| Trip Planning: |
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| This would be my third of three trips for 2011. The tickets for this trip ended up costing me nothing since they were paid for using a total of 6,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points. What is unusual is the fact that these tickets were booked after having to cancel the trip I was supposed to take to Albany in August to see the Amtrak 40th Anniversary Exhibit Train (which I ended up seeing in Jackson, MI on October 8th, 2011). I had to cancel that trip due to Hurricane Irene but the trip I booked in place of it ended up being great! When I cancelled that trip, rather than have the points re-credited to my AGR account, I just went ahead and booked this trip since I was gonna take this trip anyway. AGR made things very easy in switching out the tickets for this trip! I will say, I've been booking trips with AGR for the past several years and every single contact with them has been great! They run a very efficient and customer friendly operation! That said, lets take a very cold (weather that is), but good trip! |
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| Friday, December 9th, 2011: |
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| I arrived at the Buffalo-Depew Amtrak station at around 8:40am after driving through a rather impressive snowstorm on the way. After parking my car and heading inside, I found out Train #48 was set to arrive about 9:00am, which by the schedule would make it only 2 minutes late!!! I talked briefly with the Assistant Conductor for today's train in the station (Buffalo is a crew change point for the Lake Shore) and found out he and the Conductor today were both people I've rode with in the past on numerous trips!!! After getting to the platform, a CSX freight passed by before Train #48 arrived. At 9:08am, Train #48 arrived at Buffalo-Depew Station only 10 minutes late! The consist for today's train is shown below: |
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82 |
P42DC |
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Power |
169 |
P42DC |
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Power |
1212 |
Heritage Baggage |
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Baggage Car (To Boston) |
62049 |
Viewliner Sleeper |
Winter View |
4820 - Sleeping Car (To Boston) |
25071 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To Boston) |
25024 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To Boston) |
28005 |
Amfleet II Diner-Lite Car |
Chicago Club |
Cafe/Lounge Car (To Boston) |
25085 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To New York) (My Car) |
25050 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To New York) |
25052 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To New York) |
25036 |
Amfleet II Coach |
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Coach (To New York) |
8505 |
Heritage Diner |
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Dining Car (To New York) |
62047 |
Viewliner Sleeper |
Village View |
4811 - Sleeping Car (To New York) |
62043 |
Viewliner Sleeper |
Sunset View |
4812 - Sleeping Car (To New York) |
1734 |
Heritage Baggage |
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Baggage Car (To New York) |
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We departed Buffalo-Depew station at 9:21am running 13 minutes late, no big deal. I was seated in Amfleet II Coach #25050 in the New York section in Aisle Seat #12 though I would spend just about the entire run to Rochester in the café car chatting with the crew. Right out of the gate, we had stopped at CP-429 then had a slow order due to trackwork near there. We ended up following CSX Train Q-366 until we were able to get around him at CP-417. Things were rather uneventful to Rochester where we arrived at 10:35am. I got off the train briefly to get a few quick pictures. A few agents from the U.S. Border Patrol were on the train checking the citizenship of another passenger during the station stop at Rochester. After the Border Patrol agents got off the train, we departed at 10:46am, running 38 minutes late. I decided after we left Rochester to have breakfast in the lounge car since the dining car was now closed for breakfast so I had a sausage, egg & cheese English muffin sandwich with a cinnamon danish and a Diet Pepsi for $9.00, all the food was actually quite good!
We had a slow order east of East Palmyra. We then were about to stop at CP-335 but didn't. I then got out the computer to start writing this travelogue. We arrived at our next stop at Syracuse, NY at 12:05pm where a smoking break was permitted. I took this opportunity to once again get more pictures! With Syracuse having an elevated platform, It became necessary today to make a double spot just before departing so as to make a heat adjustment to one of the coaches that required a member of the crew to access something underneath the car (the far east and west ends of the platform are on ground level). We were out of Syracuse at 12:16pm, still running 38 minutes late. I picked up a 12:30pm reservation for lunch as I really wanted to eat a meal in the dining car! I was seated in the car with a woman from Kansas City who was on her way to New York. I decided to have the Marketplace Special which was meatloaf with mashed potatoes, I also had a salad and roll with a Diet Pepsi to drink and vanilla Haagen-Dasz ice cream. Lunch cost $16.25 and everything was delicious!!! The Heritage Diners are some of my favorite cars to have a meal in because they have all the history in them! The car on today's train was #8505 which was an original Chicago, Burlington & Quincy diner built by Budd in 1958. This car had the full Temoinsa rebuild interior and looked beautiful and the food wasn't bad either!!! We made our station stop at Utica, NY while I was eating lunch at 1:10pm. We departed Utica at 1:14pm now down 32 minutes. We passed Amtrak Empire Service train #281 in Fonda, just west of Amsterdam. That train actually waited for us to pass! I ended up spending the rest of the ride in the café car chatting with the crew some more until about CP-169 which is where the freight mainline separates from the passenger main. The train was now riding on high-speed 100mph rail all the way to the next stop at Schenectady, NY. At 2:26pm, running 26 minutes late (and having made up some time), we arrived at Schenectady.
