Capitol Limited for Spring Break - 30 and 66, my first long Amtrak tri

[Thunder Road]

Edit: Since I put so many pictures in, I needed to split my report into multiple posts. Sorry. :/

Ok well Chrome just crashed and deleted my entire tripreport, so here I go starting over from the beginning. Therefore, it'll be a pretty quick report,since I'm angry now and I don't feel like retyping everything I had.

I go to college in Valparaiso, IN, about an hour and a halffrom Chicago. In the past I've drivenout and flown home on Southwest from Midway. But this time I decided to take my first long train ride (well longerthan the Regional, anyway). I booked amulti-city trip so that I could book 30 but then pick 66 for the jaunt up toTrenton, leaving me about 8 hours to spend with my sister in Washington whogoes to college there.

So I left campus on the V Line bus. The V Line runs shortbuses all around thetown of Valparaiso and has one route that only runs on the weekends up to theSouth Shore Line station at Dune Park, which is what I was on.

We arrived there at 1:00, and I boarded the SSL (well, the "other"SSL) about 10 minutes later, but not after grabbing a few pictures for youguys.

Looking down the platform at Dune Park:

To Chicago:

The SSL arrives:

The SSL runs trainsets of single-level and bi-levelcars. On the weekends they only runsingle-level trains, because (or so I've heard) they don't like to or can't runthe bi-levels through Michigan City where they do some street running, and allweekend trains make all stops, so they stick with single-levels.

The bi-levels are pretty neat though, not like NJTbi-levels, because they don't actually have a locomotive, so you just see threetall cars rolling down the tracks. Theyalso don't have a solid second floor. Rather, there are two aisles with one seat each on either side of thecar, and then you can look down to the lower level. There's also a luggage rack that you canreach from both levels. Kind-of neat.

This is NOT my photo, but it shows what a SSL bi-level looks like:

Anyway…. I took the SSL to Van Buren Street.

Van Buren Street:

Then began my trek across the Loop to Union Station,stopping on the Chicago River bridge for a shot of the city and the platformlevel of the station. There was atrainset of Superliners down there, but it wasn't mine.

The Chicago River:

I see you hiding down there!

I checked my suitcase and got my ticket, then went searchingfor something to eat. Since it was after3:00 already, AU's favorite Lou Mitchell's was closed, so I settled for PizzaHut Express in the food court. It was theaverage crappiness of Pizza Hut Express.

Then I wandered around and took a bunch of pictures of UnionStation. I won't lengthen the thread byposting them all here, but you can check them out by clicking on the album atthe end.

Okay fine, here's one: (There are plenty more of the Great Hall in my album.)

They started letting us on at about 5:40 and I was settled inmy seat in time to watch 50 pull out. They sorted us into Washington people (the forward coach) andeverything-but-Washington (the back coach). We only had 2 coaches, but all the seats I saw were full.

I didn't know I could ask the conductor for a window oraisle seat, so I ended up getting an aisle, but my seatmate, Willy, let me havethe window so I could set up the GPS. Willy was from Fremont, CA and had taken the Capitol Corridor and the CZbefore this, and was connecting in WAS to Miami on the Meteor. All in coach! Makes my trip kind-of feel insignificant…

I caught the CL speeding several times throughout the night:

Since it was dark as we pulled out I didn't take anypictures, except for one of a decent snow squall at Alliance.

We stayed almost on time the whole run. They cut the smoke stop at Cleveland down bya few minutes so that we could be exactly on time.

I usually don't go to bed until 2 or 2:30 central, so Icouldn't really force myself to bed. Ifinally went back to my seat around 2:15 eastern (just after leaving Alliance)and found Willy sleeping across both our seats, so I had to wake him up. He already had the seat set-up for sleeping,so I had to climb in awkwardly and couldn't get comfortable.

Alliance, OH during a flizzard:

 

[Thunder Road]

I woke up at PGH, and then again at COV, at which point I just stayed up. We werestill on time, so it was about 6:30.

I moved to the SSL and watched as rolled along the YoughioghenyRiver and through some dormant small towns on a Sunday morning.

The SSL at sunrise:

The Youghiogheny River somewhere past COV:

About 8:00 I went downstairs, cleaned up forthe morning, and then went to the diner for breakfast. My tablemate was from Edison, NJ and had justfinished a circuit across the country. He had taken the Crescent, the Sunset Limited, something to SanFrancisco, then the CZ, the EB, the CS, and the SWC, with a four day stop atABQ. Then finally he was on the CL withme. If I thought my trip was insignificantearlier, now I knew for sure it was.

