Amtrak to Florida for a Business Trip

[rmgreenesq]

Greetings Gang:

I'm back in New England and have put a travelogue up. View it here. I have edited the text from the blog and with a little bit of help from my wife, I have inserted pictures.

This isn't your typical railfan travelogue. I know next to nothing about the cars and locomotives. There is no GPS data. All timings are from my watch. This is the story of my trip down to Florida, and an analysis of Amtrak versus my more familiar means of travel: the airlines.

Enjoy.

Rick

 

[gswager]

Uh, the link doesn't work.

 

[AmtrakFan]

Worked Fine for me.

 

[AlanB]

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the page, so you may just need to be patient. I'm on a DSL connection and I'd say that it took close to two, maybe three minutes for the page to load for me. Although I did note that the last few pictures wouldn't load for me.

 

[AlanB]

Rick,

Thanks for an interesting, somewhat non-railfan orientated report.

A few thoughts and comments.

First, Amtrak upgraded you for free to business class when you brought the sleeper?

Next, the train you were on from Boston to NY goes 125 miles per hour in many places, but certainly over 100 MPH. Acela's claim to fame is that it can hit 150 MPH.

At Penn station there are actually two levels above the tracks, the LIRR uses the middle level, while Amtrak and New Jersey Transit use the upper level. And with regard to the escalators, next time just keep walking if the first escalator you come to isn't working. Each platform has at least 3 escalators and a few plaforms have even more.

Yes that dining car is very old, at least 50 years old.

Note to self: on the trip in November across the country in coach, bring a power strip, and make many friends.

Love it, just love it!

I see you didn't like the upper bunk, cie la vie. Personally I love the upper bunk on a Viewliner, since I don't loose my sitting area and the floor space. When I wake up in the morning I can just shove the bed up and be able to get dress like a normal person, instead of the squirm and wiggle method needed otherwise.

There certainly was a shower on the Sunset Limited and by the way, one can run the water a bit more than you did, although you don't want to squander it either, as there is only just so much hot water.

And like wow, that you got an Acela seat for only $3.20 over the regional. I have to wonder if William did something wrong, but that's his problem. And I'm glad that you thought to ask him and went to the lounge. My first reaction when you mentioned the line was, oh no, I bet he didn't know that he could go to the lounge to do that, even though they can't take money in there. William was correct on that issue, the lounges are credit cards only.

You're only other alternative would have been to just buy an Acela ticket from the machine and get a refund later for the other ticket, although that method would have incurred the 10% penalty.

 

[XNWA]

Greetings Gang:
I'm back in New England and have put a travelogue up. View it here. I have edited the text from the blog and with a little bit of help from my wife, I have inserted pictures.

This isn't your typical railfan travelogue. I know next to nothing about the cars and locomotives. There is no GPS data. All timings are from my watch. This is the story of my trip down to Florida, and an analysis of Amtrak versus my more familiar means of travel: the airlines.

Enjoy.

Rick

Thanks Rick, realy enjoyed reading your report and the pictures. We will be taking the CZ in Feb. for our first LD trip.

 

[rmgreenesq]

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the page, so you may just need to be patient. I'm on a DSL connection and I'd say that it took close to two, maybe three minutes for the page to load for me. Although I did note that the last few pictures wouldn't load for me.

Patience is a virture with this piece. It is on the large side and is being hosted by my cable company's "free" webspace. I'll have my wife (the tekkie in the family) look at compressing it and moving it to a faster host.

Rick

 

[rmgreenesq]

Rick,
Thanks for an interesting, somewhat non-railfan orientated report.

A few thoughts and comments.

First, Amtrak upgraded you for free to business class when you brought the sleeper?

Next, the train you were on from Boston to NY goes 125 miles per hour in many places, but certainly over 100 MPH. Acela's claim to fame is that it can hit 150 MPH.

At Penn station there are actually two levels above the tracks, the LIRR uses the middle level, while Amtrak and New Jersey Transit use the upper level. And with regard to the escalators, next time just keep walking if the first escalator you come to isn't working. Each platform has at least 3 escalators and a few plaforms have even more.

Yes that dining car is very old, at least 50 years old.

Note to self: on the trip in November across the country in coach, bring a power strip, and make many friends.

Love it, just love it!

I see you didn't like the upper bunk, cie la vie. Personally I love the upper bunk on a Viewliner, since I don't loose my sitting area and the floor space. When I wake up in the morning I can just shove the bed up and be able to get dress like a normal person, instead of the squirm and wiggle method needed otherwise.

There certainly was a shower on the Sunset Limited and by the way, one can run the water a bit more than you did, although you don't want to squander it either, as there is only just so much hot water.

And like wow, that you got an Acela seat for only $3.20 over the regional. I have to wonder if William did something wrong, but that's his problem. And I'm glad that you thought to ask him and went to the lounge. My first reaction when you mentioned the line was, oh no, I bet he didn't know that he could go to the lounge to do that, even though they can't take money in there. William was correct on that issue, the lounges are credit cards only.

