October 14, 2012
Amtrak Washington, DC – Chicago 1105a – 1020a The Cardinal Economy Class

I had a nice, easy morning planned which allowed me to sleep in this morning. In fact, the heat from the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows woke me up a bit before my alarm clock, which I’d set for 7:30am. After breaking camp, I cleaned up in a deserted restroom before heading over to the main terminal where a breakfast burrito and a large cup of coffee got my day off to a good start. From there it was on to the Airport Metro stop where $3.05 bought me a 35 minute train ride to Washington’s Union Station.

Amtrak operates two trains between Washington, DC and Chicago. One is a daily train called the Capitol Limited. It departs at 4:05pm and delivers you to Chicago just seventeen and a half hours later at 8:45am. It utilizes bi-level Superliner equipment that includes a full service dining car along with a Sightseer Lounge Car. Amtrak’s other train is called The Cardinal and operates just three days a week. It follows a longer, more southerly routing through Virginia, West Virginia, southern Ohio and Indiana, taking 24 hours to make the journey to Chicago.



Route of Amtrak’s Cardinal

I’d booked a seat aboard The Cardinal in hopes of enjoying both some train time and some fall colors through the Cumberland and West Virginia. Unfortunately, First Class accommodations had long since sold out by the time I’d booked this trip, but if you must travel long distances in economy class by rail, I cannot imagine a better way to do so than aboard an Amtrak train. The seats are pretty wide with good padding and they offer excellent recline along with foot and leg rests. The large windows are curtained, the reading lights provide good illumination and fairly decent pillows are also provided. Hundreds of train rides worth of experience has taught me to also bring along my own pillow, a blanket and a bottle of melatonin. So equipped, I can survive even the longest trips in coach.

One drawback to traveling coach out of Washington is that I’d not have access to Amtrak’s Club Acela Lounge. Reserved exclusively for First Class passengers and those traveling aboard Amtrak’s Acela trains between Washington and New York or Boston, the Club Acela at Washington is an attractive lounge befitting the station it serves. Polished marble floors are offset by stone planters, glass partitions and brass railing. Artistic posters of historic railroad advertising adorn the walls. The seating is comfortable and overall this lounge is a pleasant place to await the train.



The Club Acela Lounge



The Club Acela Lounge Seating

Continental President Club members used to be allowed access into the Club Acela Lounge regardless of class travelled, so with an hour and a half before train time I strolled on over there to see if my new United Club card (issued to replace my Lifetime Presidents Club card) might also allow me entry. The receptionist looked my card over somewhat quizzically at first, and then spent a minute or so checking on his computer before finally informing me that he couldn’t find any information to support allowing me in. Just as I was preparing to join the masses out in the main boarding area, he suddenly claimed to have had some distant memory of the practice and while he wasn’t sure if it was still in effect, he invited me in anyway. Well dang! Ain’t flashbacks great?! I thanked him and found myself a seat near a wall socket.

One benefit of having been in the Club Acela Lounge was that I got to board first, with the sleeping car passengers. As a coach passenger this was doubly appreciated given that today’s train was completely sold out. As such, seating was by assignment only and I was able to secure a right side window seat from the conductor just moments before he was besieged by the rest of my coach travelling companions. My seatmate was an older gentleman who was traveling with a group of ten who’d spent the past five days touring Washington DC along with a side trip down to Shenandoah National Park. They were all detraining in later this evening in Charleston, West Virginia. Next week he was heading off to a Chevy Corvette convention down in Florida, then off to Las Vegas in January. Seems we FlyerTalkers aren’t the only ones who get around!

Departing Washington with all the punctuality of a Swiss train, we rolled through the suburbs at a moderate pace before the engineers opened it up a bit more as we rolled westward through Virginia. I’d heard somewhere that the top speed allowed for most American passenger trains is 79 mph. Looking out my window as the trees and buildings zipped past, it certainly appeared that we were at or near that speed through much of the afternoon.

It was a little after 1:00pm when I decided to visit the café car. My timing was spurred as much by hunger as it was by an announcement that lunch would be served in the dining car only until 1:30pm. All of Amtrak’s medium and long distance trains include a café/lounge car while long distance trains also include a dedicated dining car. The Cardinal is a long distance train that includes sleeping accommodations but perhaps because it has only one sleeper, there was no dining car. Instead, the café/lounge car had one end set up as a dedicated dining car with menus and nicely set tables while the other end served as a lounge. The café service area was in the middle.

Amtrak’s cafes offer a good variety of affordably priced snacks, light meals and non-alcoholic beverages, but this one apparently also served prepared the dining car meals, which with no grill or oven in sight would mean microwaved meals. Hmm… As I looked over the Dining Car Menu and compared my options. If I sat in the dining car I’d pay $3.00 more for the burger but according to the café attendant I’d also get a different burger (The café burgers are pre-packaged, while the dining car burger is not, so there might yet be a small oven somewhere back in the cafe ) served with lettuce, tomato, onions and chips as well as a beverage. All that for only $3.00 more? I’d like a table in the diner, please.

What a great call! The burger was excellent, especially as the bun and cheese had evidently been broiled rather than microwaved. Believe me, it’s not hard to tell the difference and its even easier to enjoy it. Well done, Amtrak!



