragged the whole shebang out of there.
I had three hours scheduled between the arrival of the Chief and the departure of the Capitol Limited at 6:30PM and gradually it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it. I made several calls to Amtrak reservations who for a while thought they might hold the Cap for the arrival of the Chief. When we were about an hour outside of Chicago I was able to determine that the Cap had in fact left. I was advised to go to the Amtrak Service Center when I got to Chicago to see how I could be accommodated.
The personnel in the service center did not make a good impression and seemed to spend a lot of time doing minor tasks and horsing around as passengers stood at the counter. Eventually my ticket was examined and I was sent to the ticket window. The guy at the ticket window was very nice, extremely helpful and set to work getting me accommodated on the Lake Shore Limited into NY Penn with a connection to Newark. I was happy to learn there were roomettes available so I didn't have to ride in coach.
The train was already boarding at that point. No dinner is served on the LSL eastbound. It was Sunday night and only one food stall was open in the food court, a place that sold ribs and burgers etc, so I bought some food and went to the train.
In lieu of dinner they have a "wine and cheese reception" in the dining car. They do a nice job handling that, and the wine flows freely. I think I had three large glasses of Penfold's Shiraz (Australian) and a plate of cheese and fruit before returning to my Viewliner roomette.
My friendly SCA was Thom, and he did his job well. I think he's been an SCA for a long time. He got a good tip.
The lower berth in the Viewliner roomette is more comfortable than the one in the Superliner. I slept well.
The scenery was different going east, I saw more of the Erie Canal, and I was on the "good" side to see the Hudson as we came down towards NYC.
We had the long stop in Albany for reshuffling. The Amtrak Dome was there and I snapped a couple of pictures. There's a store and a coffee place there, so I killed some time and sent some emails.
We got into Penn Station on time, maybe even a couple of minutes early. I decided not to wait for an Amtrak connection to Newark but instead joined the last group of rush hour commuters on the 6:30 NJ Transit train out to Morris County where I live.
Coast Starlight:
San Luis Obispo:
My goal with this trip was to take the Coast Starlight SFO-LAUS, then the SW Chief LAUS-CHI, Then the Capitol Limited CHI-WAS, then NE Regional back to NY or NJ.
I missed a connection flying out and had to spend the night in Las Vegas, I suppose there are worse things!
Once in SF I set up camp in my brother's living room and spent a few days riding cable cars, Muni streetcars and BART. I hadn't been on BART since 1976, and it really brought back memories of how futuristic it seemed then. It's more rundown now but it goes more places and still works very well.
I spent the evenings going out for dinners and barhopping with my dissolute brother and his friends.
Early on Thursday October 20 we got a ride to the Amtrak office at the Ferry Building. They have a staffed counter there and the representative was friendly and helpful when I had to do a few things.
My brother decided to accompany me as far as Los Angeles, where he has some friends, especially since I had already paid for a roomette on the CS.
The bus dropped us off at the station in Oakland and soon the CS pulled in on time. We boarded and met our SCA Louie, a very nice guy although there wasn't much he needed to do for us since it was basically a very long day trip.
We immediately hit the dining car for breakfast. I had the vegetable omlette with cheese, which was good.
I have taken the Coast Starlight before, in the other direction, so I was looking forward to some different scenery. This is one ride that does not disappoint and the views of the California coast were mind-boggling. If you're from New Jersey, to see that much coastline with no houses or people is a great experience.
You see a lot of farming too. I learned a couple things, like how strawberries are picked, and that when they plant that baby lettuce for your salad bag, they plant the types right next to each other, in stripes, so it's mixed as it's picked. I don't know why I thought that was funny. Also: There sure are a lot of strawberry fields in California.
We were disappointed to find the true Pacific Parlor Car MIA. There was a diner lounge car filling in, and no WiFi. It was still a nice place to hang out, and the attendant kept our drinks fresh. We ate lunch in the pseudo PPC, I had the chicken and fresh mozz wrap, it was tasty.
Great views around Vandenberg AFB and we managed to spot a Titan launch tower and a test missile silo. I was sorry I didn't have binoculars to look for whales and sea otters offshore.
