Brahmama

1st Segment:
Ft Worth to Chicago on the Texas Eagle

After some wrong turns because of one-way streets and not realizing that Amtrak was sharing a building with the Bus Company (!) we arrived at the Ft Worth Station. We got our on-line ticket printed out in about 5 minutes.

The train left about 20 minutes late - about 2:45 PM. Had a nice sleeper roomette - old but clean (Superliner 1). Plugged in our Iphone to a little stereo about 3 inches - opened a bottle of wine and relaxed with some cheese and crackers for about an hour. Then met the people right across from us (from Taylor, TX) and enjoyed the comraderie all the way to Chicago. Our steward was good and efficient - Tony. At 7:00 PM we went up for our reservation in the dining car.

Dinner in the Diner! (Love those old railroad songs)
We both had the Flatiron steaks, mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls and ice tea. No salad was served with it, but one was available for an additional $6.50. We ordered our steaks medium, they arrived rare to med rare, so be forewarned. Potatoes and bread were tasty. Veggies were cool to cold. We had a choice of pecan pie and peanut butter torte. We each had one but I was too full, so carried it to the roomette for a late night snack. I'd rate our meal about a 6 (scale 1 to 10) Tony made up our berths at 10:00 PM. Will had the top bunch (he insisted!) and it was a tight fit - with not much air space and a rather thin mattress. I fared better and had a fairly good night but then, we are seasoned train travelers and weren't expecting anything else. Oh yes, I always bring my pillow wherever we go which really is a bonus for me. (Old down pillow and mashes enough to get in the suitcase)

Breakfast
Up about 7ish and ate breakfast about 8:00. We had coffee & juice. I had French Toast and bacon. Will had the cheese omelet and sausage and biscuit. Breakfast about an 8. We checked out the observation car and talked to fellow passengers for a while.

Lunch
Tony called us at 11:00 but Linda said we could wait for an hour (good) and paged us. Theresa was our helper - abbreviated lunch menu - hamburger, turkey burger or vegetarian enchiladas. There was one salad left, but the lady across from us got that. I had the enchiladas. Um, not a good choice for me. Will had the hamburger and said it was great. For dessert there was only peanut butter torte, as they had run out of ice cream. That was ok; we were full anyway. Lunch about a 6. I should have had the hamburger. I'm learning!

By the way, if you have sleeper accomdations - either Roomette or Bedroom which are larger and more expensive than what we had, your meals and all included, but you are expected to tip.

But hey, we're ON TIME! We got really lucky and arrived at Union Station about 2:30 PM. We tipped Tony, grabbed our bags and wheeled them over to the Visitors Transit area and bought 2 tickets for $12 each. These are good for 3 days from the time of purchase. What a deal. We rolled out the door and over to the bus stop and took Bus 151 to our hotel, the Affinia. (3/4 of a block away from the bus stop) Bus driver was nice, polite and helpful and weather was outstanding!

Next segment will be our stay in Chicago for 3 nights and 4 days.

LoveItaly

Amtrak was on time? Brahmama, that would be like winning the lotto, lol.

What a nice way to get to Chicago.
I look forward to reading about the rest of your trip. Hope all is well in your world, it sounds like it is.

Brahmama

Dear LoveItaly,
It was so nice to see your name and I'm glad you found my Trip Report! I wasn't sure how to post it - as we wander about the US by Train - and I wanted to get things in the right place.

Have you had a trip lately? We haven't been to Italy for way too long but the memories will be with us always!

LoveItaly

Hello Brahmama, well first of all I clicked on your thread as I love trains. However I am sad to say my experiences with Amtrak have not been as positive as yours.

I was so pleasantly surprised to see you were the poster as I have missed you!

Dear one, I was planning on going to Italy next year but after looking at my last investment statements, well..I am not sure. Hopefully it will work out but if not..yes you and I certainly have many beautiful memories. Italian friends from Italy had planned on coming out here this year but inspite of the strong Euro compared to the US Dollar with the economy in Italy they decided it was not a good time for them either.

