In summer 2015 we learned that
Amtrak Guest Rewards was going to change how it operates its
redemptions and earnings. For nearly ten years, Robert had been racking
up Amtrak Guest Rewards points with his travels and credit card
accounts; he accumulated over 350,000 points by the middle of last
year! Robert was always saving his points for a “rainy day” –
someday in the future to redeem for a major cross-country journey
together for us in deluxe bedrooms. That “rain day” came when we
learned Amtrak Guest Rewards would be making significant changes to its
program – effective January 2016. Prior to these changes, point
redemptions were based on a zone system; after the change, point
redemptions now depend on the value of the ticket price for the trip
you want to take. As an example, under the old zone system, it cost the
same amount of points to travel from South Bend, Indiana to Cleveland,
Ohio (a 6 hour train trip) as it would cost from South Bend, Indiana to
El Paso, Texas via Chicago (a 3 day, 2 night train trip). The reason
behind this was in both examples, you would be traveling through two
zones. Under the new Amtrak Guest Rewards rules, it will cost a much
larger number of points for the South Bend to El Paso trip compared to
the South Bend to Cleveland trip, because the latter is cheaper. Over
time, some within Amtrak management began to think the old zone-based
system for redeeming points was not good for the company’s bottom line,
with extensive semi-loop trips done primarily by railfans all with-in
one or two zones - costing the company a lot of lost revenue. Seasoned
travelers looking to take long distance trips with-in a zone or two
could get some really great deals under the old redemption guidelines.
But – change it did! Luckily, Amtrak Guest Rewards gave everyone
about a four-month window for redeeming trips under the old zone-based
rules before the fare-based changeover took place… so we were able to
take one last “round the country” loop trip under the old guidelines.
In August 2015, we booked our 11-day cross-country trip under the old
Amtrak Guest Rewards rules. We decided to go at the end of April and
the beginning of May 2016 – as there would be a significant amount of
daylight to see the sites, but it was still the “off season” and
crowded trains with children would be kept to a minimum hopefully. We
decided to go from Chicago to Washington, D.C. on the Capitol Limited,
Washington, D.C. to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on the Silver Meteor, then
fly to New Orleans and spend a few days, New Orleans to Chicago on the
City of New Orleans, Chicago to Los Angeles on the Southwest Chief, Los
Angeles to Salem, Oregon on the Coast Starlight, and Salem back down to
Los Angeles, again, on the Coast Starlight. Using the zone-based
system, the stretch from Chicago to Miami via Washington, D.C. in a
deluxe bedroom cost us 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points… the stretch
from New Orleans to Salem, Oregon via Chicago and Los Angeles in a
deluxe bedroom cost us another 40,000 points… and the final southbound
leg from Salem to Los Angeles, also in a deluxe bedroom, cost us 20,000
points. The whole trip was 100,000 Amtrak Guest Reward points. Just for
comparison – under the new point redemption guidelines – a trip of this
magnitude would have cost us as much as 237,000 Amtrak Guest Reward
Points. The actual cost would have been nearly $8,000.00 if we paid
cash because as you may have noticed – we went in deluxe bedrooms on
all of the trains. Again, it was quite an excellent value
redeeming for this trip under the old Amtrak Guest Rewards point
redemption guidelines. Under fairness to the new Amtrak Guest Rewards
program, some trips now do cost much fewer points now – most of those
are for shorter distances, are for coach seating, or occur when a
traveler can snag the lowest fare bucket price on a sleeper. Generally,
if you are looking for long distance sleeper travel – especially out
west – you will be paying out a lot more Guest Rewards points.
As for the routing – We decided to ride the Capitol Limited as we have
never taken that train before eastbound. Neither of us had been on the
Silver Meteor – so we wanted to add that one, too. Kandace wanted
to do the City of New Orleans and the Southwest Chief for their entire
distances. And, Robert wanted to do a round trip on the Coast Starlight
so that we could double our chances of having a Pacific Parlour Car on
our trains (up until this trip we only had about a 50% odds of getting
one of these beautiful cars on our trains – only three out of our last
six trips had a Pacific Parlour Car only).