My brother has a pretty busy life, so it was nice to spend time on the train together where there was nothing to do but sightsee, eat, drink and talk about old times.
We had dinner in the dining car and each had the steak. My brother and I are both big and tall people and they did not seat anyone with us. Actually the train did not seem that full. I think the steak on the CS is better than other Amtrak steaks, but maybe I'm just suggestible. It had something on top like garlic butter. Very tasty.
We pulled into LA Union Station around 9:30 and made our way over to the Metro Plaza Hotel. It's a good place for the money. Our room was spotless and had a large bathroom.
My bed was kind of hard though and the tube (!) TV only got six stations, and only two of those were in English. In the morning there was a quite acceptable continental breakfast in the lounge, with plenty of food and decent coffee. We left our bags with the front desk and headed out to do some sightseeing around downtown LA.
It was fun to see all the Occupy LA people around the city center. You can tell the difference between them and the homeless, but you must look closely and there is some crossover. We took a self guided tour of the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is very cool-looking, but we both got tragically bored after 15 minutes and bailed out. We decamped to Philippe's for lunch, which was excellent. I had a double-dipped lamb, and JB went for the beef, and some salads, and some pickled eggs, and some beers. It was as good as ever!
Fully greased and gassed we walked over to little Tokyo to look at all the crazy stuff they have there. One thing we had trouble finding was a store to buy some relaxing libations for my trip. We ended up going to a Japanese supermarket where I paid $25 for a bottle of 12-year-old Ballantines Whisky, which was excellent.
LA Union Station is the most incredible station I have ever seen. It's really beautiful, with the wood seating and the little plazas with fountains and such. I don't know what you would call the style but I like it. I love Grand Central, but LAUS is a whole different thing! We sat at the nice, small, Traxx Bar and had some beers while we waited for the SWC. I said goodbye to my brother and he headed off to Burbank.
Amtrak personnel in LAUS were helpful. Although they have no special waiting area for sleeper pax, they told me to sit in a certain area and the Redcaps would show up with a cart to take me with my luggage out to the train. They show up before the train is announced. I am a fit person and only had one big suitcase, but it is a lonnnnng way to the platform and I was happy to ride. Once we were up there and sorted, I got to my sleeper and met Paul, who would be the SCA for our car. I was in roomette 5. The car was a refurbed Superliner I with some fresh touches like LED reading lights and touch switches. Everything in the car worked well and it was comfortable during the ride.
We got started and almost immediately stopped and were delayed for some hours at Fullerton CA due to a minor truck vs. freight train event ahead. If I had known how long we would be sitting there, I would have gotten dinner at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse that occupies the historic Santa Fe depot there. Instead I ate in the motionless dining car. The special was a kind of "chipotle braised pot-roast"? It tasted like beef with barbecue sauce and I liked it. Eventually we got going again. Paul the SCA asked when I would like my room made up and I crashed out around 10.
Paul was an excellent SCA, very businesslike. Coffee was fresh and bathrooms were kept clean the whole way. He has been working in sleeping cars for a long time and on the SWC for 13 years and clearly enjoys his job. Asked if I wanted coffee brought in the AM which I declined.
Me: "What's the dumbest question anyone's ever asked you in the sleeping car?"
Paul: ""What's the dumbest question anyone's ever asked you in the sleeping car?""
Serves me right, I guess.
Woke up to find that BNSF's computers had crashed during the night, putting us further behind. We were 3 or 4 hours late at this point. I saw the Williams Arizona stop at like 5:30AM. I don't think there's an actual station there, the Grand Canyon Railroad had people waiting in a 15 passenger van. I guess if the SWC is on time they have to be there in the middle of the night.
I don't want to go too much into the scenery. Sort of like a Roadrunner cartoon. Sometimes very beautiful but not the equal of the California Zephyr. Lots of interesting stuff as you pass though the Indian reservations, lots of horses. At one point I saw a big heard of pronghorn. I enjoy looking at almost anything from a moving train. The train follows the old Route 66 for a good ways, so it's like the song, only in reverse: Gallup New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona, don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino...
I saw a road sign for Winona, it's not a stop. Lots of places where you can see abandoned sections of old Route 66, and some of its celebrated businesses.
