Hi gang,
I like reading the trip reports y’all post here, so I thought I’d write one of my own, about my Christmas/New Year’s travels. We went from New York to Little Rock, then to Chicago for a week, then back to New York. I’ll embed a few pictures, but you can see many more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54011584@N00/...57603643795179/
We started off in NYP, waiting for the LSL. …And waiting. There was a frozen switch at Sunnyside slowing everything down — turns out that the evening rush hour on the Friday before Christmas is rather a busy time at Penn, and a problem like that messes up A LOT of trains. We weren’t too fussed, as we had comfy seats in Club Acela. (No celebrity sightings this time — last year we saw John Waters.) The only unpleasant part was when we had to go back into the VERY crowded station to line up for the train. NYP is not set up well for boarding, imho. I wish they’d board sleepers from the lounge, the way they do in CHI. We finally got on our way about an hour late and it had been raining and snowing earlier, so it was pretty dark as we settled into our roommette, uncorked our bottle of wine, and took pictures of the Hudson anyway:
Even though it was too dark for many pictures, there was enough snow along the rails reflecting light from our train and various buildings that we enjoyed the view that night anyway. That night and the next day, we enjoyed looking at various old train cars and engines on display at various stations:
Don’t know if they always do those lights, or if it was for Christmas.
I wish I could remember whether our attendant’s name was Mike or Matt, because he was FABULOUS. We’ve ridden in roommette’s before, but his opening primer was still helpful, and full of good advice about how to be sure the toilet is working before you stink up your room, how to keep it clean, etc. When engine trouble (dum-da-dum-DUM...) and who-knows-what-else kept delaying and delaying our dinner reservation, until we were starving and not too happy about waiting until 10, I asked if we could eat in our room, which I’ve never done before. Mike/Matt (I’m leaning towards “Mike”) set us up with a table cloth and everything. He was a better waiter than most of the waiters! When he brought the menus, we asked him what he recommended, and he was honest, quick, and helpful. (“Best thing is the salmon, but it’s sold out, so I’d go with the chicken.” “What about the beef ribs?” “Good, but some people think they’re fatty.” … “That comes with green beans or corn, you don’t want the corn, get the beans.”) We had the chicken and the beef ribs, which were as he’d indicated. I thought that the ribs were good even though they were fatty, but I guess it might bother someone who wanted a bigger portion of meat (or wanted to pretend ribs are health food). We were thrilled to get ice cream for dessert — I thought the 4oz. portion size was good.
The ice cream was frozen rock-solid, and unfortunately, so was our roommette. Even with the heat all the way up, we were cold. When it was bedtime, we mentioned it to Mike, who brought us extra blankets — yay! He said the other rooms seemed okay, but I kind of doubt that since we were in the middle of the car and I could see that the vestibule door was held open with a duct tape strap (I assume it had stopped working properly) and that there was snow in the vestibule. In the night, though, I woke up warm and no longer in need of the extra blanket. In the morning, Mike said he’d cranked up the blower. (Also, though, the door seemed to be fixed.)
What with getting a late start, we were running a bit behind schedule. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to get to CHI close to on time, because I was hoping to hit the German Christmas fair at Daley Plaza in between our arrival on the LSL and our departure for LRK on the TE, about 4 hours. I figured our minimum necessary window to grab a bratwurst and some gluwein without needing to panic about missing the TE was 2 hours. The Christkindlmarkt is the only thing I miss about winter in Chicago, and the chance to stop by on our layover was something I’d been bragging to friends about as a benefit of downtown-to-downtown travel, since we’d never have been able to do that on a 4-hour layover at O’Hare.
Unfortunately, when I woke up in the night at Erie, we were two hours behind. I spent a while trying to convince myself we were in Cleveland anyway (“That sign says “Erie Brewing Company” because Cleveland is on Lake Erie”). Somehow, though, we were on time when I got up in the morning! The front page of the newspaper Mike brought showed folks waiting in lines at O’Hare that made Penn look like Mayberry. Had a nice time teasing the chef in the open kitchen about winning the lottery — I’d seen him and Mike and a couple other crew members jumping around happily at Albany. (They did win, but not that much money.) Spirits rise despite regrettable breakfast fare.
As it turned out, we just barely made my two-hour window. We lost almost all the time right outside of CHI, due to a freight that had been smashed all over the rails. It had been carrying (among other things) UPS packages, which were scattered all over the place. There were UPS trucks pulled alongside, picking up the ones that weren’t torn open. We actually got past the scene very quickly (sorry no pics), but traffic was snarled up, I assume because a number of tracks were out of commission.
We jumped off the train at CHI, gave Mike double our usual tip, beat the rush to the Metropolitan Lounge, where we dumped our carry-ons before tearing out in search of a cab. And I got my brat.
More to come next time I take a break from other work….