We decided to break this trip up into two parts for the purposes of our
TrainWeb article. In this, our June 2016 article, we will cover the
eastern portion of our trip – including from Chicago to Washington,
D.C., down to Fort Lauderdale, over to New Orleans, and back up to
Chicago. In next month’s TrainWeb article (in July 2016), we will cover
the western portion of our trip – including from Chicago to Los Angeles
on the Southwest Chief, and our travels on the northbound and
southbound Coast Starlights from Southern California to Northern Oregon.
Our trip begins with a Metra ride from Glenview, Illinois to Chicago Union Station
We arrived at Chicago Union Station around 5:00pm on Thursday, April
28th, 2016 and checked into the Metropolitan Lounge. They take dinner
reservations for the Capitol Limited as soon as you check-in to the
lounge. It’s an efficient procedure; however, it gives “dibs” on
preferred reservation times to those who might have arrived in the
Metropolitan Lounge earlier in the afternoon off the west coast trains
than those who live in Chicago and might show up an hour or so before
the train leaves. We were offered the option of eating at 8:30pm,
9:00pm, or just taking our meal “to go” in our room. Since we had a
late lunch, we opted for the 8:30pm dining car time. Walking out to the
train, we noted there was a Cross Country Café Car on the train instead
of a traditional dining car. We heard various reports of a traditional
dining car being on the train – and other people mentioning a Cross
Country Café – so we really didn’t know what to expect for meals and
level of food service quality. Meanwhile, while walking out to the
Capitol Limited, we also learned from an attendant that the new
Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago would be opening on June 13, 2016. While
we are looking forward to a nicer and newer lounge with more rooms and
showers, the old lounge closing is kind of sad for Robert because he
remembered when it was built in 1991 (Robert was 13 years old!). On
with progress, we guess.
Robert tries to maintain a coordinated wardrobe according to what train he is on - here, the Capitol Limited
For the first two hours of our trip on the Capitol Limited, we enjoyed
watching the familiar sites on the South Side of Chicago pass by the
train. On the right side of the train you can see the Chicago Skyway
Bridge which carries Interstate 90, the longest interstate highway in
the country that runs from Boston to Seattle. We also enjoyed watching
the train travel through the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. If you
have taken the Capitol Limited before, you likely noticed all of the
industry – oil refineries and steel mills in particular – that are
located between Chicago and the first station stop of South Bend. A
group of environmentalists were very afraid that big industry would
overtake the south end of Lake Michigan and ended up petitioning for a
new National Park Service unit to be created – hence the birth of
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in 1966. The park is celebrating its
50th Anniversary this summer. Passengers will get to see some natural
sand dune areas, woods, and hiking trails mixed in the industrial
buildings. We were pretty much right on-time to South Bend, Indiana.
Robert mentioned to Kandace that the South Bend Amtrak station was not
the same as the South Bend Metra station (which is located at the
airport). One can connect between the two stations; it is about a $10
taxi ride.
Kandace looks out the window at the Chicago Skyway Bridge, about 20 minutes after leaving Chicago Union Station
The most disappointing part of the Capitol Limited trip for us was
dinner in the dining car on the first evening. We received 8:30pm
dining car reservations. There were no announcements made and finally
by 9:00pm we went up to the dining car to see what was going on. There
was just one LSA in the upstairs portion of the Cross Country Café
doing just about everything – seating, serving, cleaning tables,
etc. She said that she was swamped and there were no tables
available and that we should go and sit in the “lounge” portion of the
Cross Country Café car. We sat and waited and finally by 10:00pm,
Robert became so frustrated he decided to just to skip dinner and go
and take his shower. Kandace decided to wait and was finally seated
around 10:15pm. From the looks of it, there was indeed just one LSA
working the entire dining car herself and there were one, maybe two,
cooks downstairs. While the Cross Country Café car might be practical
on a train like the City of New Orleans or the Texas Eagle that has
just one full sleeper (and a few passenger in the transition sleeper),
it is not very practical on the Capitol Limited that has two full
sleepers. Hopefully this will be something Amtrak might
reconsider in the near future. A full dining car and extra staffing
that comes with it would have made the whole dinner experience on the
eastbound Capitol Limited a much better experience. Running almost two
hours late for the dining car isn’t really acceptable in our opinion.
