First Night on the Builder

Greetings from somewhere between Red Wing and Minneapolis-St. Paul.  It is currently 9:58 PM CT, and this post comes to you live from the sightseer/lounge car of the westbound Empire Builder.

I got back to Union Station this afternoon just before 1 PM, purchased lunch, and went to the Metropolitan Lounge to reclaim my luggage and to await the boarding of the Empire Builder, which I am taking to Portland.  The lounge was quite crowded, since both the Texas Eagle and California Zephyr were scheduled to depart just before my train.  Once announced, I headed out to the train, and discovered that we have a private car on the back of our train, in addition to the regular consist.  We will drop that car (along with one coach) at Minneapolis/St. Paul.  The train itself is quite long.  I am in the Portland sleeper, which is currently the third to last car of the train (after Minneapolis, it will be the last car).  The train itself has about 12 cars, including the diner and lounge cars, a baggage car, and two engines.  It is also quite full.

We left three minutes late at 2:18 PM CT.  The ride itself thus far has not been much to write home about.  The scenery on this part of the route has not been terribly exciting in my opinion.  Throughout Wisconsin, we could see flat fields and some lakes.  For much of the late afternoon and early evening, we ran alongside the Mississippi River.  However, I am to understand that there is much better to come, once we get out to Glacier National Park tomorrow afternoon and go through the Columbia River Gorge on Thursday morning.

I am in a roomette again on this train.  This time I am in room 7, which is on the right side of the train.  From my pre-trip research, I was not on the good side in terms of scenery watching today, but I will be tomorrow.  Thursday morning, I’ll need to stake out a spot in the lounge early for the gorge trip. 

After getting situated, I went to the lounge with National Pastime, but unfortunately, the lounge on this train is not nearly as pleasant as it was on the Capitol Limited.  They have a rail-to-trails guide from the National Park Service providing information on the sights we are passing, but between the NPS volunteer, the cafe stand being open on the upper level (in addition to the lower level), and other people’s conversations, the lounge is not a very quiet place where one can bring a book, camera, and enjoy the scenery. 

My being a single traveler has its advantages.  Not only is the Roomette fairly spacious, I have more flexibility in making dinner reservations.  Today, people in the Seattle sleeper cars got to make reservations first, but I had more options even when they got to us on account of my traveling alone.  (Tomorrow, the Portland sleeper will get to reserve first).  Unfortunately, I was seated with a party of three people who are much older than myself, and this resulted in a meal longer than I would have liked (close to two hours long).  I also missed several opportunities to photograph the river and other scenery as a result of the long meal.  The food on this train seemed to taste better.  It is also served on real dishes and the glasses are actually glass, as opposed to the Capitol Limited, where there were plastic plates and cups.  The silverware on both trains has been real though.  I would say that train food is a step above airline food (or as others have pointed out to me when I’ve said this, the food that the airlines used to serve since they no longer do on many flights). 

After returning to my room, I got a few river photos from there, since the river was on my side of the train, and finished reading National Pastime.  I then did some photo organizing and wrote these entires.  We seem to have arrived at Minneapolis now (at 10:26 PM CT), so I will sign off and see if I can step off the train for a few minutes during the service stop.

A Whirlwind Through the Windy City

Greetings from southeastern Wisconsin, where the local time is currently 4:32 PM CT on Tuesday, July 31.  I am writing this from my Roomette on the Empire Builder, Amtrak’s Chicago to Seattle/Portland service.  This post will cover the time period from the end of the previous entry up until my arrival at Chicago Union Station to board today’s train.  And as an added bonus, there are visuals!

My day on Monday the 30th began with my taking the METRA Union Pacific-North Line from Highland Park to the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago.  This line is unusual in that it is operated “left handed”, with a setup like a British road (if you are traveling inbound, a train traveling outbound passes you on the right if you are facing forward, whereas you would expect it to be on the left).  From there, my goal for the rest of the day was to finish my tour of the Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated and subway lines, so that I could add the CTA to my list of completely ridden subways (the ones I’ve done thus far are Washington, DC, New York City, Miami, Toronto, San Francisco, Glasgow, and Haifa, Israel).  In bulletpoint format, the itinerary and trains taken were as follows:

