Recent content by MSP_Train_Hopper

Spring of 2018 I was seated with a lady in the diner of the Empire Builder. She was traveling from her job as a writer in NYC to her home in California. Turns out she had been a writer & executive producer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Looks like the new menus are posted. 4 choices for lunch/supper. 2-3 of them are hot (cant tell if the Asian noodle dish is served hot or cold). Breakfast has been completely reworked to include choice of cereals (hot & cold) as well as hard boiled eggs, a breakfast sandwich and 2 kinds of...

Looks like the route specific branding on the cover is gone. Probably cheaper to do a generic national printing than different covers for each route - especially since the insides were the same. The new menu’s presentation seems more attractive in my opinion.

Here’s how it works according to Amtrak’s System Timetable.

I'm not sure what the most recent Service Standards Manual is, but the latest I am able to find is #10 (Oct. 2017). In a nutshell, it says that staffing levels depend on a combo of number of coach cars and number of coach passengers, but 1 attendant can cover up to 4 cars.

As of this past April, Open Sleeper tickets were still paper value and had to be manually punched. When boarding the Empire Builder, the first conductor repeatedly tried to scan it before I told her that it was 'the old fashioned punch type'. She took the whole ticket and said she would figure...

I was able to catch a video of the 10+ hour late #8 this afternoon as it entered the BNSF Union yard in Minneapolis. 10+ hour late Empire Builder

It does indeed look like a new schedule for The Canadian may be in the works. According to their President & CEO: “At VIA Rail, nothing is more important than the safety and security of our passengers and employees. That is why we are currently working with our infrastructure partner on a new...

I am hoping they do. We are staying downtown so worse case scenario is we go check out downtown sights, checkout at 11 and then head to the station to ditch the bags before going sightseeing again.

My father & I will be arriving in Vancouver on a Monday night in early April on the Amtrak Cascades and leaving the next evening on the VIA Canadian. We would like to check out of our hotel Tuesday morn, ditch our bags (both carryon and to be checked) at the station and spend the day...

I just noticed that the new Empire Builder schedule (8/1) has a new footnote saying that there are now bike racks available. It says a reservation and fee are needed and the passenger mush handle their own bike to and from the baggage car. Doesn't say how much the fee is, if it is only...

We detrained in St. Paul around 4:00 this afternoon - 8hrs 15 mins late. The dining car crew was getting ready to break out the Dinty Moore stew for dinner service. We had a service attendant trainee who said that the more seasoned crew wouldn't tell her much on how the dinner service would go...

I'm on the #28 train that left from Portland on the 26th. Got a call yesterday that the train would be late and was told that the arriving #27 was delayed in eastern Montana due to flooding and a possible washout. We departed Portland a little after 11:30 last night and was held in Spokane for...

My wife and I are going to be traveling MSP to PDX in the next couple days. I've done the route quite a few times in coach but this will be my first time in a sleeper car. She has only taken coach too, but just to her family's place in North Dakota. What is the food like for the SPK - PDX...

Rugby is only staffed by one person - I believe his name is Duane. He works all the shifts that the ticket office is open, but the office is closed each week from the end of his AM shift on Friday to the start of the PM shift on Sunday. Friday PM, all day Saturday and Sunday AM the station is...