Passenger Trains > Spring Break Report Part 2

Sorry for the extended amount time of getting this posted. When I returned to campus I was swamped with tests and assignments. Now that the week is over I finally had a chance to finish Part 2.

Friday March 16
Awoke somewhat early in San Diego. Had breakfast at the hotel before catching a cab down to the Santa Fe Depot. Boarded Surfliner #573 for LAUPT and ran for the most part on-time. Noticed a bunch of added stops however that were not present in the schedule, I assume it's from that new schedule that was posted back in January? Schedule cards on-board were dated January 30, yet our train did many Metrolink stops not listed on the schedule on the way to LAUPT.

LAUPT seems to have changed rather drastically since the last time I was here (2010). There's now a Starbucks by the Baggage Claim and a Pretzel place next to the tunnel. I'm saddened by the closing of Union Bagel though, it was one of my favorite spots to grab lunch when changing trains. We only were able to relax for about 20 mins before the Sunset backed in and we were off to platform 10. I was in Sleeper 2230 Roomette #3, which was a reject from an Empire Builder set that somehow managed to get tacked on to the Eagle. Our attendant was Kathy, who is probably one of the funniest attendants I've ever had. She did a good job of stocking the car and taking car of us. We departed LAUPT on-time and headed up the canyon and past the Salton Sea, UP treated us very well and were only a few minutes late at Yuma. The new double track project in the Coachella Valley is coming along nicely as grading was done and ready for track from Thermal all the way to Niland. We went to dinner a little after we sped through Niland, and it was by far the worst meal I've ever had on Amtrak. Apparently the chief did not show up for duty (according to the LSA) so they had a replacement chief working the galley. I had the steak which was similar to a piece of leather. Other meals seemed to come out just as bad, so we opted for desert and wound up getting pizza from the Lounge for dinner. Our only major delay that night was station work at Maricopa. That station was designed incredibly POORLY. The platform still cannot handle more than 1 car length so we ended up stopping 7 times to do our station work. We did make up the time into Tucson though, where I retired for the night.

Saturday March 17
I awoke passing Akela Flats, NM as we were running on-time. I quickly changed and put my bed up in order to say goodbye to my parents and my best friend, as they would be detraining in El Paso while I continued on to San Marcos (pronounced San Marcus if you have the Texas accent). Well on the approach to El Paso UP had a mini-melt down and had both lines blocked into the station, so we sat out in Anapra, NM for 45 mins (erasing our estimated 7:45 arrival). We finally rolled into El Paso at 8:30 and I barely had enough time to say goodbye to everyone before they called us back aboard and headed eastward. All freights were in the hole for us as we sped to Alpine, but prior to Alpine we stopped on the west side of town waiting for what I thought was #1. Turns out we again wasted all our recovery time and a UP Z-train passes us going westbound, once it clears we sped right into the station where we are again running 20 minutes late. Halfway between Alpine and Sanderson we met a late #1 which had become a victim of the "black hole" developing between San Antonio and Del Rio. We had picked up #1's new crew in Alpine, so cars were spotted so crew members could transfer easily between the trains. Once on the way again we dropped one person off in Sanderson and continued east running about 45 minutes behind at this point. Del Rio came and went and we were making good time to San Antonio until we reached MacDona (About 15 miles west of San Antonio) poor dispatching and too many freights caused to do a reverse move and zig-zag though UP's SoSan Yard before we finally arrived San Antonio about an hour behind.

Sunday March 18
I awoke around 6:30am to get a jump start on my homework which I had let pile up for about 2 weeks (Between flying home for my grandfather's funeral, and Sectionals for Tennis, schoolwork is really getting the best of me). We were now attached to the Eagle which would be a sold out train after Austin as the Conductor had said. We backed out of San Antonio on-time and made the trip up to San Marcos pretty quickly where I detrained ending a well-deserved Spring Break.

Now for the pictures::

1. Meeting the Ocean at San Clemente

2. Old Trolley operating in San Diego on the Orange Line

3. Departure board at LAUPT

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4-6. LAUPT

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7. Taking the curve at West Colton

8. At rest in Palm Springs

9. Marcopa, AZ

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10. At rest in Tucson

11. Old dispatcher desk in Tucson

12. Passing #1 at Tesnus Siding midway between Alpine and Sanderson

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13. My diet on Amtrak pretty much

14. Cloudy morning south of New Braunfels, TX

Thanks for looking!

Kevin Schillinger
San Marcos/El Paso, TX

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Thanks! I love these kind of travelogues...feels like I'm on board as well.

SunsetLtd Wrote:
Our only major delay that night was station work at Maricopa. That station was designed incredibly POORLY. The platform still cannot handle more than 1 car length so we ended up stopping 7 times to do our station work.
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I was on #2 a few weeks ago where I saw this happen. Our first stop put my room right at the grade crossing we were blocking. The third vehicle in the traffic backup was a Sheriff SUV. We did something like 6 or 7 spots, all while blocking the road so the backup became as far as I could see headlights. And I am guessing that because the Sheriff was sitting in the lineup, nobody wanted to make a rash U-Turn maneuver and get out of there. By my estimation, the cars were stuck for 30 minutes before we finished with the TE's sleeper. Smokey was keeping everyone in check.

SPRING BREAK????....This is just a bunch of train pictures!!!...where are the chics in bikinis???

Thanks, very nice job, enjoyed your post and the "train" pictures.

SunsetLtd Wrote:
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> Boarded Surfliner #573 for LAUPT and ran for the
> most part on-time. Noticed a bunch of added stops
> however that were not present in the schedule, I
> assume it's from that new schedule that was posted
> back in January? Schedule cards on-board were dated
> January 30, yet our train did many Metrolink stops
> not listed on the schedule on the way to LAUPT.

573 and 790 (And 790's previous iterations; 792 and 592) have always (well, at least for the past seven years) stopped at Laguna Niguel and Norwalk even though they're not shown on the Amtrak timetable. This is an agreement with Metrolink (as such the stations are shown on the Metrolink timetable's Amtrak page)

I never understood why Amtrak didnt add them to the timetable when Orange and Laguna Niguel were made official stops for several trains in an agreement with OCTA a few years ago (since then those stops have been cut back to one train in each direction; 566 and 567) but I guess they have their reasons.

Also had Kathy as an attendant on a recent trip in the 2130 car. While funny, yes, she also was good at disappearing too. She never put out bottled water, and never asked if we wanted our beds turned down. We had to do it ourselves. She got no tip.