I have an old route guide book called "Rail Ventures" which is helpful in interpreting the things seen along the way.
That one very narrow canyon (Apache Canyon) comes and goes quickly, so if you're sitting in your room all you see is that the train is passing very close to some rock walls. I wish I'd been in the lounge to see that one.
My fellow passengers were very friendly and there were introductions made back and forth. I met a couple who work for the Toro Lawnmower Company and we discussed my beloved Toro lawnmower.
In Albuquerque there was a fuel stop. It was long enough to hit the snack bar and vending machines in the station, which has an insulting Greyhound plastered on it. There were the native American vendors set up down the platform. I was not impressed with the things they were selling, some of it was clearly junk, but I bought my wife a pair of silver earrings anyway.
As the sun set we stopped at Las Vegas -- New Mexico -- which had some cool old historic buildings and not much else.
Steak for dinner, then off to sleep.
I had breakfast with an unkempt elderly man who was initially congenial but gradually became a bit crazed. He told me he had been travelling in coach for three days, having seen his sister in San Francisco, and was headed back to his home in Florida. When the waitress asked if he wanted breakfast meat he shouted "NO! I'M A VEGETARIAN!!" We chatted over our meals. Eventually he started to loudly rant and rave about the Chinese government's plot against America, and I excused myself.
We were still hours late. When we got to Kansas City there were a lot of private cars there. Ten our more, quite a display. I thought it was an exhibit until I saw they were occupied. A whole string of them needed to be attached to the back of the SWC, and they put a total of 4 engines on the front to pull the load. I have some pictures I will add for those who care. One of the dome cars they added was called "SIERRA HOTEL." I wonder if he has another car called Lima Foxtrot. It was paired with a matched dome called Puget Sound. When I got home I looked up the websites for those cars and the Northern Sky cars. Oh internets, you take all the mystery out of life. I couldn't find those UP cars though.
Another cool thing seen in KC was a matched trio of bright yellow Union Pacific cars, a dome and two others, sleepers maybe.
The stop went on a lot longer than it would have as they hooked up the other cars. Eventually we dragged the whole shebang out of there.
I had three hours scheduled between the arrival of the Chief and the departure of the Capitol Limited at 6:30PM and gradually it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it. I made several calls to Amtrak reservations who for a while thought they might hold the Cap for the arrival of the Chief. When we were about an hour outside of Chicago I was able to determine that the Cap had in fact left. I was advised to go to the Amtrak Service Center when I got to Chicago to see how I could be accommodated.
The personnel in the service center did not make a good impression and seemed to spend a lot of time doing minor tasks and horsing around as passengers stood at the counter. Eventually my ticket was examined and I was sent to the ticket window. The guy at the ticket window was very nice, extremely helpful and set to work getting me accommodated on the Lake Shore Limited into NY Penn with a connection to Newark. I was happy to learn there were roomettes available so I didn't have to ride in coach.
The train was already boarding at that point. No dinner is served on the LSL eastbound. It was Sunday night and only one food stall was open in the food court, a place that sold ribs and burgers etc, so I bought some food and went to the train.
In lieu of dinner they have a "wine and cheese reception" in the dining car. They do a nice job handling that, and the wine flows freely. I think I had three large glasses of Penfold's Shiraz (Australian) and a plate of cheese and fruit before returning to my Viewliner roomette.
My friendly SCA was Thom, and he did his job well. I think he's been an SCA for a long time. He got a good tip.
The lower berth in the Viewliner roomette is more comfortable than the one in the Superliner. I slept well.
The scenery was different going east, I saw more of the Erie Canal, and I was on the "good" side to see the Hudson as we came down towards NYC.
We had the long stop in Albany for reshuffling. The Amtrak Dome was there and I snapped a couple of pictures. There's a store and a coffee place there, so I killed some time and sent some emails.
We got into Penn Station on time, maybe even a couple of minutes early. I decided not to wait for an Amtrak connection to Newark but instead joined the last group of rush hour commuters on the 6:30 NJ Transit train out to Morris County where I live.
Coast Starlight:
San Luis Obispo:
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