D.P. Roberts
Conductor
My wife and I visit our relatives in California every summer, and we've always wanted to take the train instead of flying. However, finances & the lengthy travel times have always prevented us. Last winter, we signed up for Amtrak Guest Rewards, and got the AGR credit card. We quickly started accumulating points, and combined with the bonus points for signing up we soon found ourselves with enough points for a one-way trip to California in August 2011.
We've only taken one other long-distance Amtrak trip before - the Coast Starlight from LAX-Oregon. We took that trip in a roomette, and really enjoyed it. However, that was only for one night; we knew that the SWC would be two nights out to LA. So, we bought enough points to upgrade from a roomette to a bedroom for our trip this summer.
Our first question was where to start our trip. We live in central Ohio, hundreds of miles from any Amtrak station. This meant meeting the Capitol Limited or Lake Shore Limited somewhere in northern Ohio. We'd then take one of those trains to Chicago, to meet up with the SWC, which we would take to LAX, and then the Surfliner to SNC. We knew we'd have to fly back, and then take the CL or LSL back to Ohio. We considered starting in Toledo. Toledo is a staffed station, and we could have flown directly there on the return trip. However, both Toledo and Sandusky looked iffy in terms of long-term parking; the long-term lot in Toledo is closed, and the station (like Sandusky) is not in a good part of town. We decided we didn't want to risk leaving our car in that area for a week. This narrowed our choices down to Bryan, Ohio or Waterloo, Indiana. We chose Waterloo because it gave us the option of taking the later LSL out of Chicago on the way back.
So, our itinerary looked like this:
1) Leave Columbus at 3:00 am on Friday. Drive 3 hours to Waterloo.
2) Take the Capitol Limited to Chicago.
3) Take the Southwest Chief from Chicago to LAX.
4) Take the Surfliner from LAX to San Juan Capistrano.
5) On the return, fly from LA to Chicago.
6) Take the LSL from Chicago to Waterloo.
7) Drive from Waterloo back to Columbus.
This is probably a lot more about our itinerary than most people put in their trip reports. However, I think it highlights one of the problems with Amtrak's limited routes and schedules - sometimes, you just can't get there from here. I think only someone who REALLY wanted to ride a train would consider this route as an option. Anyway, on to the trip...
Friday, August 5th
After sending texts and checking the train's status online, it appeared that the CL was going to be on time into Waterloo. So, we left our house at 3:00 am and arrived in Waterloo at 6:00 am. The boring drive through dark cornfields isn't one I'd like to do again. However, we arrived in Waterloo without incident. By then, the CL was running late, and arrived at about 7:30.
When the train pulled in to the station (by "station" I mean "Amshack" bus stop), there was some confusion among the 30 or so passengers who were waiting about which train this was, as the LSL was due in about then too. Everyone started walking towards the train, and the conductor had to sort out who was on this train, and who had to wait for the LSL. It appeared that the train had to be double spotted. It stopped for sleeper passengers first, and the SCA announced our names - it appeared that we were the only sleeping car passengers boarding at that stop. So, the train was basically sitting there waiting on us! We hurried onboard.
The first thing I noticed when we got onboard was that we were in a refurbished Superliner 1. I was really excited about this, as I hadn't ridden in one of these cars before (our previous trip on the Coast Starlight occurred two days after its "relaunch" a few years ago. The relaunched CS was supposed to have the refurbished cars, and it didn't - on either leg of our CS trip). We were assigned to bedroom A, which is smaller than the other bedrooms. It has been the last bedroom on the train, so we were glad to have it.
We quickly explored the room and found places to store all our stuff. I was glad to see that our suitcases fit under our seats, allowing us to store them in our room instead of in the luggage area downstairs. After stowing our stuff, we headed off to the dining car, hoping to get some breakfast.
