Trip Reports by our Clients:
AMTRAK ANECDOTES
by George Blishak
There are major street repair projects in progress all over downtown Portland, including the immediate environs of the railroad station. I have never seen so many street closures and detours at one time in a big city. I was successful, nevertheless, in dropping off luggage at the station, getting directions to apparently the only gas station in downtown Portland, finding it, gassing up the Hertz car, returning the Hertz car, and being chauffered back to the station by a Ukrainian immigrant.
The Empire Builder left Portland exactly on time at 4:45 PM, but had to stop fifteen seconds later so that a visitor (male, Caucasian, fifties, old enough to know better) could get off the train.
I got to take about a three hundred-or-so mile bus ride from Minneapolis to Chicago, on account of flood conditions from many days of torrential rain in Wisconsin. Red Wing and Winona were in the flooded (or flood threatened) area. The Empire Builder was rerouted, and Amtrak felt it unlikely it would arrive on time for the Capitol Limited connection. The bus arrived in Chicago about 4 PM and the Empire Builder about an hour later, in plenty of time for the connection. I have to admit it was not a bad ride, in a large, well-air conditioned, tinted window bus. I found a seat with extra leg room in the back and enjoyed reading from "The Fall of the Berlin Wall."
I had exceptionally interesting dining car tablemates on the Southwest Chief and exceptionally boring ones on the Empire Builder and Capitol Limited. I suppose that was a coincidence, or have you had similar experiences?
The Chicago-Pittsburgh route is still rough, and I found the lower level room to be more comfortable than the upper level. The Norfolk Southern dispatcher did OK though, from what I could notice in the early part of the trip. The Capitol Limited sped past three consecutive, stopped, eastbound freights in a period of about fifteen minutes coming out of Chicago, and we arrived in Pittsburgh just an hour late, mainly due to extensive trackwork "slow orders" in eastern Ohio.
As Cindy drove up to park at the Pittsburgh station, a homeless man approached her. She cautiously lowered the window a crack to see what he wanted, keeping the car in gear. He said, "Hello. I am Greg the Homeless Man. If you are going on the Capitol Limited or picking some one up on that train, it is expected at 7:15 A.M." Cindy thanked him and when I arrived, I handed him a modest gratuity for the accurate information, courteously presented.
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