I was surprised to see that the AU-famed "railroad French Toast"has been replaced by the Pancake Trio. So I just went for the scrambled eggs instead, with breakfast potatoes,bacon, and a biscuit. It was pretty goodactually, although the bacon was thin. Oh well, what kind of quality do you expect for only $10?

I went back to the SSL as we rolled into Cumberland, andthen watched over my shoulder as we followed the Potomac on the left. Due to the heavy rain from the Ohio Valleythunderstorms, the Potomac was muddy and running quite high.

The GPS stops and starts as we pass through a series of tunnels between Cumberland and Martinsburg:

Harpers Ferry:

The town and the Amtrak station:

An old, rusted railroad bridge over the swollen Potomac:

Once we passed Harpers Ferry I decided to take a nap againsince the best of the scenery had passed. We pulled into WAS at 12:06 – 34 minutes early! I texted my sister to tell her we hadarrived, and she hadn't even left her apartment yet!

Speed Limit 3? At WUS:

Finally here:

 

[Thunder Road]

Boarding the Metro for the ride over to Foggy Bottom/GWU, with a connection at Metro Center:

Our train was speeeeeciallll:

We went to her room so I could put fresh clothes on, then wewent to tour the city for a little while. We'd already done the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial and theWhite House, so we sought some more overlooked monuments.

Of course, I couldn't pass up this photo op:

Unfortunately, the city is closed. The Washington Monument is still closed from earthquakedamage. We tried to see the AlbertEinstein Memorial…which was closed.

Poor Albert Einstein, all alone:

So we headed over to the Reflecting Pool…which was closed.

We stopped briefly at the Korea, Vietnam and WWII Memorials, and stopped to see the new MLK Memorial.

We wandered over to the FDR Memorial, which is actually quite sprawling.

FDR...and his little dog too!

 

[Thunder Road]

Then we took the Metro over to Clarendon to have some pizzaat the place where my sister works.

If you're in Arlington, stop by Pete's New Haven Style Apizza (pronounced a-beetz) which is right around the corner from the Calrendon Metro station. Good pizza but in a nice place compared to the typical pizza joint.

I just love the architecture on the Metro. Simple, yet still unique. Here's Metro Center:

Then we went over to the Verizon Center to watch the Flyerstake down the Capitals! There weredozens of Flyers fans such in the sections near us. Probably 10% overall had Flyers jerseyson. Some of those people then joined meon 66, including a couple from our section.

Let's Go Flyers!

I got my suitcase, then boarded 66. 66 wasn't packed, but every single windowseat was taken when we started boarding, and almost every seat was taken whenwe left WAS, which was a lot busier than I expected for an overnight Regional.

I wedged in next to a girl on her Mac who seemed annoyedthat I wanted to sit in the window seat that she was using to hold her wiresand other stuff. I didn't feel sorry.

The wireless didn't work either. I told the conductor, who told me to ask him again if it didn't start working before Baltimore. But I ended up just putting music on and taking a nap instead.

66 flying along at 110 mph:

I detrained in TRE at 12:45 am, and went to bed.

Tune in on March 18th for my return trip on 43 and 29!

The rest of the pictures: http://s968.photobuc...202012%20-%201/

Thank you, everyone at AU, for preparing me for my first big-time Amtrak trip!

 

[Shanghai]

Glad you had a good trip and certainly enjoyed your photos.

I hope you have a good spring break and a pleasant trip back

to college.

 

[Jim G.]

Nice report and pictures. What kind of camera do you use.

 

[Thunder Road]

Nice report and pictures. What kind of camera do you use.

A Nikon Coolpix S6200. Just got it for Christmas.

I'm sure if you have even an ounce of photography knowledge (I do not) you could get even nicer looking photos out of it.

 

[Steel City Don]

nice pics...but no PGH pics

 

[Thunder Road]

nice pics...but no PGH pics

Sorry, but I was almost asleep.

Say, I see from your sign you're involved with Skywarn? I'm a Meteorology major and Skywarn spotter.

 

[PaulM]

From the picture the bi-levels look like those used on many Chicago Metra lines. I suspect they are what are referred to as gallery cars.

I'm not a fan of running in off peak times with so few coaches that they are crowded like you observed on the CL.

 

[amamba]

The wireless rarely works these days on the regionals and acelas. They are just at capacity so that they go soooo slooooooowwwwwwww. I just use my phone.

 

[Thunder Road]

The wireless rarely works these days on the regionals and acelas. They are just at capacity so that they go soooo slooooooowwwwwwww. I just use my phone.

Yeah I have a mobile hotspot that costs an arm and a leg (so I turn it on/off for a day or two at a time) that worked pretty well all the way from CHI to CLE when I turned it off for the night.