Amtrak’s long-distance trains, besides
being a fantastic way to cross America, are especially popular for their sleeper
accommodations. The novelty of crossing the country in the luxury of your own private
compartment is really something spectacular. While I’m not crossing the country today, I’ll
still show what it’s like to travel in the Amtrak Superliner Roomette onboard the legendary City of
New Orleans. This train runs between New Orleans, LA and Chicago, IL, but I’ll be riding it on the
final two-hour segment from Champaign-Urbana, IL up to Chicago. So with that being said, let’s head
to the train station and get this journey started. We’ll start today’s journey at my campus apartment
here at the University of Illinois. The train station serving Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
Terminal, is perfectly visible right from my bedroom window and after heading downstairs to
the lobby, it’s a roughly 15-minute walk from my apartment to the station. It’s worth mentioning
that the northbound City of New Orleans is scheduled to arrive in Champaign by 6:10 am.
Unfortunately today, our train is roughly two hours late thanks to debris on the tracks near
Brookhaven, MS causing a hefty delay. It’s a shame since the City of New Orleans actually
has one of the best on-time performances in all of Amtrak’s network. It almost always arrives
into Champaign on time, sadly not the case today. Aside from serving six daily Amtrak trains,
Illinois Terminal also serves Champaign-Urbana MTD buses in addition to intercity bus
lines like Greyhound, Burlington Trailways, and Peoria Charter. The building also houses
offices and a banquet hall on the top floor. This station was completed in 1999, replacing
the old station right across the street that you will see when we depart. Amtrak trains are
accessed from the second floor and there’s a reasonably large waiting area present with kiosks
to print out your ticket should you want to do so. About five minutes before the train’s scheduled
arrival, passengers are allowed onto the boarding bridge. Unfortunately, there were no separate
lines for sleeper and coach passengers, everyone just jumbled up together. This was
surprising since Amtrak always separates, for example, business class passengers
from coach. But the non-separation kind of makes sense because there aren’t many
passengers who book sleeper accommodations for such a short journey.
In no time, our train pulled in led by two of Amtrak’s brand-new
Siemens ALC-42 Charger locomotives, #311 and #313. This will be my first time ever
riding a train pulled by these new engines. The sleeping cars on all Amtrak
Superliner-operated long-distance trains are located at the front of the train. It
was really cool to walk all the way down to the north end of the platform to the first car right
behind the engines, where my room would be today. Most of the rooms in the Superliner cars are
located upstairs. Our car today is a Transition Sleeper, which has 17 roomettes on the upper
level and one accessible room on the lower level. This specific car does not have the
larger Amtrak Bedrooms which are found in the standard Sleeper cars. This morning, I was assigned Room 17 for the short trip north
but we’ll take a closer look after we depart. Shortly after leaving Champaign, one of the
attendants came by to invite me and the other Champaign sleeper passenger to the dining car
for breakfast since all meals are included in the sleeper ticket. The traditional Superliner
dining cars are back in service on the City of New Orleans and it was great to finally
be inside one of these. It really is quite a cool feeling to be enjoying a meal at the
table as you watch America roll by outside. Menus are provided both in the dining
car and to every sleeper passenger in the rooms. Unfortunately, the kitchen had
run out of everything by this point so the only option was some cereal which I was totally
okay with. After a quick but welcome breakfast, I walked back over to my room. As mentioned
earlier, we’re in the Transition Sleeper but what that means exactly you’ll find out later in the
video. Now it’s time for a detailed roomette tour. So you might recall that we’re
inside the Transition Sleeper, but what exactly does that mean? Well, the
Transition Sleeper is usually the first car on any Amtrak long-distance Superliner train.
It’s called the “Transition Sleeper” because one end of the car has a lower-level vestibule,
while the other end has an upper-level vestibule to connect with the other Superliner cars. This
lower-level vestibule would theoretically allow easy access to the baggage car, locomotive, or any
single-level piece of rolling stock. So in short, this car serves as a “transition” between
the single and upper-level equipment. Back upstairs, here’s a quick look
at the sole bathroom on the upper level. For all the roomettes on
any Amtrak long-distance train, there looks to be only one to two showers
per car so just something to keep in mind. There are also free coffee and water stations
located in the middle of the car by the stairs. With that said, downstairs is where the other
bathrooms can be found on the Superliners. Right across from the stairs is a small luggage rack
and then further down the hall are the bathrooms, with the accessible bedroom located at the
end of the hall. Surprisingly, even with this train being 18 or so hours into its journey,
the bathrooms still looked relatively clean. One quirk of the Transition Sleeper is that the space
that would normally house more Roomettes in a regular sleeper car is instead the crew lounge
where the attendants can rest while off-duty. The next order of business was to
check out the Observation Lounge car, probably my favorite part of any Amtrak
Superliner long-distance train. The lounge car was the fourth car on our train,
so after a quick walk, I was there. As mentioned earlier, this is my first time in
the lounge car during the daytime and what a place this is. The larger windows on this car are
really perfect for watching all the scenery go by…even if it’s Midwestern cornfields. There are
both individual seats and table seating options in this car with power outlets available in certain
areas. As with most Amtrak equipment, these Superliners are showing their age and this was
very apparent in this car with some tired-looking overhead lights and wall panels. Time will tell
when the lounge cars get refurbished though. A really cool surprise on the back of our train
today were two Northern Sky Charter private cars that date from 1955. This one, named “ Northern
Dreams” is a dedicated sleeper car and the other, named “Northern Sky” is a dome and sleeper
car. Private cars like this are chartered by people or certain companies and attached to
Amtrak long-distance trains. As you can imagine, these cars are pure luxury and cost a fortune to
travel in. But enough talk, we’ve reached the end of the line here in Chicago. Thanks so much
for joining me and I’ll catch you next time.
