Well, hello, everyone. I know I haven't written here in a little while. Jenny posted several stories earlier, but I haven't said anything in a long time. I'm sitting right now at King's Cross/St. Pancras International Rail Station, waiting to board a Eurostar train that will take me to Brussels. At the same time as I was getting on a Circle Line Underground train to King's Cross, Jenny was boarding a Circle Line train in the opposite direction to Heathrow.

This was a pretty darn good weekend. I left early Wednesday morning on a train to Washington, DC. I was there for a workshop and to present at the workshop, which I did on Friday morning. I'm told that the presentation went well, so yay for that.

Last night, my train finally arrived into Chicago at almost 10:00PM.  The 30 to Pittsburgh had left the station a little after 7:00PM.  I was hoping that we'd make it in sooner, and then they'd maybe hold the train.  An assistant conductor had been announcing plans for everyone else's trains, except for the 30  (Capitol Limited) and the train to New Orleans.  Some of the shorter routes had been changed to busses.  I was told that they might put me on the 48 to New York City.  That train was leaving at 10:00PM.  I figured that I would ask to do that, then take the Pennsylvanian back later that morning to Pittsburgh.  That would at least get me home on the 3rd, and the ride would be spectacular.  We arrived so close to 10:00PM that they were holding the 48.  I tried to run up to grab it, but the agent at the gate wasn't sure that I'd be able to get home without getting a ticket issues for the Pennsylvanian.  He directed me to the customer assistants helping everyone else on the train who missed their connections.  By the time I got to the front of the (long) line, the agent said that the train had not departed yet, but that they weren't going to be able to get the ticket for the Pennsylvanian issued in time, so I was out of luck.

They put me up in the same hotel where they put the train crews.  It wasn't bad.  It was really close to Michigan Ave., though, which made today a little nicer.  They included a small stipend for cab fare (which actually covered the cab fare to and from the hotel) and a small food stipend ($12, which really doesn't make sense for one meal in a big city, let alone three, since I was going to have a wait of almost 24 hours). 

I explored a bit of Chicago today, and had pizza at my favorite pizza spot (Gino's East).  I then went to the station to get my ticket exchanged and enjoy the station a bit.  Union Station in Chicago is beautiful.  I wish Pittsburgh hadn't axed the nice part of their station.  Oh well. 

After waiting around for a while and reading, I decided to try to get customer service to upgrade me to a sleeper for the night, because I really wasn't relishing another packed train after having been inconvenienced by a day.  The friendly customer service agent said it was done, and all I'd have to do is walk over to the ticket counter to get my new ticket.  I walked over there, and was told that they could do it, but that I would have to pay for it.  Argh.  At this point, I just decided to do it.  It was only about $150, and I was too tired to argue.  I went ahead with it, and that's that.  At least I get to use the nice sleeper passenger lounge, which is what I'm using to post this entry. 

Oh, one last bit about the Empire Builder, train 8 from Seattle to Chicago.  I loved the ride.  I can't wait to do it again.  The crews were nice, even through all the stress.  They served us a complimentary dinner of beef stew over rice.  Even then, though, some lady complained that she couldn't get wine with her dinner.  They weren't doing any beverages other than apple juice, cranberry juice, water and milk, and that was announced multiple times.  They were trying to get people in and out as soon as possible, so that they could get all 400-some people on the train through the diner.  Some people can be so ungrateful. 

I'm still probably going to write them about my experience.  The meal voucher was silly for 20 hours of time in a large city, and I really think that everyone who was inconvenienced like this should have received accomodation upgrades or vouchers for future travel.  I know that might be greedy, but there were a lot of people inconvenienced by this where there was no choice but to wait another full day to come home. 

I almost left Vancouver a day later, but was originally told that the hotel night there wouldn't be covered.  It turns out that it would have been covered if I had stayed in Vancouver, but I didn't want to come home on the 4th of July.  Oh well.  I guess these things happen. 

It's just about time to board the train here, so I'm going to pack-up the computer.  I'll be home tomorrow.  Yay! 

jonathan

I just had lunch on the train outside of Minneapolis-St. Paul. I got out for some fresh air at the station, and took a couple of pictures of our train. They added another coach car, probably to help alleviate some of the congestion issues.

I ate lunch with a couple from Florida, on their way home from Alaska (!). They take one long train trip every year, which I think is awesome. Maybe I can convince Jenny.... :) We were talking for a bit, and the guy said he was from New Castle originally. Then he mentioned Franklin. It turns out that he spent a lot of time there. He has a sister who has lived there for quite some time. His favorite fishing spot is in Cooperstown. What? Are you kidding me? We are both far away from home, on long trips, and we were randomly seated together at lunch, but our common point of interest is a place around which we both have fond memories, and its hard to find on a map. Hah!  That was cool. They were visiting their son stationed with a branch of the service in Fairbanks, and they were on their way home to Florida.

