Trip Report: October 8 - 28, 2000
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
ONBOARD AMTRAK
WITH TED AND SYLVIA BLISHAK
Texas to California on the Eagle
Sunday, October 22, 2000, Ft. Worth, Texas.
After spending two days in Hewitt, Texas with our son Mark, daughter-in-law Lonnie, and grandchildren Garrett, age five, and Kaelyn, age two-and-a-half, we have arranged a surprise Amtrak trip for our family. Mark leaves his car at the Temple station. Then we arrange a one-way car rental to Ft. Worth, where we drop the car and arrive at the Amtrak station to await Train #21, the southbound Texas Eagle.
We've made several calls to Amtrak to ascertain the train's arrival. It left Dallas at 2:16 PM, 41minutes late, and since Ft. Worth is only 31 miles down the line, we expect it to arrive soon. But, by 4 PM, we're still waiting. The official word is that "it ran into some signals outside of Dallas" and I had this sudden mental picture of the twisted girders of a signal tower draped over the cowl of the Eagle's Genesis locomotive. But my fears were
allayed when we spotted the train being backed into the Ft. Worth station, all in one piece.
I was holding a ticket for the kids in a Deluxe Room in the 2120 car, but our own room was in the 2130 car. Now that I knew about the unusual configuration of the Texas Eagle's consist, I realized that we would be six cars apart. But I found, at the last minute, on my laptop's access to the Amtrak computer, a Family Room for them in the 2130 car so they could be near us. When I presented the Deluxe Room ticket to the Ft. Worth station agent, she said that it she could not exchange it, as it was booked by a travel agent. (This is a dodge used throughout the travel industry. Staffers at hotels, on ships, and at airports save themselves lots of work by shifting responsibility for the passenger's welfare away from themselves and onto the passenger's travel agent, who is usually miles away. In this case, the travel agent was across the counter from the person passing the buck, so it didn't get very far!)
I would have to take it back to my office, she asserted, to exchange it. But I pointed out that I was two thousand miles from my office, and the train was leaving in a few minutes. The two other agents in Ft Worth were not able to help, as they did not understand the new Amtrak reservation system either. When I assured her that she really could do it, she called her help desk, conversed briefly, then hung up and told me that her help desk agreed with her, it couldn't be done. I asked her to call her help desk again and let me talk to them. After a very brief conversation the man at the help desk offered to talk the Ft. Worth agent through the steps on the computer, which took about one minute. When she said she must charge me a $30.00 change fee, I pointed out to her that the fine print on my ticket stated clearly that there was no penalty on this particular type of fare, and in fact, to make a fine point of it, the new ticket was $5.00 less than the old, and perhaps a refund might be in order. She agreed and gave me a five dollar bill and a new ticket.
Travel Tip: Station ticket office personnel might sometimes tell you that certain things cannot be done because you are presenting a ticket issued by a travel agent, and that therefore you will have to take the ticket back to your agent. Being assertive might help, but since they are holding most of the cards, you probably will just have to just follow their advice, then take it up with your travel agent when you get back home. I was able to get the problem corrected on the spot only because I was the agent.
Once the Eagle was situated on the station track, the excitement began. A crowd of waiting passengers surged forward to board, in spite of the pleas of the station agent to wait for passengers to disembark. Confusion reigned with passengers getting off, passengers getting on, baggage carts, trash carts, and smokers taking a break on the platform. We boarded our grandchildren and took them to the Family Room, where they instantly felt at home in the two facing seats by the window. Garrett pronounced it "a cool train." They thought they were just seeing us off, so their eyes lit up when the train began to move and the surprise was revealed.
All of the on board- personnel treated them royally, without any pre-arrangement by us. Our car attendant, Michael Halter, whom we'd never met before, brought in a round of soft drinks and a box of chocolate chip cookies. Garrett and Kaelyn were already making friends with passengers in adjacent rooms. The train chief came to our room and gave us first seating dinner reservations so we would be assured to have time to complete our meal before arriving at Temple . When our group of six arrived in the dining car, the steward moved an already seated party, and offered them a complimentary bottle of wine, so that our party could be seated across the aisle from each other. Our waiter offered to take photos and videos of our group so that we could all be in the pictures together. Our meals were served promptly so there was no need to rush to complete dinner before arriving in Temple at 7:00 PM. Everybody had a grand time and we said our good-byes on the station platform at Temple next to the big steam engine next to the platform. Little Garrett's parting question was, "When are you coming to see us again, Grandpa Ted?"
We waved from our sleeping car window as the Eagle pulled slowly out of town, then settled down into our room for the run to San Antonio, where we arrived on time at 11:05 PM due to substantial padding. The train was spotted intact on Track One of at the San Antonio Station and head end power maintained. We walked the platform in the sultry heat for a little exercise, then showered and bedded down awaiting the arrival of the Sunset Limited from Orlando. Reports were that it had left Houston on time.
Merging with the Sunset Limited
Monday, October 23, 2000 San Antonio, Texas.
