RailFanLNK
Conductor
Well we started out our trip home with lunch at Lou Mitchells. Our group consisted of one new friend, Alan B. from NYC. Brenda and I had been with Alan earlier that morning and he was going to be riding some trains so he just hung out with us. All of us enjoyed his banter, knowledge of rail travel and his humor. Obviously with the #5 beginning in CHI, there was no wait for our train. I wanted to get a pic of the arrival boards because not one LD train was going to be late that day. Mr. Fss had posted a pic of that a couple of months ago if I remember correctly. I thought maybe we had gotten in the wrong line for the CZ #5, it looked like a large group going to Amishlapalooza concert or something! :lol: Once again we shared space with the Amish who in my own opinion are a very quiet group on the train who mind there own business. Beats having brats! The interesting thing about our trip back was just a plain Nebraska thing. At about 3pm people's cell phones started ringing. Mine did, Brenda's did, and so did Mary's. So did other passengers. All of our cells were on vibrate but others weren't. I went to a lower level in coach and listened to the message. Our Atheletic Director in Nebraska had been let go. Thats big news to us Husker fans who have no pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey or no other instate colleges or universities that split our alligience to football. You could tell all the Nebraska people on the rest of this trip. Constant IM'ing, short conversations by cell and what not. The Asst. Conductor came around and the Conductor and Asst. Conductor were from Omaha. I also think the engineer was as well. When he asked our friend Mary where she was from, he ended up being from the same small Nebraska hamlet. The AC continously on the trip would ask us if we had "heard anything more on the firing of the AD". I heard him once radio to the engineer about it. So that was kinda fun. On this trip on the #5, we had a damn good crew, maybe one of the best. The AC was Larry Rudolf, he was very much seen on this train, the LA was Ben, originally from Washington DC, he could have been a lookalike of Truman Capote, but he runs the lounge car effiecently and made it fun for us. The Coach Attendent was Dan Smith, another excellent addition to Amtrak. These three employees really hustled, worked and made our trip pleasent. There was a supervisor on board as well in the Dining Car. We got good service in the Dining Car but never get the green beans, there...well...terrible! The supe made things "loose" believe it or not and was very attentive to our needs. I was given a coffee cup with a hole in the bottom of it and it was leaking on the table, she rushed up, got me another cup, and replaced part of the tablecloth with a new one. I had the "special", the Country Fried Steak and it was good. I had the green beans which were really bad, and the Chocoalate Bundt Cake for dessert which was excellent. Sitting beside us was the group of gals from Des Moines on their way back after a "girls weekend out" in Chicago. They sure seemed to be having fun and I always get envious of families who do this. My family NEVER did that and my brothers were either killed early in my life or was chronic alcoholics. So its neat to see families get away and have some fun together and not want to kill each other in the process! 
Our tablemates were Nancy and Rob from NC. They were going to Ft. Collins to visit there family. They take Amtrak as much as possible because of the "relaxing enviorment". They had taken the Silver Service (I think) and then transferred to the LSL in NYP and then the CZ. They were in there early 50's and also talked about how much a pain it is to fly anymore. We had a nice time in the Dining Car, tried to keep up on the breaking news with our football program (as quietly as possible), visited with folks and all round had another really good trip. We arrived about 45 minutes late into LNK, we were running 20 minutes behind until OMA and then wallah!!!!!! We had to un-hook one Private Rail Car of UP and it took another 25 minutes. So all in all, the UP cars costed us about 90 minutes RT but there are worse delays we could've encounted.
Our tablemates were Nancy and Rob from NC. They were going to Ft. Collins to visit there family. They take Amtrak as much as possible because of the "relaxing enviorment". They had taken the Silver Service (I think) and then transferred to the LSL in NYP and then the CZ. They were in there early 50's and also talked about how much a pain it is to fly anymore. We had a nice time in the Dining Car, tried to keep up on the breaking news with our football program (as quietly as possible), visited with folks and all round had another really good trip. We arrived about 45 minutes late into LNK, we were running 20 minutes behind until OMA and then wallah!!!!!! We had to un-hook one Private Rail Car of UP and it took another 25 minutes. So all in all, the UP cars costed us about 90 minutes RT but there are worse delays we could've encounted.
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