WAS-ATL Live Trip Report

[Ryan]

Much easier to write a trip report as we go along, so I'll get started.

Amy's grandmother ended up in the hospital on Tuesday, she left right away to get down there, leaving the Boy and I to take the train down and meet them after work/school wrapped up for the week. Lucky to be able to snag a roomette on 19 on such short notice. If Amy needs to stay longer, we also have reservations for a Bedroom on Sunday evening's 20, but I'd much prefer that we all drive back together (I'd personally rather take the train, but I don't want to stick Amy with the hellish drive both ways.

The Boy gets home from school just before 3, so I met him at home then, finished gathering up a few things and we headed over to Odenton to catch a MARC train to WAS. Found a suitable place to park, got our tickets and were on the platform waiting with plenty of time to spare. The 4:07 would get us to DC in plenty of time to check out Amtrak's pop-up holiday store (or so I thought). The train was running about 10 minutes late, making things in DC just a little bit tighter than I'd like, but we made it down to Gate H to check out what they had to offer. Matt had a bunch of watches that were missing batteries that he was selling for a steal. I got myself a nice watch (something I've been wanting for a while), and a sweet poster of an AEM-7, ACS-64 and HHP-8 photo op in the yard here before the last Hippo was hauled north. I was also tempted by a couple HO scale locomotives, and a K3LA that came off a switcher in the Grove. No idea how that ended up in WAS for sale, but there it was. Only the fact that it wouldn't really fit in my roomette saved me from buying it. h34r:

After making our purchases, we made our way to the Club Acela and had a snack and soda before being called for early boarding. We made our way down to the train after the motor had been taken off, but before the diesel power was hooked up. We got settled into the room, and were soon on our way. Rob, our SCA stopped by just as we got underway, and made sure that we were all set and familiar with the room. He told us that the dining car had a large group of reservations starting at 7:00, so we could head to the diner right away to get in front of them, or wait until the next slot at 8:30. being hungry, we beat feet for the diner and had a delicious meal - steak for me, and tilapia for the Boy. After having the table (and in fact the whole diner!) to ourselves for about 5 minutes, we were joined by a couple, and then the diner slowly filled up as we ate. The Boy claimed to be too full for dessert, but Michelle, the LSA convinced him that he could fit some in, which he promptly devoured). I had some kind of chocolate truffle cup, which was somewhat delicious. Bryant was the other server and he took good care of us.

Now we're settled into the room, listening to the reassuring call of the engineer calling clear signals and the conductor rogering up for them. Internet working reasonably well from my iPhone, and all is well for now. Just left Culpepper about 15 minutes behind, which is just fine by me. There was some massive police activity on the road alongside us just before Culpepper, other than that it's been cold dark and quiet outside.

Think it's about time to have the room made up and start thinking about some sleep in a bit.

 

[SarahZ]

Does the Boy like train travel as much as you do?

 

[Ryan]

So far, yes!

I may have spoken too soon on the "all is well" front, as the in-room toilet doesn't want to flush. The room across the hall is vacant, so we've been invited to use that one until we get to the next stop and hopefully functionality can be restored. We should be to CVS in the next 10-15 minutes.

 

[Ryan]

Good morning, AU! No luck on the flusher at CVS (home of the 11-in-a-row Commonwealth Cup loser Wahoos), so we're just using the one in the vacant roomette across the hall. Actually works out better, I think.

Sleep was its usual hour or two at a stretch, broken up by reading and watching the world go by. Realized we were sitting for an awful long time when I woke up for the last time at about 5:40. Checking the map, we were still short of Greenville, SC, which we were supposed to depart from at 5:01. Crap. Finally woke up enough to turn the scanner on, but nothing was said about why were were sitting. Finally got back underway a few minutes ago, so it looks like we'll be about 90 minutes late into ATL. No worries here, it means an easier morning for Amy to come pick us up. Engineer said something about "inspection complete" when he was repeating back to the dispatcher (who I couldn't hear) our permission to proceed on signal indication, so maybe a track problem of some type? We never had anyone off the train, so it didn't sound like a train problem.

Suppose it's about time to get the room turned around and wait for the sun to finish coming up. Just another wonderful morning on the train!

 

[Ryan]

I think I'm raising a monster. We were able to see the coach cars at the front of the train going around a corner, and the Boy was incredulous that people actually spent the night in coach. He told me that he "didn't think he'd be able to do that".

 

[Ryan]

The delay was stuck behind a freight that had an accident, according to our very friendly SCA.

 

[bobnjulie]

LOL! This is my kind of Boy!

 

[Ryan]

That he is, very content (and just a little under the weather).

 

[Ryan]

So I remember later, we're in 62004, Beach View. Ain't no beach view from this train, though.

 

[SarahZ]

That's how I always sit. I love doing that at night when I can't sleep.

 

[Ryan]

Sorry, I left everyone without the exciting conclusion:





Actual time of arrival was just before 10:00 pm, one long stop for lunch in SC ($2.09 gas and the last Krystal on 85), two brief stops for fuel and one stop on the side of 85 to remove the goldfish cracker the baby got stuck up her nose.