I'm now sitting across from an old woman from Germany, who speaks only German. She knows enough English to tell me that she is traveling with her son, who has been a doctor for six years in St. Paul. They are going to Chicago for something, but I couldn't understand what. She is excited to see the lake that we are skirting now, and is even more excited about seeing the Mississippi. I don't know German, but the bouncing and pointing and the word "Mississippi" all stand out.

We're passing now through acres and acres of corn. At least their corn is the right height ("knee high by the 4th of July"). Of course, maybe it is supposed to be higher out west here, but I don't know.

I don't think that I'm going to make my connection to Pittsburgh tonight. If we stay perfectly on time from now, we won't be in until an hour and a half after the Capitol Limited departs. We'll have to see what happens with that.

We switched conductors sometime this morning. The new conductor is named Connie, and apparently she is popular with the crew. The previous conductor was a bit on the surly side. Everyone seems to like Connie, so go Connie!  She has a great midwestern accent, too, so she's fun to listen to on the radio.

I just realized that I forgot about dinner last night.  I had a good dinner yesterday as we rode through the Montana plains.  We went through some driving rain as dinner time approached.  I almost missed my reservation, though.  I woke-up my seat-mate so that he didn't miss his reservation at 6:30PM.  I had one for 8PM.  He had dozed-off a bit, and I caught them on the second call and woke him up.  I dozed-off a bit after he came back, but he didn't feel it necessary to return the favor.  Argh.  I woke up myself when they did second call, though, so I still made it.  I sat with a nice couple and we talked about train travel and the like.

That's all for now. I'm going back to enjoying the scenery.

jonathan

I wasn't able to get a good data connection after yesterday afternoon.  We had passed into the Montana plains, and data and cell phone service was spotty at best. 

The scenery around me in the car changed overnight. My seat-mate was detraining in Williston, North Dakota, which happened to be a pretty busy stop. We should have been there at around 7:00PM, but we weren't there until almost 1:00AM, I think.  We changed a bunch of people around me there. I dozed-off after that with an empty seat next to me on the aisle. I remember waking up three times. Once, we were stopped somewhere, and someone had just sat down next to me. I seem to remember telling her that if I was snoring, she should kick me or something. I don't really remember. She said that she was only on for a few stops, so she wasn't worried. A second time I woke up, we were flying through some dark countryside, and a few seats around me, including the one next to me, were empty. I woke up again when we were stopped again, but I think it was to meet another train. The next time I woke up was this morning with the sunrise, and most of the people around me were new. There are a few people bound for Chicago who are still around me.

One of the reasons I like to ride the train is to talk to people. I've been doing a lot of that. I spent some time in the lounge car yesterday, watching the area through a gorge near Sandpoint, Idaho roll past us. I sat at a table with a woman on her way to a funeral. She is a librarian at a school district somewhere near Pasco. She just got her MLIS, so we talked about how much No Child Left Behind sucks, why we like travel by train, and other assorted things. I eventually went back to my seat.  I think I was doing that to wait for lunch in the diner.  Later, I returned to the lounge as we traveled the pass through the mountains near Glacier Park. I sat at a different table with two people who were bumped from their sleeper.

OK. Side story time. I had not yet heard why the train was so late or coach so over-full until later yesterday morning. I talked to the coach attendant, and he said that there was a safety-related mechanical issue on one of the sleepers, so it was dropped from the train. Everyone on that sleeper had the option to wait, or travel coach. It seems like there are a lot of people who decided to travel anyway.  Ah ha!  Now it makes sense why the train is so full.  The coach section was so over-crowded that they were actually seating people in the lounge car because they didn't have actual seats available for them.  They were moved as soon as seats were available, but it sometimes took a while.  I was trying to spend some extra time in the lounge yesterday afternoon so that I could actually look at the scenery, but the train staff had to keep removing people at some stops who had real seats just to accommodate incoming passengers. 

Now that we've passed Williston, things are getting somewhat better.  I have a new seat-mate headed for Staples, Minnesota.  She's just sleeping, so I just stepped over her to get my cheese and bread for breakfast this morning.  I had woken up to the sunrise over North Dakota somewhere before Grand Forks.  It should be a good day.

jonathan

I ended up having to take the aisle seat when we boarded last night.  I didn't care at the time--I was just tired and wanted to sleep.  My seat-mate is a bit of a bother--he's the kind who takes the window seat, then pulls the curtains half-shut and reads.  He gets off the train somewhere later today, so that's good for me. 

I woke up to the sunrise in Washington, somewhere near Spokane.  I get the feeling that they've been stopping us a lot for freight traffic overnight.  I don't know why it was taking us that long to get to Spokane.

The train is running pretty late at this point.  We were six hours late last night, and holding steady.  I'm still not sure entirely why.  I have overheard that some sleeper passengers got bumped to coach, which seems odd.  They are also saying that they are overbooked for coach, and all of the overbookings are showing up, making things even more difficult.  They have to be really anal about how the seating arrangements work.  They are trying to make sure that everyone has a seat as soon as possible, and they are trying to make blocks of seats available for families and people traveling together.  Most people are being good about the whole thing.  Some people are being really nasty with the train crew, and the crew is already pretty stressed about things.  They normally don't have to do this.  On top of the seating thing, they are still running quite late, so everyone's schedules are thrown-off. 

