After a quick photo, I boarded the train in Amfleet I Coach #82033. This is a refurbished coach with the Capstone interior and the car was in good shape. I was in the second to last coach in the train as the last coach (where I boarded), was just about full! I knew when I booked this trip that it would likely have a decent sized crowd being that it's a week before Christmas! We left Buffalo-Depew Station at 7:44am running 10 minutes late. We passed one freight just after leaving Depew. One thing I noticed was that we were kicking up a fair amount of snow! I took a quick walk through the train to take down car numbers, then went back to the cafe car and had a quick breakfast of a Sausage, Egg & Cheese on an English Muffin sandwich with a cinnamon roll and a Diet Pepsi, all were tasty! Together they cost $8.00. I chatted briefly with the crew then went back to my coach to pick up my laptop and set it up in the cafe car to show a member of the crew this web site! An announcement was made just before our next stop at Rochester that we would have a big crowd boarding there so I opted to just set up the computer at my coach seat and work on this travelogue there since I didn't want to risk losing my seat like what happened to me on one of these trips a few years ago. We arrived at our next station stop of Rochester, NY at 8:36am. A very large crowd boarded there and we were on our way at 8:42am, now 15 minutes late. The coach I was in was now really starting to fill up! The crew wasn't kidding when they said this train was sold out! Things would be uneventful as we eventually made our way to our next stop at Syracuse. At 10:01am, we arrived at Syracuse Station and was greeted by what looked like at least 100 people boarding the train there! I got off the train to get a picture and would patiently wait to reboard. We left Syracuse at 10:10am, now running 20 minutes late.
  Upon leaving Syracuse, we had a rather lengthy speed restriction for unknown reasons. I also now had a passenger sitting next to me. I let her have my window seat since I've covered this route more times than I can count over the years! She was a college student from Albany who was on her way home for Christmas. A passenger a few seats up from where I was sitting was playing music from the band "Evanescence". She said she was a music and art fan, and Evanescence is a cool band (if you ask me)! We made our next stop at Rome, NY and left there at 10:53am, 22 minutes late. Only a few people got on and off at that stop. At our next stop of Utica, NY, we would end up having another absolutely massive crowd board there! I got off the train and ran up to the head end to get another picture and would see one CSX Freight pass us there. I also got photos of the nice New York Central Steam Locomotive on display at the station as well. We left Utica with a nearly full train at 11:17am, running 28 minutes late. I've gotta give the crew a lot of credit here, as they handled the crowds very well and the overall sentiment on the train was that people were generally happy! Now try finding that kind of sentiment in an airport at this time of the year! I headed to the cafe car to have a quick lunch. If there was one thing I really missed was the fact that had I been on Train #48, I would have had lunch in the dining car, oh well, there's always next year! I ended up chatting with a couple passengers in my coach and discussed my web site a bit. We picked up a few people at our next station stop of Amsterdam, NY. I noticed a new sign on the platform letting you know you are at this station along with a new shelter for the wheelchair lift unit. We left Amsterdam at 12:20pm, 31 minutes late. I sat at my coach seat and just after passing CP-169, I started to get my stuff together and drag my luggage down to the other end of my coach. At 12:37pm, running 28 minutes late, we arrived at my stop of Schenectady, NY.
  One of the first things I noticed after getting off the train was the serious amount of graffiti painted on the station platform structures. I hope this is something that can be cleaned up because it really doesn't look good to a passenger arriving there! I took the elevator down to the station waiting room. A friend of mine would pick me up eventually and we went over to Subway where another friend eventually met up with us. I would go pick up my rental car for this year's trip at Enterprise Rent-A-Car after lunch. This time, I got a 2011 Hyundai Sonata, nice car!!! This car was navy blue in color and was able to get out of its own way (I am a very conservative driver but I like it when you press the gas pedal and the car takes off, it's more fun to drive than a car where you press the gas pedal and just crawl)! It reminds me a lot of my personal vehicle, a Honda Accord! After picking up the rental car, I visited with one of my friends at another deli in Schenectady before eventually driving to my hotel for this trip, the Courtyard By Marriott on Washington Avenue in Albany, across the street from the University of Albany. After getting checked in to the hotel, I decided to take a nap since I had been running all day on very little sleep thanks to the alternate arrangement of taking Train #284 over #48. This would turn out to be the smartest decision in this trip as #48 would end up arriving at Schenectady that day at 6:12pm which would have meant I would have missed picking up my rental car altogether on Friday because Enterprise closed at 6pm! Again, THANK YOU AMTRAK for calling me at some insane hour of the night to offer me the train switch!!! This trip would have been severely complicated had that not happen! After attempting a nap which was largely useless, I drove over to Dorato's, a local restaurant in Albany and had their hot chicken wings "Dorato's Style" which involves shaking them in some kind of hot sauce, then putting them back on the grill for a few minutes making them crispier, they were excellent as always! After dinner, I drove back to the hotel and eventually called it a day!