• Pink Line (Car #3021) from Washington/Wells to Kedzie
• Pink Line (Car #2222) from Kedzie to 54/Cermak
• Pink Line (Car #2222) from 54/Cermak to Polk
• Pink Line (Car #3005) from Polk to Ashland
• Green Line (Car #2513 from Ashland to Harlem/Lake
  • Once at Harlem/Lake, I walked over the adjacent METRA station where I photographed an outbound Union Pacific-West Line METRA train, and a CSX freight heading towards Chicago
• Green Line (Car #2515) from Harlem/Lake to Clinton
  • After getting off this train, I walked to a food court under Ogilvie TC where I purchased and ate lunch
• Blue Line (Car #3026) from Washington to Forest Park
  • Upon my arrival at Forest Park, I completed my system tour.  I have been to every CTA station, although due to the fact that Blue Line service from the Dearborn Subway to 54/Cermak is limited to every 30 minutes during rush hour only since the Pink Line’s inception, I have not been on the track connection that those rush hour Blue Line trains use.

From here, I began to work my way towards Wrigley Field, where I was meeting my friend, Joe, to watch that night’s game between the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies.  This was accomplished using the following:

• Blue Line (Car #3026) from Forest Park to Clark/Lake
• Brown Line (Car #3361) from Clark/Lake to Merchandise Mart
• Purple Line (Car #2577) from Merchandise Mart to Chicago/Franklin
• Brown Line (Car number not recorded) from Chicago/Franklin to Fullerton
• Red Line (Car #2707) from Fullerton to Addison
  • It appears that the Purple Line Express has had the largest service cuts as a result of the Three-Track project at Fullerton and Belmont stations.  That said, they should have Red Line trains stop at Wellington (and Diversey when it reopens) when the Brown Line is in operation so as to straight rail all the service through that zone.

I now will take a moment to write about the CTA’s poor state of repair.  While the CTA is working to eliminate the slow zones that are scattered around its system, the agency faces a budget crisis and cannot maintain current levels of service and maintain its aging infrastructure.  Chicago’s rapid transit system is among the oldest in the nation, and as with most things, needs more attention as it gets older.  Riding the CTA this visit was not as fun (from a railfanning perspective) as in the past, because of the numerous slow zones.  It is good to see that projects such as the Brown Line rehab are going on, but it seems that more funding and work will be needed to bring the CTA back up to the standard it should be at.  Additionally, other systems and the governments that fund them can learn from the CTA’s experiences over the past years.  For public transit to function and be maintained properly, agencies need the money to carry out not only day-to-day operations but maintenance work that will ensure a good system for years to come.

The ballgame was quite enjoyable, but like at the White Sox-Blue Jays game on Sunday, since I was not a fan of either team, I got to just sit back, watch the game, and take in everything.  Wrigley Field is one of my favorite ballparks.  The crowd is great, the setting is unique, and the park has charm.  It also presents a great challenge to any scorekeeper like myself, since there are no posted lineups and the announcements on the public address system are usually not able to be heard clearly.  Interestingly, I had already seen both teams play this year already.  I saw the Cubs play against the Washington Nationals in Washington on July 2, and I saw the Phillies play against the St. Louis Cardinals in Philadelphia on July 14.  Coincidentally, the starting pitchers for Chicago and Philadelphia on those dates also started last night’s game.  Finally, the only other time I was at a game at Wrigley Field in July of 2003, the Cubs were playing the Phillies.  The Phillies won the game 4-1, but the Cubs fans stayed and cheered their team on until the end. 

After the game, we walked back to the “L”, although in an attempt to get around crowds, we walked much further than intended and probably saved no time as a result of our endeavor.  For the trip back to where Joe had parked, we took these trains:

• Red Line (Car #2617) from Wilson to Howard
• Purple Line (Car #2577) from Howard to Linden
  • This train came to a very sudden stop just after passing through the yards at Howard, and it was soon announced that the train’s brakes would not release, and we had to wait for a supervisor to come and fix the problem while continuing.

Once we got back to the car, we drove back to Deerfield, and after deciding we would not be able to see Becky, a mutual friend of ours that night, I went back to my relatives, repacked my bags for my trip on the Empire Builder, and went to sleep.

