A Train Odyssey 3, Part 1, AMTRAK "Lake Shore Limited"

so here it is September 6th 2018 the 6th of September in other words and I'm embarking on another trip once again on the metro rail commuter from my outlying suburban area into the city of Chicago to catch my M track train the first of four trains that I'll be taking on this trip only the first train of the four will be a long-distance train the others will be regional commuter trains so order of just regional trains so it's gonna be like a mini train Odyssey and I'll talk in more detail about it once we actually get going on that but I'll do a little bit of the footage getting down there this train is considerably later than I go down to the city because the long distance Amtrak train is the lakeshore limited which does not leave Chicago until 9:30 at night so I'm actually heading down here during rush hour and I'll still have at least three hours sitting around Union Station before it's time to board my long-distance train the Metrorail does not run a commuter train out here very often to my location so it only runs every two or three hours except for the most peak periods so it actually has more trains running out from the city this time of day and a fewer running back they I think they just have all their way back I'm not really sure how they do that but this was the only one that was even remotely close to the rate schedule this is the town of rondell [Music] location of a famous train robbery it's a place where several different rail lines coming from different directions all merge and cross each other Crossing Lake Cook Road which is the boundary between Lake County and Cook County [Applause] so the Great Hall is still under construction obviously a lot of stuff that's been done but it's nowhere near complete time to get some dinner going from the lower level up to the mezzanine level where the food courts are two down escalators Noah fescue leader that's looking north on the Chicago River with so much time to kill before my train leaves tonight there's time to leave the station and go to a proper restaurant for dinner [Music] [Music] and this year cross street is famous Wacker Drive which is a dual level this obviously is the upper level and unless I totally screwed up the history many people outside of Chicago don't realize that at one point most of the downtown was one-story lower than it is now and it was decided at one point to build it up so the current downtown street level is one level higher then it would have been historically so all the buildings around here have an additional one or two levels of basement below where you think they would down to reach down to the original original basements of the buildings well of course as it turns out the Panera Bread I thought I was going to is closed and this is heading back over by the Chicago River facing west and the Fifth Third Center small skyscraper and the adjacent building their the relatively low one those are the buildings that are upstairs from Union Station of course the classic Union Station is there but that's where the Grand Hall is the trains aren't there see station where most everything happens is under these two buildings here and then the tracks are under the street at the original Chicago ground level or original Chicago Street level and they're right along the side of the river there so all the way I'm not sure when the street level was raised in Chicago and whether it actually did take police along the west side of the river were just done the East End in Union Station was there before they raised it I'm not sure the timeline but it does seem like perhaps one point that ministry level I'm not sure and the same thing happens on the other side that the tracks are one level below street level well there's a potbelly here [Applause] it's a double-decker potbellies some of my train trip viewers have chastised me in the past we're not showing meals which I don't personally see the appeal of but this isn't a train meal but here's a meal Potbelly's new pulled pork sandwich and some salt and vinegar chips [Music] awesome great job thank you this is the store I always go into to get snacks for the trip yeah pick one go down from the food level mezzanine to the South concourse yes and that doorway over there is the door that the Metropolitan lawns uses for passengers exiting to the trains it's a nice Amtrak Road map people who have seen my other videos will recognize the Empire Builder which goes this way [Applause] and then either it's Spokane splits to go to Seattle or Portland I've done videos on both those routes and then the coast starlight which comes down coast here all the way to Los Angeles and then the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited combined two trains are on this row down to San Antonio where you've got the train coming in from New Orleans and then they Texas Eagle that goes up through Austin to Fort Worth Easter Dallas and then up through Arkansas eastern Missouri and then diagonally through Illinois to Chicago and then the California Zephyr which goes down this way as far as Galesburg and you can see everything seems to go into Galesburg then it continues west through Burlington through southern Iowa southern Nebraska northern Colorado through Denver up