You're only other alternative would have been to just buy an Acela ticket from the machine and get a refund later for the other ticket, although that method would have incurred the 10% penalty.

I parted with $25 at South Station for the upgrade fron BOS to NYP on the regional. Since I'd always been too cheap to purchase that upgrade with my own money, I'd thought I'd check it out on somebody elses dime.

As to the shower, I guess my prior experience in Coast Guard kicked in while on the train. Fresh water is a precious commodity onboard ship.

My idea to go to the lounge comes from my experience from the airlines. My worldclub card has saved many a trip for me. A typical scenario where the friendly club ticket agent has saved my bacon would be flying BOS-MSP-SJC and misconnecting in MSP. Instead of going all the way out to landside check-in to be reticketed and back through security, I'll go to the airside club. They are usually able to get me on a flight to SFO leaving on 15 minutes and are more likely to preserve my courtsey first class upgrade on the new flight.

I'm supresed that Amtrak does not sell access to its lounge. The airlines do. The only people who get in free are same-day international business class ticket holders.

William was somewhat suprised that the fare differential was $3.20 too. He just shrugged and slid my card. My wife, who does the data entry for the home account does not like it when I use the debit card for such petty transactions.

 

[AlanB]

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the page, so you may just need to be patient. I'm on a DSL connection and I'd say that it took close to two, maybe three minutes for the page to load for me. Although I did note that the last few pictures wouldn't load for me.

Patience is a virture with this piece. It is on the large side and is being hosted by my cable company's "free" webspace. I'll have my wife (the tekkie in the family) look at compressing it and moving it to a faster host.

Rick

I wouldn't get too crazy worrying about it, although you might want to have her check on why the last several pictures don't seem to show up.

I parted with $25 at South Station for the upgrade fron BOS to NYP on the regional. Since I'd always been too cheap to purchase that upgrade with my own money, I'd thought I'd check it out on somebody elses dime.

Ok, that makes sense. The way you had phrased it, I thought that Amtrak had thrown that in for free and was rather surprised at that. Even when booking an award trip, Amtrak will by default book you into coach on a local train that you are riding to connect with a long distance train that you are riding in a sleeper. If you ask, they will upgrade you to Business class. But they won't volunteer it, you must ask for it!

My idea to go to the lounge comes from my experience from the airlines. My worldclub card has saved many a trip for me. A typical scenario where the friendly club ticket agent has saved my bacon would be flying BOS-MSP-SJC and misconnecting in MSP. Instead of going all the way out to landside check-in to be reticketed and back through security, I'll go to the airside club. They are usually able to get me on a flight to SFO leaving on 15 minutes and are more likely to preserve my courtsey first class upgrade on the new flight.

Well it was a good instinct and it saved you once again. One other quick note, in Washington DC and New York, they offer a seperate line for those riding Acela. Odd's are that it wasn't open on Saturday when you were there, and it's probably not open on Sunday's either. But if you are in either of those stations on a weekday and planning to ride Acela, keep in mind those special lines that in both cases are to the left of the general line. It could save considerable time.

I'm supresed that Amtrak does not sell access to its lounge. The airlines do. The only people who get in free are same-day international business class ticket holders.

At one time years ago Amtrak did have a program where one could pay for access to the lounge. However that has since been discontinued, since between First Class passengers on Acela/Metroliner, First Class on long distance trains, as well as the AGR loyalty program, the lounges are often simply too busy to accomodate even more people.

 

[MrFSS]

Nice report. Thanks for sharing.

I didn't have any problem loading, all pictures loaded, and it took maybe 2-3 seconds for everything to load.

But, I'm on a near T-3 connection.

 

[Chi_Train_Fan]

Greetings Gang:
I'm back in New England and have put a travelogue up. View it here. I have edited the text from the blog and with a little bit of help from my wife, I have inserted pictures.

This isn't your typical railfan travelogue. I know next to nothing about the cars and locomotives. There is no GPS data. All timings are from my watch. This is the story of my trip down to Florida, and an analysis of Amtrak versus my more familiar means of travel: the airlines.

Enjoy.

Rick

Rick, your travelogue requires Internet Explorer on a PC. Something I don't have. I really want to read your travel report, could you please produce a PDF version for download? or use standard html for your online version?

Thank you,

David Z

Chicago, IL

 

[MrFSS]

Greetings Gang:

I'm back in New England and have put a travelogue up. View it here. I have edited the text from the blog and with a little bit of help from my wife, I have inserted pictures.

This isn't your typical railfan travelogue. I know next to nothing about the cars and locomotives. There is no GPS data. All timings are from my watch. This is the story of my trip down to Florida, and an analysis of Amtrak versus my more familiar means of travel: the airlines.

Enjoy.

Rick

Rick, your travelogue requires Internet Explorer on a PC. Something I don't have. I really want to read your travel report, could you please produce a PDF version for download? or use standard html for your online version?

