Trip Report: November 27 - December 21, 2001
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
28 DAYS ON THE RAILS
DALLAS TO CHICAGO
Monday and Tuesday, December 3rd and 4th, 2001
The Dallas Amtrak station is a very busy place, shared by the yellow DART trolleys (or light rail, if you prefer) and the Trinity Rail commuter trains. The latter have the huge, red-white-and-blue logo incorporating the Texas Lone Star splashed across the sides of the Canadian-type double level cars which are tapered at both ends. Three Budd cars sitting in the station are painted with the same logo with DFW Airport designations. They are hitched up to the rear of the double-level commuters, and pull away from the station just before the one-hour-late Texas Eagle arrives.
Across the tracks in the gigantic Dallas Hyatt Regency. A pedestrian tunnel connects the station with the Hyatt. There are two DART tracks, one or two Trinity tracks, an Amtrak track, and a freight track. The waiting platforms for DART display a series of drumhead logos from several name trains of the past, the Texas Chief, the Sunbeam, the Texas Eagle, and the Lone Star. There are also a series of reproductions of murals created for city hall in the 1930s and which were deliberately destroyed in 1959. One of these murals depicts a Santa Fe steam locomotive and a Santa Fe streamlined diesel passenger locomotive in the war bonnet color scheme.
The Amtrak counter is inside the grand old Union Station, as are the offices of DART and Trinity Rail. There are no agents in sight, but there is a bell on the counter to ring for service. As there is no sign in view with updated arrivals and departure information, we ring and Lynn, the agent, comes out of her back room to tell us the train is not due until 4:30pm, a half hour behind schedule. Everyone who comes in rings this bell and she has to repeat the information over and over again. Eventually she just removes the bell and goes back to her office. Periodically, she makes an appearance to advise that the train will be arriving in a few minutes.
Travel Tip 1: When waiting in a train station, scout the route you will be taking to board the train well before the boarding call .
At 4:45pm Lynne comes out of her back room to makes an announcement about safety measures passengers should take while riding the Eagle, an announcement which is repeated on board the train. However, neither of us hear an announcement about how to get from the station to the proper tracks for the Amtrak train, which requires crossing two automobile driveways and four sets of busy rails for both commuter services. When the Eagle's arrival is announced, Lynn offers to drive us to the platform in a cart, as we have several pieces of luggage. We thank her and she disappears as we hear the Eagle rumbling into the station for its brief stop.
Wondering if we could miss the train and not wanting to wrestle our wheeled luggage over all of those tracks, we follow the sign in the station that says TO TRAINS. This leads us on a ramp down into a tunnel underneath the driveways and the tracks and to a staircase with at least 20 steps to platform 11, marked TO AMTRAK. Seeing no elevator, we wrestle our heavy wheeled luggage up one step at a time, hoping we won't injure our backs or our suitcases in the process. When we reach the top of the stairs and start to head down the platform, we see a handicapped elevator which appears to require a key to operate. The stairs have led us to where the coaches are spotted. None of the Amtrak station agents are in sight, but we find the dining car steward walking along the platform, and he directs us to sleeper 2230 at the head end of the train.
Since we wasted a few moments waiting for Lynn and her cart, we are the last passengers on board, overheated, tired, and disgusted. Our car attendant, Isaac, resets our mood by delivering Scotch, soda, and ice to our room. I looked up the phone number of the Dallas Amtrak station on my laptop, and phone Lynn to ask her what had happened. She replied, "I looked all over and could not find you." I suggested that in addition to the topic of on-board safety, she might also make an announcement about how to safely reach the platform from the waiting room. Naturally she was not pleased to be given advice about how to improve her job performance, but said she would pass the suggestion on to her boss, Roger Bernarbo, the individual who was supposed to make the announcement about getting to the platform.
We left Dallas and began our trip towards Chicago, but came to a stop in about two minutes. We stayed here for about an hour and a half while several apologies were made on the PA system about how we are being delayed by a track maintenance crew (working after dark). The insider's explanation was that someone from a track crew had left a blue flag on the main line, to stop traffic, then had gone home. It took an hour and a half to get someone in authority to come down and remove it.
The Eagle crew are quite diligent about explaining delays over the PA system, even if it only a matter of going into a siding for another train.
We answered the first call to dinner at 6:45pm and found the dining car to be nearly empty. Our table companion, Mary, was wearing an unusual sweatshirt with an American flag with flowers rather than stars. She told us that she is in the flag business. On the morning of 9/11 she was doing errands and was not aware of the terrorist activities until she got a call from a friend on her cell phone. She was attempting to park near her store at the time, and the parking lot was overflowing with cars. When she entered the store, business was already booming.
"World War II veterans, Vietnam veterans, Gulf War veterans, and all kinds of people were buying flags and many of them were crying," she said. On Wednesday, people were waiting at 7:30 even though we open at 9:00. We were so busy we didn't have a chance to stop to eat. People brought us food and some of our customers volunteered to help out. By Thursday we had run out of flags, but had more on order, so we took several hundred names and phone numbers until they arrived."
Sylvia ordered the pork chops with spicy gravy, while Ted enjoyed a steak. The dining car remained nearly empty throughout the meal. The dining car personnel told us that Amtrak's business, after an initial increase in mid-September, has been down for the last couple of months. (This seems true across the travel sector, however, with airlines, hotels, resorts, tours and cruise ships as well as travel agents who don't specialize in rail travel seeing a huge drop in travel activity). However, the first three trains on our journey, the Coast Starlight, the San Joaquin, and the Sunset Limited were full.
Back in Deluxe Bedroom D, we shower and climb into bed.
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