through the Rocky Mountains right there and then down through blend with Springs goes into Utah goes back up north to Salt Lake City crosses the Great Salt Lake playing there and then through Nevada and then finally through the Sierra Nevada mountains and then down through Sacramento to Emeryville just on the east side of the San Francisco Bay the shuttle service over to San Francisco and then we also have the Southwest Chief which comes out of Los Angeles more to the east and that goes up there Barstow goes through through needles and Kingman Flagstaff Albuquerque up into southern Colorado cuts the corner goes through Kansas diagonally through northern Missouri and then joins up at Galesburg and continues up to Chicago these are all routes that I have videos on and I've also done a video on the Cardinal which comes down from Chicago through Indianapolis Cincinnati along the border of Kentucky through West Virginia following the New River mostly and then up through the Appalachians and then the long through western Virginia and up to Washington DC and continuing I think as far as New York City and I've also taken the eastern corridor train which comes from further north but I've picked it up at Washington DC and taken it down as far as Petersburg now on this trip which I haven't really discussed so far I'll be doing a mini train Odyssey mini meaning it's not that long but it does involve multiple trains since I'm calling it a train out of see I'll be coming out of Chicago on the lakeshore limited which is an overnight train leaving Chicago at 9:30 tonight and then it spins the rest of the night crossing northern Indiana and most of northern Ohio sometime around 6:00 in the morning when I should be awake already it'll be in Cleveland at that point it [Music] continues up the shore of Lake Erie to Buffalo and then it cuts across central New York and I'm taking it as far as Albin a Rensselaer right there in the middle of the screen and that's as far as I'm taking it but it does continue I think it goes down to New York but maybe it's Boston I forget one of the other other it goes that far but I'm getting off early at Albany then the second leg will be this run right down here to New York City and then the third leg will be a run from New York down to Philadelphia and then the fourth run will be another one of the coastal commuter type routes that will go from Philadelphia all the way down to Petersburg that'll be the fourth leg and then I'm not taking a train home it's just gonna be flying home curiously enough I can't find a non stop so I have to fly from from Richmond up to Dulles Airport in DC and then continue back to Chicago [Music] well it's now 7:20 so I have another hour in 20 minutes to wait before we start boarding [Music] [Music] [Music] well here's an interesting development our departure of our lakeshore limited train has been delayed about half an hour but apparently the Metropolitan lounge has to close at 9 o'clock presumably the staff goes home or something at that time so they kicked us all out and we relocated to a more general lounge [Music] [Music] so anyway they've got the general loans just on the other side of that wall there finally at 9:25 gets aboard the train to make sure once again and I apologize for the delay of the strength you put before that when they're gone away since agent Thank You Havilland the boarding area 47 48 for 48 minutes ago it's a little confusing because the numbers on the sleeper cars at the tail end don't seem to be anything like the ones we're supposed to have and nobody's telling us where to go so we're walking down to this end so they've got the sleeper cars scattered throughout the length of the train depending on where you're going it's a new experience for me maybe they drop some cars off at different points along the road or something but my car is apparently way up in the front and I'm in room a which is right here but before that we have the usual room it's down that way and this is after all a view liner car not my usual Superliner car where is your second you know what so here we are in a view liner bedroom the full-size bedroom not to be confused with the row mats on my video on the cardinal I covered the view liner room at so this will be the first time I've covered the view liner room and I've never taken a super liner room so this is the first time I've got a video on any kind of bedroom where I've actually been in it I haven't covered every trip I've taken in various accommodations on YouTube so this is a little bit of a new one for me as far as the video goes so I'll do the view liner room at tour unlike the super liner which is a double-decker car the view liner is a single level car but it can be fairly tall so it has a lot more Headroom in the room then the super liner can having to squeeze two levels into one very tall car so you do end up with these upper level windows on the view liner if you're in a sleeper car if you're a coach car any of the other cars then the roofs are lower and you don't have that upper level window you get the same big picture glass or what's the word I want big picture window that you would get on a super liner and the rooms are all pretty much about six-and-a-half feet wide this is a room that could be part of a suite so it