Waiting for our dinner on the Capitol Limited - Robert finally gave up, but Kandace got hers after waiting for almost 2 hours
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the real positive part of our trip
was our sleeping car attendant on the Capitol Limited – Carlos Aguilar.
He was really on the spot with everything. If you rang your call button
– he seemed to be there with-in fifteen seconds. He provided some
narration to us in his sleeping car about some of the sites along the
way – including Harpers Ferry, Cumberland, and Washington, DC. He even
mentioned some of the things about the route we didn’t know – pointing
out some of the old locks on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. You
travel through a portion of the National Historical Park on the train.
We really enjoyed Carlos and he was one of Amtrak’s best… it would be
great to travel with him again.
We slept pretty well – and woke up on the morning of Friday, April 29th
as we were rolling into Connellsville, Pennsylvania. We slept so
soundly that we didn’t even wake up while passing through Toledo,
Cleveland, or Pittsburgh.
We got in the dining car for breakfast around 7:00am and were sort of
dreading the experience after the delayed dinner the night before. In
fact, the dining car attendant even recommend most everyone get their
breakfasts to go in the morning because a heavy load was expected once
again. To us, actually eating in the dining car is part of the
experience of a long-distance train trip, so, we decided to try our
luck again. It did go a tad smoother – we both ordered the French toast
(which seemed to replace the pancakes again on all long distance
trains).
Kandace is excited about the fresh air stop on the Capitol Limited in Cumberland, Maryland
Our Capitol Limited train set still had a heritage baggage car on it - they are slated to be gone by the end of this year
We spent the morning watching the scenery along the Potomac River
through Maryland and West Virginia. We certainly enjoyed the chance to
step off the train in Cumberland, Maryland! Fresh air breaks seem
few and far between – especially on the Capitol Limited it seemed – so
always take advantage of them. We were not able to get off the train in
Harpers Ferry, but our sleeping car attendant Carlos was nice enough to
open the window so that we could get some nice pictures of the historic
town and the river crossing. Harpers Ferry is where Virginia, West
Virginia, and Maryland all come together. Both of us got to explore the
town on foot last fall when we did a trip out to the area in September
2015. Harpers Ferry is of course the spot of John Brown’s Raid and the
historic arsenal.
Crossing the bridge over the Potomac River - where West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland come together
We rolled into Washington, D.C. a few minutes early – around 1:00pm. We
had about a six hour layover between the Capitol Limited and Silver
Meteor – so we planned in advance to attend a play at Ford’s Theater.
Kandace really enjoys Abraham Lincoln history, so we booked the seats
in the balcony as close as possible to the private booth where his
assassination took place. In December 2015 we saw “A Christmas Carol”
there and decided to buy tickets for a musical called “110 in the
Shade” there. It was quite good; it’s about a small town Texas woman
that must choose spending her life with the stand-offish town sheriff
and a quick-witted salesman who came to town trying to sell
“rainmaking” devices. We highly recommend attending a play at Ford’s
Theater if you have time when in the Washington, DC area. We have been
to Washington, DC numerous times in the last five years, so we have
seen most of the monuments and museums already.
Attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC during our layover between the Capitol Limited and Silver Meteor
We took a taxi over to Ford’s Theater, but since we had time - we
decided to walk back to Washington Union Station since it was such a
nice day. The focus of our walk was to do a loop around the U.S.
Capitol Building, which still appeared to be under construction. Some
flowers were in bloom on the east side – it was a pretty sight!
A "selfie" taken near the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC
From there, we returned to Washington, DC Union Station and spent an
hour or so relaxing in the lounge with our friend Anthony who works for
Amtrak. We chit-chatted a little about trains and got some advice for
him about the remaining trains we had planned for this trip.
Anthony has been a friend of Robert’s for about ten years now and
attended our wedding in 2012. Before we knew it, it was 7:00pm
and the Club Acela attendant was loading up the train. We parted ways
with Anthony and followed the crowd out to the sleepers!
