Hi there
Later on the year I will be visiting from Australia.
The plan is to drive from San Francisco to Alberquerque via LA and Las Vegas.
From Alberquerque I'm thinking of catching the Southwest Chief to Chicago, then possibly the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to New York.
I'm wondering if any of you have travelled recently on the Southwest Chief and/or the Lake Shore Limited and have and advice you could share with me e.g. location of sleeping cars on either of the trains.
Many thanks in advance for your replies
cheers
I have never been on any of those trains yet. Usually the sleepers are towards the front on most Amtrak long distance trains. The consist is usually: loco(s), baggage, dorm, sleeper(s), diner, lounge, and coaches.
I have a friend who has ridden the Southwest Chief and he enjoyed it. I hope you have a camera with you. There is some beautiful scenery in New Mexico.
Hope this helps.
Will
The SW Chief sleeping cars are almost always in the front of the dining car and the sightseeer lounge with the chair cars at the rear.
The trip leaving ALB will allow a full afternoon and early evening viewing of northern NM and a trip through the 1/2 mile long tunnel at the summit of Raton Pass, assuming #4 is approximately on its scheduled time.
You will wake up in the AM just west of Kansas City and will travel through Missouri, Iowa, cross the Missippi River and proceed through the Illinois farm land into Chicago, all a very enjoyable trip especially when seated in the sightseeer car.
When you are in Winslow, Arizona on your way to Albequerque, stop and visit (or stay at) La Posada Hotel. It is a restored Harvey House and sits near the BNSF main line. They have a patio for train watching. Winslow is a crew change point so there is more to see.
You may also want to visit Standing on a Corner Park in downtown Winslow. It is a tribute to the old Eagles song.
Jack
Be in the lounge car for the ride from Lamy to Las Vegas to Trinidad. Among other things, hopefully before dark on #4, you will see some of the last T-2 Semaphores out there north of Las Vegas. The train should roust plenty of antelope north of Vegas.
Don't know if you've already booked the trip or not, but my advice, if you are getting a sleeping car is to get a room on the LOWER level. The BNSF track is SO bumpy (conductor said it was all that coal traffic) that I could barely keep myself in the bed on the 2nd level. The extra sway of the car on the upper level, although you may think is negligible, is in fact, A BIG deal. If only they made seat belts for beds I could have sinched myself in for the night.
I've slept on many a train before and they've all been single level sleepers, and this was the first time I've tried to sleep on a Superliner, and I wished I had taken a lower. I hardly got any sleep at all. Would have been better going coach.
Don't get me wrong - I love passenger trains and I love Amtrak - but that BNSF track - WOW !!!! AS we got closer to Chicago the trackage got much, much better, but the bulk of the trip was very bumpy.
Hi,
I presume you're referring to Southwest Chief....which part of the ex-SantaFe road bed did you find that rough ?? My understanding is it still is in top shape all the way to ABQ, and quite reasonnably well maintained thru to just west of Kansas City, then in very good shape the rest of the way until Galesburg where of course SWC swings onto ex-Q trackage....
You have the added advantage of '' having been there, done that'' recently ( my last transcon trip on this route is a few years back....). Your comments would be appreciated.
Cheers
CG-Rider Hi, I presume you're referring to Southwest Chief....which part of the ex-SantaFe road bed did you find that rough ?? My understanding is it still is in top shape all the way to ABQ, and quite reasonnably well maintained thru to just west of Kansas City, then in very good shape the rest of the way until Galesburg where of course SWC swings onto ex-Q trackage.... You have the added advantage of '' having been there, done that'' recently ( my last transcon trip on this route is a few years back....). Your comments would be appreciated. Cheers
Johnny
My wife and I have ridden both trains, once from LA to Chicago, and several round trips to NYC from our home in Chicago. This sounds like a wonderful journey. You'll definitely want a sleeping car, and if you have the dough, and the car is available, the larger sleeper is worth it! If it is just you, the smaller sleeper will be just fine. On certain segments in the west, the Chief really rocks down the track, going some 80 mph, about the fastest I've ever travelled on Amtrak. If you watch closely, you will notice some abandoned Indian ruins in Arizona and N.M.