has the adjoining door there but on this instance I've just got the room by myself so there's only one single seat in the car and it actually can fold up like this to get it out of the way of the adjoining door I have to push on the little pedal to unlock it and you can see that it's not nearly as nice as the single seats in a Superliner roomette or even a view liner room it it doesn't have that much back support the seat is narrow and really not that great but serviceable sitting in it it's like a very uncomfortable airline seat I'm hoping that I can tolerate sitting in this for hours on end so as usual I have a automotive GPS stuck on the window with a suction mount and my radio scanner program to the frequencies obtained off of on track online website for this lakeshore limited train right now there's no communications going on cruising they'll start once we start rolling and I usually have my outlets strip now here's the difference on the Superliner cars for certain the outlets are all over by the window on this view liner room the only outlet in the room is this one over by the sink so I bought a non grounded type extension cord I believe it's a 16 foot 15 or 16 foot cord I have to run it across the doorway there's no other way to get it where it needs to go and run it under the the sofa seat which is actually the bed please set your watches one hour had arrived Indiana will be at Eastern Time thank you anyway so the room was obviously not made up for a night time yet even though it's almost 10 o'clock at night and we should have started rolling at 9:30 but we're still here in Union Station anyway it's pretty much the normal thing it has the pull up tray which will fold down here and can be used by facing passengers either for meals or for setting your iPad or your book or your notebook computer or whatever on it or playing small board games like checkers or chess got your air vents here they shut off valve that admits the air and there's two of those each with their own the upper bed is here with this lever to unlock it not going to do that yet each of the the bench seats here has a swivel Bowl light which can be turned on and I for the button the night light and ceiling light is controlled here off night light only and full-on and that's controllable from these two locations there doesn't appear to be a control for it over by this seat and then there's a switch here which also cycles through them so three places to control the light from there is a small mirror with its own light and there's a reading light over the bucket seat not terribly bright looking and here's a small enhancement I've started to bring this product on my train trips it's about a twenty five dollar light with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery comes with a AC charger in the car charger has a a a folding hook hanger and a spring clip and a neodymium magnet bass it's nice and brightness also dimmable radio is making it sound like we're about ready to roll here oh there's a buttons for the wall light here high-low and off so I get that rid of a little bit of the glare there's the attendant call button there's a thermostat there's a fan here which can be set to low medium and high back to off let's see is there an equivalent one it appears that that's the only one in this room I seem to remember that the view liner room mats had two or three fans like that anyway there is a closet here very similar to the ones in the other types of rooms about the same size you've got your sliding door helped to the aisle with the same type of lock that are on all the Amtrak sleeper rooms got your privacy curtain there is a cubbyhole up here which you have to stand on the couch to get up to but there is quite a bit of room up here for a suitcase or two or other bags and also up here above the shower room so the sink is very much like a airline type almost identical little paper cups there is so-called ice water which isn't doing diddly here nice but that works hot and cold water under quite a bit of pressure the complimentary washcloths where did I just see them oh yes I need to move my suitcase and here's a thing there doesn't seem to be as much usable storage space from my carry-on suitcase as there isn't even a room at all the room it's I've been and have a place where you can stick the suitcase which is out of the way and doesn't have to be constantly moved but if I put anything here it blocks the door if I put it here it blocks the bathroom if I put it here it's in the way of the legs so not really good place to do it somebody's jammed a washcloth into the sliding door here probably to cut down on rattling anyway this is the entrance into the shower room toilet which is barely accessible without folding the chair up another downside but you can at least fold that armrest up and get it to open a few more degrees so there is your own toilet this one looks like it needed to be flushed still has some urine in it that's really weird it makes me wonder if they clean the thing since it was last year I have to clean that myself before you start using it the towels are up here the shower is here on it's flexible hose and the toilet paper is in these little tiny pouches here under the supposedly waterproof door I'm gonna have to figure out if