Boarding the Silver Meteor in Washington, D.C.
This was our first time on the Silver Meteor believe it or not – as we
have covered most other long distance train routes. We could have taken
the Silver Star to Fort Lauderdale instead – and were considering this
routing so that we could see the back-up move into Tampa – but opted to
go with the Silver Meteor so we could catch the play in D.C. and
because Amtrak recently decided to remove the dining car from the
Silver Star. Eating café car meals for three meals in a row did not
really appeal to us. We boarded and were greeted by our sleeping car
attendant Edwin. He was also nice and we appreciated the fact he made
us 7:30pm dinner reservations already without us asking. We were a
little worried we would get stuck with last call or would get no dinner
at all. After organizing our room a bit, it was off to the dining car.
Kandace poses with our Viewliner sleeping car on the Silver Meteor at Richmond, Virginia
Kandace looked really surprised entering the dining car – and Robert
realized she had never seen one of the green and pink heritage dining
cars. Kandace remarked that the car looked like something out of a
railroad museum. A little quick research between ordering and our meal
revealed that the dining car we were eating in - #8551 – was indeed the
oldest car in all of Amtrak’s fleet. Car #8551 was built for the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in 1948. This means that it
pre-dates even the Pacific Parlour Cars and Amtrak’s last remaining
dome car (“Ocean View”) by a handful of years. The more Robert sat
there – the more he realized that yes – this really did look like some
dinner train you might eat in at a railroad museum instead of something
you might see on Amtrak. Since we don’t travel east as much as we do
west on Amtrak, it was really a cool experience.
Our diner on the Silver Meteor was the oldest car in Amtrak's fleet - a 1948 former CB&Q dining car
A view of the former lunch counter area of the historic 1948 dining car that was being used on our Silver Meteor train
The dining car crew on the Silver Meteor made our trip extra special.
Over the course of the trip between Washington, DC and Fort Lauderdale,
we befriended one of the LSAs named George Worthington. He was stop
notch and provided excellent service every second of the day. We got to
chatting with George and he mentioned that Dining Car #8551 would
probably be scrapped and/or sold off with-in the next year when the new
Viewliner II Dining Cars come aboard. George mentioned that he worked
already in the new prototype dining car already and that it has gone
back to the Beech Grove shops for some tweaks. George invited us to
come back to the dining car after lunch on the second day of the trip
and he would tell us some more stories about the car and let us take
some photos of the car with no one else in it. He even pointed out the
lunch counter area to us. He mentioned back in the CB&Q days,
passengers who wanted a formal sit-down meal would eat in the dining
car portion, and those who wanted just a sandwich or something light
would sit at the counter space. George mentioned that at some point the
FDA came in and made Amtrak stop serving passengers form the bar area –
apparently it’s a no-no to have food coming out from the kitchen pass
so close to other folks eating. Interesting. We also
enjoyed spending some time with Leo, who was another sleeping car
attendant, who would help in the diner. He offered to make his
specialty root beer float for Kandace for dessert.
George, one of our favorite crew members from the Silver Meteor Dining Car
Kandace gets the crew on the Silver Meteor to make her one of their signature root beer floats
Robert's other crib is a Viewliner!
Again, we found the Silver Meteor to be an interesting train because we
had never rode that route before. On the morning of Saturday, April
30th, we had fun passing through Folkston, Georgia and seeing all of
the railfans who were standing out at the Folkston Funnel. That is
where the railroad lines from the east coast and Midwest merge together
and head down to Florida. There is a railroad watching platform and a
caboose you can rent to spend the night. We found it a fun experience
because we actually went down to Folkston to railfan earlier this year.
From there, you head down into Florida. We were surprised that the
route was relatively flat with pine trees. We were expecting a few more
swamps along the way like you see leaving or arriving into New Orleans,
but didn’t see much of that. We got off in Jacksonville and Orlando –
which were two of the fresh air stops along the route. There was a
heavy passenger load getting off in Orlando; the load south of Orlando
was very light – especially as we got closer and closer to Miami.