I'm having some of my cheese and bread for breakfast, along with some of the fruit juices that I grabbed from the conference.  Woo hoo! 

jonathan

I finally got on the train at around 2:00AM PDT.  They had issues with getting everyone seated.  I wasn't sure what exactly the reason was at the time, but I know that they kept saying that the train was booked and that everyone had to keep to their assigned seats.  It was 2:00AM, and I think that everyone just really wanted to get to sleep, so we paid attention enough to get into our respective seats and dozed-off.  There were a lot of people getting on that were bussed-in from Seattle with us.  I know that we had about two and a half coach busses full of people, which I think works out to somewhere around 120 or more people.  Boarding was a zoo and a half, but we all got on and got seated.  The train was underway by 2:30AM. 

So, I wasn't sure that today could get much more intersting. I woke up this morning and checked-out from the hotel. I had them store my luggage, and decided to head up to Pike Place Market. That place was really neat. It does, however, make me happy that we are big enough to have the strip district. There were tons of people having things shipped from there. I've seen people do it in the strip, too, but didn't quite realize how lucky we are.

I picked up some hard cheese and bread for the train trip. The cheese will keep without refidgeration, so I can have it for breakfasts and the like. I also picked up some roasted peanuts and almonds. Yum.

After that bit of exploration, I found some lunch at a pub near there. Then I headed back to the hotel to get my bags. On the way from the hotel to the train station, I stopped at a Starbucks. Hey, I couldn't resist! Hehe.

I got to the train station at about 3pm for a 4:45 train. I figured that was early enough. I went to the ticket counter to check if they had any upgrades available. That's when they told me that the train never came into Seattle overnight--it went straight into Portland. See, the westbound train splits in Spokane. Half goes to Seattle, and half goes to Portland. The westbound was over six hours late when it got to Spokane, so they put all of the Seattle folks onto buses in Spokane, and the train went straight to Portland. This left us without a train in Seattle. Argh. So we were being bused to Spokane, where we would meet the train.

The buses finally arrived at around 4:45. On our way to the buses, they were handing out free subway boxed lunches and water. They also put extra water and lunches on the buses. When we were getting underway, our nice driver told us that we were only going to Pasco, and we'd meet the train there. That was a lot closer that Spokane, so we were all happy.

On the way, we stopped at a rest stop in the mountains. It was nice. We were there for about 30 minutes. When we got back on, the driver was trying to make the video thing work. Someone had asked to play a dvd. One thing that I definitely don't understand is why people need manufactured entertainment when the best movie in the world is playing right outside the window. Seriously. I put on some ipod music (thank you Jenny :) ) and watched the scenery.

Something important to understand at this point is that I never thought I'd be gettin so familiar with the floor of the train station at Pasco, a town I had never known until today. I'm writing this from my blackberry. On the floor. In Pasco. We were delivered on time (around 10pm). The train was supposed to be here at 11pm, running a little late. We arrived to an announcement stating that the train is estimated to arrive at 1:30am. Argh. The station here is pretty small. I have a little spot against a wall, with some floorspace for sitting. I might go outside for a bit, just to walk around for a little while.

I can't wait to actually be on the train. More to come later....

Jonathan

Written from the train and saved until I could post the entry:

We passed through Delta yard in Washington just as the sun went down over the mountains. I have a happy group of women behind me. I think they're coming back from a vacation somewhere. We talked a bit while waiting for the train to depart Vancouver. So far, it has been a great trip. I managed to snag some fruit juices from the conference before I left, so I will have those for the trip tomorrow. I realized a little while ago that I have no cash on me at all--I am going to have to get some in Seattle before the trip to Chicago, as I'm going to need some to buuy food and stuff on the train.

We just left Everett station. Conductor says 22 minutes to Edmunds (sp?). The train is packed. My seat-mate is in the lounge car with her friend, so I've had room to stretch out for a while. We've been passing all sorts of harbors and stuff so far, which has been pretty cool. We're estimated at 10 minutes late into Seattle. This has been a good ride.

Now I'm in Seattle, safely ensconced in my hotel room.  Thanks to my Dad's friend Ray for the recommendation--this is a good hotel that isn't too expensive, is close to the station, and has free internet and breakfast.  Woo hoo!  I'm tired, though, and I want to wake up in time for breakfast and to do some exploring before I need to board my train.  I also want to call Amtrak to make sure that we're all set for the ride home.  Earlier this week, I saw an update posted that the train was running into Chicago again on a detour.  It had been interrupted due to the flooding in the midwest.  The train today arrived in Chicago just about an hour late--not bad for a detoured run on a train that normally runs pretty close to on-time. 

I think it's bedtime.  More tomorrow.  I also have to finish writing about Vancouver.  Maybe I'll do that on the train tomorrow. 

jonathan