End of the Line

So, now that I’ve been home for a few days, I thought it would be appropriate to wrap things up with some final thoughts and comments. 

As you may have gathered from the previous posts, I had a great time.  The outbound train trip was quite the experience, and was pretty much in line with the various experiences I read in the weeks and months while I was planning this trip.  A thank you definitely should go out to the various people on www.railroad.net, www.btco.net, www.trainweb.org, and other similar sites who previously posted trip reports or answered the questions I had while planning my own trip.

Would I consider doing this again?  If circumstances were right, absolutely.  I’ve heard plenty of good things about Amtrak’s other long distance trains, such as the Southwest Chief and California Zephyr.  Of course, it is hard to find a block of time in which to take a train trip, have time to layover in cities either to sightsee or visit people, and take the train back, which is part of the reason I flew from Vancouver to San Francisco and from Oakland back to the East Coast. 

While Amtrak experience on a train such as the Empire Builder may not be the same as in the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is used by many people as a way of getting around the country, and hopefully Amtrak will get enough money to run and maintain its existing infrastructure, as well as the funds to expand even further.  The Empire Builder that I rode was overbooked from Minot to Whitefish; people do use Amtrak not only for vacation but also to get places.  Also, one can see much more of the country from a train than a plane, meet interesting people, and it is far more relaxing than air travel these days.  Taking the train really is part of one’s vacation experience; it is not just a way to get there.

Anyway, over the past few days, I’ve started to organize through all the various photos that I took over the course of the trip (you’ve seen some previews in my previous posts.  I filled one of my 1 GB memory cards to its capacity, and the other only had room for photos in San Francisco because I deleted some before venturing out to AT&T Park for the first game I attended there.  I have yet to decide if I will do this update in stages, or if I will simply upload to all the various sections at once.  However, here is a preview of what will be coming, organized in the same way my website’s navigation is set up (and hopefully I haven’t left anything out from this list):

• Grand Central (Transit Photography)
  • Chicago, IL
    • New photos of all CTA Rail car types
    • New photos of most CTA bus models
    • New photos of METRA Commuter Rail trains
  • Portland, OR (new section)
    • Photos of TriMet MAX light rail and the Portland Streetcar
    • Photos of TriMet buses
  • Seattle, WA
    • New photos of both King County Metro and Sound Transit buses
    • New photos of the Seattle Center Monorail
  • Vancouver, BC (new section)
    • Photos of SkyTrain
    • Photos of Translink buses operated by the Coast Mountain Bus Company
    • Photos of the West Vancouver Blue Bus
    • Photos of buses operating in Whistler
  • San Francisco, CA
    • New photos of MUNI Metro Streetcars
    • New photos of many MUNI bus types, including MUNI’s Orion VII/HEVs
    • New photos of the Cable Cars
    • New photos of the historic streetcars operating on the F-Market Street Line
  • National Rail Operations
    • New photos of many engine and car types, operated both by Amtrak and various freight railroads, likely to be reorganized into new sections with a section for views from the train
• Skyline Terminal (Non-transit Photography)
  • There will be new photos in the following existing sections:
    • Chicago, IL
      • Including photos from the new Millennium Park
    • Seattle, WA
    • San Francisco, CA
  • The following sections will be created:
    • Portland, OR
      • Including photos from the Portland Rose Garden
    • Vancouver, BC
      • Including photos from Whistler
• Camden Yards (entirely new website section)
  • Camden Yards is a new section of my website, where I will show photos and review the major league baseball stadiums where I have seen games.  These stadiums are as follows:
    • Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles) 
    • Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)
    • US Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox)
    • Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
    • Yankee Stadium (New York Yankees)
    • Shea Stadium (New York Mets)
    • RFK Stadium (Washington Nationals)
    • Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)
    • AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants)
    • Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)

As you can probably tell, this will be a quite a large update.  I will post an announcement here once photos from the trip are online, but the best way to find out about the website updates is to join the Oren’s Transit Page update list, which you can do by clicking here and filling out the form.

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed reading about my trip and adventures of the past two weeks or so, and if you were one of the people I visited or saw on the trip, enjoyed hearing about some of them in person, seeing the photos before anyone else had the chance to do so, or sharing in the experiences with me.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an e-mail at oren@orenstransitpage.com.  Also, if you have not done so, do check out my website, www.orenstransitpage.com, either before or after I’ve uploaded all the various photos (or both). 

This is the last stop, all passengers must leave at this time.  Thank you for riding with us!