Thank you,

David Z

Chicago, IL

I have converted the report to PDF for anyone who needs it that way. However, to save my bandwidth on my site, please PM me for the link. Thanks, and I trust Rick won't mind I have done this. I'm trying to help the non-PC folks out until they are able to have a real computer. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[rmgreenesq]

Rick, your travelogue requires Internet Explorer on a PC. Something I don't have. I really want to read your travel report, could you please produce a PDF version for download? or use standard html for your online version?
Thank you,

David Z

Chicago, IL

David:

Everybody loves Microsoft. I have no objection to the PDF version. I put the travelogue together on Word and, after a brief amount of instruction from my wife, inserted the pictures. I then saved in HTML and put it up. It comes as no suprise that folks without microsoft products can't view it.

My wife will need to go in and clean it up anyway.

Rick

 

[Chi_Train_Fan]

Rick,

I read the PDF version provided by MrFSS. I thought your report was brilliant. I enjoyed reading a report from your perspective as a business traveler. Seems like the trains were early and or very close to being on time which must have been a bonus. The cost of upgrading to the Acela seemed inexpensive and I would have jumped on that like you did.

Cheers,

David Z

Chicago, IL

 

[XNWA]

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the page, so you may just need to be patient. I'm on a DSL connection and I'd say that it took close to two, maybe three minutes for the page to load for me. Although I did note that the last few pictures wouldn't load for me.

Patience is a virture with this piece. It is on the large side and is being hosted by my cable company's "free" webspace. I'll have my wife (the tekkie in the family) look at compressing it and moving it to a faster host.

Rick

I had no problems with it.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Nice report, although I had checked out the blog earlier and this apparently was just the blog text plus pix. So next time, if you could just post the pix separately and link to the blog for the text (unless you can post pix in the blog, which would mean you wouldn't have to do anything but post a link to the blog), us non-Windows folks wouldn't need to have somebody build a pdf for us.

 

[Sam Damon]

FWIW, the website linked in the OP doesn't seem to work with any Macintosh browser. I've tried the last version of IE for the Mac (5.23, IIRC), a recent Camino nightly, and Opera 9.0.

Guess I'll check the PDF.

 

[Chi_Train_Fan]

FWIW, the website linked in the OP doesn't seem to work with any Macintosh browser. I've tried the last version of IE for the Mac (5.23, IIRC), a recent Camino nightly, and Opera 9.0.
Guess I'll check the PDF.

Sam, I had the same problems with my Mac, latest updates etc., and the PDF kindly provided by MrFSS worked great!

David Z

Chicago, IL

 

[Sam Damon]

Rick,

Nice job with the trip report! And a hearty thanks to MrFSS for zapping the webpage through GhostScript to save it as a PDF.

From your description of things, I have the feeling that taking Amtrak both ways on a business trip wouldn't work out for you on a regular basis. Have you considered flying one way, and Amtrak the other?

Seems to me you could "satisfy your inner train buff" while keeping the clients, XYL, and family happy. Just something to think about -- thanks once again for your trip report! Very interesting and informative, and from a different perspective than we usually see in these parts.

 

[RailFanLNK]

Excellent trip report Rick. Yesterday it wouldn't download, today it downloaded ASAP.

Al

 

[rmgreenesq]

Thanks for all the comments and sorry for the technical issues. As to my inner train buff, I've got to go to San Jose, CA. I'm working on finding a cheapie 1 way ticket from Boston to the Bay (JetBlue?) and hoping the CZ & LSL back to Worcester. At $147 one way, how could I say no?

Rick

 

[Sam Damon]

Great scenery on the CZ, but here's hoping you make the connection to the LSL in Chicago. #6's batting average is not good at all -- I'd reckon you'd miss the LSL connection four out of the last five days, according to the train status feature on Amtrak.com.

 

[STL Amtrak Fan]

Rick,

I too liked your report. But, I have access to a Windows PC at work and was able to load the page, but it did load slow. I'm like a few of the others, I have a real computer at home and would have needed the PDF file

I thought it was interesting you called it a jail cell. I have only been in a Superliner Roomette before, sharing it with my brother, and it does get a bit cramped in there with the beds made up. Showering in a Superliner was a bit interesting, but not as interesting as not having hot water (the last morning I was on the Coast Starlight), needless to say, it was quick.

What did you think of the Acela? Could you tell it was faster?

Great report, thanks!

 

[rmgreenesq]

Rick,
I thought it was interesting you called it a jail cell. I have only been in a Superliner Roomette before, sharing it with my brother, and it does get a bit cramped in there with the beds made up. Showering in a Superliner was a bit interesting, but not as interesting as not having hot water (the last morning I was on the Coast Starlight), needless to say, it was quick.

What did you think of the Acela? Could you tell it was faster?

Thank you for your kind words and welcome aboard.

The Acela is nice, new, clean, and modern. I didn't write that much about it becuse I'm fairly familiar with it. As a business traveler, I never fly or drive to New York City. I'd take the train, and it would usually be the Acela.

As to the speed of the train, it is my impression that the Acela is not that much faster than the Regionals between BOS and NYP due to the condition of the tracks in New England. Others on this board probably know more than me about this. My source is cafe car scuttlebutt, the NEC schedule, and the internet.

Rick