Texas Eagle trip off to a sloppy start

[micmac99]

Hello all: I am on the trip I asked questions about in earlier posts.

Left Tucson for San Antonio early Monday AM. Had a ticket for a lower reserved seat. Was told by attendant on train's arrival and boarding in Tucson that the thru car was sold out and was placed in a window seat in a Sunset Limited car. Hour's delay coming into El Paso. Breakfast was traditional dining car food and setup, yuk! Powdered eggs, soupy grits and cold biscuit at 6am. All other meals from lower level lounge cafe. Cars were older Superliners, definitely showing their age, and had no outlets at the seats. Train was full with pretty much all seats occupied.

Later learned that the Texas Eagle car was pretty much filled up coming out of Los Angeles. Notice I referred to "car" in the singular. They should have had at least 2 or 3 coach cars for TE passengers.

San Antonio: arrived about 12:30am local time, a little over 2 hrs late: tried to scramble to get a hotel room but there is a major conference in town this week and almost all hotel rooms sold out. As a result, had to stay in that cramped San Antonio terminal all night long until the main TE arrived and boarded around 7am. Not fun whatsoever, but about 10-15 others were there with me. Kind of hard to sleep in waiting room seats with Carson Daly and Conan O'Brien blaring from the widescreen TV in the lobby. I got my lower reserved seat all of two hours and three stops until de-training in Taylor, TX (one stop north of Austin).

The severity of my letter of complaint will depend on the return trip to Tucson next week. I will keep you posted.

 

[daveyb99]

Later learned that the Texas Eagle car was pretty much filled up coming out of Los Angeles.

I love that AMTRAK is getting riders.

I hate that people get shorted on their trips.

Q:

Were there any through sleepers available?

 

[Rafi]

micmac,

I realize the water's under the bridge, but were you ticketed on train 422?? If so, you had every right to grab a seat in the Texas Eagle car upon arrival in San Antonio, or you could have made a case that Amtrak needed to upgrade you to a sleeper on 422 for the night, or else find a hotel. Again, being booked on 422 would be key here.

The Sunset only runs with 1 thru coach and 1 thru sleeper for the Eagle, by the way, so that's not out of the ordinary. As for the overbooking, Lord knows what happened there.

Rafi

 

[RobertF]

Later learned that the Texas Eagle car was pretty much filled up coming out of Los Angeles.

I love that AMTRAK is getting riders.

I hate that people get shorted on their trips.

Q:

Were there any through sleepers available?

I wonder how much of this is ridership and how much is spillover from the SWC issues? Would they reroute passengers on the SWC to LA over to the TE?

 

[Trogdor]

Later learned that the Texas Eagle car was pretty much filled up coming out of Los Angeles. Notice I referred to "car" in the singular. They should have had at least 2 or 3 coach cars for TE passengers.

Has Amtrak ever (at least, in recent times) had more than one coach and one sleeper connecting between the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited?

 

[AlanB]

Powdered eggs, soupy grits and cold biscuit at 6am.

Don't think that I've ever seen powdered eggs on Amtrak in the past 10 years and I'm pretty sure that they aren't using them now. Either the eggs are pre-cooked and reheated onboard, or in the case of omlettes they are freshly cooked on board. In fact the chef's almost demmanded that from Amtrak with the advent of SDS, and Amtrak relented and allowed them to start cooking omlette's once again on the grill.

 

[RTOlson]

I wouldn't know for sure unless I saw the galley myself, but I would hazard to guess that the eggs come prescrambled in bags. I think it costs a little more than the eggs coming in the shells, but you don't have to deal with shelling so many eggs while en route. That's also a possible reason why the egg options are either scrambled or omlettes.

I had the scrambled eggs during my daytrip on Starlight. They were a little ... spongy (like eggs sometimes do), but they still seemed like eggs. I forgot the sausage, which was the whole dang reason for my having breakfast in the diner in the first place.

BTW, I'm sorry you had to stand for a long-distance trip. I can understand it being frustrating to wait in the station for the trip from San Antonio to Austin. It seems like such a short leg, I don't know if it would be worthwhile to wait around so long.

 

[had8ley]

Later learned that the Texas Eagle car was pretty much filled up coming out of Los Angeles. Notice I referred to "car" in the singular. They should have had at least 2 or 3 coach cars for TE passengers.

Has Amtrak ever (at least, in recent times) had more than one coach and one sleeper connecting between the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited?

No, I haven't. Does anyone know where the "protect" sleeper for #22 comes from when the #421 car goes through to LAX. When we rode recently there was only one sleeper thus creating a void in the consist for the next day's #22. I don't ever remember the westbound Sunset setting out an extra sleeper. Maybe #422 fills that void but then you're back to the one sleeper scenario.

 

[micmac99]

micmac,
I realize the water's under the bridge, but were you ticketed on train 422?? If so, you had every right to grab a seat in the Texas Eagle car upon arrival in San Antonio, or you could have made a case that Amtrak needed to upgrade you to a sleeper on 422 for the night, or else find a hotel. Again, being booked on 422 would be key here.

The Sunset only runs with 1 thru coach and 1 thru sleeper for the Eagle, by the way, so that's not out of the ordinary. As for the overbooking, Lord knows what happened there.

Rafi

I was/am indeed ticketed for 422. I talked to the conductor after we left El Paso asking if there was any possible way to get a seat on that car, and he said no, since it was running "pretty packed", to use his exact words. I also talked to the station agent in San Antonio, and his (measured and polite) response was to tell me to call Amtrak cust. service and file a complaint.