they've put additional toilet paper things in here and the Train is starting to move at ten o'clock so half an hour late you see like them turn the room light off into fairly [Music] there we go [Music] this would be the very first time that I've been shooting train videos where I've left a station at night so a nighttime departure is a new one for me on these videos so while I'm sitting here in the dark this is the ham track lakeshore limited and it goes out from Chicago and goes across northern Indiana and then across northern Ohio to Cleveland then it follows then up along the south shore I guess this will be serves as a sleeper watch of 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern time so please set your watch is one hour mine hours are between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. you will not hear any out for some obscure is an emergency thank you I'm glad she clarified that because I find on most trains I'm on they don't mention the quiet hours at all anyway so the train continues along the south shore of Lake Erie it goes through Buffalo New York and then it cuts right across the middle of New York State from west to east and makes a couple of stops along the way one of the major stops is over towards the more eastern end of the state where it goes to Alban Inu York and from there it continues on and I still don't remember where it goes - if it's Boston or New York City I wanted to say New York City but I'm getting off this train in Albany which will also make it the first time I've done a Youtube train video where I'm not taking the train all the way from one end to the other where I'm getting off at an intermediate point so I usually go to bed about 9:30 on trains because I get up pretty early there's not much to do after it gets dark usually I don't find it's bright enough to read very much and once the scenery goes away I lose interest in staying awake so I really should be hitting the sack you're pretty close and pretty soon but I think I'll stay awake at least until we get into Indiana you know out of the immediate Chicago area because there should be some scenery at least some lights going down through the industrial area south and southeast of the city of Chicago I don't know the exact route the rails take but if it goes anywhere near Geary for example there should be steel mills and other stuff that might be worth shooting some video of so from the GPS we're just passing through a rail yard south of Union Station and right along the Chicago River it's the same rail yard all the southbound trains go through this is an tracks service area for the trains I believe this is where they clean the cars between trips and possibly service locomotives and other things like that anyway I started before the train rolled I'd started my exploration to see where they keep more toilet paper since it doesn't look like it takes a normal toilet paper I was going to reinvestigate in here by the way there is this waterproof lip here which is real easy to trip over I've almost done it twice so far so anyway I was saying this because the waterproof situation they give you these little corliss packs of toilet paper there's two of them in here that's probably enough but I would think they would still have some spares I also don't know if you can turn the lights off in this thing I don't see any lights which is I wonder if they they don't turn off with the mirror light they don't turn off with the room light so I guess they just stay on all night about that based approach over to one now the only way I'm gonna get any shooting out of here oh yeah I was gonna say there is a trash container it's under the sink for some reason we put up that's really weird it's kind of awkward they did with it the plastic bag here tissues that's disposal of tissues I guess I might as well go ahead and lower the upper bunk and as usual with these it has a safety strap and there's a ladder which there's only one place it can go because it can't go on this little aisle here it slopes too much it wouldn't fit so it pretty much has to go here which also means you can't put any luggage to speak of down here and you pretty much need to fold that seat up otherwise you're gonna hit the front of the seat when you come down the ladder and if you had people in here at night and they want to go to the bathroom you don't want your luggage there either because you can have to be moving it in the middle that's one of the reasons why I almost never stay in bedrooms in Amtrak sleeper cars because really all you get for it is a little tiny sink and a toilet which you might use a two or three times a day and you pay at least twice as much for the room and you're gonna have the extra smells and so on in the room that you wouldn't have if you use the toilet down the hallway that's the experience you have if you've got a room that you know in a Superliner and it doesn't seem like the layout is really that much better like I said if you want to sit in this car and be facing in the direction of travel as I do this is my only choice and it's this crummy little seat very uncomfortable seat I'm glad that they don't use these cars on the Western trips take three or four days I'd be miserable but as it is I'm going to be in it for maybe six or so