I like reading the trip reports y’all post here, so I thought I’d write one of my own, about my Christmas/New Year’s travels. We went from New York to Little Rock, then to Chicago for a week, then back to New York. I’ll embed a few pictures, but you can see many more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54011584@N00/...57603643795179/
We started off in NYP, waiting for the LSL. …And waiting. There was a frozen switch at Sunnyside slowing everything down — turns out that the evening rush hour on the Friday before Christmas is rather a busy time at Penn, and a problem like that messes up A LOT of trains. We weren’t too fussed, as we had comfy seats in Club Acela. (No celebrity sightings this time — last year we saw John Waters.) The only unpleasant part was when we had to go back into the VERY crowded station to line up for the train. NYP is not set up well for boarding, imho. I wish they’d board sleepers from the lounge, the way they do in CHI. We finally got on our way about an hour late and it had been raining and snowing earlier, so it was pretty dark as we settled into our roommette, uncorked our bottle of wine, and took pictures of the Hudson anyway:
Even though it was too dark for many pictures, there was enough snow along the rails reflecting light from our train and various buildings that we enjoyed the view that night anyway. That night and the next day, we enjoyed looking at various old train cars and engines on display at various stations:
Don’t know if they always do those lights, or if it was for Christmas.
I wish I could remember whether our attendant’s name was Mike or Matt, because he was FABULOUS. We’ve ridden in roommette’s before, but his opening primer was still helpful, and full of good advice about how to be sure the toilet is working before you stink up your room, how to keep it clean, etc. When engine trouble (dum-da-dum-DUM...) and who-knows-what-else kept delaying and delaying our dinner reservation, until we were starving and not too happy about waiting until 10, I asked if we could eat in our room, which I’ve never done before. Mike/Matt (I’m leaning towards “Mike”) set us up with a table cloth and everything. He was a better waiter than most of the waiters! When he brought the menus, we asked him what he recommended, and he was honest, quick, and helpful. (“Best thing is the salmon, but it’s sold out, so I’d go with the chicken.” “What about the beef ribs?” “Good, but some people think they’re fatty.” … “That comes with green beans or corn, you don’t want the corn, get the beans.”) We had the chicken and the beef ribs, which were as he’d indicated. I thought that the ribs were good even though they were fatty, but I guess it might bother someone who wanted a bigger portion of meat (or wanted to pretend ribs are health food). We were thrilled to get ice cream for dessert — I thought the 4oz. portion size was good.
The ice cream was frozen rock-solid, and unfortunately, so was our roommette. Even with the heat all the way up, we were cold. When it was bedtime, we mentioned it to Mike, who brought us extra blankets — yay! He said the other rooms seemed okay, but I kind of doubt that since we were in the middle of the car and I could see that the vestibule door was held open with a duct tape strap (I assume it had stopped working properly) and that there was snow in the vestibule. In the night, though, I woke up warm and no longer in need of the extra blanket. In the morning, Mike said he’d cranked up the blower. (Also, though, the door seemed to be fixed.)
What with getting a late start, we were running a bit behind schedule. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to get to CHI close to on time, because I was hoping to hit the German Christmas fair at Daley Plaza in between our arrival on the LSL and our departure for LRK on the TE, about 4 hours. I figured our minimum necessary window to grab a bratwurst and some gluwein without needing to panic about missing the TE was 2 hours. The Christkindlmarkt is the only thing I miss about winter in Chicago, and the chance to stop by on our layover was something I’d been bragging to friends about as a benefit of downtown-to-downtown travel, since we’d never have been able to do that on a 4-hour layover at O’Hare.
Unfortunately, when I woke up in the night at Erie, we were two hours behind. I spent a while trying to convince myself we were in Cleveland anyway (“That sign says “Erie Brewing Company” because Cleveland is on Lake Erie”). Somehow, though, we were on time when I got up in the morning! The front page of the newspaper Mike brought showed folks waiting in lines at O’Hare that made Penn look like Mayberry. Had a nice time teasing the chef in the open kitchen about winning the lottery — I’d seen him and Mike and a couple other crew members jumping around happily at Albany. (They did win, but not that much money.) Spirits rise despite regrettable breakfast fare.
As it turned out, we just barely made my two-hour window. We lost almost all the time right outside of CHI, due to a freight that had been smashed all over the rails. It had been carrying (among other things) UPS packages, which were scattered all over the place. There were UPS trucks pulled alongside, picking up the ones that weren’t torn open. We actually got past the scene very quickly (sorry no pics), but traffic was snarled up, I assume because a number of tracks were out of commission.
We jumped off the train at CHI, gave Mike double our usual tip, beat the rush to the Metropolitan Lounge, where we dumped our carry-ons before tearing out in search of a cab. And I got my brat.
More to come next time I take a break from other work….