I wasn't the only one blindsided by this. About 10-15 other passengers were affected, making the small waiting area in San Antonio pretty crowded over night, and a few of these were small children. My seatmate who came on in El Paso did not know that she had to change trains in SAS, and she was going to St. Louis. This was her very first Amtrak ride and when she purchased her ticket, apparently she was (correctly IMO) told she would go straight through to St. Louis with no stopovers or change of trains.

When I explained to her what would happen based on the information I had, she got very concerned, called her boyfriend back in El Paso, who apparently got concerned. She had the on-board attendant speak directly to him on the cell phone, and the attendant basically said the one car going through to Chicago was sold out because of the summer travel season. This attendant BTW was kept very busy the whole way from Tucson and apparently before, scrambling trying to find any open seats for TE passengers on the SL cars.

I didn't think to ask if I could be put up in a local hotel at Amtrak expense or upgraded to a sleeper, and I'm pretty sure all the sleepers were sold out anyway...would Amtrak generally give hotel vouchers in a case like this as the airlines (I think) do? If so I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time...I'd like to take the Coast Starlight to my hometown of the Bay Area within the next few months to see the relatives and wonder if that would be an issue there...

 

[Guest]

Just a reminder to always pack a bag of flexibility when you travel Amtrak. I'm not sure what store carries it but it sure comes in handy sometimes.

 

[had8ley]

If it were me I would have found a nice four or five star hotel and gambled by sending the bill to Amtrak. No is only half of a four letter word and I do have to admit that Amtrak Customer Relations can be very fair at times. If you call and get someone who sounds as if they're having a bad day then hang up and try again.

 

[micmac99]

BTW, I'm sorry you had to stand for a long-distance trip. I can understand it being frustrating to wait in the station for the trip from San Antonio to Austin. It seems like such a short leg, I don't know if it would be worthwhile to wait around so long.

Oh, I was seated the whole way. I upgraded on the Amtrak website to a lower level seat when I bought the ticket in March. It's just that there were no lower level seats on the thru car for me, or ANY seats on the thru car for that matter, when I boarded in Tucson. Apparently Amtrak likes to reserve the lower level for the disabled and people who have a hard time climbing stairs, which I was not aware of until an attendant and the conductor tried to kick me out of the lower level altogether before I showed them my ticket stub once we left San Antonio, and explained to them that I boarded in Tucson. They left me alone after that.

I thought for a minute about getting a quick rental car from Avis (assuming any were available) and just driving from SAS-Taylor, but that would have cost more, been a hassle to pick the car up, and would Amtrak have reimbursed me anyway?

 

[micmac99]

Powdered eggs, soupy grits and cold biscuit at 6am.

Don't think that I've ever seen powdered eggs on Amtrak in the past 10 years and I'm pretty sure that they aren't using them now. Either the eggs are pre-cooked and reheated onboard, or in the case of omlettes they are freshly cooked on board. In fact the chef's almost demmanded that from Amtrak with the advent of SDS, and Amtrak relented and allowed them to start cooking omlette's once again on the grill.

These eggs looked like the powdered variety to me - maybe I am mistaking the pre-cooked eggs for powdered because the consistency was crumbly as opposed to smooth. This was also just as the dining car opened for the morning, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it...I was expecting a little higher level of quality. The biscuit was similar to the very cheap and cardboard tasting ones they serve at my employer's rather poor quality lunchroom/cafeteria back in Phoenix. I've had ten times better grits, and thicker, at a bad Waffle House. Had I purchased a sleeper I would have been a little more annoyed.

 

[AlanB]

BTW, I'm sorry you had to stand for a long-distance trip. I can understand it being frustrating to wait in the station for the trip from San Antonio to Austin. It seems like such a short leg, I don't know if it would be worthwhile to wait around so long.

Oh, I was seated the whole way. I upgraded on the Amtrak website to a lower level seat when I bought the ticket in March. It's just that there were no lower level seats on the thru car for me, or ANY seats on the thru car for that matter, when I boarded in Tucson. Apparently Amtrak likes to reserve the lower level for the disabled and people who have a hard time climbing stairs, which I was not aware of until an attendant and the conductor tried to kick me out of the lower level altogether before I showed them my ticket stub once we left San Antonio, and explained to them that I boarded in Tucson. They left me alone after that.

I thought for a minute about getting a quick rental car from Avis (assuming any were available) and just driving from SAS-Taylor, but that would have cost more, been a hassle to pick the car up, and would Amtrak have reimbursed me anyway?

I don't know if you could have gotten Amtrak to give you a car, or a hotel for that matter, under those circumstances. What is clear however is that Amtrak screwed up by overbooking that through car and you are entitled to some compensation for that screwup. Get the right CS and you might actually get all your money back, get the wrong one and it might be more like half back. But again you should get something back.

Now that said, let me warn you that getting something back comes in the form of a voucher good for a future trip. They won't give you a direct refund to your credit card or cash. And that voucher must be used within one year's time or it will become useless paper.

 

[wayman]

Powdered eggs, soupy grits and cold biscuit at 6am.

Don't think that I've ever seen powdered eggs on Amtrak in the past 10 years and I'm pretty sure that they aren't using them now. Either the eggs are pre-cooked and reheated onboard, or in the case of omlettes they are freshly cooked on board. In fact the chef's almost demmanded that from Amtrak with the advent of SDS, and Amtrak relented and allowed them to start cooking omlette's once again on the grill.

The eggs on the EB were fresh, because they were cooked to order on the last day! They had run out of a couple of the regular breakfast menu items, and decided to make the menu more exciting as best they could with what they had on hand.