After getting a quick photo of the train, I boarded Amfleet II Coach #25010, which was the 3rd of 4 coaches in the New York section of the train. I was told by the coach attendant to just find an open seat as he was assigning seats but by the time I boarded, the coach was nearly full anyway. I took aisle seat #46 though I would sit there for a matter of a few minutes as the train made a double spot to account for baggage headed for New York, then would depart Buffalo-Depew Station at 9:22am, running 14 minutes late. No big deal, especially for this train! Shortly after departure, I walked straight to the Viewliner Dining Car which is the only car of its kind in existence today so as to have breakfast. The car was built in 1988 as an experimental car that would be the next generation of single level dining cars and served for several years until eventually being stored around 10 years ago. In 2011, the car was pulled out of storage and completely gutted down to a shell and rebuilt with all new interior everything and it was fitted with the same trucks that are on the regular production Viewliner I Sleeping cars. All of this was done with Stimulus money and the car has been on a mostly permanent assignment on the Lake Shore Limited ever since. The car is being used as a test bed for new Viewliner II cars that are being built now for Amtrak by CAF in Elmira, NY and in that order of cars is 25 dining cars that will be built based off the Viewliner concept and will replace the Heritage Diners once they enter service.
I walked back to the dining car and was seated towards the middle of the car with a passenger who was an instructor from Berkeley, CA who was on his way to New York City to visit family. We had some very interesting conversations about wine as he told me he taught courses about wine back home. I told him this area of New York (Western and Central) is by far, the Napa Valley of the east! If you are a wine connoisseur who has enjoyed wines from this area, I'm sure you'll agree, the wines from this part of New York easily will compete with anything coming out of California! I personally am not a huge wine drinker but I do like a good Riesling or Rose wine. Breakfast would consist of Railroad French Toast, pork sausage patties, orange juice and a Diet Pepsi. The total cost for breakfast was $14.25 and the food was excellent. Amtrak redid all of its dining car menus in November and now the Lake Shore Limited no longer serves pancakes (as I was so excited to see when I rode this train back in October), rather now they serve French Toast which is still quite good. I also noticed the menus feature calorie counts for all entrees. I try not to look at calorie counts whenever I eat out, as generally, I'm not trying to eat healthy if I'm eating out unless I'm at a restaurant like Subway! After breakfast, I headed back to the cafe car briefly and we made our next stop in Rochester, NY at 10:15am. I stepped off the train to take a few pictures while passengers were loaded and I reboarded the train shortly before departing. The train made a double spot before finally departing Rochester at 10:26am, running 18 minutes late, no big deal if you ask me!
I spent more time in the cafe car chatting with the crew and eventually went back to the Viewliner Diner to go photograph it now that it was closed and not serving. I then went back to the cafe car and had a Diet Pepsi during what was so far, an uneventful ride outside of a few speed restrictions here and there but nothing significant. Our next stop would be Syracuse, NY where we arrived at 11:45am. Passengers got off to smoke and I darted up the platform to the head-end to get what else? More Pictures!!!! We made another double spot in Syracuse likely to handle more checked baggage and New York sleeping car passengers as Syracuse has a relatively short platform. At 11:58am, running 20 minutes late, we departed Syracuse. Lunch service in the dining car was scheduled to start at around noon, so shortly after departing Syracuse, off I went back to the diner! I was told to sit anywhere I wanted when I got to the car for lunch as there were only 3 other passengers in the car when I got there. I had the Angus Steak Burger with bacon along with kettle chips and a Diet Pepsi for $14.00. The burger was actually very tasty and was served on a toasted bun. A passenger from Santa Fe, NM who was on his way to New York (where he had a second home) would eventually join me and we discussed a lot about Amtrak. I gave him my card for this web site while we talked. After lunch, we arrived at our next stop of Utica, NY at 12:58pm. I once again had to try to get another picture so I ran up to the head-end and got a few before making it back to the train to depart at 1:03pm now running 21 minutes late. We had been following CSX train Q-004 most of the way across the state but eventually, CSX decided to let us pass him though we had to stop first and let westbound CSX train Q-091 pass by us. This of course did cause us to lose a bit more time but in all honesty, this wasn't a big deal since the train was doing relatively well considering how far it has traveled. I chatted a bit more with the crew before eventually going back to my seat and getting my stuff together since the next stop, and my stop in Schenectady, NY was coming up. At 2:36pm, running 36 minutes late, Train #48 arrived in Schenectady. After taking a few more pictures, I called Enterprise Rent-A-Car to come pick me up as I would have a rental car waiting for me on this trip.
I waited for Enterprise who eventually showed up in a Chrysler Town & Country minivan. My first thought was I so hope they don't try to put me in one of these boats again like they did in La Plata back in October!!! Once I got back to their facility, I was given the choice of a Ford Focus, a Chevy Cruze, and a Nissan Altima. Take a wild guess as to which car I picked, considering my personal vehicle is a Honda Accord! Yep, you guessed correctly (if you picked the Nissan)! I got a white 2012 Nissan Altima that for whatever reason had a Pennsylvania license plate on it! After filling out the paperwork, I programmed my Garmin Nuvii 50LM GPS to get me to the Courtyard By Marriott hotel on Washington Ave in Albany which is right across the street from the University of Albany! I checked into the hotel very quickly and put my bags in the room then immediately drove down to Castleton-On-Hudson, NY.
Unfortunately today, our country experienced a tragedy today in Newtown, CT as this was also the day of the fatal shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I kept the radio on while making the drive to Castleton to hear more info about this. My thoughts and prayers were with the families and those who lost their lives in that tragedy. The reason I made my first visit on this trip here to this small town south of Rensselaer, NY was to photograph Amtrak Empire Service Train #255 going around 110mph through here as a good friend of mine was the engineer on that train! You'll see the photo a little later on in the travelogue. After getting the photo, I drove back to Rensselaer and parked the car in the Amtrak Station's lot and met up with my engineer friend as his work day had just ended. I took a night photo of Train #49 with the Albany skyline in the background outside the station. I then took another photo of a combined train #49 and #449 from the bridge on nearby Broadway in Rensselaer. I then drove up to near a Holiday Inn Express hotel in East Greenbush to get a night photo of the Albany skyline from a nice high overhead location before having some good wings and a Buffalo Chicken sandwich at a sports bar next to that hotel. I eventually drove back to the hotel and picked up some bottled water and Diet Pepsi from the Sunoco station next door to the hotel and would start writing this travelogue and eventually call it a day. |