I headed downstairs and outside and called Enterprise Rent-A-Car to have them come pick me up. They arrived about a 20 minutes later and drove me back to their place. I ended up getting a 2011 Volkswagen Jetta for a rental car. It took them over an hour to get the car to me as it was in the shop getting an oil change (and I didn't want to upgrade to a bigger car because simply put, I didn't want to put more gas in a bigger car!). I drove from their location in Schenectady to my hotel, the Courtyard By Marriott – Albany Airport location on Wolf Road. I checked into my room which had a nice king-sized bed and was very clean!
After dropping off my luggage and getting some quick food at Burger King, I took a drive over to the Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak Station as I wanted to get a night photo of Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited there. After parking the rental car at the short-term lot at the station, I took a walk and eventually found a photo location on Broadway in the city of Rensselaer near the station at an overpass so I set up the camera and tripod on the sidewalk and took a wide-angle photo of the train. I then moved a bit while still on Broadway to get a little more close-up of a photo. After getting that photo, I drove back towards my hotel and put gas in the rental car along with picking up some food for the hotel room. I later headed to McDonald's for a quick late dinner and headed back to the hotel, and continued writing this travelogue, and so ends a good first day. |
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| Saturday, December 10th, 2011: |
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I decided today would be my actual shopping day but since we have such a short amount of daylight this time of the year, I decided I would do the actual shopping later today after sunset and go railfanning while I still had daylight. After a late breakfast at McDonald's, I drove out to Amsterdam, which is still one of my favorite railfanning spots in the Capital Region. I was saddened to see a couple things that weren't there last year. Because of Hurricane Irene, CSX replaced the damaged former New York Central signal bridge just east of the station with its butt-ugly new signals that are on either side of the tracks. The hot box detector that used to say "Guy Park, NY" was also replaced. It was very evident that this area was very badly hit by the hurricane as the Amtrak Station in Amsterdam suffered significant water damage as the water was nearly 6 feet high in that area. The station building itself was locked and all of the interior of the building was vacant. There were 2 bus shelters installed next to the station building that are otherwise serving as "the station". I really hope this building can be rehabbed but at this point, it is locked up and not being used. I spent a couple hours here and railfanned in the freezing cold until Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited flew through Amsterdam as it doesn't stop there.
After the Lake Shore came by, I decided to drive back towards Albany and wanted to go to Quiznos Sub so I looked up a location using my new Garmin Nuvi 50LM GPS (Unrelated to this trip, I bought a new car in November, a beautiful 2012 Honda Accord EX and bought this GPS the day after I bought the car, a much less expensive alternative to getting the Navigation System installed in the car!) on Western Ave near Albany only to get there and see that it had gone out of business! I decided to head back to the Albany-Rensselaer station to try to get another night photo but from a different angle than the two I got the previous night. The end result was I got a photo at dusk of Train #449 - The Lake Shore Limited Boston Section with 3 P42's on it! Now, I'm my own worst critic and I thought this photo looked great! You'll see it a little later in the travelogue!