As road trip go, it was a good one and we're home in time for work and school today, whereas 20 would have given us all day Sunday in ATL but not gotten us back home until noontime.

Absolutely love the ability to book and cancel close I with AGR. Is a lifesaver in situations like these.

 

[Ryan]

So, if Amy wasn't going to be able to come home yesterday, the Boy and I had reservations on 20(14).

Glad that I drove! Sitting around the station until after midnight would have SUCKED.

http://www.dixielandsoftware.net/cgi-bin/gettrain.pl?seltrain=20&selyear=2014&selmonth=12&selday=14

* Train 20 of 12/14/2014.
* Crescent
* +---------------- Station code
* |    +----------- Schedule Arrival Day  
* |    |  +-------- Schedule Arrival time
* |    |  |     +----- Schedule Departure Day
* |    |  |     |  +-- Schedule Departure Time 
* |    |  |     |  |     +------------- Actual Arrival Time
* |    |  |     |  |     |     +------- Actual Departure Time
* |    |  |     |  |     |     |     +- Comments
* V    V  V     V  V     V     V     V
* NOL  *  *     1  700A  *     700A  Departed:  On time.
* SDL  *  *     1  757A  *     757A  Departed:  On time.
* PIC  *  *     1  822A  *     826A  Departed:  4 minutes late.
* HBG  *  *     1  930A  *     935A  Departed:  5 minutes late.
* LAU  *  *     1  1005A *     1007A Departed:  2 minutes late.
* MEI  1  1102A 1  1107A 1102A 1107A Departed:  On time.
* TCL  *  *     1  1244P *     204P  Departed:  1 hour and 20 minutes late.
* BHM  1  215P  1  224P  310P  329P  Departed:  1 hour and 5 minutes late.
* ATN  *  *     1  359P  *     459P  Departed:  1 hour late.
* ATL  1  735P  1  804P  1220A 1248A Departed:  4 hours and 44 minutes late.
* GNS  *  *     1  859P  *     155A  Departed:  4 hours and 56 minutes late.
* TCA  *  *     1  940P  *     239A  Departed:  4 hours and 59 minutes late.
* CSN  *  *     1  1016P *     316A  Departed:  5 hours late.
* GRV  1  1053P 1  1058P 351A  355A  Departed:  4 hours and 57 minutes late.
* SPB  *  *     1  1139P *     438A  Departed:  4 hours and 59 minutes late.
* GAS  *  *     2  1239A *     537A  Departed:  4 hours and 58 minutes late.
* CLT  2  121A  2  146A  603A  617A  Departed:  4 hours and 31 minutes late.
* SAL  *  *     2  232A  *     702A  Departed:  4 hours and 30 minutes late.
* HPT  *  *     2  316A  *     735A  Departed:  4 hours and 19 minutes late.
* GRO  2  337A  2  344A  750A  759A  Departed:  4 hours and 15 minutes late.
* DAN  *  *     2  443A  *     904A  Departed:  4 hours and 21 minutes late.
* LYH  2  552A  2  556A  1008A 1011A Departed:  4 hours and 15 minutes late.
* CVS  *  *     2  709A  *     1118A Departed:  4 hours and 9 minutes late.
  CLP  *  *     2  801A
  MSS  *  *     2  835A
  ALX  *  *     2  932A
* WAS  2  952A  2  1018A 141P  148P  Departed:  3 hours and 30 minutes late.
* BAL  *  *     2  1055A *     257P  Departed:  4 hours and 2 minutes late.
  WIL  *  *     2  1144A
  PHL  *  *     2  1213P
  TRE  *  *     2  1241P
  NWK  *  *     2  124P
  NYP  2  146P  *  *

 

[SarahZ]

What app is that? What do the little cops mean?

 

[jebr]

Looks like Waze. The little cops would be speed traps (reported by users.)

Speaking of which, has Waze's algorithm improved? I took it off my phone after it thought the best way to get from Orange City to Sioux City was to take some weird back roads instead of taking the major four-lane road. No idea why.

 

[Ryan]

That is in fact Waze, and it's freaking awesome*.

*awesomely weird sometimes.

The algorithm seems to be OK**, but the fact that the road layer is user-generated/editable makes for some weird things sometimes. The crowd sourcing of traffic and speed traps makes up for it, though in my book.

**OK, not great. She likes to hang on to her route when it should be plainly obvious that I'm going another way. For example, last night I came up 301 from Richmond instead of 95. The distance is very nearly the same, but I much prefer skipping 95 and the Beltway. For a really, really, really long time she wanted me to make a U-turn and go back to 95, rather than continue up 301. When she tells me to do something crazy, I'll usually have Amy check it out. More often than not, Waze is picking up on a real issue and routing around it (we were late to Thanksgiving dinner this year because I ignored her warnings and drove straight into a massive traffic jam).

 

[SarahZ]