The next morning, I left my relatives and took the METRA train from Highland Park into Chicago.  After leaving my luggage in the Metropolitan Lounge at Union Station, I walked over to the new Millennium Park.  This park has public fountains in which people can get their feet wet, or they can stand under one of the tall cascades of water and be totally immersed.  There are also gardens and an outdoor stage with a lawn seating area and speakers that bring the sound of a performance out to the lawn area.  Millennium Park is an urban oasis right in the middle of Chicago’s bustling downtown area, was well planned, and the public seems to be enjoying its use.

After that, it was back to Union Station to grab a bite and await the boarding of the Empire Builder for the trip out to Portland.  More on that to come…

Stepping Back in Time

Before composing tonight’s regularly scheduled post, here are some photos that correspond to previous entries I have made:

(Recent discovery: You can click on a photo to see a larger version of it!)

From the Capitol Limited:

 

Downtown Silver Spring, MD

Sightseer/Lounge Car

Dining Car

Our engine at Cumberland, MD

From Comiskey Park (AKA US Cellular Field):

The exploding scoreboard (see also below)

Amtrak Has Yet to Live Up to its Reputation

I begin where I left off last night, going downstairs to take a shower while on board a moving train. This might go without saying, but it isn’t the typical showering experience, unless being compared to what one might go through at a sleepaway camp. Luckily, we made the Connellsville, PA station stop while I was in the shower, which made things easier. The shower stall is about 6 feet high, so the top of my head is against the ceiling. The showerhead is one of those detachable ones that can be held in your hand, and the result is one gets something slightly better than a sponge bath. There is also a shower curtain with snaps between the shower itself and a small changing area, which allows one to make a possibly futile effort to keep the water in the shower and the changing area dry.

I turned off the lights in my room and went to sleep at 10:06 PM ET. I slept soundly from about 11 until our station stop in Toledo, Ohio, at about 5:10 AM ET, went back to sleep, and woke up for good at 6:47 AM ET during the Elkhart, Indiana station stop. We actually arrived here early and had to wait for the departure time to leave! Shortly thereafter, I went to the dining car for breakfast, where I was seated with a man traveling to Seattle, Vancouver, and possibly some points in British Columbia. He wasn’t exactly sure of his itinerary, but his train from Fort Lauderdale to Washington was delayed, so he was bussed with some other passengers to meet the train in Pittsburgh. After breakfast, I went to the lounge car with the Sunday New York Times, and remained there until we were about to arrive in Chicago, at which point I tidied up my belongings. We arrived at Chicago’s Union Station at 8:40 AM CT, almost a full hour early!

I proceeded to the Metropolitan Lounge to leave my things for the day, having put the items I needed for the day’s activities in a separate bag while on the train. I had a ticket to the 1:05 PM CT White Sox-Blue Jays game, so I decided to do some railfanning before that. I walked to the nearest L station at Quincy and Adams, and rode the following trains:

• Brown Line (Car #3361) from Quincy to State/Lake
• Brown Line (Car #3382) from State/Lake to Fullerton
  • The work they are doing at Belmont and Fullerton stations is phenomenal, I can’t wait to see the finish products.
• Red Line (Car #2647) from Fullerton to Lake
• Green Line (Car #2480) from State/Lake to 63rd/Cottage Grove
• Green Line (Car #2437) from 63rd/Cottage Grove to Garfield
• Green Line (Car #2474) from Garfield to 63rd/Ashland
• Green Line (Car #2494) from 63rd/Ashland to Roosevelt
  • The connecting passageway from the Green/Orange station to the Red Station is very well done in my opinion
• Red Line (Car #2709) from Roosevelt to Sox/35th

Then, it was on to the ballgame. I think the new Comiskey is nice. It isn’t a retro ballpark, but it is not a cookie cutter stadium either. There did not appear to be any obstructed views, but the scoreboards were hard to see from many vantages in the park, and there was music playing at almost every possible moment. There were also endless promotions and advertisements being made over the PA. One nice thing about the music is that it was much softer and more subdued than at other parks, but the quantity did not improve my opinion of it despite the quality. The game itself was quite good. It only took 2.5 hours to play the game. The Blue Jays won, 4-1, and their two pitchers only faced 28 batters over the course of the entire game (one over the minimum), allowing two hits (including a home run to Jermaine Dye) and no walks.

