Passenger Trains > Eight days on Amtrak

My wife and I just returned from a trip from Indy to Chi to NY to Miami and we returned the same way. All accept the Ascella was free through my Amtrak Credit Card (about $2,500 worth). The trip on the Ascella was well worth it. I would like to take a minute and tell you about the experience.
1. The ride was great. From Chi to NYC the train was late, as usual, but Amtrak gave me a $70 rebate for being late for my Ascella trip. Train 91 to Miami arrived about an hour late, which was not too bad. Coming back was about one hour late into to NYC, and about 1 1/2 hours late into Chi. We were about 40 minutes late arriving back into Indy via #850.
2. Food. Well it is not what it used to be.
a. Breakfast: Egg omelet great, French toast great, Cereal was great, Quiche was great, Bob Evens Special was YUCK! I did not hear anyone say they liked it. I tried it once earlier in the year and never again.
b. Lunch: Angus Burger Great, Quiche great, everything else was also.
b. Supper: Beef tips great, pizza great, cod dry and over cooked, Roasted chicken was great, special of the day (chicken fried steak great).
When you ride eight days you can try out everything. It was nothing like it used to be but acceptable. I longed for fresh cooked eggs, a steak, and some ice cream. You can just take so much of mud pie and cheese cake.
3. On Board Personnel. Mostly great.
Only one conductor was a jerk. I asked about the new yellow shoulder patches and he let me know how important he was because he was the conductor. The others were great, fun talking to, and answered questions left and right.
Dining car people were very good. The attendants were all helpful and deserved a tip.
4. Station people were very helpful, first class lounge people also great.
5. Equipment was in good condition and clean. It is obvious that we are a bunch of pigs with our trash however. Some people could care less. Our sleeping cars were well taken care of.
6. My wife and I have traveled over 95,000 miles on Amtrak, and we will continue to do it. We even got lucky and had a high level from Chi back to Indy, very unusual. We got lucky, we were on #91 on Nov 5 before the crash. I recommend Amtrak again, the only way to fly. Sure they have their problems, but our trip was fun, exciting, and "filling" (lots of food :-))

Cool, glad you enjoyed your trip!

Glad to hear someone say something nice about Amtrak instead the constant bashing and nick picking..

Yeah, I spent 9 days on Amtrak a few years ago when I made a trip around the country. Had a great time.

Tim Rich
S. Ogden, UT

Glad you enjoyed your trip. I traveled about 7000 miles this past summer... CIN, CHI, NOL, LAX, EMY, SEA, CHI, and back to CIN (got bustituted on that last segment) and had a great time and mostly nice people. Train 51 only 15 min late to CHI. Train 8 left SEA 9 hours late and that was sort of a bummer, sitting in the station all that time. Even thought we were very late on 8 and got bustituted, I wrote Amtrak a letter thanking them for a great trip and I mentioned the people that did such a great job. People complain so quickly but are slow to let management know when someone does a good job. Like someone else said, Nice to hear someone say something positive once in a while.