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Thanks to everyone’s suggestions our trip is going well. We arrived this afternoon into Washington. This will be a semi-live travel log with each part going up as soon as we’re off that section.
After a week of finals and typical high school drama, my junior year in high school concluded. And knowing what awaited a few days later was my sole driving force to finish the year. We are currently in our first destination of Washington D.C, having arrived on the Capitol this afternoon.
After having to wake up at 6:30am and get to the station about 8, the train finally pulled in about 8:30. We left a few minutes late due to signal issues. The leg from El Paso to Alpine went by fast with little delays, the only delay being our signal dropping ahead of us at Marfa causing us to screech to a stop. (My little cousin literally went flying down the hallway) We caught the trail end of breakfast in the Dining Car and had a newly refurbished Superliner 1 Diner with fake wood paneling and Blue Seats. Breakfast and lunch were both pretty good and most of West Texas went by in a blur. Alpine was reached a few minutes ahead of schedule so we were allowed off to get some air since the next long stop wouldn’t be till Del Rio, 4 hours eastward. We quickly discovered how hot it was outside and went out only long enough to stretch. After leaving Alpine on schedule we met the westbound Sunset #1/421 which was running around an hour late. Sanderson came and went on-time, and Del Rio was reached 20 minutes early. 100 degrees plus humidity is not fun, so we just stuck our head out of the door in Del Rio. We got to San Antonio early, so we decided to explore San Antonio a bit while the station work was done. Seeing the Alamo and Riverwalk open that late surprised us all and we had another dinner at Rita’s on the Riverwalk. We returned to the station with just enough time before they split us from the Sunset. We were slammed around a few times as we were cut into the Eagle but all was done after 20 minutes. Our late night exploration of San Antonio caused us to miss the departure from San Antonio, finally waking as the Lounge car attendant came on the intercom for the 3rd time to explain what he had in stock. Normally I’m very tolerant of the PA system on the train but this guy in the Lounge car comes on at least every hour to explain what he has in stock, and it’s driving us insane! Most of central Texas went by quickly and we kept our schedule more or less all the way to Texarkana. My little cousin and I planned to stay up to Little Rock, but that went out the window as we both fell asleep a little after Malvern. Saturday morning we awoke just 10 minutes from our stop in St. Louis. The new Gateway station resembles more of an airport on the inside, than a train station. After leaving St. Louis on-time we had a first freight delay of the entire trip as followed a slow moving Double-stack all the way to Alton. After Alton we made pretty good time, only slowing the meet southbound Lincoln Service train #301 south of Springfield. We ended up arriving Chicago right on -time and did a side trip to the Sears Tower down the street.
We left Chicago onboard #30 which was a sold out train leaving Chicago. We had no freight delays across the water level route Toledo where my cousin and I retired for the night. We awoke climbing Sand Patch grade between Connellsville and Cumberland. Breakfast was slow, and we ended up fetching juice from our own sleeping car since the attendant seemed to have forgotten about us. My overall opinion of the Diner-Lounge cars was that they seem to work well for dining but are inadequate for Lounge service. Both on the Eagle and Capitol they were used strictly for dining and Lounges were open separately. The food was rather good on the Eagle but on the Capitol is was hardly warm and cooked. Plus with only one attendant working the car, meal times go very slow. We ended up arriving Washington D.C. right on-time this afternoon. Our next segment will be from Washington D.C. to New York on the 18th on Regional 174.
RRRICH Member # 1418
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Good report, Sunset! Looking forward to the next section of it! I'm happy that the Sunset Ltd is now running closer to schedule than it has been.....
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