El Paso to New Orleans Part II

I was asleep when we arrived in San Antonio and never left my room. We departed at 3:48am, 2 hr 48 m late. Houston depot had a Pepsi machine but closer examination revealed it held Coca-Cola products. Bought three cans at fifty cents a piece. Hooray.

Departed Houston at 8:53, 2 hr 38 m late. Departed Beaumont "depot" around 1:00 pm but soon stopped at the approach for the Neches River drawbridge and sat for over an hour and a half. My room sat right on top of the convergence of Park and Orleans streets where they share an underpass.
We finally crossed the river at 2:45 making us about 6 1/2 hrs late. Left the State of Texas at 3:25. Almost 14 hours getting across the state. Lake Charles, Louisiana ... departed 4:02, 6 1/2 hrs late so were not losing any more time but we still have 219 miles to go. It appears Lafayette has chosen to preserve their old train station by making it a central transportation hub as many others have done. Looks very nice. Departed Lafayette at 5:45, 6 hrs and 25 m late, we gained 5 minutes. Well, I guess we didn't have anybody getting on or off in New Iberia, 'cus we just cruised right past the station. In and out at 6:10 ... 6 hrs 24 minutes late, gained 1 minute! One more station before New Orleans but still 127 miles to go. Another delay ... waiting in a siding at Bayou Sale for a freight to meet us ... another 42 minutes behind. Another roll by at Schriever. We slowed to 6 mph then went right on through at 8:23. So by the timetable, this puts us 7 1/4 hours behind. BUT ... the timetable also shows 2 hours and 52 minutes to get fron Schriever to New Orleans and only 1 1/2 hours to get from New Orleans to Schriever. Looks like a bit of padding built into the end of east bound schedule. We will soon see. Arrived New Orleans Union Station at 10:28. 6 hours and 28 Minutes late. Hotel by 10:45, WIFI works good if you are reading this.

El Paso to New Orleans, 1177 rail miles.

El Paso to New Orleans

Train 2 arrived El Paso 11:26. I boarded sleeping car 32110, the Tennessee, to find that my room had just been vacated by arriving passengers and it was not ready.

Photo courtesy of Kathie Lopez who also delivered me to the depot.

I went to the diner to have lunch. The train departed El Paso at 11:53, 2 hr 52 m late. After lunch, I returned to my room and set up my computer with Delorme Topo USA and a GPS and began tracking the progress of the train. We seemed to stay at 80 mph most of the time but at 3:20 CDT we stopped on a siding just west of Valentine. At 3:23 we started moving again and we were soon back up to 80 mph. Not much to see in this part of the world but it was a lot greener than I expected. We stopped to meet a freight just west of Alpine at 4:22 CDT, then we BACKED UP for some reason. By 4:38 we were moving again, never learned what the delay was. Then there was a long delay at the station in Alpine. After sitting there for a several minutes the conductor declared a "passenger courtesy stop" and let folks off to smoke or stretch their legs.

After the train moved forward for a second and then a third spot to board some passengers on rear cars, we finally departed Alpine at 5:24. We also got a new train and engine crew here. Scheduled departure was 2:22 so we are now 3 hrs and 2 m late. Passed through Marathon at 6:45. Met a freight at Rosenfeld at 7:32. Departed Sanderson at 8:04, 3 hr and 53 m late.

Crossed the Pecos High Bridge at 9:42 but could only tell from the sound as it was quite dark. Del Rio had coke machines inside the depot but all the doors were locked ... bummer. Departed Del Rio at 10:42, 4 hr 5 m late.

Amtrak 2 arrives in El Paso

This post was originally made from my iPhone. I took the picture as the train arrived, then emailed it to a special address that posts it on the blog. Kind of slow but cool. I edited the text later from a hotel with my laptop.

Waiting for the train.

Well, it's 6:23 on departure day. The scheduled arrival of Train 2, The Sunset, into El Paso is 8:16 am and the Amtrak site already shows an estimated arrival of 10:22. Pretty typical of the Sunset so we'll see how it goes. Plenty of time for breakfast though.

What to expect ...

Almost anything!

During the period from August 4th until August 20th, I'm going to be on Amtrak for most of 10 days and 6 nights. I'll also be in five different hotels across the country and travel approximately 7500 miles by rail. Somewhere in the middle of that, I'll be at the national N-scale convention in Hartford, CT. Whatever strikes my fancy will get reported in some way on the blog. No theme this time. All the hotels have wifi so I can post from there with my laptop. I also have the capability to take a picture with my phone and post it and some text directly from the phone. Pictures won't be very pretty and there won't be much text since I'm not very good at typing on this gadget yet. Doesn't sound interesting ... oh well.