The dining car was still open, and we had breakfast as the sun rose over Indiana. I ordered the French toast. I had heard a lot of good things about the Railroad French Toast on this forum, and I was eager to try it - especially since our trip was going to include 3 breakfasts (along with two dinners and one lunch). The French toast wasn't very good. It was cold, fairly flavorless, and the bread tasted strange. The bacon that came with it was pretty bad as well.
After breakfast, we headed back to our room. Our sleeper was the middle one of three, two cars ahead of the diner. As we walked through the other sleeper, I noticed that it was an unrefurbished Superliner II. I pointed out some of the differences to my wife on the way back - dingy carpet instead of wood paneling, airline sink instead of faux-granite counters, etc. We were in the 2931 car on this train, and the 0331 car on the SWC. From what I've read, the CL becomes the SWC in Chicago, so I knew we'd be assigned to the same car. I was glad we were getting the same refurbished sleeper on the SWC.
When we returned to our bedroom, the long night without sleep started catching up to us. We couldn't find our SCA, so we tried to pull out the bed ourselves. We ended up just folding the couch flat & sleeping on that on our way to Chicago. I also tried out the swivel seat, and found it to be quite comfortable.
I woke up a few hours later, and saw that we were on the outskirts of Chicago. I had never been to Chicago before (except for a million layovers at O'hare), so I was quite excited. We passed by U.S. Cellular field, and saw the Willis Tower off in the distance. Waking up in a strange place and looking out the window to figure out where you are is both a disorienting and exciting feeling, and it's one of my favorite parts of train travel.
The CL arrived in Chicago about an hour late. We had about 5 hours until the Southwest Chief departed, so we made our way to the Metropolitan Lounge. It took a while to check in there, since the same person had to check people in and staff the luggage room. Also, lots of people just tried to walk into the lounge, not understanding that they had to check in before they could take a seat. We eventually got that sorted, and headed off to explore the city.
As we left Union Station, we immediately saw the Chicago River and the Willis (a.k.a. Sears) Tower. We took a bus to the Shedd Aquarium, and spent several hours there. Having another hour to spare, we walked around the lakefront by the museum campus and had lunch outside, enjoying the lovely weather. I decided that layovers in Chicago were FAR more fun when taking the train than when flying through O'Hare! We eventually took the bus back to Union Station and got ready to board the Southwest Chief.
We've only taken one other long-distance Amtrak trip before - the Coast Starlight from LAX-Oregon. We took that trip in a roomette, and really enjoyed it. However, that was only for one night; we knew that the SWC would be two nights out to LA. So, we bought enough points to upgrade from a roomette to a bedroom for our trip this summer.
Our first question was where to start our trip. We live in central Ohio, hundreds of miles from any Amtrak station. This meant meeting the Capitol Limited or Lake Shore Limited somewhere in northern Ohio. We'd then take one of those trains to Chicago, to meet up with the SWC, which we would take to LAX, and then the Surfliner to SNC. We knew we'd have to fly back, and then take the CL or LSL back to Ohio. We considered starting in Toledo. Toledo is a staffed station, and we could have flown directly there on the return trip. However, both Toledo and Sandusky looked iffy in terms of long-term parking; the long-term lot in Toledo is closed, and the station (like Sandusky) is not in a good part of town. We decided we didn't want to risk leaving our car in that area for a week. This narrowed our choices down to Bryan, Ohio or Waterloo, Indiana. We chose Waterloo because it gave us the option of taking the later LSL out of Chicago on the way back.
So, our itinerary looked like this:
1) Leave Columbus at 3:00 am on Friday. Drive 3 hours to Waterloo.
2) Take the Capitol Limited to Chicago.
3) Take the Southwest Chief from Chicago to LAX.
4) Take the Surfliner from LAX to San Juan Capistrano.
5) On the return, fly from LA to Chicago.
6) Take the LSL from Chicago to Waterloo.
7) Drive from Waterloo back to Columbus.
This is probably a lot more about our itinerary than most people put in their trip reports. However, I think it highlights one of the problems with Amtrak's limited routes and schedules - sometimes, you just can't get there from here. I think only someone who REALLY wanted to ride a train would consider this route as an option. Anyway, on to the trip...