hours out of tomorrow which is okay the seat that you get let's see yeah the seats that you get if you're on the bench seat are closer to the comfort level you would have in a normal room that seat weather view liner or super liner so that would be the one I'd want to sit in except for in this car it's going it's facing the wrong direction I didn't mention a couple other things besides the ladder and the the two mattresses that are up here the one for the upper bunk and then they folded mattress which will get put down on the bench seat to make the lower bed the upper bunk does have usual amenities it has its own fan for up there which it appears nope it is not controlled by the fan control downstairs so it has its own controls and there's the little pouch up there where you can put glasses and wallets and things like that at night and there's a set of controls I said before there were three controls for the lights there's actually four because there's the one they're located by the upper bunk and then of course it's reading light up there so I think I've covered most of everything about the view liner bedroom I can't wait for my room attendant to almost tripped over the cord laying across there hope that doesn't bother her as soon as she comes around I'm gonna have her make this up for nighttime and as usual on these trains I brought my Rand McNally Road Atlas because it's the easiest way to figure out where I am and see the surrounding area not just a point area like the GPS would show me and I brought my usual bag of snacks from the convenience store and Union Station some soft drinks and some chips and a couple of candy items just for snacking wallboard so I think I'm gonna go back to trying to shoot out the window now here's a word of caution this probably applies to both view liner and super liner Reaper cars and also hotels that have adjacent room size as a suite I always find that those doors are not very sound crew and [Applause] sure enough I can hear a lot of noise from the adjacent room that would be a room like Danger Room be I hope they're not bothered by my radio and stuff like that oh by the way this is a US Cellular Field I think that's the name of it not sure it's gonna light up - yeah it's not gonna show up in the darkness but there's a big stadium right there and you can see the little sign right in the middle of the picture that says home of the Chicago White Sox and this is part of the parking lot here so that shows up right here we're still paralleling highway 90 which in the local Chicago area is known as the Dan Ryan Expressway we're only going about 22 miles an hour crawling through here while we're accelerating now we're already up to about 30 miles an hour it looks like our chains finally gonna turn from the straight south track and cross under or over presumably under the Dan Ryan Expressway 90 all right so we're curving here starting across the roads of the Dragon looks like we're going over the Dan Ryan Expressway here if there it is and now we join a cluster of tracks on the east side of the Dan Ryan I'm gonna presume that this is about the same place as the Chicago Skyway separates because actually it's not just i-90 it's i-90 and i-94 that comprised the Dan Ryan Expressway to this point but I want to say it's I 94 that keeps going south while the Skyway i-90 branches off to the east and follows the lakeshore more closely I think we're going to be kind of right along that it looks like big industrial area and that looks like the beginning of the Chicago Skyway right there but the traffic going on it hard to get a picture here with all the light so we're up to about seventy miles an hour almost paralleling the Chicago Skyway while it's still pretty low to the ground it hasn't gone up in the Ariat to cross over what is it it crosses over I don't really know this part of the city that well is it like Calumet I think that maybe is what it is anyway all the big ship channels and things like that that are down in that area I take the Skyway fairly often whenever I have to go to Indiana or points east in my car but this would be the first time I've gone along it in the Train on this trip I brought an actual hard covered book instead of my usual Kindle I received in the mail just today this thing I just received this book in the mail today I just ordered a couple of days ago from Amazon and this is a new or almost new book called Space Odyssey by Michael Benson published by Simon & Schuster this is published and I think more or less in honor or in commemoration of the 50th thing as the 50th anniversary of 2001 a Space Odyssey and it tells the story of the making of the movie and the writing of the novel an angler collaborative effort between arthur c clarke and stanley kubrick and it got really good reviews and I decided this would be a perfect book to take with me on this trip but as you can see here it's not super bright this is the best the reading light can give me and I have trouble reading when it's only this bright which is exactly why I brought my auxilary late yeah we're going right through that area where the the Skyway bridges are really tall Brutus Wow I don't know if we'll see any of it on this side yeah really hard to see which might be able to see the truck lights up there and