2004 Europe

Diana and the Southwest Chief

July 6 – Today we drive back to NYC to catch the train to Fullerton. We’re up at 8AM to get to breakfast because I want to be on the road by 9:30. Breakfast was at the Bethlehem Diner and my last serving of scrapple for the foreseeable future. Then it’s east on 22, south on 33 and east on 78 right into the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River and on to Manhattan Island just about in the middle of Soho. Then north on 9A through Greenwich Village and Chelsea to 34th St. where I have to drop off the car. Diana wanted me to let her off on 31st at the same place I picked her up when we left the city so I did. I returned the car and on the way back to 31st I got a Redcap to help us with all the luggage.

This is where I got the bad news of the day (BNOTD). As he loaded the suitcases onto the cart he said, ‘Amtrak is going to make you take some stuff out of these bags because they have a new 50 pound limit.’ This came as a surprise to me. They have always let you have 75 pounds in a suitcase; you just had to pay $10 extra if the bag was over 50 pounds. I was hoping that he was wrong but he was not. When we got to the baggage check the man told us to put each suitcase on the scale and because each was over 50 pounds we had to open them up and remove some items. They sell you shipping boxes for $2 each to put the items in and as we only needed two boxes we didn’t have to pay any freight because we are allowed to check 3 items each and we only had 3 suitcases and the 2 boxes.

Under the old rules I would have had to pay them $30 because the suitcases were over 50 pounds. Under the new rules I had to give them $4 for the two boxes and nothing for shipping. If the boxes cost them $1 each, they made $2 under the new system, so it’s a net loss to them of $28. I guess it’s a concession to political correctness. The new rules allow them to hire weaker (read female) baggage handlers. (Sorry if that’s hard to take, but it’s true.) I can tell you that Diana was not happy with the situation. She spent a lot of time last night repacking the suitcases just right. Then today she has to open them up and repack them on the fly in the middle of Penn Station. Ouch!!

The Lakeshore Limited left on time and the trip to Chicago was uneventful. It only takes about 18 hours. The rolling stock was in good shape and we spent a comfortable night on the train.

July 7 – We arrived in Chicago at about 10AM and the Southwest Chief doesn’t leave until 2:55PM so we have a few hours to kill. We went and had lunch and then settled in the Metropolitan Lounge to listen to an audio book. This is when we got the BNOTD. Our train is having technical problems and will not leave on time. In fact, we left Chicago 3 hours late! Not an auspicious start for the last leg of our journey. The car we’re in is the oldest type of Superliner but seems to be in good shape mechanically. The air conditioning is functional, and that’s a good thing.

The night passed pretty quickly as I was tired and slept well.

July 8 – We spend the entire day on the train today. I wake up early and Diana sleeps in. This is not usually a problem on the ship or in a hotel as I can amuse myself with other activities. Here on the train, however, it’s a real challenge. I really don’t like the lounge car but there’s no place else to go. I found that I could take my part of the bed apart and set the seats up. This allows me to look out the window and play solitaire. Since that’s what I usually do when I’m on the train alone it’s a very satisfactory arrangement. I do like to eat breakfast early. On the ship I can eat early and then sit with Diana as she eats later. But the limited seating in the train’s diner will not accommodate that plan so I wait for Diana to go to breakfast. That works out well, as I do like us to have breakfast together.

The rest of the day is spent reading, listening to talking books, playing cards and looking out the window. The time passes so much faster when we are traveling together. We made up some time overnight and are now about two and a quarter hours behind schedule. Unfortunately it’s the western most half of the trip that usually causes the delays. Often we make it to New Mexico still on time and then arrive into Fullerton 3-6 hours late.

We made it to Lamy, NM still running about two hours late and then we got the BNOTD. The train’s whistle was broken. I know you are laughing at this point but I must tell you that that’s a serious problem for a train. If you can’t sound your whistle at RR crossings, the train must stop; the fireman must get down from the engine and escort the train across the road by walking in front of the engine and watching for traffic, sort of like a school crossing guard. (This is a fairly funny picture in itself.) There are hundreds of crossings between Lamy and LA. It would take forever. The good news is that we have three engines; the bad news is that the engineer can only sound the whistle on the one in front. So…we sit in the train, with the engine disconnected (this means there is no power, therefore no air conditioning and it’s at least 98 degrees in the high NM desert) for almost an hour while they drive the engine gang to a place in the track where they can switch the second engine with the first because the whistle on the second engine works fine but there’s no way to sound it from the cab of the first engine. We couldn’t get out of the train where we were stopped as there were tracks on both sides and the safety rules prohibit discharge of passengers under those circumstances.

Once the engines are switched and reconnected to the cars, power is restored. Of course, the cars have gotten so heated that the poor air conditioner can’t make a dent in the heat for hours but at least we’re moving again but now three and a half hours late.

July 9 – Up early again as we are due into Fullerton at 6:44AM and there’s no way to know how much time we will make up over night, often much more time is lost. Good news, we did not loose much more time and are scheduled to arrive in FUL near 11AM and that gives us plenty of time to eat breakfast. Yippie!! Breakfast on the train is the best meal, lunch is not bad and dinner is variable. We did arrive at 11AM and all our luggage, including the two boxes we packed on the fly in Penn Station arrived also. After a short, uneventful taxi ride we arrived at the starting point for our adventure, our home in Irvine. Glad to have gone, but glad to be home, thankful for a safe and wonderful trip.

To see some additional pictures from the trip click this link: http://r-d-europe-pic1.blogspot.com/

© 2004 Rod Longenberger