After the ballgame was over, I hopped on the Red Line (Car #2409) from 35th up to Monroe, planning to walk over to Union Station. However, a 130 bus came up (D40LF 1195) and I took that over to Union Station, to help ensure that I would catch the 4:35 METRA Fox Lake train to Deerfield. It is from the home of my relatives in Deerfield (where the local time is 7:22 PM CT on Sunday, June 29) that I am currently writing this, and it will be posted as soon as I can get the wireless to work right, or once I transfer it to a different computer to post it.

Tomorrow, I intend to finish my tour of the CTA’s train lines (more on my opinion of how they have deteriorated since my last visit in a future post) and will revisit Wrigley Field. And if you are wondering how Amtrak didn’t live up to its expectations since I never directly dealt with that issue in this post, let’s just hope that the Empire Builder performs as well as the Capitol Limited did.

A "Capitol" Experience Thus Far

Greetings from on board the Capitol Limited. It is currently 8:56 PM ET on Saturday, June 28 as I begin to write this entry. We left our previous station stop at Cumberland, MD at 7:29 PM and do not stop again until about 9:40 PM, when we arrive in Connellsville, PA.

However, before I begin to go into the details of the on board experience, I think I should backtrack and recap the last 48 hours prior to departing. Packing for this adventure, as I frequently like to call it, deserves some attention. I think that packing and preparing for such a trip is a somewhat unique experience, since the train ride is an actual part of the vacation. When I pack for a trip by airplane, my packing considerations are made for where I am going to eventually wind up. However, for the train, part of the vacation is getting there, and one must pack not only for the destination(s) but also for the train trip itself.

In all actuality, what I packed is not all that different than if I were flying. However, greater thought had to be put into figuring out what to pack where. My Superliner Roomette is about 3.5 feet wide and 6.5 feet long. Therefore, space is at a premium, and in the name of convenience, I want most of the things I will need overnight to be in the bag that I am keeping in my room, and everything else to be in my larger suitcase. The end result is that I have my camera, books to read, some snack food, my laptop, toiletries, a change of clothes, and things I want to be able to easily access upon my arrival in Chicago with me here in the room. My suitcase, currently on the lower level of this car in a luggage rack, has other clothing items, reading material I did not expect to want, and some miscellaneous items.

Now, on with the trip. The first segment is on board the westbound Capitol Limited, which departed at 4:05 PM from Washington, DC’s Union Station, and is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning in Chicago’s Union Station at 9:25 AM CT. I took the Metrorail to Union Station, as I usually do, riding on board Rohr 1288. I ride the Metro frequently; there is no need for a detailed description of this leg of my journey. Once at Union Station, I picked up my tickets on one of Amtrak’s new self-ticketing machines (I finally have a use for my Guest Rewards card), and went to the ClubAcela to await the boarding of my train. The ClubAcela is nice, and has some nice chairs, Internet access, and complimentary drinks and snacks. At about 3:40, we were taken out to the train. For this trip, I am in Room 2, a Roomette on one of Amtrak’s bilevel Superliner coaches. The room itself is quite simple. There are two, wide chairs facing each other. The chairs convert into a bed, and an upper bunk is available were there to be a companion traveling with me. There is also a large window on one side of the compartment and a window and sliding door leading out into the corridor. A small foldout table is also in the room.

The room is on the right (north) side of the train, but the best views are to the left, according to my printouts from Trainweb.com and USA by Rail. Shortly after the Rockville, MD stop, I took my guides, camera, and Barry Svrluga’s National Pastime to the dome car, but not before getting a few photos of some Montgomery County areas that I am familiar with from walking and driving the streets there. I also got some more of the same photos from the lounge car. Also, before that, the dining car attendant came by, and I made a 6 PM reservation for dinner. I remained in the lounge car until just before that time.

In doing reading in preparation for this trip, I read many times that eating in the diner is one of the highlights of the Amtrak experience. I was seated with three other people: a man traveling to San Francisco to meet family, a teenager traveling back home to Pittsburgh after visiting family in DC, and her boyfriend. We discussed a variety of topics, such as what we enjoyed about train travel, where we were going, and other travel experiences. I’ll write more about the social aspect of train travel and meeting people some other time, but what I’ve read about that element of Amtrak travel thus far is accurate.