Dining Car Burger on Amtrak’s Cardinal

Being as today was Sunday, there were no liquor stores open in or around Washington’s Union Station. Alcohol of any type is fairly expensive on Amtrak, presumably to discourage excessive consumption. A domestic beer such as Budweiser will run you $5.25 and a single serving bottle of any spirit or cocktail will set you back $7.00. First Class passengers are allowed to bring their own alcohol onboard for consumption in their compartments, but Coach passengers may not. I’ve ridden almost 200000 miles on Amtrak over the years and the trick – regardless of what class you’re riding in – is to purchase your alcohol in advance of the trip. Discretion is the rule for those traveling in coach. I once carried a Styrofoam cooler full of ice and beer onboard for a two day trip in coach from Chicago to Los Angeles. I stored it on the baggage shelf in my car, kept it covered with a blanket and enjoyed good cold and comparatively inexpensive beer through most of that trip simply by enjoying it quietly and discreetly from a cup.

The biggest single reason cited by people who don’t like to ride long distance trains is that the trip is too long. I suspect these might also be people who don’t do very well by themselves, because one of the survival techniques learned early on by those of us who for whatever reason have found ourselves spending time to ourselves is the ability to easily and quickly take advantage of that time to enjoy any number of activities from reading a good book to writing to creating things with pen and paper. There’s also a lot to be said for just enjoying the beautiful scenery, which today was being supplied in abundance by the states of Virginia and West Virginia.



Scenery aboard the Cardinal



Scenery aboard the Cardinal

Additionally, people like me are not shy about wandering up to the lounge car where potential interaction with our fellow passengers is an added attraction to the train travel experience. Nothing’s forced. If someone’s reading or listening to music I’m sure not going to interrupt them. I usually just buy a drink or a meal, take a seat at a table and go with the flow. In the communal atmosphere of the lounge car, conversation just seems to evolve naturally.

When I last rode The Cardinal back in 1984, it was made up of a mix of old Heritage Fleet cars from the 1950s and newly built Amfleet coaches. The lounge and diner were old Heritage Fleet cars that I personally liked a lot more than the new Amfleet Café/Lounges. The best thing about the older lounges was the cocktail lounge style seating. It featured booth style seating as well as small cocktail tables set around couches and chairs. That seating arrangement was much more conducive to social interaction than today’s Amfleet lounges which offer only booth style seating. Regardless of seating though, a lounge is by nature a social place and most people end up making a few new friends before the end of their journey.

I like Steve Goodman’s take on long distance train travel across America. Thanks to Arlo Guthrie for doing such a wonderful job of setting his words to music. In reading the lyrics, it’s so easy to put myself right onboard that train livin’ The Life...


The City of New Orleans
by Steve Goodman

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

CHORUS

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.


For me at least, some of the verses in this in this song really capture the essence of “getting there” as opposed to being there. Getting there can be really fun and enjoyable if you’ve a mind to let it be. In the lounge car of a long distance train, there’s a shared experience to travel that can rarely if ever be experienced in the First Class cabin of a Boeing 747. Indeed, I reckon I’ve probably had just about as many memorable experiences while sitting in a lounge car playing cards with sons of Pullman porters and the like as I have meeting new and different people while away from home in a hotel, hostel, bar or restaurant. But then, that’s more my style. You certainly won’t find me trading luxury vacation and travel experiences with the titans of industry out by the pool at some swank resort, or even hangin’ with the FlyerTalk glitterati at some exotic Do. They’d probably call Security on me before I got even ten words out! No – I’m forever more at home with my fellow travelers up in the lounge car of that southbound train, regardless of where it’s headed.

Although I have played many a card game in many a lounge car, tonight I ran across a guy from Victoria, BC with a Scrabble board. Three of us set to playing and although I scored big with GIARDIA, I didn’t win that particular game. We sure had fun though and while I was at it I spent $28.00 on two Jack Daniels and two Budweisers! What I’d have given for that paper bag in Goodman’s song…

It had been awhile since I’d ridden coach on an overnight train. I’d asked the conductor for a window seat along the right hand side of the train because I’m more comfortable leaning my head against the wall on that side. The seat had good recline and, along with my good wool blanket, Amtrak’s pillow and a tab of melatonin, I slept fairly well. The only real problem was some particularly rough tracks somewhere in southern Ohio about 2AM. The ride felt so rough I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d derailed and were running atop the ties!

I awoke shortly after we’d departed Lafayette, Indiana. Chicago was only three hours away and we were running right on time, if not a bit early. The Conductor announced that we’d likely arrive in Chicago a bit before 10:00am, and since I remembered having once gotten a great breakfast burrito in the upstairs food court at Union Station, I decided to hold off on breakfast in the diner. Coffee and a granola bar provided ample sustenance until we’d arrived.

I spent the night out at the Ramada Inn in Elk Grove Village, not far from O’Hare. It’s been my experience that Ramada Inns are wildly inconsistent. I’ve stayed in some like the one by the airport in Spokane, Washington that are attractive and very well managed properties. Others like the one closes to LAX are like something out of a Wes Craven movie. The one I stayed at on this night was a nice enough property with a very nice covered courtyard and swimming pool in the middle of the complex. Although the hotel’s restaurant was no longer in service, there were plenty of options nearby including that quintessential Midwestern favorite, White Castle. The only real drawback was the front desk staff, all of whom I would charitably describe as out of place in any public contact positions.