February 14 & 15, 2022
After my chilly jaunt through the streets of Chicago, I was
happy to plop down on a squishy sofa in the Metropolitan Lounge to wait until
it was time to board the next train.
Earlier I had had a conversation with one of the women checking people
into the lounge so I knew that she would watch out for me and make sure I headed
for the correct train. I was grateful
for this when the time came as it is such a huge station.
It was long past dark by the time we made our way into the
cavernous building that houses rows of trains waiting on tracks. Most of the people were able to board
quickly, but for some reason a long que of people piled up at the sleeper car
door. I was quite tired, and had sort of
a feeling of doom for this leg of the journey.
As my dad was fond of saying, “All’s well that ends well.” (quoting who
knows, who), and indeed, nothing catastrophic happened. But it wasn’t uneventful either. Much of the unrest, for lack of a better
term, was because of the sleeper car attendant team. 95% of all sleeper attendants are black and
usually wonderful to have on board. This
time, however, there was one who was in training, and one who (in my humble
opinion) was a terrible boss. Boss man was a
small, monkey-like man who dressed very unprofessionally in a beanie that
flopped around. He was also very
difficult to understand and didn’t seem to care to communicate with people
anyway. He constantly derided the new guy. Ray, clearly his underling, was
tall, soft-spoken and nicely dressed. He
made an effort to communicate well and connect with each passenger. Why do I go on and on about this? Because their attitudes colored the whole
trip.
The Capitol Limited does not have the facilities of other long trains. No observation car, lounge, or dining car. It has one car besides the sleepers and coach cars, and that is the café car, where light snacks and drinks can be purchased. Sleeper car passengers would be provided a packaged hot meal to eat either in that car, or in their room. I opted to have it in my room. Soon after that, I had Ray make up my little bed.
I awoke before the sun was up, and dressing quickly, I went to the café car. One harried person was running the café, and had to run down steps to the “basement” to get everything. I did my best to get a smile out of him, but it was to no avail. While I ate, the conductor announced that during the night we had gotten 3 ½ hours behind, due to getting stuck behind a freight train with issues. With this being only a 18 hour trip anyway, it would be impossible for them to make up more than a few minutes of this delay, so for many people, their connections would be affected.
As we rocked along, moving ever eastward, the sun weakly rose into a cloudy sky. There were increasingly more buildings and fewer farms. One thing that remained true is that it was cold outside. Once we left Sacramento on The Zephyr, it has been snowy or frozen most of the time.
Cities and towns, rivers, lakes, and bridges slip by in a blur. Though I have a nook full of books to read, I only do so when it is dark, as I enjoy watching the ever-changing scenery.
The trip was continually punctuated by the conductor
announcing that we were still 3 ½ hours behind or that we had made up two or
three minutes. As we grew ever closer to
our destination, he would announce which train connections were long missed,
which we might still make, and then some possible solutions. My train to Charlottesville, #171 was never mentioned,
though it looked like it would be a very close connection, so I became quite
tense. I attempted to ask one of my car
attendants, but Ray knew nothing, and his boss was too busy. Lunchtime came and went, with no food
offered. Again, I attempted to ask what
was going to be done about this, with no results. I gave up and decided to fend for
myself. I went to the café car and
requested a lunch meal for a sleeping car passenger. The same harried man was running it and said
that he didn’t know if meals were available, and he wasn’t authorized to
check. He would need the conductor’s
permission. I told him that I’d already
tried that route, and that if he just gave me a package of hummus and pretzels,
I’d not bother him again. It worked, and
I had my lunch of sorts.
While I was eating, the Boss came in and told me that he was too busy to talk to me but when his work was done, he would come back. He never did, and I just decided to let it go and let the chips fall. If I missed my train to Charlottesville, I would simply lose the price of the hotel there and have to stay in DC. Not the end of the world. Once I’d decide this, I was able to enjoy the scenery much more.
Golden Bridge Over the Allegheny River in Pittsburg, PA Pittsburg, PA
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| Frozen Algae on the River Surface |
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| Frozen Waterfalls |
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| Frozen Waterfall |
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| Ice Chunks Piled on River Bank |
One town we cruised through, caught my eye as I’ve never seen so many church steeples in one town before. I was able to look it up and find that it was Cumberland, Maryland. And the main reason that there are so many is that, unlike churches in most cities, they haven’t burned to the ground. The pictures are poor, but you can get the idea. There were many more than I captured in the photos.
Church Steeples in Cumberland, Maryland Church Steeples in Cumberland, Maryland
We arrived in Washington DC about 30 minutes ahead of my departure on the Northeast Regional. I searched every schedule board but could not find my train listed. Eventually it popped up on the screens, but with the gate number left blank. I tried to pretend that I was calm but walked around asking various strangers for advice. A security guard with a gorgeous German shepherd looked at my ticket and assured me that train would likely depart from H, J, or K gate and not to fret. Others said the same and that it sometimes isn’t posted until a few minutes before departure. They were all right, and all did end well. I claimed a window seat in the nearly empty commuter train and soon we were off. No one ever checked my ticket or asked anyone else for theirs. Since it was fully dark by the time we got underway, I pulled out a free magazine that I’d gotten just before I left home. I read it cover-to-cover, and then tucked it into the seat pocket for the next person. My luggage will now be about .75 oz lighter.
When we arrived for our 20 second stop in Charlottesville,
VA, I was ready to disembark. The small
brick station welcomed me with a cheerfully lit interior. Other passengers bypassed the station and
went directly to their waiting cars. I
stood inside and called my hotel. Soon a
little blue van arrived, and I was on my way to a room of clean sheets and fluffy towels, that wasn't swaying and bumping through the night. And as my dad would say, "All's well, that ends well!"
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