After a good night’s sleep, I found myself awake before the sun rose. We were also told that breakfast was only served from 5am to 6am the next morning, so we figured we’d just skip it. ![]() Amtrak takes a back seat to them in priority, so you never know if you’ll be stuck. I asked him to explain that, and he said that Barstow in California can be a real mess since that’s where there’s so much freight traffic rolling through. ![]() I had asked Luis what the morning was looking like, and he said we were only about half an hour behind, but you never knew what would happen. I was still awake and reading when we reached Flagstaff. With nothing to see outside, we’d call it a night. They should know since that’s another station where the conductors get swapped out. Over a surprisingly tasty breakfast, we passed the Colorado line and then stopped at another sizable stopping point, La Junta - which is pronounced “la hunt-uh” according to the conductor. But yes, there were still plenty of farms. The lush terrain of northern Missouri had changed overnight to the drier plains of Kansas. I went back to bed and didn’t wake up until the next morning when the sun was rising over western Kansas. That was enough to wake me up, but not for long. I didn’t wake up again until Topeka when we found ourselves in the middle of a nasty line of storms. I laid down to read and fell asleep before we got to Kansas City. There is a separate, comfortable mattress with bedding that sits on top of the bed and a really, really great blanket to boot. Luis had made our beds up, turning the bottom seats into a bed and then folding down the bunk up top. Here’s the menu.Īfter dinner, we went back to the lounge car to hang out and watch the sun go down as we got nearer and nearer to the big evening stop in Kansas City. I suppose I didn’t have high expectations, so it was easy to exceed them. No, not all of it… but the desserts were great, and the steak was pretty decent. Still, I was surprised that some of it was actually pretty good. The food was served on plastic, so it didn’t quite live up to the “fancy restaurant” vibe that Amtrak seemed to be going for. You also get one included alcoholic beverage. Dinner is a three course affair where you pick an appetizer, a main, and a dessert. There was one menu for the entire trip, though it had different offerings for different meals. Upstairs we found that they had nicely outfitted the tables with tableclothes and a rose. They call you over the speakers when your group is ready to be seated. Everyone else can access the cafe on the bottom level of the lounge car to pick up food and drink, but then they have to go elsewhere to find a place to actually sit and eat.įor those in the sleepers, you have to make a reservation for dinner either at 6pm, 6:30pm, or 7:30pm. The dining car can only be used by those in the sleeper cars. (He had previously worked the Pacific Surfliner, so he didn’t have those long distances.) That is a tough job that Luis had, though he was fairly new to it and did a great job the whole time. We learned that the engineers and conductors don’t work for overly long hours, but the cabin attendants stick with you the entire ride. ![]() That’s also a point where they switched out our conductor. That was our first big stop, and passengers were allowed to hop off and stretch if they wanted. Instead, we could bring a personal item into the room, but it was constant shuffling out to the luggage racks to get anything else. That was unfortunate, because we would have packed differently. We didn’t realize that there was no room for our carry-on-size suitcases in the roommette itself. ![]() Our energetic cabin attendant Luis greeted us and helped us get acquainted. Upstairs, there were (I think) 5 bedrooms along with 10 roommettes. We were in the two next to the family suite, across the aisle from each other. The other end had a family suite and four roommettes. The recently-announced upgrade plan is a good start, but I’m guessing $28 million is not nearly enough.ĭown on the bottom deck, there were three bathrooms and a shower on one end along with an accessible cabin/bathroom together. Being in the dark underground track area really highlighted the dull yellow lighting that was pervasive throughout the car. Our particular sleeper car was built in 1981, and it sure showed it.
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