I'd suggest spending a day or two here in Chicago, as we are one of most pleasant big cities in the country, and far more affordable than NYC. I know I am biased. But if you like art, architecture, music and food, Chicago is hard to beat (although in many ways, it feels like a small town compared to NYC).
The location of the sleeping cars seems to vary. Sometimes they are near the engine, and you can smell the diesel, and other times they are at the back. Take some time to compare and contrast the two train stations in Chicago and NYC.
Welcome to the USA!
Deggesty CG-Rider Hi, I presume you're referring to Southwest Chief....which part of the ex-SantaFe road bed did you find that rough ?? My understanding is it still is in top shape all the way to ABQ, and quite reasonnably well maintained thru to just west of Kansas City, then in very good shape the rest of the way until Galesburg where of course SWC swings onto ex-Q trackage.... You have the added advantage of '' having been there, done that'' recently ( my last transcon trip on this route is a few years back....). Your comments would be appreciated. Cheers Yes, which part gave you a rough ride? Two years ago, we rode from Chicago to Los Angeles in a bedroom (formerly called a deluxe bedroom), and I do not recall any rough action. The lounge car was cut out in Albuquerque because of a broken spring.
We have had this discussion before, but what makes everyone think that the rough ride was the fault of the roadbed? British Railways had studied the factors in rail-wheel stability, and they identified wear in suspension components as a cause of rough riding in their passenger equipment.
It is not just bumps or dips in the track that put disturbance into the suspension in the vertical direction; it is also the tendency of the wheel sets not to follow a straight track that inputs disturbances in the lateral direction.
You usually think of a suspension system as being a passive system, you know, the test you do on your car for worn shocks by pushing down on one end, releasing, and checking the rebound. Even with the most worn shocks, you never expect the oscillations of the springs to grow. So what makes the rail-wheel interface an active system, that oscillations can grow until flange contact? That the wheelset is being propelled down the tracks, that is what makes the steering oscillation the response of an active system.
The key factor reported by British studies is preventing the axle journals from wobbling relative to the truck frame. As horn guides wear in what is known as a pedestal truck, you can develop that wobble.
Just about everyone else in the world has gone to trucks that use a link instead a horn guide to keep the wheelsets from wobbling, but even those links can wear. Even so, look at the truck design of a Genesis locomotive or the truck on the Superliner I (link guided) and compare with Superliner II and Horizon (pedestal truck).
So here is the question for you all that ride the trains a lot. When you encounter rough riding, what kind of equipment are you on -- Superliner I, Superliner II, Amfleet, or Horizon? And when you encounter rough riding, is it isolated to one or more cars, or is it the entire consist?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I rode eastbound # 3 just a year ago and the rough track was located between Lamar,CO & Emporia, KS. The conductor warned me at Lamar that the ride would be pretty rough thru western & central Kansas. He said that the track is kept at class 5 standards but that it needed to be resurfaced. He was right, there were times that I thought I'd be knocked right out of the berth. The ride calmed down considerably after the stop at Emporia.
John
I am going on the Southwest Chief in June, from Chicago to Kingman, AZ then on that bus to Las Vegas, NV. I love riding the Chief, it one of Amtrak best trains.
That would be what was known as the 3rd subdivision on AT&SF ( I could be wrong...) Rarely used by freight trains, it's still class 5 as pointed out, also just about the only stretch, or subdivision, still authorized for 90MPH...Still joint rails....and had semaphores until recently ( Don't recall how recent).
If Amtrak is planning on using that stretch as part of SWC,( as had been for 60++years ..!!! ) maybe a little talk with BNSF about resurfacing the roadbed is in order, and perhaps CWR.
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