Buffalo To Sandusky, OH
On Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited

   Fast forward now to September 21st, 2006. I left my car with my parents so they could drive it while I was on vacation and my parents (Thanks again for driving me to the station at such a late hour!) drove me to the Buffalo Depew Station where I arrived around 11:15pm. I brought my 2 suitcases, camera bag, laptop and tripod into the station and had a nice conversation with a couple from Elmira, NY on their way to Salt Lake City, UT! After chatting about Amtrak for a bit, I grabbed my gear and headed for the platform where I chatted some more with 2 railfans while I set up my tripod and camera for a night photo of the train coming through the station. I tried a different photo trick this time doing a "time exposure" where the train would move and the camera would capture a "blur" image. The end result of this "experiment" is shown to the right. The train arrived in Buffalo at 12:10am. After getting my picture, I walked down the platform and boarded Amfleet II Coach #25105, I found 2 empty seats and put away my luggage and started chatting with a passenger sitting across from me who was going to Chicago where he lived, we had a very nice conversation until we left Buffalo. We had to make a double spot at the station to take on water and at 12:43am, we were out of Buffalo over an hour late! Our Assistant Conductor made an announcement in the coach for all of us about train services. Afterwards I took down the rest of the car numbers. We had 5 coaches in the train tonight which was unusual but I would later find out why. The Capitol Limited was being turned around at Connellsville, PA due to a mudslide on the Norfolk Southern line near Pittsburgh with a bus substituting the run to Cleveland where our train would pick up 35 of their passengers. I headed to the Café Car to start writing this travelogue with my laptop. I had rode with the Counductor and AC on this train before as I had recognized them both right away. The consist for tonight's train is shown at the bottom of this page.
   Since we left Buffalo, we were on Track #2 until CP-49 where we moved to Track #1. Not much happened as we arrived and departed Erie, PA. I sat in the Café car and chatted with a couple other passengers after writing some of this travelogue before eventually heading back to my coach. I kept the scanner on and found there wasn’t too much traffic but lots of slow orders on CSX between Erie and Cleveland. When we got into the Eastlake area near Cleveland, we found out we had to wait for #48 to get over the Drawbridge and into the Cleveland station. CSX stopped us at CP-167 and we would be there for at least 40 minutes before #48 passed us along with 2 freights and we would be on our way again, only to get stopped again a few miles down the tracks! Passing through Collinwood yard in Cleveland, there wasn’t much going on at this hour, however I did notice right away that gasoline in Northeast Ohio is as much as 50 cents a gallon cheaper than it is in New York!!! Example, I filled up my Honda Accord last night for $2.68 a gallon in New York and found most stations in Cleveland were charging about $2.18 a gallon!
   At 4:40am, we would FINALLY arrive in Cleveland after sitting up the tracks for so long! I asked our AC (Assistant Conductor) if there was enough time to run in the station to get a Diet Pepsi from the vending machine as I was getting tired and needed a caffeine boost. I picked up a Diet Pepsi and a package of Peanunt M&M’s. It was as I was running to the vending machine that things would really start to get interesting here. We find out that because the Capitol Limited wasn’t running north of Connelsville, PA, that not only would we be picking up a total of 35 passengers in Cleveland part of which were ticketed to ride the Capitol, but an additional 69 passengers were being bussed to Cleveland from there, and that this bus was an hour away from Cleveland when we arrived there!!!!! This would mean we would have to sit at the station and wait some more for this bus to arrive!!! The conductor, in regards to our delay relayed the message to everyone else and told the engineer who in turn called the NS Dispatcher and gave back our signal at Drawbridge since we weren’t going anywhere! The conductor then said “Let ‘em smoke”, referring to the passengers who could congregate on the platform and as Rick Moranis playing “Lord Helmet” in the Mel Brooks film “Spaceballs” once said, “Smoke If Ya Got’em”! After getting permission of the train crew, I took this idle time and used it to my advantage and took several night photos of the train while sitting in Cleveland since I don’t smoke. Passengers were being loaded into the Café Car temporarily until enough seats could be found. Eventually, everyone was seated in a coach and the Café Car even opened at around 5:30am which is early but was necessary because of this situation. This was a very smart move on the part of Amtrak to do this, give people a chance to get some food considering the lateness of the train. The train crew handled this situation with a high level of professionalism and kept everything running as best they could.
   After taking several slides of the train, I put away the camera and continued to hang out on the platform and chat with other passengers and the train crew. At around 6am, the infamous bus finally showed up and the passengers boarded, at 6:13am, now over 3 hours late, we departed Cleveland. After going over the drawbridge and now riding on NS rails, the first thing I noticed is that we picked up speed very quickly as well as the fact that NS must have done a lot of trackwork West of Cleveland as the tracks were incredibly smooth! The train was nearly full in all 5 coaches. I now had a passenger sitting next to me who was a retired teacher from Painesville, OH who was riding to Chicago. I told him and the passenger across from him, there’s no doubt that there is a very high demand for this service, I certainly wish the big shots in Washington agreed with me! We picked up a good sized crowd in Elyria and departed there after making a double spot. The sun was now coming up over the Eastern Horizon and my stop in Sandusky was coming. It was nice being able to see outside by this time as we passed through Amherst and Vermillion, OH before coming into Huron, OH which is the last town before Sandusky. I gathered my 2 suitcases, laptop, camera bag and tripod and headed for the exit. I would have 4 other passengers getting off the train with me. A better-sized crowd than in past years where I was the only person getting off the train in Sandusky!!!!! At 7:18am, running 3 hours and 13 minutes late, we arrived in Sandusky and I would get off the train and thus the first leg of this trip would come to an end.
   While standing on the platform, I pulled out my pre-made list of important phone numbers and called the Sandusky Transit System to see if I could get a bus ride to my hotel since the system was now running. I really wasn’t too upset about the lateness of the train since I was able to in fact get a bus ride to the hotel. The bus ride cost $2.00 and I was brought to my hotel, the Best Western Cedar Point Area. I specifically reserved a room with high speed internet prior to arriving. The hotel gave me an early check-in and even a free upgrade to a room with a refrigerator and microwave. When I brought my stuff into the room I noticed that though the room was an upgrade, it had no high speed internet! I politely gave back the free upgrade since the internet service was more important to me than a fridge in the room! The room I eventually got was very nice, had a King Size Bed and was clean and in good shape. The room had regular cable TV and a Ethernet plug for the high speed internet. The hotel also had a Perkins Restaurant in the lobby. At around 9am, I decided to go to bed since it was over 23 hours since I had last slept!!! And so ends an “exciting” day. Please navigate to the next page by clicking at the bottom of this page.

129

P42DC

   

Power

23

P42DC

  

Power

1206

Heritage Baggage

  

Baggage Car

2518

Heritage 10/6 Sleeper

Pine Shore

Crew Sleeper

62043

Viewliner Sleeper

Sunset View

Sleeping Car

62004

Viewliner Sleeper

Beach View

Sleeping Car

62033

Viewliner Sleeper

Scenic View

Sleeping Car

8521

Heritage Diner

  

Dining Car

28007

Amfleet II Cafe Car

New York Club

Cafe Car

25105

Amfleet II Coach

  

Coach (My Car)

25049

Amfleet II Coach

 

Coach

25012

Amfleet II Coach

Coach

25036

Amfleet II Coach

Coach

25069

Amfleet II Coach

Coach