Friday, August 5th
After sending texts and checking the train's status online, it appeared that the CL was going to be on time into Waterloo. So, we left our house at 3:00 am and arrived in Waterloo at 6:00 am. The boring drive through dark cornfields isn't one I'd like to do again. However, we arrived in Waterloo without incident. By then, the CL was running late, and arrived at about 7:30.
When the train pulled in to the station (by "station" I mean "Amshack" bus stop), there was some confusion among the 30 or so passengers who were waiting about which train this was, as the LSL was due in about then too. Everyone started walking towards the train, and the conductor had to sort out who was on this train, and who had to wait for the LSL. It appeared that the train had to be double spotted. It stopped for sleeper passengers first, and the SCA announced our names - it appeared that we were the only sleeping car passengers boarding at that stop. So, the train was basically sitting there waiting on us! We hurried onboard.
The first thing I noticed when we got onboard was that we were in a refurbished Superliner 1. I was really excited about this, as I hadn't ridden in one of these cars before (our previous trip on the Coast Starlight occurred two days after its "relaunch" a few years ago. The relaunched CS was supposed to have the refurbished cars, and it didn't - on either leg of our CS trip). We were assigned to bedroom A, which is smaller than the other bedrooms. It has been the last bedroom on the train, so we were glad to have it.
We quickly explored the room and found places to store all our stuff. I was glad to see that our suitcases fit under our seats, allowing us to store them in our room instead of in the luggage area downstairs. After stowing our stuff, we headed off to the dining car, hoping to get some breakfast.
The dining car was still open, and we had breakfast as the sun rose over Indiana. I ordered the French toast. I had heard a lot of good things about the Railroad French Toast on this forum, and I was eager to try it - especially since our trip was going to include 3 breakfasts (along with two dinners and one lunch). The French toast wasn't very good. It was cold, fairly flavorless, and the bread tasted strange. The bacon that came with it was pretty bad as well.
After breakfast, we headed back to our room. Our sleeper was the middle one of three, two cars ahead of the diner. As we walked through the other sleeper, I noticed that it was an unrefurbished Superliner II. I pointed out some of the differences to my wife on the way back - dingy carpet instead of wood paneling, airline sink instead of faux-granite counters, etc. We were in the 2931 car on this train, and the 0331 car on the SWC. From what I've read, the CL becomes the SWC in Chicago, so I knew we'd be assigned to the same car. I was glad we were getting the same refurbished sleeper on the SWC.
When we returned to our bedroom, the long night without sleep started catching up to us. We couldn't find our SCA, so we tried to pull out the bed ourselves. We ended up just folding the couch flat & sleeping on that on our way to Chicago. I also tried out the swivel seat, and found it to be quite comfortable.
I woke up a few hours later, and saw that we were on the outskirts of Chicago. I had never been to Chicago before (except for a million layovers at O'hare), so I was quite excited. We passed by U.S. Cellular field, and saw the Willis Tower off in the distance. Waking up in a strange place and looking out the window to figure out where you are is both a disorienting and exciting feeling, and it's one of my favorite parts of train travel.
The CL arrived in Chicago about an hour late. We had about 5 hours until the Southwest Chief departed, so we made our way to the Metropolitan Lounge. It took a while to check in there, since the same person had to check people in and staff the luggage room. Also, lots of people just tried to walk into the lounge, not understanding that they had to check in before they could take a seat. We eventually got that sorted, and headed off to explore the city.
As we left Union Station, we immediately saw the Chicago River and the Willis (a.k.a. Sears) Tower. We took a bus to the Shedd Aquarium, and spent several hours there. Having another hour to spare, we walked around the lakefront by the museum campus and had lunch outside, enjoying the lovely weather. I decided that layovers in Chicago were FAR more fun when taking the train than when flying through O'Hare! We eventually took the bus back to Union Station and got ready to board the Southwest Chief.