whose stuff there you can see where it's a taller bridge and starting to come down the ramp already it was taller off there to the right it's a pretty high bridge actually I suppose that's why they call it the sky way I always like the view of myself going over there even though it's a toll road and you have to pay it fairly steep toll to go over it anyway so we're coming up really close to Lake Michigan here not that we're gonna be able to see any of it and the GPS shows that we're just about ready to cross into Indiana that's where the dotted line is they're in the middle of the screen I mention the front of the train may already be in in the end in Indiana can't see you diddly out here it's very dark and other than some sort of waste yard or something that's off to the side here a bunch of grain bins or something I can't quite make out what's out there but we just crossed into Indiana at this point nothing the camera will picked up there's a casino or something over here that's why there's lights so my room was just made up and here's what it looks like with the lower bunk down it is wide enough to probably fit two people if you sleep really close to each other or you could have maybe a couple of kids sleeping here in an adult on the upper bunk or something but look how much room it takes up it's almost impossible to get to the door or access the sink or anything so I scooch through here awkwardly and I really don't need about 20 zillion pillows stick those back up in the top okay that's more like it so since I mentioned before I wasn't sure of the route once it gets east of Albin II here is the road okay Chicago goes to South Bend Indiana Elkhart Indiana Waterloo Indiana then Brian Toledo Sandusky Illyria and Cleveland Ohio Erie Pennsylvania Buffalo New York Rochester Syracuse Utica Schenectady and Albert Albany Rensselaer which is where I'm getting off then into Pittsfield Massachusetts Springfield Massachusetts Wurster Massachusetts Remington Massachusetts and then to Boston and then down to the kitchen ooh York Croton Harman New York Boston Massachusetts South Station that's weird how does it do that oh okay so I guess the Kip C and Croton Harman it seems to hit Boston twice not sure how that's set up exactly but and then finally New York Penn Station so I was right that it goes to Boston and doors another thing I don't like the belt this incessant banging from the partition door I'm gonna see if I can dampen that out a little bit with my suitcase and my work and I'd said before that there was no separate light switch for the shower or bathroom but there is it's right here the shower light this is what they bedroom looks like but the lights turn off and ready for bed I have to have everything piled up over in that corner to keep the path open to the bathroom and the rest of the room is pretty much inaccessible to everything now if you had the upper bunk down the ladder would be taking up all that space down there so there'd be essentially no floor space that's accessible at night which is in many ways even worse or less space than you'd have in a room at yet another reason why I don't see why people really want to pay all the extra money for a bedroom so at 11:25 central time I'm hitting the sack I'm not sure this is really any more comfortable either than then a room at the beds wider of course but that doesn't do anything for me and as usual with the rooms or room it's on Amtrak trains for some reason I always find them kind of too warm when I go to sleep even with the thermostat turned all the way down it's not like it's stiflingly hot but always warmer than I would like it but it usually gets cooler overnight and then it's a little more comfortable Oh well it's about 7:15 in the morning that's a eastern time I did not get up early as I usually do on the train because big part of my reason for getting up early is grab the shower before everybody else gets that idea and I have my own shower this time so there wasn't that need plus it was very gray and dark and decided to stay in bed until now we went through Cleveland just a little while ago [Music] and we're now rapidly approaching the border we're in between mentor and Ashtabula very close to the shore of Lake Erie [Music] I think the little town we just went past was north Madison so if Cleveland being here North Madison is here and we're just a little bit east of it but we're not to ash the bullet yes it should be here I think we're right around about Geneva so quite close to the Pennsylvania State Line well the shower wasn't bad but it's so constrictive in there it's hard to move I think that much prefer that much larger shower in the so-called public shower in each sleeper car that I could have actually used on this train if I'd wanted to instead of using this one and of course you got to make sure to stow your toilet paper first or it'll get all soaking wet and the even the toilet the it doesn't maybe look it but the you can't even move your arms out to the sides of your body because this is such a narrow space this is even smaller than a an airline toilet just very little room to move over and over in there and if you're standing in the shower you're wedged in between the edge of the toilet seat and the door and again it's not even any room to move early