After finishing up taking this photo, I drove back to the hotel to put the camera away and proceeded to the Crossgates Mall to start my shopping. I also visited Wal-Mart as well as Colonie Center, another mall in the Albany area that was actually just up the road from my hotel. After finishing the shopping (which took about 2 hours, probably one of the most efficient things I do all year), I drove over to a nearby Chili's restaurant for dinner. After dinner, I went to Burger King for a quick Sundae and went back to the hotel and color-corrected a bunch of pictures I took during the day and would eventually call it a day. Special Note: I don't normally eat this much fast food anymore when I'm home (I usually bring my lunch to work and actually try to work out several days a week) but when I'm on a train trip, all bets are off!!! |
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| Sunday, December 11th, 2011: |
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Today, I wanted to take a drive down to Poughkeepsie, NY to experience the "Walkway Over The Hudson" State Historic Park. This walkway is built atop a railroad bridge that goes over the mighty Hudson River. This bridge once carried the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad's Maybrook Line. The park is located just north of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge (which I drove over to get there) and it only costs $5.00 for parking for 4 hours. You pay a kiosk when you park and the park accepts cash and credit cards on the Poughkeepsie Side of the bridge. After paying the parking fee, I started walking towards the bridge. I couldn't help but notice the railroad artifacts that were still there! There were several old telephone poles as well as a New Haven signal light that was mostly intact, less a ladder and a light lens! I also found one signal base that was still left there. My purpose for being here of course included getting in some railfanning! You have on the east side of the Hudson, the Hudson line that features Amtrak and Metro-North trains and on the west side of the Hudson, you have the River line which is owned by CSX and is used for freight. The Hudson line is currently owned by CSX up to the Poughkeepsie Station where ownership changes to Metro-North. In recent months, Amtrak has announced that it will be leasing this line from CSX and will control it from here in Poughkeepsie (where Metro-North takes over), all the way to Hoffmans, NY, west of Schenectady, near Amsterdam. I'm not gonna lie, I was absolutely FREEZING walking over this bridge as it was a little windy and temps didn't get out of the high 30's today!
I managed to get photos of Amtrak Empire Service train #256 then proceeded to walk to the end of the bridge, getting a photo of a CSX freight on the River line. I also saw something very unusual today, a few people walking their pets, which in itself conjures up an image of people walking their dogs, but these people weren't walking any dogs! Nope, they were walking their GOATS!!! Yep, there were 3 people each walking a small goat, all of which were on leashes and other than one defecating on the concrete, they were well-behaved! I got to the end of the bridge and bought a well-deserved hot chocolate from the vendor selling food there. On the west side of the bridge, you are in the town of Highland, NY and the path from the bridge continues as a bike trail complete with a caboose on display! There are also porta-jonnies on both sides of the bridge if you should need to "go" while visiting the park! I proceeded to walk back to the Poughkeepsie side of the bridge and saw one more CSX freight on the River line before eventually photographing Amtrak Empire Service Train #284 as it was coming into Poughkeepsie. There were also several Metro-North trains sitting at the station there. Poughkeepsie is the northern most point on MN's Hudson Line route that ends at Grand Central Terminal, which IS the east end of the New York Central's Water Level Route!
I then walked the rest of the way back to my car and decided to go find a KFC for a late lunch. Well, maybe my GPS just wants me to eat healthier or something because the KFC it found for me was in the middle of downtown Poughkeepsie and it, like the Quiznos the day before, had GONE OUT OF BUSINESS!!! I said the heck with this and started heading back north, having stopped at a service plaza on the New York State Thruway (I-87) to grab a Diet Pepsi and some candy to get me back to Albany! Once back at my hotel, I put the camera away and headed down Wolf Road to Capital Buffet, a buffet restaurant featuring Chinese food and sushi! After dinner, I drove back to the hotel, backed up and color-corrected the over 100 photos I took at the park today and continued writing this travelogue. And so ends today… |
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| Monday, December 12th, 2011: |
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| I woke up around 10:30am and started to get my stuff together so as to check out of the hotel as I needed to have the rental car back by noon. I left the hotel shortly after 11:00am and drove back to Enterprise in Schenectady. They then drove me back to the Amtrak Station which was a short drive from their place. Upon arrival, I found out that the train I was taking back to Buffalo, Empire Service Train #281 was running late for unknown reasons. I had the station crew store my 2 suitcases and I walked down the street to a nearby Wendy's restaurant for lunch. I had remembered there being a Quiznos here too at one point but it must have also gone out of business! After lunch and a quick Oreo Cookie Dessert at Burger King, I walked back to the station just in time to see Empire Service Train #284 from Niagara Falls arrive. After that train left, I decided to pick up my bags and head for the platform. I would come to find out that Train #281 was going to be using Empire Service Train #233's equipment (normally a New York-Albany only train) due to what ended up being a blown compressor in the locomotive on #281. Eventually, Train #48 arrived in Schenectady with P42DC #82 on the lead which was the same unit that lead #48 last Friday when I rode it. A friend of mine from Schenectady later met me on the platform and Train #281, finally arrived in Schenectady at 3:13pm. We departed very quickly also at 3:13pm running 1 hour and 49 minutes late. The consist for today's train is as follows: |
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It was clearly evident that this was not the consist of Train #281. The café car on train #233 offers Business Class service but no food service. The café attendant on the original Train #281 moved as much food as he could off the disabled trains' café car which resulted in a very limited selection of food being available for sale on this train which did not sit well with at least one other passenger. I'm beginning to think that Amtrak's decision to close the food commissary in Albany several years ago was probably a mistake! This would mean there would be severely limited food service for the rest of this train's run. The cafe car attendant told me they may put food on Train #49 to take to Buffalo for this train as Train #283 had already left New York by the time this train became disabled. I have no idea if this was ever done. As stated earlier, a compressor went in the locomotive on the original Train #281. I found out this happened between Rhinecliff and Hudson, NY. Train #233 pulled up next to it where all of #281's passengers boarded and continued to Albany and points west. Train #233 would run west of Albany as #281 albeit very late, but to Amtrak's credit, it still ran! I spent some time chatting with the crew. The conductor was one I've rode with a few times in the past and I also chatted with one passenger in the café car and showed him this web site.
