neroden
Engineer
Went down from Syracuse to NYC on Oct. 7th on Empire Service #280; came back on Oct 8th on LSL #49, both ways in coach. (I had something I had to do in NY.)
First time taking a scanner; very interesting listening to the chatter.
#280 was delayed by nearly two hours west of Rochester (I never found out exactly why), so we departed two hours late.
The Empire Service crews are still only opening one car at a time, forcing unnecessary walks down the platform for the disabled. There were only about 15 people boarding per station, though, so the delays weren't that large. I'd say this train (6 coaches, one cafe/business class) was about 1/3 full, but the conductors were packing people in very unevenly. So the car I was in was full, the one behind me was half full, and the one in front was nearly empty -- although it looked like it had been specially devoted to screaming babies and their mothers, which was probably a good idea!
After Syracuse, CSX pretty much cleared the road for us, so we gained some time. There were random speed restrictions, though.
Coming into Schenectady, we had to transfer passengers to the northbound Adirondack, but apparently a switch was out of service south of the station; so the Adirondack pulled in to one side of platform, we pulled into the other
side, and then they pulled out, and then we pulled out *backward*, before going through the side the Adirondack had been in. It confused most of the passengers, so it was nice having the scanner.
The cafe car had pretty good food, including prepackaged salad which was actually good.
The WiFi was nice.
There was strong evidence of construction on the double-tracking from Schenectady to Albany -- there's no second track, but the roadbed is cleared and laid out and ballasted.
Penn Station is still completely chaotic.
Boarding #49, the red caps were very helpful (my fiancee uses a cane). But the onboard employees were not communicating well with them. We were walked down all the way to one end, only to be told by that car attendant that we should go two cars back. We later found out we were supposed to have gone *one* car back... but that car was locked shut with no attendant at the time, so it's understandable that the Redcap didn't put us in there. Amtrak's procedures for loading cars by destination are not working at Penn. Anyway, I refused to move after we'd been seated (we both had aching legs from walking around New York), and the attendant said that that was fine.
#49 was much more full than #280, certainly well over half full departing Penn Station, though I didn't walk the whole train. (And it fills up more as it goes west.)
When the train left, it was announced over the PA that the train would terminate at Toledo and passengers would be bused from there onward to Chicago. There were a fair number of distressed and confused passengers, but the attendant said "It's better than arriving 11 hours late like we did last week".
We had a nice dinner in the dining car. The new menu is a joke; it's missing descriptions of 3 out of the 5 available choices. There's nothing wrong with the food, but an actual menu would save the waiters a lot of work.
There's no dairy-free desserts (so my fiancee couldn't have dessert) and there's no fruit or nut desserts, it's all fatty garbage. I used to get dessert with every meal on Amtrak; we will now never get dessert on Amtrak again until the menu changes. The changes to the dessert menu are penny wise pound foolish, as they've just reduced the number of people who will be paying for dessert.
As far as I can tell, the dining car menu changes fall into the category of stupid things thought up by idiots who belong in asylums. Whoever's responsible for them is a fool who should be sacked without severance pay; the main effects are slower service and people buying less, which can't be good for the economics of the dining cars.
The cafe car on #49 was missing a bunch of stuff on the menu (in contrast to the cafe car on #280, which was fully stocked). And this was at the beginning of the trip, too. This has to be fixed. The menu should reflect what's stocked. Is there nobody actually in charge of food services on long-distance trains? Whoever's supposedly in charge is clearly not doing their job and should be sacked without severance pay. (Wait, I said that already, didn't I?)
At Albany, the process of attaching #449 was pretty slow. First we waited for #48/#448 to come through and do its thing (it was in the next platform). Then, apparently, the join has to be done at a very, very slow speed. After that, when we were just about ready to go, we were delayed by late notice of a new set of bulletins from CSX. Either the engineer or the conductor ran up into the office at Albany to get them (I wasn't sure who was who at the time).
There was lots of evidence of the Albany platform work; the platform extensions are clearly under construction, and it looks like the final platforms will be long enough to platform the *entire* LSL at once. The fourth platform track is also clearly under construction; at the moment, there's a fence at the platform edge, and the trackbed is cleared to dirt & mud.
I found myself wishing that #49 had WiFi like #280 does. Amtrak should install WiFi on every train, even if it's only turned on in the areas where the train follows a "corridor" route. (This restriction would answer any complaints about the difficulty of providing WiFi across the desert, or indeed between Erie and Buffalo.) There's a fundamental inconsistency of service when some of the trains on the Buffalo-NYC corridor have WiFi and others don't.
Interestingly, there was no checked baggage on or off at Utica and none off at Syracuse. (I think the checked baggage flow is mostly to Chicago, and mostly from NY / Syracuse / Rochester / Buffalo). There appeared, from the chatter, to be very little checked baggage in the Boston end of the train at all.
We were delayed by a defective grade crossing west of Schenectady which the conductor had to protect -- and after that it was clear running. We arrived about 40 minutes late in Syracuse, which isn't bad at all.
----
In the past, I've gone down to NYC by plane and I've gone down by bus. In each case I arrived feeling sick and was unable to do anything the day of arrival.
By contrast, on the train, even though the train trip was significantly longer -- and I had to drive for 2 hours to get to the train station -- I was functional when I arrived. Also, although my feet and legs were hurting terribly when I got on the train to go back... they were better by the time I got to Syracuse, and so I had no trouble driving home. This is *not* the experience I have had when getting on a plane or bus with sore legs! The train is simply more comfortable and this makes it possible for me to be more functional.