so again I the merits of having a shower and toilet in the room seems like it's hardly worth the hassle really [Music] and we're just now crossing into Pennsylvania [Music] [Music] at 7:50 just about we're just a little ways inside Pennsylvania and according to the GPS we're right along the edge of Lake Erie but you can't see it [Music] and keep waiting for a break in the trees [Music] you get the impression that there will be a sudden break in the trees and they'll see the light but there's always that other row of trees that stands between us in the lake [Music] [Music] cook to my upper level [Music] [Music] this is a patently like city at least that's what it said on the fire station [Music] [Music] but my GPS isn't showing a town there shows us being near Gerard maybe it's unincorporated hope there it is a little bit more it was like city [Music] well they said that breakfast is somewhere near the rear of the train I'm sorry I thought I just bumped into a chair I didn't realize as you I'm sorry stop [Music] more ladies [Music] a bee [Music] yeah this huh sir yeah sleeper okay and my room has been made up for the day which is good and having just returned from the dining car the opposite end of the train it's about 8:40 in the morning Eastern Time [Music] and we're in between Portland and Brockton I guess that's still Pennsylvania gonna have to check well so when I went to the dining car we just recently crossed from Ohio into Pennsylvania and while I was eating we were in Erie and we've gone up here and crossed into New York State and [Music] we are off of my GPS here let's see we just passed Brockton which is right here and seem to stabilize it so we've gotten that little distance and we're heading up towards Buffalo and then the rest of the day as far as I'm concerned we'll be going along past Rochester Syracuse Utica and down to Schenectady and Albany which is where I get off and I'm going to stay overnight and then take a scenic drive to Ticonderoga which is way up here so them tomorrow later afternoon I'm gonna come back from Ticonderoga to Albany and catch the train on to New York City and then on to Philadelphia unfortunately there's a lot of spots on my window on the outside the inside was actually pretty clean when I whitened it down as soon as I got into the car it came up almost perfectly playing on my cleaning rag and so somebody in the car was actually wiping that down with the outside it's pretty dirty I don't get the impression they really cleaned it before the trip started just because it's got that much dirt on so some commentary on overnight actually slept pretty well the tracks at stretch Ohio Indiana and Ohio we're surprising these except for a few spots that I noticed when I was away but by enlarge there were many times when I woke up in his revolver or something that the tracks are so smooth I thought we'd stopped almost all of the Western routes I've taken on long-distance Amtrak trains in the last few years have been fairly rough at least in places so it was a pleasant surprise to find that whoever's owning the rails maintaining them in that stretch seem to have done a pretty good job it's not so smooth today though for about the last hour it's been a little rougher but still fairly fairly reasonable certainly not a lot of drawings rapidly approaching Dunkirk which is again right on the lake I have yet to see a view of the lake and pet my scanner turned down when I went to eat and I forgot to turn it back up so I know it's gonna seem like I'm harping on this but say it again hopefully for the last time this is the second time in my travels that I've stayed in a full-size room on a sleeper car the first time made me think I was never going to do it again it just wasn't even remotely worth the extra price for what you get and last night reconfirmed that opinion indeed not only did I not think it was even remotely worth the extra money it didn't really provide any extra amenities or anything that were worth anything is doing and indeed some of the things like the use of the bathroom in the shower were really less convenient and less comfortable and just more of a pain than they would have been if I just use the the more public ones and you know I hate to use the word public for that because it's not like a public toilet here sharing a common toilet with a handful of people when you're on a sleeper car not letting everybody in the second cousin come into it and the same thing with the shower you know there's a real small number of people using it most of them it's available and it's certainly a lot bigger and easier to use the communal one maybe want to call it I just don't see myself hankering to get another room any time in the foreseeable future and you may ask why did I get one on this trip well it wasn't my intention to do so I did have a bit of a thought in the back of my head that it might be nice to do a video on one but I don't think I would have paid extra just to do that the truth of the matter is that I booked this trip fairly late didn't get my vacation act together very long before this trip and by the time I book there were no sleeper accommodations of any sort originally I was going to leave Chicago today and there was no sleeper accommodations of any sort on Fridays departing