After leaving the station, the train slowed down to maybe 30mph as we passed by the old Buffalo Central Terminal then went over the drawbridge at CP-DRAW. Once we were out of Buffalo, near Bayview Road in Hamburg, the train slowed down again, to maybe 10mph, I'm assuming it was due to a slow order of some kind as we would be back up to near track speed momentarily. We passed through the rest of Hamburg, North Evans, Derby, Angola, Irving, although with it being after 3am, it was not easy to see much outside my tinted coach window. I decided to take a walk through the train to take down some car numbers.
   As I said before, this train had a large number of empty seats as this isn't a peak travel time for Amtrak. I was able to initially get car numbers for the coaches and that was it. The Cafe Car was closed with a sign taped to the window saying that it was closed so it could be cleaned and that it would reopen at 5:30am. Erie, Pa was our next stop, we departed at 4:35am, having gained 3 minutes, now running 1 hour and 59 minutes late. Shortly after leaving Erie, I heard some chatter over the scanner that said a passenger missed her stop in Erie, now here is where Amtrak will go the extra mile to get you to your stop. Our train called the CSX IH Dispatcher to find out where our Eastbound Counterpart, Train #48 was located as we hadn't passed him yet. He was somewhere near CP-134, some 30 miles away. The plan was made, our train would stop, on Track #1 and Train #48 would stop on Track #2 and allow the passenger to switch trains without having to walk more than 5 feet! This would allow the passenger to go back to Erie.
   At 5:05am, the plan I just outlined would happen and the passenger would end up getting back to Erie, great job on the part of Amtrak for doing this! There was a decent amount of padding in the schedule between Erie and Cleveland which would allow us to make up some of the time we lost. Remember as I said before, time was important on this part of the trip and at this point, I figured I wasn't going to make my connection in Sandusky and I feared I might have to get off in Elyria to preserve the connection. On a side note, here is why I planned out this trip this way, First, after reading all the rumors about the possible demise of the Pennsylvanian, I needed to find a way to get in another trip on it, the only way I could do this was to ride past Cleveland on the Lake Shore and make a connection in Sandusky. I could have also done so in Elyria but I wanted to catch the Pennsylvanian in Sandusky more or less for symbolic reasons as I caught this train 3 times last year while working for Cedar Point. I had an interesting time explaining this to the Conductor on the Lake Shore but he understood it was a connection, and one I wanted to make sure I was able to make. He didn't have a cell phone so he couldn't contact Julie to get the status of Train #44, the Eastbound Pennsylvanian. I was told that we would have a few minutes in Cleveland and that I could get off the train there, run inside and check the status. We arrived into Cleveland at 6:08am and I immediately sprinted into the station to get the status of Train #44, it was running on time! OH NO! If that was to be the case, I wasn't gonna make the connection! Well luck would end up turning in my favor very quickly after departing Cleveland.
   We left at 6:20am, 1 hour and 40 minutes late with a new Conductor who had a cell phone. He contacted someone, not sure if it was Julie or someone else, who was able to tell him that Train #44 was now running late and was due into Toledo at 7:15am. He came back to let me know of this and I decided that no contingency plan was necessary and I would get off in Sandusky and successfully make my connection! Our next stop was in Elyria, we left there at 6:48am after picking up a couple passengers, we stopped in Sandusky where I got off with maybe 1 other passenger at 7:22am, 1 hour and 41 minutes late.
   The plan now would be to wait on the platform for Train #44 to arrive and I would ride back to Cleveland. I'll explain here why I wanted to do this, first, as I said before, I needed an excuse to ride the Pennsylvanian, second, I didn't want to arrive into Cleveland at 4:40am on the Lake Shore Limited since there's not much to do at that odd hour of the morning as most everything is closed! I made this connection only because my connecting train was also running late. 1 hour and 6 minutes isn't a lot of time for a connection but for most trains, if your connection is at least an hour past your arrival from the first train, Amtrak usually will guarantee it, though I must admit, this was cutting it very close!
   The crew on tonight's train did an excellent job. The train was warm, relatively clean and my coach anyway had no major problems. I did end up losing one thing on this leg of the trip, my TrainWeb.com hat! I took it off sometime during the trip and left it at my seat, I didn't let it bother me though because it was a railroad hat that I ended up losing on the railroad itself!