We finished dinner just before arriving at Cumberland, which is a crew change point and smoking stop. I used that opportunity to get off the train, stretch my legs, and get a photo of our lead engine, #14. There were three stops at Cumberland, so I reboarded the train at the rear and walked through the train to get my books, and went back to the dome car. After doing some more reading, I ventured to the back of the train to watch the tracks from the rear window, got some Cabernet from the lounge car on my way back to my room, and am now writing this post. The sun finished setting as I was writing this. Once complete, I am going downstairs for the Amtrak shower experience, and then going to sleep.

So far, I am impressed by the Amtrak long distance experience, and am having a great time. Like I said before, I’ll write more about some other topics in future writings. After arriving in Chicago tomorrow, I am going to see the White Sox play the Blue Jays at Comiskey Park (I don’t call it US Cellular Field), before spending the next few nights with cousins of mine in a Chicago suburb (I don’t call them distant cousins because in terms of my family tree, they could be hundreds of years more distant).

Good night from the Allegheny Mountains. Here is to hoping that our arrival in Chicago is on or close to time!

Why Would Anyone Do This?

Let’s get this question out of the way quickly.  If you have ever looked at an Amtrak schedule, you will quickly realize that taking the train across the continent takes much longer than flying.  And Mapquest claims that it would only take 41 hours to drive from Washington, DC to Seattle (though it forgets that one can’t actually drive for 41 consecutive hours, so this number should be revised slightly).  However, for someone who finds train travel to be exciting, air travel to be stressful, and isn’t willing to drive 41 hours non stop, why not give Amtrak a shot?

I had standing invitations to visit my cousins in Seattle and a friend of mine in Vancouver.  I’ve also longed for the chance to take a train across the country, or at least overnight, having done neither to date.  At some point, I realized that I had the time to make the trip by train, and thus, the inspiration for this trip was born.  There is a catch though.  If one wants to do other things on such a trip (see below), it becomes difficult to take the train round trip unless one has many weeks in which to travel.  This trip will be on Amtrak going westbound, but the eastbound travel segments will be by air.

I’ll satisfy some other interests while on my cross country adventure. I’ll get to ride several subway and other public transportation systems, some that I’ve already been on, others that I haven’t.  I’ll also visit some baseball stadiums, so that by the end of the summer, I will have been to 10 of the 30 stadiums that are currently in use.  My itinerary is great for someone who likes trains and baseball.  If those aren’t your favorite things in the world, you may be better off trying to drive across the country without ever sleeping.

Please Standby for Pre-Boarding

Welcome, and thank you for taking some time to read this travelogue.  The trip hasn’t started just yet, but this is the place to read all about my cross country adventure (and while likely to be far less exciting, I’ll even let you know that I’ve made it back home safely).  Over the next few days, I’ll try to write a little about what exactly I’m doing, and the experience of trying to plan such a trip. 

For the meantime though, I’ll throw out some random facts about this trip (all projections, I make no guarantees):

• Scheduled duration (approximate): 12 days, 15 hours, 32 minutes
• Approximate distance traveled (as the bird flies): 5825 miles
• Countries: 2
• States being traveled through (including DC): 15
• Canadian provinces being traveled through: 1
• States actually being visited: (not including home state or DC): 4
• Canadian provinces actually being visited: 1
• Overnights on board Amtrak: 3
• Local transit systems used: 8
• Baseball stadiums visited: 4
• Home run records being broken witnessed in person: 0-1, depending upon how well Barry Bonds’s steroids are working and how many he is taking

I’ll wrap this up by saying two things.  First off, for those of you wondering how this will be updated while I’m in transit, the answer is that it will not be.  I can only update where I have Internet access, and will try to do so at those times.  I do have the ability to edit the timestamps on the posts, and I will try to do so for “delayed” posts that I author when I don’t have Internet access. 

Secondly, this travelogue will attempt to cater to the interests of the train/transit enthusiasts, the baseball fans, and other family and friends who may be reading it.  What that means is you should expect to see some posts with some pretty detailed descriptions of a transit segment, or my feelings about a particular baseball stadium, but I’ll also include posts about what I see in the various places I visit and what I think of those cities as well.  There is a feature on here that allows you to comment on individual entries, please feel free to use it or send me an email.

Enjoy the read!