Frustrating times! I am so glad you two had a good trip and look forward to reading about the rest of it! Hugs.

Hershey

Brahmama,

I look forward to the rest of your report. I haven't taken a long Amtrak trip in 15 years so I'm hanging on every word.

Just as a suggestion, though, it's easier to read if you put all your segments in this one report. Then they won't all get lost and separated all over the place.

Daniel_Williams

Glad to hear the Texas Eagle arrives on time sometimes. I got lucky too with the Silver Meteor this past December, arriving 5 minutes early in Miami. Gave me extra time in Miami I wasn't expecting LOL!

Thanks for reporting...

DANIEL

Brahmama

Chicago to Washington DC on the Capitol Limited:

We boarded the train at 6:15. We had another nice & clean Roomette - this time it was a Superliner 2 with a few minor differences. We asked for ice for our warm water, but Lou (our steward) said there was none on the train except for the dining room. We finished our bottle of wine and went for dinner at 7:00 PM. Will ordered the Flatiron again, (ordered medium, and came rare) and I had the salmon with veggies which was very good. This time a salad was served first which was very good also. I ordered the Red Devil Cake and Will had Ie Cream.

We crashed early again - Asleep by 10:00 PM. The ride was really, really rough but I always got back to sleep. Many passengers complained about it the next morning in the diner.

Thursday
The room steward this time was Lou and Angela and Freisha (?) worked in the dining car.
Woke up at 7:00 AM. Will went down and signed us up for breakfast. I had luke warm lumpy oatmeal which I didn’t eat and a hard biscuit but good yogurt and Will had a very nice omelet. We ate with our friends in the opposite roomette. This is one of the things we enjoy about train travel. You do meet the most interesting people.

Then we read in our compartment until lunch at 12:15. Again it was the alternative (shortened) lunch - I had a turkey salad sandwich (very good) and Will had the hamburger and both of us had ice tea. They had totally run out of dessert which was ok - as I was stuffed. Dawn ate with us as Mike skipped lunch. We were seated at a table with Bob, a writer/photographer for Trains Magazine. So we had some ery interesting train talk.

The train arrived in DC at 2:30. We’ve been fortunate with close to on-time arrival so far! We bought a $10 ticket for the Metro and walked to the Redline - right in the Station. The Omni was only about 4 stops and about 2 blocks from the Metro. With the escalators in Union Station and at the Metro, this is an easy transfer, and oh we did LOVE the Omni!

(Check the Washington Forum for our stay in Washington DC)

The next segment will be our final leg on the train: The Crescent, from Washington DC. to New Orleans.

So glad you are enjoying this and I took Hershey's advice and am posting all the train segments together.

Brahmama

Washington DC to New Orleans on the Crescent

This was the last train on our Anniversar Trip and we boarded her about 7:30 PM.

Charlie was our steward. We had trouble getting DH's larger bag stashed as the only place for it was up next to the top bunk. This is a Viewliner, so didn’t have a place to leave the luggage. There is a toilet and sink in our compartment, which was ok, except DH wanted to use a public facility, which meant walking through 2 sleepers, the dining room and the lounge to a coach car. However, he had much more room in the top bunk and even a window and a thicker more comfortable mattress so he much preferred the Viewliner.

Another couple boarding the train with a roomette down the hall from us couldn’t get in their roomette as a lady train employee was asleep in it! Charlie finally encouraged her to move, but she took her time and wasn’t out until we were out of the station. Then she moved all her “stuff” as she called it over to the shower room, so no one could shower on our sleeper! Boy, she did have the stuff - I guess she was moving.


After Charlie got them into their roomette, he bought us each a cup of ice so we could have a rum & coke before dinner. We relaxed and turned on my iPod to some good music. Before we finished our drinks, Turee, the dining car manager (?) came through the car inviting us all to dinner. We told him we needed to finish our drinks and he told us to bring them with us, so we did. He was excellent. He was friendly and spent time with each table, answering questions and just generally making it a fun time. DH had steak again, but ordered it med well and it arrived about medium which it what he wanted. I had the salmon (delicious), mashed potatoes (delicious) and mixed veggies (HOT and delicious). Salad was served to us before the entree and also the bread, which had rosemary and thyme in it (delicious!) We had apple strudel with ice cream for dessert. So we were happy with this meal.