I awoke at 3:05 AM as the Sunset rumbled onto the adjacent track on time. Here the material handling cars are pulled back off the Sunset to allow the last sleeper and coach of the Eagle to be coupled on we learned later to the rear. Then the box cars are returned to the end of the extended Sunset. About ten minutes of switching, right? Wrong. We were due to leave at 3:40 AM, but somehow the car shuffling took so long that we were not out of there until nearly 5:00 AM. Somehow we managed to remain awake the entire time while our sleeper was yanked, jerked, slammed, banged, and otherwise manhandled. Was this a shunting training session?
We wake to the IC announcements naming people waiting for seats in the dining car. We've overslept and missed the 6:30 AM opening. We're also not sure, since we were asleep while the two Eagle cars were attached to the Sunset, and the coupling sounds seemed to come from behind us, where we are in relation to the dining car. Fortunately, we come to a curve just then and look out the window to see an amazingly long train, including the dining car, in front of us.
We dress and head forward, and by the time we arrive there at 9:00 AM, there is about an hour's wait for a table. We find seats in the adjacent Lounge Car, and enjoy the wide open vistas of West Texas. There are miles and miles of wilderness with no sign of human intervention except for fences along the tracks. The desert changes from rolling hills covered with a surprising variety of green plants and bushes, to rows of crumbling cliffs, to eroded badlands with no vegetation, and then to flat, grassy savanna reminiscent of Africa. There is a docent in the Lounge Car with an interesting commentary who draws our attention to the Pecos River Gorge, which we pass over on a 320-foot-high bridge, and to a bison jump, where indigenous peoples have driven herds over a cliff for food-gathering purposes for millenniums. He says that excavations at the foot of the cliff by archeologists have uncovered pre-historic horses and camels!
In the diner at last, we learn that the Sunset menu's Tucson Morning Breakfast is a great way to start the day, with pancakes, bacon, sausage, and scrambled egg, with juice, tea, and a side of oatmeal. We recognize waiter Mike Apperson, who worked on the Coast Starlight until 1984 where we last saw him. He has just completed twenty years of onboard service with Amtrak.
"And what do you suppose they gave me? A free ticket on Amtrak to anywhere I wanted to go! So I took the Coast Starlight, which has become a much more upscale train than when I worked on it, and I had a chance to sit back and enjoy the beautiful scenery along its route for the first time. And that Pacific Parlour Car it has is really something".
At our service stop in El Paso we join many other passengers to walk the platform enjoying the cool dry air of the lowest point on the Continental Divide. Curious about the unusual architecture of the classic 1904 station building, with its square marble columns and high arched windows with views of the blue sky and snowy clouds, we take a look inside. The floor is a mosaic of the tiny octagonal tiles so popular a century ago.
The train leaves one-and-a-half hours behind schedule. We overhear one of the crew say that we are doing exceptionally well on this trip, as the train has frequently run anywhere from 6 to 14 hours behind during the last ten months, and has only arrived in Los Angeles on time once during that period.
Travel Tip: Never book same-day connections to the Coast Starlight from the Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited or vice versa, but add an overnight stay in the Los Angeles area. (We've planned a stopover for ourselves in LA on Tuesday, so we aren't worried about our impending late arrival.)
Thunderheads are gathering around the steep, barren mountains around El Paso and soon the crystal-clear air is obscured as we head into a cloudburst. But why worry? We have a good driver up in the engineer's seat, so we cocoon with a good book and a short nap before dinner.
At a flag-stop destination, Lordsburg, New Mexico, we have a lengthy stop. Two passengers have become ill and are taken away in ambulances. The conductor explains that "the two situations are not related', presumably so we won't worry that there was a fight, an accident, an epidemic, or a food poisoning. By the time we depart, it is 7:20 PM instead of the 5:31 PM listed in the timetable.
After our usual lengthy hike through four Coaches and one Lounge Car to reach the dining car, we enjoy another excellent meal with fast and friendly service. We ask about breakfast, as it is becoming apparent that we are not going to be arriving in LA at 6:15 AM tomorrow. It is explained that if we are just a little late, there will be a continental breakfast. If we are quite late, there will be a full breakfast. If we are very late, there will be a full breakfast and a lunch. We are assured that there will be an announcement made before we retire. It is now 9:00 PM. We are in a siding miles away from our next stop at Benson, where we were due at 6:35 PM, and the dining steward announces that they are now closed, but makes no mention of breakfast. Will we have breakfast on the train tomorrow? When will be arrive in LA? How will the passengers making a connection with the Starlight be taken care of?
Travel Tip: These questions are part and parcel of an Amtrak journey. It is good sportsmanship and makes your trip more enjoyable for yourself and those around you -- to be prepared for delays and late arrivals, and to handle them without complaining. Stay tuned for our next installment.
PS. At dinner we met two elderly ladies who share the same grandchildren, and have just gone to Ft. Worth to visit them. One has an adult son, the other a daughter, and the aforementioned are married to each other. Both these adult offspring work for American Airlines, and can provide free travel for parents. But the lady with the daughter won't fly, and has never flown. Her grandchildren can't understand. "Why take two and a half days to get here when you could fly in two and a half hours?" they say to her.
Some people just don't get it!
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