First time taking a scanner; very interesting listening to the chatter.
#280 was delayed by nearly two hours west of Rochester (I never found out exactly why), so we departed two hours late.
The Empire Service crews are still only opening one car at a time, forcing unnecessary walks down the platform for the disabled. There were only about 15 people boarding per station, though, so the delays weren't that large. I'd say this train (6 coaches, one cafe/business class) was about 1/3 full, but the conductors were packing people in very unevenly. So the car I was in was full, the one behind me was half full, and the one in front was nearly empty -- although it looked like it had been specially devoted to screaming babies and their mothers, which was probably a good idea!
After Syracuse, CSX pretty much cleared the road for us, so we gained some time. There were random speed restrictions, though.
Coming into Schenectady, we had to transfer passengers to the northbound Adirondack, but apparently a switch was out of service south of the station; so the Adirondack pulled in to one side of platform, we pulled into the other
side, and then they pulled out, and then we pulled out *backward*, before going through the side the Adirondack had been in. It confused most of the passengers, so it was nice having the scanner.
The cafe car had pretty good food, including prepackaged salad which was actually good.
The WiFi was nice.
There was strong evidence of construction on the double-tracking from Schenectady to Albany -- there's no second track, but the roadbed is cleared and laid out and ballasted.
Penn Station is still completely chaotic.
Boarding #49, the red caps were very helpful (my fiancee uses a cane). But the onboard employees were not communicating well with them. We were walked down all the way to one end, only to be told by that car attendant that we should go two cars back. We later found out we were supposed to have gone *one* car back... but that car was locked shut with no attendant at the time, so it's understandable that the Redcap didn't put us in there. Amtrak's procedures for loading cars by destination are not working at Penn. Anyway, I refused to move after we'd been seated (we both had aching legs from walking around New York), and the attendant said that that was fine.
#49 was much more full than #280, certainly well over half full departing Penn Station, though I didn't walk the whole train. (And it fills up more as it goes west.)
When the train left, it was announced over the PA that the train would terminate at Toledo and passengers would be bused from there onward to Chicago. There were a fair number of distressed and confused passengers, but the attendant said "It's better than arriving 11 hours late like we did last week".
We had a nice dinner in the dining car. The new menu is a joke; it's missing descriptions of 3 out of the 5 available choices. There's nothing wrong with the food, but an actual menu would save the waiters a lot of work.
There's no dairy-free desserts (so my fiancee couldn't have dessert) and there's no fruit or nut desserts, it's all fatty garbage. I used to get dessert with every meal on Amtrak; we will now never get dessert on Amtrak again until the menu changes. The changes to the dessert menu are penny wise pound foolish, as they've just reduced the number of people who will be paying for dessert.
As far as I can tell, the dining car menu changes fall into the category of stupid things thought up by idiots who belong in asylums. Whoever's responsible for them is a fool who should be sacked without severance pay; the main effects are slower service and people buying less, which can't be good for the economics of the dining cars.
The cafe car on #49 was missing a bunch of stuff on the menu (in contrast to the cafe car on #280, which was fully stocked). And this was at the beginning of the trip, too. This has to be fixed. The menu should reflect what's stocked. Is there nobody actually in charge of food services on long-distance trains? Whoever's supposedly in charge is clearly not doing their job and should be sacked without severance pay. (Wait, I said that already, didn't I?)
At Albany, the process of attaching #449 was pretty slow. First we waited for #48/#448 to come through and do its thing (it was in the next platform). Then, apparently, the join has to be done at a very, very slow speed. After that, when we were just about ready to go, we were delayed by late notice of a new set of bulletins from CSX. Either the engineer or the conductor ran up into the office at Albany to get them (I wasn't sure who was who at the time).
There was lots of evidence of the Albany platform work; the platform extensions are clearly under construction, and it looks like the final platforms will be long enough to platform the *entire* LSL at once. The fourth platform track is also clearly under construction; at the moment, there's a fence at the platform edge, and the trackbed is cleared to dirt & mud.
I found myself wishing that #49 had WiFi like #280 does. Amtrak should install WiFi on every train, even if it's only turned on in the areas where the train follows a "corridor" route. (This restriction would answer any complaints about the difficulty of providing WiFi across the desert, or indeed between Erie and Buffalo.) There's a fundamental inconsistency of service when some of the trains on the Buffalo-NYC corridor have WiFi and others don't.
Interestingly, there was no checked baggage on or off at Utica and none off at Syracuse. (I think the checked baggage flow is mostly to Chicago, and mostly from NY / Syracuse / Rochester / Buffalo). There appeared, from the chatter, to be very little checked baggage in the Boston end of the train at all.
We were delayed by a defective grade crossing west of Schenectady which the conductor had to protect -- and after that it was clear running. We arrived about 40 minutes late in Syracuse, which isn't bad at all.
----
In the past, I've gone down to NYC by plane and I've gone down by bus. In each case I arrived feeling sick and was unable to do anything the day of arrival.
By contrast, on the train, even though the train trip was significantly longer -- and I had to drive for 2 hours to get to the train station -- I was functional when I arrived. Also, although my feet and legs were hurting terribly when I got on the train to go back... they were better by the time I got to Syracuse, and so I had no trouble driving home. This is *not* the experience I have had when getting on a plane or bus with sore legs! The train is simply more comfortable and this makes it possible for me to be more functional.
