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Today would be the day it was time to come home. This has been an absolutely incredible journey across our beautiful country, and looking back, I truly had a great time! I started the day going over some financial-related stuff and writing this travelogue as I finished backing up all the photos taken last night. I checked out of the hotel and drove to a nearby Shell gas station to put gas in the rental car, then over to McDonald's for a quick breakfast before driving to Enterprise's San Diego Airport site which is located outside of the actual airport (similar to Las Vegas and Los Angeles). After turning in the rental car, I took their free shuttle bus to the Southwest Airlines terminal at the San Diego International Airport, checked my bags, went through security, then found my gate as I would board Southwest Flight #1375 to Phoenix, AZ where I would make my connecting flight which was Southwest Flight #3209 non-stop to Buffalo. I then found a place to sit and plug in my laptop and continue working on this travelogue and get a head start to color-correcting some photos as it would be another two hours before my first flight takes off. My flight to Phoenix today would be aboard a Boeing 737-500 (Southwest only flies Boeing 737 aircraft).
On Southwest Airlines, you don't purchase a specific assigned seat, rather the whole plane is open seating and you can check in for your flight up to 24 hours in advance. I checked in while still at the hotel yesterday and printed my boarding passes there. You will end up in the A, B, or C boarding group, and I was in the B group and would be the 34th passenger to board (I was 28th to board on my connecting flight). Once my boarding group was allowed to board, I took a seat towards the rear of the plane in an aisle as this flight was nearly full. Southwest sometimes does sell you the "upgrade" to board in the A group but I couldn't justify spending an extra $40.00 only to get a seat that's exactly the same size and just get on the plane earlier. We took off from San Diego on time at 1:50pm and would be flying to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
The flight itself was uneventful until about halfway through when the plane made a turn as if we were flying back to San Diego but it turns out it was more of a "wasting time" tactic done by the pilots to make our arrival in Phoenix a little later because of storms in the area. We were actually very close to diverting to Tucson, AZ due to said weather but in the end, Phoenix Airport opened again and we were able to land. We landed at 3:16pm, about 16 minutes later than schedule and it turns out my flight back to Buffalo was at Gate D-5 which was in a separate terminal in the airport, so here I go using one of those moving walkways, knowing there's no time to get amy food while I'm here. I picked up a package of Peanut M&M's and made my way to the proper gate and saw they had just started boarding for this flight.
I was passenger B28 so when the B group was announced to board, I made my way to the plane. This time, I'd be flying in a Boeing 737-800 which was a newer plane that has this same type of lighting package that Boeing is equipping the 787 Dreamliner with, which looked really cool. We ended up taking off around 4:05pm, about 15 minutes late as we were waiting for some passengers connecting from another flight. Once in the air, I could see around us some interesting-looking clouds, along with an interesting-looking rail yard that was obviously operated by Union Pacific! The pilots told us this would be about a 3 hour and 34 minute flight and things would be rough taking off in Phoenix and landing in Buffalo as it was 44 degrees out and windy! We would eventually land in Buffalo and I would retrieve my luggage and pick up my car from across the street from the airport, having had a good flight home. And with that, I have some closing thoughts covering a few key areas of this trip, so here goes...
Amtrak: Every crew on every Amtrak train was excellent. I think I ran into only one conductor who preferred not to talk much but outside of that, things were absolutely excellent with the crews, both conductors as well as onboard service. The Dining Car situation on the City Of New Orleans is something that could be greatly improved if they would just have a regular menu of food as well as put one or two more people to work in the car, and also a regular full diner would be nice as well. This particular train operates its Dining Car without a chef. This is a very storied Amtrak route and would definitely benefit from having a menu that features foods made famous in the cities we are traveling through (this would be a great thing to do on all Amtrak routes).
Special thanks goes to BNSF Railway for providing Amtrak with a freight unit to pull the Southwest Chief to Chicago. Although we were late and some people missed connections as a result, the train did get to its endpoint, and the crews onboard did everything they could to accommodate passenger who would be missing connections.
A special kudos also goes out to all the crews on the Sunset Limited for keeping us running through some interesting weather in eastern Texas. Also thanks to Union Pacific for its excellent dispatching, both to get us around a blocked mainline due to an auto accident in Beaumont as well as getting us around a disabled freight near San Antonio, and also for giving us "nothing but air and opportunity" as the dispatcher said on the radio, to make up time once we got out of Alpine, TX on the way to El Paso and points west. UP basically gave us the railroad (no work areas and we got to get ahead of at least seven freight trains that were put in sidings to let us pass) so we could make up time, my thanks to them as it allowed us in part to arrive into Los Angeles ahead of schedule! Overall, a job well done by Amtrak and I hope this travelogue shows this!
Cedar Point: Once again, this park keeps me wanting to come back for more. I did have to deal with lousy weather again this year including two brief periods of light snow, but overall, it was a good visit and I cannot wait to be back there again in May 2016 for Opening Day to ride the new coaster "Valravn"!
The Depot Inn & Suites: Wow, I don't know where to start, first, this hotel is world class! If you plan a trip to the Midwest, even if you're not a railfan, you need to check out this hotel! It has virtually everything you might need including a heated indoor pool and a meeting room. A 24-hour Casey's General Store is located nearby (OK I guess I got used to their food while I was there too!). Special thanks goes to the employees of the Depot Inn including Alyse, Heather, Holly, Andrea, Jan, and Jordon and the manager Maria, this hotel is awesome! I wish you all continued success!
Special thanks also goes to Bob & Amy Cox from the American Railroad Passenger Heritage Foundation for their assistance with some of the photography here along with some excellent conversations while there! Thank you Shivam from TrainParty.com for the tour of the company's facilities and to Rick Rudd from the NEMO Model Railroad Club for the model train layout tour! Also, special thanks goes to Steve Grande from TrainWeb.com, my web host for the entire existence of this site, now over 15 years! Thanks for everything you did for me on this trip along with showing me your Tesla when I got to the west coast! To everyone at the Southern California Rail Travel Meetup Group, it was nice seeing you all again, I hope you all enjoy this travelogue!
This trip is the single biggest thing I do every year and I'm fortunate to be able to do so. I hope as you read this travelogue that you could see how much I loved doing this! I can't wait for next year's trip but that's something that I'll keep under wraps for now as not all the details have been finalized as of when this trip was completed. Until next time, when I'll be making my annual Christmas Shopping trip, Happy Railfanning... |
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