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I am considering taking the Three Rivers train from Chicago to New York in September. Has anyone taken this trip recently. I am planning on getting a standard bedroom (roomette). Any thing you can share on service, timeliness, food, etc would be appreciated. If you stay in the sleeping car do you have to walk through all of the coach cars to get to the lounge and snack bar?
RRRICH Member # 1418
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Rex - yes, I rode the Three Rivers on my trip a couple weeks ago, from Philadelphia to Chicago, and traveled in a sleeper. The train is equipped with the new single-level Viewliner sleepers. If you are not familiar with Viewliners, there are 2 bunks in the room, and windows accessible to both the upper and lower bunk. Your toilet and wash basin are right in the room with you. The Viewliners are very comfortable, and if you are a sleeper passenger, you will not be more than 2 cars away from the lounge/dinette car (you'll either be right next to it or one other sleeper car away from it)-- BUT you need to realize, there is not a full-service diner on this train, only an Amfleet dinette lounge car!!! Being a first class passenger, you are still entitled to complimentary meals, however, from the lounge car. The meal choice is very limited -- they have a lasagna dish and one other choice, which I forgot what was. The "meals" are microwaved "TV dinner" type concoctions. You will either get a "voucher" from your sleeping car attendant, or you will just tell the dinette attendant that you are in a sleeper, and you will need to sign a meal ticket to get the complimentary meal.
This train has usually operated pretty close to schedule over the last few months, however, on the day I rode it, it was 5 hours late into Chicago because of freight problems east of Pittsburgh!! Service was pretty good, but the car attendants change in Pittsburgh, so you will not have the same sleeper car attendant the entire trip.
Scenery is pretty through Pennsylvania, but after you cross into Ohio and Indiana, you see mostly small industrial towns and corn fields.
Have a great trip!! --Rich K
[This message has been edited by RRRICH (edited 07-24-2002).]
mho357 Member # 1204
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Rex,
Rich covered it pretty well. I might add that the attendant switch in Pittsburgh may have an effect upon the service that you receive. When we rode this train in June from Philadelphia to Chicago, our attendant disappeared after we boarded the train. I can only assume that he didn't think that he would get any tips since he would be getting off the train after we had gone to bed.
Have a good trip
Mark
Geoff Mayo Member # 153
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Why do the attendants change over? The only other train I know of that does this is the Sunset at New Orleans, hardly suprising really.
Geoff M.
reggierail Member # 26
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The attendants change in Pittsburgh because that is the crew base for on board service attendants for that train. It's like the VIA Rail Canadian, the on board crew changes mid route. The Sunset used to change crews in New Orleans. As of my last trip in May of this year, that was not the case. The crews are based in Los Angeles and work through to Orlando. It is a grueling trip, I'm sure the longest on Amtrak. I have always had good service on the Sunset and quite often the service is excellent. Reggie
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