Kandace looks out at the railfan area at the Folkston Funnel in Southern Georgia, from the Silver Meteor
Robert and Kandace enjoy the fresh Florida sunshine at the Jacksonville, Florida Amtrak Station
A view of the Orlando, Florida Amtrak station
A lizard on the train platform in Orlando, Florida
Enjoying a meal on the dining car at Winter Park, Florida
Originally, we wanted to ride to the end of the line in Miami to say we
completed the entire route of the Silver Meteor; we were even ticketed
through to Miami. However, we were flying out very early the next
morning to New Orleans out of Fort Lauderdale Airport. Had we rode to
the end of the line in Miami, we would have had to wait three hours for
the next northbound Tri-Rail commuter train – getting us back to Fort
Lauderdale Airport Station after 10:00pm. That just wasn’t going to
work without 3:45am wake-up call. So, we talked with the conductor and
hopped off the train in Fort Lauderdale. There was a Tri-Rail commuter
train almost right behind us, so we connected with that and rode one
stop down the line to the Fort Lauderdale Airport Stop.
Kandace on the platform at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida Amtrak station, moments before the Silver Meteor departs
Robert gets ready to board the Tri-Rail station between the Fort Lauderdale and the Fort Lauderdale Airport Station
From there, we rode the #6 Bus just a few miles to our Rodeway Inn
hotel. Business was booming there because they provide free shuttle
service to the cruise port (Port Everglades) at Fort Lauderdale, as
well as Fort Lauderdale Airport. We didn’t explore much of Florida
though, due to the early flight, and the fact we had spent a week in
Florida the past two winters – for a week or so both times. It was off
to bed early.
No one likes 3:45am alarms – but that is what our trip called for on
the morning of Sunday, May 1st. We took the free 5:00am shuttle the
hotel offered to Fort Lauderdale Airport. Amazingly, we were the only
ones up that early and taking the shuttle to the airport. We caught a
6:55am flight over to New Orleans. Since this was primarily a train
trip, we had hoped to take the train from Florida to New Orleans – but
that is something that has not been possible since Amtrak suspended
service in August 2005. There have been some rumblings about restored
service – and we would really look forward to that happening. For now
though, it was a quick two hour Southwest Airlines flight between Fort
Lauderdale and New Orleans so that we could continue the trip.
We "cheated" on our Traincation by flying between Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New Orleans, Louisiana
Robert and Kandace at the "Welcome to New Orleans" sign at the airport
We arrived in New Orleans on-time around 8:00am. We heard the person
behind us on the plane talking about how we just got into New Orleans
in time ahead of some “bad weather”. Checking the radar on our phones
while waiting to get off the plane, we noticed a huge area of flooding
rains about three hours off to the west of us. UGH! We really
hasn’t paid too much attention to the weather having been on the train
the two nights prior to arriving in New Orleans. Our original plans
called for a renting a car and driving over to Gulfport, Mississippi
and taking a boat cruise on the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf Islands
National Seashore. We were supposed to head out to see Ship Island,
which had white sand beaches and a Civil War-era fort. Seeing the radar
we knew this would be more than likely cancelled – and a phone call to
the boat company pretty much confirmed this. With the storms a few
hours still off to the west, we still decided to head over to Gulfport
and get some hiking in at a mainland portion of the National Park
Service unit. We got about a one-mile hike in through a bayou area
before it began raining. We were lucky to see a lot of wildlife –
including an alligator swimming through a salt water marsh and some
large frogs.
Spending the afternoon at the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Southern Mississippi
With several hours of rain ahead of us – we decided to grab lunch and
head back to New Orleans. We were hoping things would clear up by the
time we arrived at Jean Laffite National Historical Park, but no such
luck. In fact, the heavy rains caused almost all of the trails and
elevated walkways in the Barataria Preserve to flood over. We went to
the Visitor Center and that was pretty much it.
We arrived at the French Quarter around 4:30pm and checked into our
hotel – the Bienville House. In the past, we have stayed at the St.