The best of our 3 overnight train trips was definitely on the Crescent. Oh yes, we had a real dining room car. Where all the others were the CCC cars, with odd configuration, and the table cloth bunched up at the end because of a permanent condiment fixture - this was the real thing. Just tables, and tablecloths. I asked what the difference was in the food as we had the same menu on all the trains - and ate generally the same things. I was told, THE CHEF! So I went back to talk to Chef Wilson, a lady with 27 years of experience cooking, but only on Amtrak for 18 months. I told her how much we enjoyed her cooking and she appreciated hearing that the Crescent was our favorite train because of the meals. Also we liked the Viewliner configuration better that the double-deck trains.

We played cards and talked until our bedtime - 10:00 again. DH slept much better on the top bunk and I found it just the same - maybe not quite as comfy as the Superliners on the bottom bunk - I kept tilting toward the edge!

Tuesday October 7
Slept until 8:00 and then walked down for breakfast. I had the cheese omelet which was very good and DH had the French Toast. Cranberry juice and hot tea for me and coffee for DH. i had one piece of his 4 - and gave him half of my omelet. We read and DH slept most of the day (He could pull it down and get in his bunk which was a real plus) His knee is still hurting and his stomach is doing it’s monthly thing. I skipped lunch, but he went and enjoyed talking with 2 men and hearing their stories. We had an early dinner at 5:30. We both had the Flat Iron steak, which was good, but not as tender as the one DH had last night! We skipped dessert.

Went back to the Roomette and got our things together. We arrived in New Orleans ON TIME! We have been so lucky with our trains after reading all the doom and gloom on the Forums. Charles got that bag down for us and took my larger bag and put them in the vestibule. He certainly earned his tip. But I still am pondering why we are supposed to tip so much MORE than the equivalent on a Cruise Ship. We generally tip $10 per person per day on a cruise (more for special service) but the train tips added up quickly to $20 or more per person - which doesn’t make much sense. It was raining all day on the train, but just a light mist when we departed the train. We got on a people mover with our bags and he took us right out to the taxi stand. We took the first available cab to our hotel.

It's been a great trip and we enjoyed the trains, but we are also looking forward to a big King bed tonight!

Last Segment is in the New Orleans Forum.

Thanks for reading and Happy Travels to you!

Dukey

Absolutely great report and this from a fellow RR lover.

Now, do yourself a great favor and take the Canadien from Toronto to Vancouver or vice versa (just took it for the third time this past week)

GREAT food, superior service, better-maintained equipment and yes, it is often late...worth every penny.

Hershey

Enjoyed your report, Carol, and look forward to getting back on board a train soon.

LoveItaly

Lovely train report Brahmama, I found my self training along with you two! And on time trains..priceless!

I was thinking of the Canadian trains and then saw Dukey's suggestion to you. I had friends that did this train route and they raved about their trip.

So something to keep in mind perhaps for a future anniversary trip! And may you both have many many more anniversaries dear Brahmama.

yk

Hi Brahmama - This must be a record with almost ontime arrivals for all your train trips!

Your trip report brings back some funny memories for me. When I was a freshman in college in Boston, I decided to take Amtrak from Boston to Houston and back - all within 1 week during Spring Break. Of course, with a student's budget, I couldn't afford the sleeper compartments. I think I brought along dry cereal and cookies etc and never ate at the dining car.

Anyway, it was a "fun" experience on the way to Houston, as this was my first time traveling across the country by train, but not so much fun on the way back given the novelty had worn off, and I was traveling alone the entire time.

Amtrak has since cut the service between DFW and Houston.

stcalixte

After having driven for two weeks throughout Texas, the idea of travelling by train suddenly becomes very appealing. It's like going on a cruise on a very long an narrow ship! As LoveItaly and Dukey suggested, your next train trip should be in Canada. And if you do, try to include Ottawa in your itinerary; we have a favour to return...