Southwest Chief-Sunset Ltd.-Texas Eagle

[spot1181]

We are thinking about taking a train only trip Chicago to Los Angelas on the Southwest Chief with a return on the Sunset and Texas Eagle. Any problems with connections?

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

Well on a side note, a while back we had discussed the most number of Engines on a train. This #4 has a pretty hefty consist: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=56762

 

[Amfleet]

I doubt you should have much, if any, problems with your connection. The Southwest Cheif is scheduled to arrive into Los Angeles at 8:15am and the Texas Eagle is not scheduled to depart until 10:30pm. So unless the Southwest Cheif is 14 hours late (which is extremely rare) into Los Angeles I see no problems with you making the connection to the Texas Eagle.

Have a great trip.

 

[Amtrak Watcher]

If you are going east on the Sunset, then the Sunset stands a small chance (about one in twenty is my guess) of arriving into San Antonio (SAS) too late to move the CHI-bound cars to the Texas Eagle, which departs SAS at 08:00. If the Sunset is too late, then you will ride the bus to Ft. Worth where you will board the Texas Eagle on its way to CHI. The bus stops in Waco for a rider-selected fast food lunch. I've gone through this exercise twice out of 18 east-bound tripes on the Sunset over the past two years.

 

[ChrisJ]

I recently returned from traveling the Texas Eagle from Tucson to Chicago, with a bustitution from El Paso to San Antonio. I had been tracking this itinerary from Feb 16 up until my trip on April 3, and there were 5 missed connections prior to mine, out of 20 departures. 6 misses out of 21 tries is about 28 % missed. And the next one after mine also missed. If I was to do the trip again, I'd probably opt to book with an overnight in San Antonio. The 11 hour bus trip was NOT a fun trip - torrential rainstorm, screaming kids, etc.

 

[wcc]

I last rode the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle in 1995, they switched the cars in San Antonio in the middle of the night, and you hardly knew you were on a different train when you woke up in the morning.

So everything went as planned when I rode it.