your first ride on amtrak

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yarrow

yarrow

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Joined
Feb 25, 2006
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far ne washington state, 1/2 mile from canada
it was a snowy night last night so i decided to add up my amtrak miles. got me thinking about my first trip. spk-phl rt in february of 1982. after chicago we had all heritage cars. i still remember feeling like i was in a museum. 30th street station in philly was the first classic station i was able to explore. what a place. on our way east it was 30 below in havre,mt. on our way back, 10 days later, it was still 30 below. what was your first amtrak journey like?
 
Hrmm....I have some vague memories of a trip I took on amtrak in 1992. For my 12th birthday, my aunt let me pick a city and we would go on a weekend trip. I picked Boston, so we took amtrak up there from Philadelphia on the metroliner. But I don't really remember many of the train details about the trip. My memories from when I was a kid are mostly hazy - I have a terrible memory.
 
My sister went to college in Plattsburgh, NY and I lived near Ft Edward, NY, so I rode the Adirondack between the two quite often in the mid 1970's And these were the days of the leftover rolling stock from the original railroads!

Thus, the Adirondack ran with either D&H PA-15, 16 or 18 at the head and a bubble-top dome car on the rear!
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Michigan Executive, from Ann Arbor to Detroit, just to bum around the old Michigan Central station. It actually still had tenant's then in the offices above. There was still a shoe-shine guy, and the restaurant was open. I wandered around for hours, til the next train back.

The exec had a round-end observation car on it, I do remember that, and have pics somewhere. Maybe it was the Wolverine, I dunno. But there was a lot of Amtrak's Orange and Purple.
 
amamba said:
Hrmm....I have some vague memories of a trip I took on amtrak in 1992. For my 12th birthday, my aunt let me pick a city and we would go on a weekend trip. I picked Boston, so we took amtrak up there from Philadelphia on the metroliner. But I don't really remember many of the train details about the trip. My memories from when I was a kid are mostly hazy - I have a terrible memory.
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Same here. :eek:
 
the_traveler said:
amamba said:
I don't really remember many of the train details about the trip. My memories from when I was a kid are mostly hazy - I have a terrible memory.
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Or was it that "funny stuff" that caused the memory loss for both of you!
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No "funny stuff" for me. In fact, I was just talking to someone about how I don't drink (alcohol) except for a very small sip at Communion.

My first Amtrak trip was last June on the NEC from WIL to WAS for a convention. Uneventful going down. An hour delay coming back due to another train dying around Perryville (think it was a southbound one) and having to wait for it to clear before we could continue. But that didn't bother me. I was in no hurry.

My first LD was in Nov (NER-CL-CZ). Am looking forward to my next one...when I can afford it and have the time.
 
Family trip on the Silver Meteor, NYP-TPA, in the summer of 1983, in coach.

The biggest effect was a desire to only spend the night in sleepers, not in coach. :lol:
 
My first Amtrak experience was at Christmas in 1976. My wife, daughter (age 3)and I took the train to spend

Christmas with my Mother in Indiana. We boarded the train in Newark, NJ about 2:00pm. We were in a bedroom

but as I recall, the beds were like todays roomettes (facing the length of the train). We ate dinner in the

dining car and enjoyed our meal. I recall my wife complaining about sleeping on the top bunk because she

wanted to retire first. My daughter and I were enjoying looking out the window at the Christmas decorations

in the small towns as we passed through Pennsylvania. When my daughter was tired, she climbed into the bunk

with my wife, which made it uncomfortable for my wife. The trip was fine and we arrived on schedule.

On the return trip, we boarded at 11:30pm, and went directly to bed. When we woke up the following morning,

we went to the dining car only to find just about all the food had been eaten by other passengers. My wife

complained to the dining car attendant who said "Everyone knows that the food is always gone by we reach

Indianapolis!!" We were able to get a sparse breakfast and enjoyed the rest of the trip home. My wife told

me she never wanted to go on the train again, but of course, that was not true as she often rides with me.
 
I depart tonight on my first Amtrak trip...I must say Im terrified
 
Some time in autumn 2005, just after I moved from the UK to Canada for a year abroad, and I took my first real trip to America on the Adirondack, Montreal - NYP.

Having traveled far and wide in the UK and Europe by train, I remember some of the usual startling observations burning in my mind...

  • These seats are huge!
  • Hey, everyone's facing forwards! You mean they actually turn the whole train round (or turn every pair of seats) between trips?
  • Jeeeeeeeezus, this is slow...
  • Those are some friendly yet smart-ass on board crew
  • I mean really really really sloooooow...
  • And this printed timetable I brought with me is really a wish list rather than an accurate indicator of travel time...


Etc etc etc. But it was a magical experience. Aside from a four hour layover in Chicago O'Hare about four years before that, I had never actually been to the States, so to enter "by the back door" on an Amtrak train and to see the small towns and back roads of upstate New York for hours upon end before even reaching New York City (where most Brits arrive first) was a really great experience.
 
Tonight I will be taking my first trip...I know I dont have the information that you all are asking for but I went from GRV-CVS &back from CVS-GRV crescent im scared.
 
My first train ride was in August 1967, at the age of four, on the Texas Eagle from Houston to St. Louis. We rode in coach and I remember trying to get some sleep on the floor. I remember being very anxious crossing the diaphragms between cars. And I also remember my first peek into a roomette on the way from coach to the diner and wondering why we couldn't be in one of those nifty little private rooms.

