Amtrak Fall Foliage trips out of Philly

[mignyc]

getting ready for the photo op on the Rockville bridge .

 

[jis]

Well, not quite.... the gathering of the Amtrak, ex-Amtrak and NARP folks was in the first lounge. The AU non-Gathering was mostly in the second car behind the first lounge. That's mainly because we snuck into it even though we were instructed to walk to the front. Later the NARP folks came by Charlie's seat and spent quite a bit of time around there. Anthony and Co also had seats in the AU car, but spent much time in the lounge gathering. On the whole it was great to meet up with so many people at the same place that you normally don;t come across togtether.

I think we had originally intended to be as far near the back as possible so as to be able to take pictures of the train on curves, but the loading process worked against us on that one. We were actually the second group to sneak in. The group that preceded us was a bunch of NJT folks that I know from various NJ-ARP related activities.

 

[jis]

getting ready for the photo op on the Rockville bridge .

Too many darned colorful trees get in your way on the curves onto and off the bridge Once on the bridge it is great. Get a shot of Bridgeview Inn on the Marysville side (looking towards right rear from on the bridge.

 

[railiner]

Well, not quite.... the gathering of the Amtrak, ex-Amtrak and NARP folks was in the first lounge. The AU non-Gathering was mostly in the second car behind the first lounge. That's mainly because we snuck into it even though we were instructed to walk to the front. Later the NARP folks came by Charlie's seat and spent quite a bit of time around there. Anthony and Co also had seats in the AU car, but spent much time in the lounge gathering. On the whole it was great to meet up with so many people at the same place that you normally don;t come across togtether.

I think we had originally intended to be as far near the back as possible so as to be able to take pictures of the train on curves, but the loading process worked against us on that one. We were actually the second group to sneak in. The group that preceded us was a bunch of NJT folks that know from various NJ-ARP related activities.

I haven't met any of you previously, and did not know where you were meeting....if it was mentioned here, well, my bad for missing it. I surveyed the queue in the station, trying to guess who some of you were-- but to be candid--almost the entire population of the queue sort of fit the profile I had imagined....

Perhaps I will get to one of the formal Gatherings in the future....

 

[mignyc]

couldn't ask for a prettier day.

 

[Ryan]

Great ride so far. I took pics of railfans at the Newark , DE Station taking pics of us. My only regret is that I can't take pics of the train from the outside.

I got a video of ya'll passing by between WIL and NRK. I've asked another AUer to post it for me.

Ask and ye shall receive!

 

[jis]

I haven't met any of you previously, and did not know where you were meeting....if it was mentioned here, well, my bad for missing it. I surveyed the queue in the station, trying to guess who some of you were-- but to be candid--almost the entire population of the queue sort of fit the profile I had imagined....

Perhaps I will get to one of the formal Gatherings in the future....

Oh well.... We are of course within the first dozen in the queue Some of us got to the station as 6:45am - well the excuse for that was a desire to drop off bags in Club Acela before things got really crowded! That's how we got to chat with Brian Gallagher at the gate, and make acquaintance of the K9 dog too! Actually the first half dozen were NJT guys and their friends, followed by our group. That entire front of the line appeared to have boarded the same Horizon car while boarding!

 

[AmtrakBlue]

we also cannot hear the narrator at all.

I rarely heard the narrator yesterday, however, when I was in the restroom once, I could hear perfectly, but the view was awful. :lol:

Penny in a Public Restroom on a Train??? The Horrors! :help:

I wondered who'd be first to post this. :lol:

 

[pennyk]

Well, not quite.... the gathering of the Amtrak, ex-Amtrak and NARP folks was in the first lounge. The AU non-Gathering was mostly in the second car behind the first lounge. That's mainly because we snuck into it even though we were instructed to walk to the front. Later the NARP folks came by Charlie's seat and spent quite a bit of time around there. Anthony and Co also had seats in the AU car, but spent much time in the lounge gathering. On the whole it was great to meet up with so many people at the same place that you normally don;t come across togtether.

I think we had originally intended to be as far near the back as possible so as to be able to take pictures of the train on curves, but the loading process worked against us on that one. We were actually the second group to sneak in. The group that preceded us was a bunch of NJT folks that know from various NJ-ARP related activities.

I haven't met any of you previously, and did not know where you were meeting....if it was mentioned here, well, my bad for missing it. I surveyed the queue in the station, trying to guess who some of you were-- but to be candid--almost the entire population of the queue sort of fit the profile I had imagined....Perhaps I will get to one of the formal Gatherings in the future....

We did not know where we were meeting until we were there. There was a lot of texting going on. We were the weird looking group pretty close to the front of the line.

 

[jis]

we also cannot hear the narrator at all.

I rarely heard the narrator yesterday, however, when I was in the restroom once, I could hear perfectly, but the view was awful. :lol:

Penny in a Public Restroom on a Train??? The Horrors! :help:

I wondered who'd be first to post this. :lol:

We somehow couldn't quite make arrangements for her to use the special restroom in 9800. So this was just an emergency measure, and should not be considered to be precedent setting in any way

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Thanks Ryan!

