Just decided I wanted to get out of town for the day, and also see how the NEC is doing now that they seem to have restored hourly Northeast Regional service. When I went to the app to buy my tickets they day before the trip, I saw most Northeast Regional coach fares were $32, which is not bad at all, though a few peak period trains were $65. Trains were showing at 70 to 90 percent full. I went up on the Vermonter, as I didn't want to rise at the crack of dawn, and I took business class to take advantage of the 2x1 seating, so my tickets were considerably more expensive. I came home on NER #129, also in business class, as I want to jack up my AGR TQP to ensure I make Select Plus in 2023, and I have no sleeper trips planned.
My drive to Baltimore Penn Station at 8AM was a real change from even a month earlier. People must be heading back to the office, because I-83 was jammed in its usual 8-9 AM pre-Covid manner. The garage at Penn Station was also pretty full, but I did manage to snag a space on the first level. The facade of the station is covered with scaffolding in preparation for the renovations, and when you get down to the platform, you can see construction on a third platform is moving ahead, and they're also hard at work putting up a high platform to serve track 3. Considering that the current station serves the existing traffic pretty well, I can only wonder what they're going to do with the extra capacity. And I can only hope that the station addition that they're going to build over the parking lot will include a Metropolitan Lounge.
I picked up a bagel w/schmear and a Boston Creme donut at Dunkin in the station, as the cafe car has neither of these delicacies. Then I waited for the train, which came in about 7 minutes late. The schedules in general are being slowed down a bit, due to track work. The transitdocs train tracker showed the train doing 35 mph in an area between Bowie State and Odenton where it usually goes 110-120 mph. There was also track work going on north of Perryville, which has closed down a track and caused some slow running. Looks like they're replacing rail and ties. It's going on through the summer, because they cancelled the early morning Acela 2150, which means we're taking 2152 an hour later when we take our vacation at the end of July.
The business class had only 2 free seats after I boarded. The car was full of what appeared to be actual business people wearing suits and such who were using laptops and having conversations involving business buzzwords. I had to wait in line for my free coffee and fruit cup (not free). They're also taking cash again, and in my case I had to use it because the attendant said he was having problems getting the wireless credit card system to work. (About 20 minutes later, when I was eating, he announced that he could take credit cards again. I enjoyed my meal as we bounced along at a bit less than 200 km/hr, slower as we passed through the work zones. Last week, on my flight the South Carolina, the pilot said it was going to be a bit bumpy, so he kept the "fasten seat belt" sign on the whole flight, and we didn't have drink service. But really, this Amtrak ride to Philly was a good bit more bumpy than that flight. The weird thing is that I was anxious about turbulence the whole flight and didn't relax until we touched down, whereas the bumpy Amtrak rode didn't bother me at all, or at least it didn't give me any anxiety. That's kind of irrational when you realize that if you drop 50 ft. suddenly in turbulence, you're still over 30,000 feet from anything you can crash into, whereas on an Amtrak train going 200 km/hr, you're a lot closer to things you can crash into.
Anyway, we got into 30th St. Station fairly quickly, even if we were maybe 10 minutes late.
Welcome to Philadelphia 30th St. Station! More to follow
My drive to Baltimore Penn Station at 8AM was a real change from even a month earlier. People must be heading back to the office, because I-83 was jammed in its usual 8-9 AM pre-Covid manner. The garage at Penn Station was also pretty full, but I did manage to snag a space on the first level. The facade of the station is covered with scaffolding in preparation for the renovations, and when you get down to the platform, you can see construction on a third platform is moving ahead, and they're also hard at work putting up a high platform to serve track 3. Considering that the current station serves the existing traffic pretty well, I can only wonder what they're going to do with the extra capacity. And I can only hope that the station addition that they're going to build over the parking lot will include a Metropolitan Lounge.
I picked up a bagel w/schmear and a Boston Creme donut at Dunkin in the station, as the cafe car has neither of these delicacies. Then I waited for the train, which came in about 7 minutes late. The schedules in general are being slowed down a bit, due to track work. The transitdocs train tracker showed the train doing 35 mph in an area between Bowie State and Odenton where it usually goes 110-120 mph. There was also track work going on north of Perryville, which has closed down a track and caused some slow running. Looks like they're replacing rail and ties. It's going on through the summer, because they cancelled the early morning Acela 2150, which means we're taking 2152 an hour later when we take our vacation at the end of July.
The business class had only 2 free seats after I boarded. The car was full of what appeared to be actual business people wearing suits and such who were using laptops and having conversations involving business buzzwords. I had to wait in line for my free coffee and fruit cup (not free). They're also taking cash again, and in my case I had to use it because the attendant said he was having problems getting the wireless credit card system to work. (About 20 minutes later, when I was eating, he announced that he could take credit cards again. I enjoyed my meal as we bounced along at a bit less than 200 km/hr, slower as we passed through the work zones. Last week, on my flight the South Carolina, the pilot said it was going to be a bit bumpy, so he kept the "fasten seat belt" sign on the whole flight, and we didn't have drink service. But really, this Amtrak ride to Philly was a good bit more bumpy than that flight. The weird thing is that I was anxious about turbulence the whole flight and didn't relax until we touched down, whereas the bumpy Amtrak rode didn't bother me at all, or at least it didn't give me any anxiety. That's kind of irrational when you realize that if you drop 50 ft. suddenly in turbulence, you're still over 30,000 feet from anything you can crash into, whereas on an Amtrak train going 200 km/hr, you're a lot closer to things you can crash into.
Anyway, we got into 30th St. Station fairly quickly, even if we were maybe 10 minutes late.
Welcome to Philadelphia 30th St. Station! More to follow