posted
A couple of weeks ago, somebody remarked that they remembered something that I had posted a while back, and they were astonished as they would have said that it was eighteen months, two years ago at most, but it was in fact more than five years.
Well if five years ago was a shock, how about this - it is TEN years ago this week that I took my first trip on Amtrak! Admittedly I didn't post the travelogue until the September of that year but it was still this weekend in 2002 that I found myself in a small town in Iowa, just as it was getting dark, heading for a small rural Amtrak station to catch the CZ from Osceola to Reno.
The train was over an hour late, but despite having been travelling for almost 24 hours, I couldn't sleep, so was content to prop myself up on one elbow for an hour or so on my bunk, gin and tonic in hand, marvelling at what was going on outside as we rolled across rural Iowa.
It was the threatened total shutdown of Amtrak that had forced me into making the trip at that time, and I wish I'd posed the question “what do you think Amtrak will look like in ten years time”, as I think very few of us would have said “well it'll be virtually no different to how it is now”, especially if I'd said that Bush 43 would be reelected in 2004 and the Republicans would do well in the mid-term house elections. OK, we've lost a Florida train, the Three Rivers and the eastern section of the Sunset but gained extra Surfliners in California, and there are more trains in the Cascades, Capital Corridor, Illinois, Virginia and the North-East. There is still no service to Las Vegas but despite all the uncertainties and Amtrak still being under-funded and limping along it is still there!
Wonder what the next ten years will hold?
(ps: I can't find my travelogue of the trip - the 2003 SWC and 2005 SL are there but not the 2002 CZ....any ideas,folks?)
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I am curious how Osceola, IA came to be your starting point for that first Amtrak trip.
I remember making a BIG Amtrak trip in June 2002 to hit the routes on my bucket list JUST IN CASE the system shut down and never fully returned.
That summer was the last time I rode in coach overnight......something that I did on a couple of stretches to save some money. There were no incidents in my two nights in coach causing me to abandon coach...... just a recognition that I prefer sleeper and was at a point career-wise where I could manage to do that going forward.
Here are a few itinerary 'highlights' from that trip -
1) Flying (Southwest Airlines) from Nashville, TN to Spokane, WA (via Las Vegas and Salt Lake City), landing in Spokane at 10:00pm, catching a cab downtown to the Amtrak station, and catching the Portland section (coach) of the Empire Builder in the middle of the night.
2) Catching the Southwest Chief eastbound from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, then taking the city bus to the airport for a Southwest flight back to Los Angeles where I caught the super shuttle to Union Station, strolled in exactly 24 hours after I had boarded #4 the night before, and then boarded the Chicago sleeper of the Sunset Limited a few hours later.
3) I had intended to take the Sunset to the Texas Eagle to the Heartland Flyer and then fly home from Oklahoma City..... HOWEVER, a Union Pacific derailment caused my Sunset to be annulled in El Paso where we were told that buses would take us to San Antonio where we could continue by rail from there. Overnight on a crowded bus vs. a comfortable roomette was not appealling so I made a couple of quick phone calls, booked the last SWA flight of the day from El Paso to Dallas, and shared a cab to the airport with a few other Amtrak refugees. In Dallas I rented a car, got a 'by-the-interstate' hotel, and spent a relaxed Sunday morning sightseeing in Dallas before making my way over to Ft. Worth and resuming my rail journey on the Heartland Flyer that evening.
As this was during Amtrak's brief period of issuing vouchers for future travel to any dissatisfied customer, I made the call asking for reimbursement for the night in the roomette that Amtrak didn't deliver and instead received a voucher for the full amount of my Los Angeles-Ft. Worth ticket....... a sum which included rail fare and accomodation charges and which was more than twice what I had spent for the SWA flight, hotel, and rental car combined.
I'll add that as a last minute, walk-up airline passeneger flying one-way on a Saturday evening from an international border city in post 9/11 America, I was subjected to the most thorough TSA scrutiny I have ever received.... before or since.... in El Paso that evening.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Yes, time definitely flies. We are getting older every day.
Someone on another forum did a breakdown once that I wish I would have kept, but it reported exactly what happened with Amtrak during various administrations over the years (Dem/Repub). The end result was that the Dem's had actually killed more trains than the Repubs, but overall it was pretty close. It put an end to the argument that Republicans always kill Amtrak, which I have heard for years now--but it just ain't true.
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
But you must admit that killing Amtrak seems always to be part of the Republican rhetoric.... most recently voiced by Mitt Romney.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Interesting how the drastic cuts (Carter, Mercer/Clinton) have always occurred during a first presidential term? Even the lesser Three Rivers and Silver Palm were during the first Bush 43 term (Sunset East was during Bush second, but remember volks, it is only "suspended').
So should Obama not win a second term, safe assumption that he will leave office without any cuts whatever. Now if he does win his second term, I gotta say "all bets off".
Regarding the Romney "kill Amtrak" spiel, don't worry. He is only letting go with it within his solid Red State base, which is essentially served with a "one a day at 0 Dark 30" and with virtually no relevance whatever to the region's transportation needs.
However, if in the slightest chance Romney makes Amtrak an issue in the so-called 'swing' states (e.g. Florida; defer to The Times article yesterday identifying the others), then I'd say "worry".
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by notelvis: I am curious how Osceola, IA came to be your starting point for that first Amtrak trip.
I was originally intending to leave Chicago on the Sunday CZ in order to meet up with an old girlfriend in Denver the next day. However, she hadn't realised that the train on Sunday from Chicago was the Monday departure from Denver and booked her flights for the wrong day! In those days it wasn't possible to get to Chicago in time to make that day's train so I flew on to Des Moines, effectively overtaking the CZ, and getting a bus to Osceola.
I've found the travelogue, and if nobody minds I'll push it back up the line, if only so that you can see what you sounded like in 2002!
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by notelvis: But you must admit that killing Amtrak seems always to be part of the Republican rhetoric.... most recently voiced by Mitt Romney.
Just the usual stuff. Tell the base what they want to hear, but no action taken....
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote:Originally posted by notelvis: But you must admit that killing Amtrak seems always to be part of the Republican rhetoric.... most recently voiced by Mitt Romney.
Just the usual stuff. Tell the base what they want to hear, but no action taken....
Granted Smitty...... actions speak louder than the loudest words.
Would love to see that 2002 trip report Mr. Williams. By chance, were the Amtrak Station and Bus Depot in Osceola in the same building as is the case in Ottumwa, IA...... at least as was the case when I was last there more years ago than I care to admit.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
The bus didn't come into the Osceola Amtrak in those days, it dropped you a good mile and a half to two miles out by the interstate! As you will see from the trip report, that nearly put me off course at the beginning.
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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