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I'll have the unexpected opportunity to ride the Silver Star from Winter Park, FL to Raleigh, NC departing this Monday afternoon. From Raleigh I will attempt to reach Charlotte on the Piedmont. It's a connection that Amtrak doesn't guarantee but one the Silver Star has been making most of the time in recent weeks.
Full report when I return.
-------------------- 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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Sounds like fun - you could always sleep in and take the Star to Rocky Mount or Richmond and return on the Carolinian.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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B plan is to make the transfer at Cary if the Star is between 60-100 minutes late.
C plan is to wait for the Carolinian.
D plan involves Greyhound.
I'm hoping to make the Piedmont though.....I've not been on that train recently. Some of the cars in use have been renovated recently and I'm hoping to sample that.
Getting a train trip. Not a bad outcome from an unexpected family emergency.
Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sounds like my second attempt to make the northeastern loop back in June of '06.
Plan A was if 48 was less than 1:30 late to take the Boston stub to Boston and connect with the southbound train #67. Plan A-flat (448 between 1:30 and 2:20 late) would have been to take 448 to Back Bay and skip the 9-mile, 40-minute trip (no padding there) to South Station, and catch 67 there. Plan B (48 between 2:20 and 3:40 late) was to take 448 only as far as Springfield, then take an inland shuttle to New Haven and catch train #67 from there. Plan C was to scrap the 448 trip and just go to NYP on the Lakeshore and pick up #67 from there at just after midnight. That's a planned eight hour connection. Plan D was to scrap the whole Boston-Washington-Chicago-Albany trip. Out of the question.
The Lakeshore left Chicago two hours late the previous night and was -3:30 as in Erie with a typical loss history over the past week of another hour in upstate New York before I would catch the train. I canceled my tickets for the Lakeshore and booked a corridor train to NYP then shot up the corridor to New Haven, with a six-hour layover there. I could have gone farther north (Providence by the schedule) but train 67 was the last one south and I had to catch it.
My unexpected train trip was being shuttled home from Syracuse to Rochester after the car I was supposed to drive (to New Hampshire) locked up and shut itself down on the Thruway. My boss called me in Syracuse, and after hearing that the car was going to be out of service for a few days, said, "well we're going to have to get you home for the night." My reply was that the next train left Syracuse in an hour or so by the schedule, which was memorized, of course. Never turn down a free train trip, though I still kick myself for not getting the consist numbers from that one. That was the only time in the past five, okay, nine years when I failed to get that information. You have failed us, Torgo, and now you must pay!
Posts: 391 | From: Schenectady | Registered: Jan 2002
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