James House, but it was already booked – even last summer – because of
Jazz Fest that was going on. The best deal on a hotel was at Bienville
House. We were very impressed with their service and good price. We
decided to upgrade to a room that had a balcony – feeling like that was
“a must” for staying in the French Quarter. Bienville House was with-in
walking distance of Canal Street and everything folks would want to do
in the Quarter. We rented some umbrellas from the front desk and headed
out on the town. Our first stop was at the French Market where we sat
outside in a covered area and enjoyed a dinner of red beans and rice
and fried alligator. From there we headed over to the Palace Café,
which has some of the best bread pudding in all of New Orleans. Since
it was still raining, we decided it would be a good time to take a ride
on the Canal Street Streetcar line. It finally stopped raining on the
return trip and we were able to walk up and down Bourbon Street and get
a few drinks to cap off the evening.
Kandace and Robert enjoy the evening walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana
Riding the various street car lines is a "must do" when you come to visit New Orleans
We slept in a bit on the morning of Monday, May 2nd. Originally, we
planned to take a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River – but since
we didn’t get to see as much of the French Quarter as we originally
wanted to the night before due to the weather – we skipped it. We
started off the morning with a walk over to Café DuMond for some benigs
and coffee. We got in just in time because a long line was forming down
the block by the time we left. We did a walking tour of St. Louis
Cathedral to see the iconic image of the French Quarter. Robert was
actually a producer/reporter for CBS News and spent several weeks at
the Cathedral in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. From there, we
headed back to the hotel and grabbed our bags. We found out that
some of our friends would be in New Orleans for Jazz Fest so we met up
with them for lunch in the French Quarter before making our way back to
the Amtrak station. We waited about 30 minutes to take the Loyola
Street Car back to the Amtrak Station, but service was disrupted due to
wires being down along Canal Street from the heavy rain. Instead of
chancing it, we just cabbed it over.
Kandace and Robert explore the various sites of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana
Enjoying some goodies at Cafe DuMond in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana
Robert proves it's okay to be a little messy when you're in the Big Easy!
We arrived at the New Orleans Amtrak station at 1:15pm, just as the
sleeping car passengers were being lined up. We actually didn’t even
have time to use the Magnolia Room, but did sneak off one quick picture
of the waiting area there for first class passengers.
Our City of New Orleans train departed right on time. We were pleased
to discover that our sleeping car attendant would be Rion – again one
of Amtrak’s best employees. I think we have had him before two or three
times before – we remembered him as he plays the City of New Orleans
song over the sleeper PA before coming into Chicago for his passengers.
Rion is relatively young and is from Baton Rouge. We loved his
Louisiana accent and knowledge about some of the towns that we would be
passing through coming out of New Orleans. He mentioned there was a
swamp area that we would be slowing down through while passing the
southbound City of New Orleans – and that would be a great place to
spot alligators – especially with the recent heavy rainfall. We were
able to see two or three alligators swimming along trackside for a few
moments – just like Rion told us to look out for. One of the highlights
of any run on the City of New Orleans was of course crossing the
bridges over Lake Ponchartrain.
Kandace spots three alligators swimming in a bayou from our bedroom on the City of New Orleans
Robert was quick with the camera and snapped this picture of one of the gators out the train window near Hammond, Louisiana
We were part of an experiment for Amtrak when it came to food service
on the City of New Orleans. This was the first trip where they made
everyone decide what they were going eat for dinner that night and
breakfast the next morning ahead of time. I hesitate to call this
“new”, as I kind of remember doing this same thing in the 1980’s on
Amtrak when I was a kid. Basically, you are handed a card shortly after
getting on the train and fill out your dining car time and meal
selection. We both chose the lasagna for dinner and the continental
breakfast. We also both chose just to eat in our rooms for both meals,
given the bad experience we had with the Cross Country Café service on
the Capitol Limited a few days prior to this. More on how all of this
turned out – in a just a bit!
