Back in October, I went online and booked our tickets. The price for two adults and one child was, in my opinion, pretty cheap. They did bump the price for our "over-sized SUV", which is pretty funny, considering the size of the CR-V. But I didn't want to struggle to sleep in a coach seat, so I started looking into the room options. The two person "roomette" obviously would not work, so I started investigating the bedroom options. According to the web site, the Superliner Bedroom seemed perfect. It had a couch and a chair, a table, a bathroom with shower and sink, and a fold-down bunk. When I tried to reserve this online, the reservation was rejected. I tried several times with the same result. Finally, I picked up the phone (oh so painful those of us living in the Internet age) and talked to a sales representative. I told her my problem and she quickly resolved it and booked the bedroom for us. Apparently, they must verify the size of the third person before booking. The price was pretty shocking; we could go round trip coach cheaper than one way with bedroom. I decided to book it anyway, with the idea that we could change it up to one week before our trip.
The months quickly passed and it was time to head north for the holidays. Susan picked up Andrew from school and me from work and we headed for Sanford. We were on our way, but we were almost an hour behind schedule. We arrived at the station around 2:30 PM. Due to our somewhat late arrival time, our dinner options were limited. Amtrak offers three dinner services - 5:00 PM, 7:00 PM, and 9:00 PM. The only time slot still available was 9:00 PM. Good grief, how would we stay up that late? Andrew is usually in bed by 9:00 PM.
We boarded the train around 3:30 PM and were soon on our way. Soon after we started to move, I remembered that I wanted to track the trip on my Droid phone. I started the My Tracks application and let it run the entire trip. For some reason, after uploading the trip to Google Maps, the trip was split into three separate legs, as shown below.
View Auto Train North in a larger map
View Auto Train North in a larger map
View Auto Train North in a larger map
The daylight hours of the trip quickly passed by and it was soon dark. I spent some of the time talking to my mom and my brother on the phone. Andrew was restless, so Susan and I traded off turns walking with him from one end of the train to the other. Susan insisted that he wear his shoes. Andrew responded with, "Girls like to stay clean, boys like to get dirty." Our progress was blocked to the front by the dining car for sleeper customers and to the rear by the dining car for coach customers. In the coach section, people were doing their best to get comfortable and sleep in the seats. Some were already sleeping. I picked up some free snacks from the lounge car on our way through.
The hours stretched on as we waited for our turn to eat dinner. We were all tired and I was afraid that Andrew might fall asleep, but he was too excited to sleep. At 9:00 PM, the conductor called us to the dining car. I was impressed with the table spread; it reminded me of our trip on the Dinner Train in Seattle several years earlier. The tables were covered by linen with very nice plates, glasses, silverware, and cloth napkins. After sitting a few moments, I realized that the glasses and plates were actually made from recycled plastic materials. Wow, they sure looked like the real thing. The dinner itself was quite good, in my opinion. The menu contained about six dinner choices, including wines. The dessert menu had three options. I was surprised when Susan ordered the decadent chocolate cake with chocolate chip frosting. I had strawberry cheesecake and Andrew had ice cream.
When we returned to our room, we found that it had been transformed into a sleeping car while we were away. Andrew climbed into the bunk while Susan and I squeezed into the lower bed. Looking back now, I don't know why I didn't adjust the temperature in the room. The whole night, I felt chilly as my toes kept popping out from under the small, thin blanket. And although the train offers a pretty smooth ride, once it exceeds about 60 miles per hour, all the doors start to rattle. I found it very ironic the comparison with the alternative of driving. If driving, I'd be fighting to keep my eyes open, trying desperately to stay alert. On the train - in a fully horizontal position on a bed - I was trying desperately to get warm and comfortable, ignore the rattles and horn blasts, and fall asleep.
Sometime in the night, Andrew needed to use the bathroom. I worked the ladder into place so he could climb down, then wiggled the ladder back out of the way of the bathroom door so he could go in. Did I mention that the sleeper cars are very small? Seemingly smaller with the bed pulled out. After Andrew took care of business, we repeated the ladder manipulations and he climbed back into the bunk. Neither one of us could sleep, so he came back down.
We were curious to see if there was snow on the ground, so we pulled the curtain slightly and looked out the window. Yes, there was snow! It was morning, but the sun was hidden in the clouds. I had no idea where we were, so I looked at my Droid, which was still tracking our trip. I was surprised to discover that we were just south of Richmond, Virginia. I told Susan and we pulled open the curtains and all looked out the window together. A few minutes later, we crossed the misty, semi-frozen James River. We all watched Richmond and Ashland pass by outside. We were getting close to our destination, so I jumped into the tiny shower and sealed the door shut with the snap-lined shower curtain. It was a struggle to stay upright with the train car swaying to and fro, but it was also a lot of fun.
After getting dressed, we headed towards the dining car for breakfast. The selection was limited to three cold cereals, bagels, muffins, and bananas. We ate cereal and watched the Virginia country side go by out the window.
The conductor came on the PA and announced that we were over an hour ahead of schedule and would be in Lorton in 1 and a half hours. The country side quickly changed to suburbs and we hurried back to our room to pack. The train slowly pulled into the station over an hour ahead of schedule.
Interesting facts about the Amtrak Auto Train:
- In service since 1983
- Longest passenger train in the world
- over 3/4 miles long
- 18 passenger cars
- 33 auto carriers
- two locomotives - Transports over 130,000 automobiles and 250,000 passengers per year
- Carries over 650 passengers and 330 automobiles on a full train
Posts
2 comments:
Sounds like a whole lot of fun!
"Next" time, we have to try out the Superliner Bedroom.--The Coach accomodation,last year,was uncomfortable, although lot better, then airplane seats.
Post a Comment