Day 1

Day 1: Aboard the Cardinal, number 51, from Philadelphia 30th street station to Chicago Union Station. The actual date: Sunday, June 12th, 2016, despite what the date of this post might indicate.

This much-anticipated vacation started off on the right foot when the Cardinal arrived 5 minutes early at 30th Street. This, sadly, was not to be the theme for the rest of this ride. It seems that every station we left we managed to leave at least another 5 or so minutes late. At first I didn't really perceive it and was pretty sure that they would make up the time and get me to Chicago at the scheduled 10:04am the next day, so that I could go and take pictures of the

The Staircase at the Grand Hall of Chicago Union Station have seen so many feet that they have been worn down, and need to be replaced for safety reasons.

Grand Hall and those stairs that are, sadly, going to be replaced. How many millions of feet must it have taken to wear down those stairs, but I digress...

In Washington DC they change the locomotive from an electric to a diesel. I don't know the numbers or names or any other specifications of these things because that's just not my thing. All I know is that you need a diesel/electric to go farther south than D.C. on the Northeast Corridor.  I was thrilled to learn that we had been pulled by the Vetarans City Sprinter unit. Amtrak number 83 would be our locomotive from here on out.

While we were waiting for our locos to be changed the Carolinian arrived, did it's business and departed. This should have been another warning that we were getting later and later. Of course, that train didn't need to change locos because it already had a diesel/electric for some reason.

The Cardinal Arrives at Washington Union Station

By the time we got to the New River Gorge, decidedly a highpoint of this route, it was already past sunset. What should have been an amazing ride turned out to be that weird senstation you get when you know you are near something awesome but you are not sure what or where it is... like standing near the rim of the Grand Canyon in the total darkness. By the time we crossed the river at Hawk's Nest it was totally dark out. 

Also, by this time, Amtrak had had the opportunity to disappoint me with the food service on the Cardinal. Sadly microwaved dishes from a severely limited menu (See blog page Leg #1 - The Cardinal - Dining Car Menu) to a diner/lounge car being attended by a single overworked man... I felt so sorry for him I severely over-tipped him. Unfortunately, this experiment Amtrak is running with reducing the food service on limited trains such as the Cardinal (a limited train usually does not run daily... the exception being The Capital Limited, which does) shows no sign of ending any time soon. The way I see it, if you expect people to want to take the train you have to give them the basics they expect, and among those are decent food service.  I should disclaim that many people on the Facebook Amtrak groups suggest that this is crew-specific and that I shouldn't give the Cardinal a bad rap for one bad experience, but that WAS my experience and I'm not going to sugar-coat my review and that is: I will not ride this route ever again and the food service is the only reason why. Also, the tracks were pretty bad for large stretches of the ride, but that's not Amtrak's fault.

After "dinner" I decided I was going to retire and maybe do some posts to my blog but I had no WiFi service so I just turned in.  It was about 10:00 pm or so and I had literally just laid my head on my brand new travel pillow for the first time ever when Wham! (No, not George Michael waking me up before he goes-goes), a really loud bang, hiss of breaks and the train comes to an emergency stop. Total darkness. Power is out. Really scary. We hit something. Don't know what. Would never find out. Waiting in the dark silence for the sound of sirens and flashing lights, but they don't come.  But it was enough to make the crew walk the length of the train in the dark examining the train and stuff. I guess they decided that whatever it was we hit was not human and didn't require an ambulance or anything, we were back underway in about an hour. I learned in the morning that whatever it was (they still didn't know for sure) had knocked a hose loose and that had to be emergency repaired to get us to the next station where an Amtrak crew could fix it properly.  Finally at about 11:00 or so I was off to sleep and the train was moving. When you are on a train with a short (4 hour) layover window, you like it when the train is moving and you become acutely aware of when it is not.  We did a lot of "It is not moving" on this particular leg. 

The next such occurrence was in Cincinnati. I suspected when I awoke near 3 am from the train jolting that we were getting a new locomotive. This turned out not to be the case and number 83 was properly repaired and certified safe to take us onward. The next day brought a pleasant surprise and something that's never happened to me before.

Continued on Day 2.