Our afternoon together on the City of New Orleans was spent playing
board games in the lounge and watching Mississippi speed by us. We got
an unexpected fun treat when we stopped in Jackson. Rion mentioned to
everyone that there were some wild blackberries growing alongside the
tracks and they were very tasty to eat. Rion said he only really had
time to pick them while going north because they were right outside the
door of where his sleeping car was positioned. Almost everyone in the
sleeping car was able to pick a handful before the engineer was blowing
his whistle to get back on the train. This is just one of those cool
“only on Amtrak” stories you are going to be able to share on the train
in future years with passengers – and maybe something only those who
appreciate and enjoy traveling on Amtrak will really understand.
Kandace joins our sleeping car
attendant Rion in searching for berries along the tracks at the
Jackson, Mississippi Amtrak Station
Score! We enjoyed a handful of tasty blackberries from along the tracks at the Jackson, Mississippi Amtrak stop
Between Jackson and Greenwood – it was dinner time. We were interested
to see how the new dining car meals and service were going to run. The
lasagna was actually decent, but it was very clear it was just nuked in
a microwave, as it was served to us with our sleeping car attendant
peeling back the plastic top off of it right at our table. We were just
picturing the Illinois Central Dining Car service rolling over in its
grave! Ugh! Again, the food was decent – not great – but
decent. Our greatest disappointment was dessert, which was listed as a
“fluffy marshmallow treat”. Yep, pretty much just a Rice Krispie
treat still in its wrapper. I guess if dining car service is going to
be cut to something like this I would rather see it on the City of New
Orleans where you are really on for just two meals versus the Southwest
Chief where you have the potential to be on for five meals – but we
can’t help but home that someday meal service would be restored to
where it was where there were local specialties on all of the
trains. That was one of the hardest things on this trip – the
same menus day after day after day.
We jumped off at Greenwood, Mississippi for a brief fresh air stop
while the conductors went through a crew change. There were only three
sets of conductors on the City of New Orleans – one goes from New
Orleans to Greenwood, then Greenwood to Carbondale, Illinois, and then
up into Chicago. Between Greenwood and Memphis we ended up showering
and getting ready for bed. We threw on some sweatpants to looks halfway
decent for the longer stop in Memphis. We walked around on the platform
and peeked our heads in the old station. We stayed up long enough to
see some of the spots leaving Memphis – including Beale Street, Mud
Island, and the Pyramid. We used to only live about 60 miles from
Memphis during our college days – so it was pretty cool.
Robert and Kandace hop off the train during the long stop in Memphis, Tennessee
We got a good night’s sleep and woke up coming into Champaign. Rion
asked us that if we wanted our breakfasts – he would like to give them
to us by around Champaign as he soon would become very busy getting
ready for the arrival into Chicago. We got our breakfasts and got
things together. Before you know it, Metra Electric trains were rushing
alongside of us and we were just a few miles into Chicago. One of our
favorite things is going across the “fly line” on the City of New
Orleans coming into Chicago. This is the back-up maneuvered which gets
you from the old Illinois Central line into Union Station. During this,
Rion did his signature playing of the City of New Orleans and dedicated
it to our 11 day train trip together! Pretty cool!
Our northbound City of New Orleans arrived a few minutes early into
Chicago – so we had about a six hour layover there before the western
half of our vacation began. We spent most of the time, as planned,
heading back up to our car, which was parked at the Glenview station.
This worked out really well so that we could drop off one bag of dirty
clothes (from the eastern half of the trip) and pick up one bag of
clean clothes (for the western half of the trip). We got back to
downtown Chicago around 11:30am and spent a few hours with my friend
Chris Wyatt, who is a pilot, and was in town before having to head out
to Chicago. We waited out the final few minutes of the first half
of our trip back in the Metropolitan Lounge.
Our return to the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago marked the halfway point of our cross-country trip
Well, that concludes the first half of our TrainWeb report from our
Traincation 2016. Our eastern portion of our trip included a grand
total of 17 states – this included Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas
(technically we didn’t go through it, but West Memphis, AR was visible
from the train across the river at Memphis), and Kentucky.
Join us for next month’s TrainWeb article (in July 2016!) for an
in-depth trip report about the second half of our Traincation 2016 –
this will cover the western part of trip on the Southwest Chief and
Coast Starlights.