My first Amtrak ride was in 1979 from Houston to East Lansing, Michigan via Chicago and back. I was a sixteen-year-old living in California at the time, and I was miserable. I wanted to get back to my high school friends in Houston. My parents eventually agreed to let me fly back and stay with a friend, and while there to attend the Junior Classical League convention which was being held at Michigan State University in East Lansing. After checking prices I found that the train was much cheaper than flying and much faster than Greyhound. Besides, I was hungry for a train ride...I was a confirmed railfan even then. It was a good trip for me and my friend; we rode in one of the former Santa Fe Hi-Level coaches and everything (especially the A/C) worked. Things were a lot more miserable in the rest of the train...the A/C kept going out in the single level cars (knowing what I know now about steam ejector A/C I suspect that someone neglected to fill the water tanks, but that's just a guess) and the train was oversold due to United being on strike.
 
I am an old-timer, and I probably have logged more miles pre-Amtrak than Amtrak (although I'm catching up rapidly). My first rail trip of any kind was as a young lad back in the late 40's on the State of Maine Express, GCT to Portland, ME with a change of trains there to Lewiston, ME. My first Amtrak trip was on a train that no longer exists over a route that also is no more. This was a trip from NYP to St. Louis and return on the National Limited, 1972 or 1973, with my wife and 5-year old son to see grandma and grandpa in Southern MO.

Going out, the trip was uneventful, but coming back the A/C had broken down in coach (it was July), so we were put in a roomette. Kind of soured my wife on train travel for many years, but I got her back "on board" with a great trip on the CZ (bedroom) to SLC a few years back.

Ocala Mike
 
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Great question!

My first Amtrak ride was a trip on the Lake Shore Limited in Dec. 1995 from Boston to Chicago with my husband, who was my then new boyfriend. I hadn't been on a train since I was a little girl (taking the train between Cincinnati and Bowling Green in the 1960s) and I don't recall much of those days.

But the trip to Chicago on the LSL I remember. I was in graduate school at the time and I had come to Boston to visit my husband. Upon arriving, I got a nasty cold which I gave to him and we both were very sick. One of his neighbors took pity on us and brought us homemade chicken noodle soup and other food because we were too sick to get out of bed.

When we did finally recouperate, we decided we were going to go do something grand -- and that something turned into a trip to Chicago on the Lakeshore Limited. My husband told me all about the sleeping cars he remembered as a kid so we were both expecting those types, so you can imagine our surprise when we had the Viewliners!

They were fantastic and I really think -- no, I know -- that was when I fell in love with train travel. Everything was great. The service was great. That was back when they put out mints and cookies (I think) on the pillows and there was music and TV in the rooms! They also gave out paper slippers that say "LakeShore Limited" on them, which I still have in the unopened package. (Might be worth something one day! LOL!) I also recall that the food was spectacular. I was really like a little kid -- overjoyed.

I also remember that when we got to Chicago, I froze my butt off because I had only brought a trenchcoat with me from Ohio -- a silly move on my part. We froze our butts off in Chicago, but it was a lot of fun and very romantic.

I think this trip was also where I realized I was with the man I would one day marry.

But, that is a different story! ;)

-- Jackie
 
Hi,

In 2004 I visited Anaheim with my young son, stepdaughter and my girlfriend. We took a surfliner up to LAX while the kids visited Disney. While waiting for the return train back to Anaheim, I noticed on the board a train coming all the way to L.A. from Chicago... The rest is history! I wrote up about my first long distance trip here: Caravanman's first trip report with pics! Please note that you need to scroll to the foot of the page to read it in first to last order...

Cheers,

Ed :cool:
 
My first Amtrak ride was June 3, 1971, about a month after the system began.

I was on the Super Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago, and about the only thing that let passengers know it was not a Santa Fe train anymore was an Amtrak logo pasted on the outside of each car at the doorway.

Otherwise, it was Santa Fe "all the way!"
 
My first intercity train ride was back in 1968, when I was 10 years old. Back then, my grandparents were pretty sure that all passenger trains were going to soon be gone, so they took me for a ride on Union Pacific train 5, which by then was a two-car, coach-only run. By most peoples' standards it was probably a pretty unpleasant train to ride, but I was enthralled, and permanently hooked on rail travel after that.

By bugging my parents, I managed a handful of other pre-Amtrak trips, but my first Amtrak experience was in 1974 or thereabouts, when my family rode from Ogden to Denver on the old San Francisco Zephyr.. I wish I could remember more details of that trip, but it took an almost-immediate back seat to our return journey, which was on the Rio Grande Zephyr. What an amazingly wonderful trip that was! I've ridden trains on six continents in the decades since, but nothing could compare to the RGZ.
 
My first train trip was in August, 1948 on the Rock Islands Rocky Mountain Rocket from Joliet to Council Bluffs. My first Amtrak trip was Sun May 2,1971 on the new daily South Wind from Louisville to Birmingham. Up til then the South Wind had been an every other day train and for the last year and a half was coach & snack lounge from Chicago to Louisville requiring a change to the combined South Wind /Pan American continuing on to Florida.
 
My first train ride was 1966, from Miami to Washington for my 8th grade school trip. I believe it was the Atlantic Coast Line at that time. I remember the food being awful, but the ride was a blast. I sat with 3 of my girlfriends - with seats facing each other. None of our parents were with us, so that made it even more fun.

In 1970, I took the Seaboard Coastline train from Miami to Waldo to get to college at the University of Florida for the first time.

My first Amtrak train ride was in 1972 from Waldo, Florida (near Gainesville) to Fayetteville, NC to visit my then boyfriend who attended college Laurinberg, NC. I remember getting to NC very late at night (or early morning). I was a smoker at the time and I remember hanging out in the very large "ladies lounge" smoking and chatting. I also remember changing trains in Jacksonville.
 
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