We made our next station stop at Amsterdam, NY and departed at 3:29pm running 1 hour and 50 minutes late. I continued to write this travelogue as we moved across the state with minimal delay. We made our next stop at Utica, NY and departed there at 4:28pm running 1 hour and 45 minutes late, having made up some time! While writing more of this travelogue in the café car, an Amtrak ticket agent I remembered from Depew boarded the train in Utica where she now works so I talked with her for a bit. We made or next brief stop at Rome, NY and departed at 4:43pm running still 1 hour and 45 minutes late. There would be a brief smoking break coming up at the next stop in Syracuse, NY. We arrived at Syracuse at 5:22pm where about a 5 minute smoking break was permitted. We also picked up a new engineer and at 5:27pm, we were on our way now running 1 hour and 34 minutes late having made up some time. I now decided to just relax at my coach seat and listen to the scanner. We had yet again an uneventful ride to Rochester, the next stop where we departed at 6:41pm now running only 1 hour and 24 minutes late. I continued to just relax. The lack of most food service on the train really didn't bother me as I ate lunch before departing Schenectady anyway. As we got closer to the next stop, which was my stop of Buffalo-Depew Station, I grabbed my bags and coat and at 7:38pm, running 1 hour and 14 minutes late, we arrived at Buffalo-Depew station, bringing an end to an excellent trip across the state. I headed over to my car which was now not covered in any snow as it all melted over the past couple days! I would head to Quiznos Sub finally, after only trying to find 2 of them on the trip only to find they both were closed! What can I say, I love their Chicken Carbonara Sub! And so ends an excellent trip! |
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| In Conclusion: |
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| This trip proved to be another successful trek across the state to do my Christmas Shopping as well as get in some railfanning. I have been asked by several people over the years why I make this trip in the first place since I could easily just do my Christmas Shopping in Buffalo? In all complete honesty, I make this trip as it's the best excuse I could come up with to get the train ride in at the end of the year! This is an annual tradition for me having started back in 2001, thus this was my 11th year in a row making a trip like this! The service on both Amtrak trains was overall excellent. The food in the Heritage Diner on #48 was also delicious! My only suggestion would have been to have some kind of cheesecake for dessert or maybe some kind of chocolate peanut butter pie like I've had on other Amtrak routes. The delays on Train #281 had really no impact on me personally. If Amtrak had decided not to run this train, there were two more running after it so I'm sure I could have gotten one of them instead. This completes my third and final trip of 2011 and what a year it has been both personally for me and for Amtrak. Amtrak celebrated its 40th Anniversary back in May with a beautiful Exhibit Train that started a nationwide tour that I was proud to experience. For me, I took a cross-country trip in late September that proved to be nothing short of absolutely amazing, having rode 5 Amtrak trains as well as the Napa Valley Wine Train!. Also, I personally covered my 50,000th mile travelled on Amtrak on this particular trip at about milepost 306 in Jordan, NY just west of Syracuse! I know there are other people who have travelled far more miles than I have on Amtrak but I feel this is still a big accomplishment for me since there are many people who may take Amtrak only once or twice and I have been fortunate to have taken a total of 48 Amtrak trips, riding a total of 141 trains since my first in July 1996! Included here are links to photos taken during this great trip! Until next time, and another huge trip, Happy Railfanning!!! |
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