Fall Amtrak Vacation Trip 2008 |
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Buffalo To Sandusky, OH On Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited |
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October 23rd-24th, 2008 |
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Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited taking a break at the Buffalo-Depew Station on Friday morning, July 4th, 2008. (File Photo) |
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| Trip Planning: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I began to plan this year’s trip back in early June 2008. I decided that since I had enough Amtrak Guest Rewards points that I could once again get a free trip cross-country, that it was time to do just that and head out on another transcontinental Amtrak adventure! This time around, I had enough points to get not only a free trip but one in a sleeper! After going through several different itineraries, I decided to ride the Lake Shore Limited to Sandusky, OH to go to Cedar Point (17th straight year visiting CP!!!) then ride the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago and connect with the Southwest Chief and ride it to Los Angeles. Once I get to LAX, my plan is to ride down to Oceanside on the Pacific Surfliner route and connect with another Surfliner train there and head North to San Luis Obispo to spend 2 days there railfanning before heading back South again and using the Surfliner to get to Fullerton. My plan was to spend the weekend in Orange County. Due to time constraints, I would once again have to fly home. I had to purchase the Amtrak tickets to go from Buffalo to Sandusky, then Sandusky to Toledo on the Lake Shore Limited. For 20,000 AGR Points, I was able to get a Viewliner Roomette on the Lake Shore from Toledo to Chicago and a Superliner Roomette for the entire length of the Southwest Chief. I paid for the coach fare from Buffalo to Sandusky, then Sandusky to Toledo. Toledo is the Eastern/Central zone cut-off for Amtrak Guest Rewards so I figured that since it wouldn't cost any more points to upgrade to a sleeper in Toledo verses Chicago, then I would get a free breakfast and a sleeper from Toledo to Chicago, bonus! In California, 2 of the 3 Surfliner tickets (for Business Class seats!) I picked up were courtesy of an additional 3,000 AGR points! I paid $19.00 for the 3rd Surfliner ticket and $40.50 (with my AAA Discount) for the Buffalo to Sandusky and Sandusky to Toledo tickets! As I said before, I booked this trip in early June for late October. The reason for this was for something I don’t think anyone saw coming just a few years ago… |
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$4.00+ Per Gallon Gasoline!!! |
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Prices on everything from gasoline to a Big Mac (I eat enough McDonald's food to know this!!!) had gone up and this was causing Amtrak to have a huge surge in ridership, so I knew that if I didn't book my tickets early, especially the sleeper space, then this trip wasn't gonna happen! So I booked this trip so as to make sure I'd get the trains I wanted. I would be staying at a Sleep Inn in Sandusky, OH and have a rental car from Enterprise waiting for me in Sandusky. After several changes in plans over the coming months before the trip, I ended up having a reservation for a Rodeway Inn in San Luis Obispo and another rental car in Fullerton, CA from Enterprise. I would be spending the weekend in California with family and would be railfanning the Surfline between LA And San Diego. As mentioned before, due to time constraints, I have to fly home. This time around, I ended up getting a $99 fare on Delta Airlines and would fly from LAX to Atlanta then connect there with my flight home to Buffalo. |
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| Thursday Night, October 23rd, 2008: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I arrived at the Amtrak Buffalo-Depew Station around 11:30pm. I gave my Mother my car for the time I would be on vacation and she drove it home. Inside the station were a couple members of the Western NY Railway Historical Society (and friends of mine) who were there railfanning. I had a chat with them for a bit, picked up 2 bottles of Diet Pepsi and some Reese's Pieces and headed out to the platform and chatted with a couple other passengers, one of which was heading to Michigan and the other to Los Angeles! As usual, CSX decided their freights were more important than getting Amtrak through its system efficiently and thus several freights came by before Train #49 - The Lake Shore Limited arrived at approximately 12:49am running about 54 minutes late. The consist for tonight's train is as follows: |
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I was seated in seat #25 of Amfleet II Coach #25072. This car was refurbished and had the blue interior with the modern amenities such as AC outlets, digital display boards and blue cushions and drapes. Compared to several other Amfleet II coaches I've rode in, this one seemed to be very cold! Thankfully, I was wearing a hoody and thus wasn't very cold myself. The passenger who sat next to me was from suburban Syracuse, NY and was sadly on her way to Dearborn, MI to attend funeral services for her son. She talked to me for a very large chunk of the trip about a variety of topics. Things were rather uneventful as we left Buffalo at 12:59am, running 1 hour late. At Erie, we departed at 2:33am now only 57 minutes late. I dozed off somewhere between Erie and Ashtabula as I had been awake now since 11am the previous morning! At Cleveland, a smoking break was permitted so I stepped off the train to get some air. We weren't there long enough for me to take any pictures so after spending a few minutes on the platform, we were out of Cleveland at 4:10am now running only 25 minutes late thanks to some padding in the schedule. As we traveled along the way, we had to stop to let 1 Norfolk Southern freight pass us (As of Cleveland, we were now on Norfolk Southern Trackage as NS picks up the Chicago line at CP-181). We also stopped at the Front Street road crossing in Berea, west of Cleveland where an ambulance was waiting to take a passenger off the train due to a medical emergency. After sitting there for around 10 minutes, we were on our way again. Our stop in Elyria was very brief with maybe 1 passenger getting off the train there. We were out of Elyria at 4:54am, now running 36 minutes late. Thus far, this minor amount of lateness was having no impact on my travel plans. Finally as the train got closer to Sandusky, I gathered together my luggage and said goodbye to the passenger I sat next to for the trip and at 5:25am, running 30 minutes late, the train arrived in Sandusky. |
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