 

[BPGallagher]

I haven't met any of you previously, and did not know where you were meeting....if it was mentioned here, well, my bad for missing it. I surveyed the queue in the station, trying to guess who some of you were-- but to be candid--almost the entire population of the queue sort of fit the profile I had imagined....

Perhaps I will get to one of the formal Gatherings in the future....

Oh well.... We are of course within the first dozen in the queue Some of us got to the station as 6:45am - well the excuse for that was a desire to drop off bags in Club Acela before things got really crowded! That's how we got to chat with Brian Gallagher at the gate, and make acquaintance of the K9 dog too! Actually the first half dozen were NJT guys and their friends, followed by our group. That entire front of the line appeared to have boarded the same Horizon car while boarding!

I'm sure meeting the K9 was more exciting than chatting with me..............

 

[mignyc]

Stalled at the Keystone Corridor Jct...

 

[jis]

I haven't met any of you previously, and did not know where you were meeting....if it was mentioned here, well, my bad for missing it. I surveyed the queue in the station, trying to guess who some of you were-- but to be candid--almost the entire population of the queue sort of fit the profile I had imagined....

Perhaps I will get to one of the formal Gatherings in the future....

Oh well.... We are of course within the first dozen in the queue Some of us got to the station as 6:45am - well the excuse for that was a desire to drop off bags in Club Acela before things got really crowded! That's how we got to chat with Brian Gallagher at the gate, and make acquaintance of the K9 dog too! Actually the first half dozen were NJT guys and their friends, followed by our group. That entire front of the line appeared to have boarded the same Horizon car while boarding!

I'm sure meeting the K9 was more exciting than chatting with me..............

Chatting with you is always a great pleasure.

How's the trip going today?

 

[acelafan]

In case anyone wants to see an electronic copy of the Points of Interest (I couldn't find it on the Amtrak website) you can download a PDF here:

http://juckins.net/misc_au/AXP_2013_points_of_interest.pdf

Also, here are 2 JPGs.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

In case anyone wants to see an electronic copy of the Points of Interest (I couldn't find it on the Amtrak website) you can download a PDF here:

http://juckins.net/misc_au/AXP_2013_points_of_interest.pdf

Also, here are 2 JPGs.

Thanks! This way I can lament what I missed...

 

[mignyc]

Pulling into Philly... early again, but a wonderful day.

 

[jacorbett70]

It went thru Overbrook 15:52 EST surprising me since I had the impression it was stuck behind 670 which was losing time and about 22min late.

 

[mignyc]

Back in the station. I was very surprised with thd number of folks on thr ground waiting for the train to pass by ...

 

[jacorbett70]

The train going through Overbrook:

 

[railiner]

Back in the station. I was very surprised with thd number of folks on thr ground waiting for the train to pass by ...

Yes...I was surprised too, yesterday. You would have thought something more exotic, like say N&W 611 was passing by....

Perhaps many who rode the train yesterday, chased and photographed it today, and vice versa?

 

[railiner]

Have any of you completed the online survey, as requested by the crew? Remember, it needs to be done by 17 November....

I did mine, and found the questions very appropriate for their purpose. I especially found the question asking which location would be prefered for me to ride another excursion from in the future. Note that the states listed were not in alphabetical order. I suspect that they may have inadvertantly revealed where the next ones would mostly be from, aside from a repeat of this same trip next year. I remember Virginia being at 'the top of the order', but forgot the other states listed (around a dozen or so?). Maybe I am guessing wrong, but, who knows?

 

[mignyc]

We were absolutely flying around Bird-in-Hand..... Anyone care to estimate the speed?

 

[R30A]

The states in order of their listing: VA CA MI CT WI IN ME IL OK WA NY OR VT PA NC DC

 

[RyCoCo]

I had my phone plugged in, and followed along on

the Verizon Navigator. I was not able to connect to the car's wifi for some reason, but the 4G coverage worked most of the way.

Based on the consist posted earlier the challenge likely lies in the fact that y'all had Amfleet II Cafes in the consist. My understanding is that the receivers for Wi-Fi for the single level fleet are in the Amfleet I Cafes, and then the signal is distributed to the trainline via COMM cables that carry the PA, door commands, etc. If you didn't have a receiver in the consist then it wouldn't have been possible to connect in any car, even if its normally capable.

You are 100% correct Battalion, this consist only contained Amfleet II cafes. The AMF II's have not yet been outfitted with WiFi. And it is the cafe cars that carry the cellular modems that provide the backbone connection to the Internet. The AMF I coaches only WiFi hotspots that connect to the uplink in the AMF I cafe cars. No AMF I cafes means no WiFi from Amtrak.

How do the Keystone trains, which don't have cafe cars, have wifi then? (Just curious.)