My overly awaited western trip ended this morning. I traveled over 5000 miles in a week from Cleveland to Chicago to Portland to Sacramento, back to Chicago and Cleveland. The trip was very enjoyable, safe an unfortunate incident in Chicago alluded to in another post. I had thought there were about 100 things that could go wrong on such a trip in February but all went smooth and like clockwork. Every Amtrak employee I encountered on the trains, in the lounges or as ticket agents were very professional, courteous, and competent. In fact, one car attendant and one assistant conductor went so far beyond the call of duty that I got their names and plan to send an email to Amtrak pointing them out as great employees for the company.
Other observations:
1) Every train I took was on time or early at basically every stop. I thought it might be because of more padding in the schedules. However, after taking the same trip 7 years ago, I find that Amtrak seemed to be getting more respect from the dispatchers. I especially noticed a seemingly different attitude from the notoriously anti-Amtrak Union Pacific.
2) As expected, the food on the Empire Builder was of top quality, but the food on the CS and the CZ was also very good. I may be wrong but I thought those two were part of the pre-packaged food that has taken over in the system. If it was, I couldn't tell the difference. It'll take me weeks to work off the extra calories. And people think they engorge while on a cruise.
3) As a rule, the trains were relatively full. My wife and I have taken the EB three times over the last 5 years. We always seemed to be able to get seats to ourselves but I'm not sure we could have on this trip.
4) There seems to be more first time riders. I encountered alot of people that were traveling Amtrak for the first time for various reasons. Alot of them just wanted to experience Amtrak but others were sick of air travel. To a person, they were all impressed with their trips and were planning to take more trips using Amtrak.
5) Alot of riders have no idea of the Amtrak Rewards program. I pointed out that over half of my trip in the sleepers was free. Several took down the information about how to join the program as well as getting the Amtrak credit card.
Those are just some of my observations. As I ended the trip early this morning in Cleveland, I looked down at the LSL and was saddened that it was over. Thank you Amtrak, as always, you didn't let me down.
Other observations:
1) Every train I took was on time or early at basically every stop. I thought it might be because of more padding in the schedules. However, after taking the same trip 7 years ago, I find that Amtrak seemed to be getting more respect from the dispatchers. I especially noticed a seemingly different attitude from the notoriously anti-Amtrak Union Pacific.
2) As expected, the food on the Empire Builder was of top quality, but the food on the CS and the CZ was also very good. I may be wrong but I thought those two were part of the pre-packaged food that has taken over in the system. If it was, I couldn't tell the difference. It'll take me weeks to work off the extra calories. And people think they engorge while on a cruise.
3) As a rule, the trains were relatively full. My wife and I have taken the EB three times over the last 5 years. We always seemed to be able to get seats to ourselves but I'm not sure we could have on this trip.
4) There seems to be more first time riders. I encountered alot of people that were traveling Amtrak for the first time for various reasons. Alot of them just wanted to experience Amtrak but others were sick of air travel. To a person, they were all impressed with their trips and were planning to take more trips using Amtrak.
5) Alot of riders have no idea of the Amtrak Rewards program. I pointed out that over half of my trip in the sleepers was free. Several took down the information about how to join the program as well as getting the Amtrak credit card.
Those are just some of my observations. As I ended the trip early this morning in Cleveland, I looked down at the LSL and was saddened that it was over. Thank you Amtrak, as always, you didn't let me down.
on a 2 hour delay on a train than on a plane! And I too am sick of air travel - so much so that I haven't flown since (IIRC) 2003 even though I have over 600K frequent flyer miles. (I am taking Amtrak cross country this week while another is flying out.)