train so I had to move the trip up by one day and even then on this train the only room that was available still on the entire train was this one there were no more rooms there were no room Mets this was my last chance to get any kind of sleeper accommodation on this train so I had the pony up the money and then I justified it by saying well at least I'll get a video out of it and cut down a few of these trees we might be able to see the lake [Music] the train is apparently running nearly two hours late we left half an hour late last night and they were guessing that we'd be able to make up some of that but it seems like we lost time the schedule that I saw it said we were supposed to be in Cleveland around 5:30 in the morning and my sleeping heart and I repeated that information last night but in fact it was more like 7:15 this morning that we were in Cleveland so at least by my watch now far as I know all of Ohio is on Eastern time so I don't think there was a confusion there I think we must have had some slower traffic or slower speeds overnight or longer stays and a couple of stations or something but at least some of the clouds are boiled off and looks like one of a pleasant day at least for a while and these trees just don't get much of a break seemed to be a lot of vineyards around here so at 8:53 a rapidly approaching silver freak that's probably this down here actually Claire you know it's easy to get the impression looking at the maps when a train route goes along a lake or a river that you're going to be able to see the lake of the river it's not necessarily true well according to the map you're feeling away from the light now and will probably never be close enough to it to see it again and then of course not too long we'll be going across the middle of the state so a long way away from the lake and just as with the roommates at least the seats are close enough the facing seats are close enough that you're inclined to put your legs up the distance is not too great it's about 9:00 a.m. and our room attendant just came on the PA just say that Buffalo was about half an hour away but that we were only running about 45 minutes late and she pointed out that even though one would seem to think that we're later than that because of built-in delays put into the schedule presumably where we would stop for longer periods at some stations we've made up some of that and we're only about 45 minutes behind at this point at 9:06 this is the town of Derby New York State an important we keep hearing the automated track announcements but I haven't been able to clearly make out what they're saying in some cases especially identifying the railroad and I was also commenting earlier about whoever is maintaining these tracks seems to have done a better job than the preponderance of ones going west from Chicago so I looked it up and it's CS axle I could tell it was something s X or F X and it's CSX and they run tracks mostly in this pattern here you're gonna get the rose well thank you I was fumbling around for my camera didn't get it going quick enough to announcement not sure which river we just crossed back there the map is not clear is either the Cayuga river or the Cousineau via river doesn't matter how much I sue minute on my GPS it doesn't tell me that I'm trying to figure that out from my Road atlas so we are rolling into downtown Buffalo here and it'll be a station stop to the point where you can get off the train for a little bit well it appears the train doesn't actually stop in Buffalo proper it's like it's in some outlying community as far as I can tell we've passed out a buffalo or at least quite a ways away from a downtown part of it yes indeed check for you in here was the party department he's bringing some safety doctor [Music] [Music] it's the kind of stuff you don't hear about at all if you don't have a scanner CSX dispatcher notice some anomaly relating the signals I couldn't quite figure out the details of it and order strange come to the quickest safe stop and then they check things out proceed [Music] so the Amtrak station for the Buffalo areas Buffalo Depew I don't think we're quite there yet oh we are [Music] so as can be seen here our sleeper car is the one immediately behind the baggage car which is right behind the two locomotives and the other sleeper cars are at the opposite end of the Train which is something I haven't encountered before [Music] anyway they were like what are you going up there there's nothing up there it's like when my sleeper car up there and also there you guys room I still have my suitcase jammed up against the sliding door here I have to keep free wedging this towel in there trying to keep the door from rattling it's been mostly fairly effective but it doesn't stay that way for very long see what that there's off-road connector and 4946 to the head and I do have to bring it forward a few cars hurry spot okay to call for the research is that more macro amsterdam track 48 [Applause] [Music] this damn track for a twin-engine seven that has more of macros pressure parolees that within my limit use the more 29.93 Tuesday for 33.1 attractively [Music] [Applause] and one important [Applause] [Music] by on every stop swing about moving the train forward that a couple hours until the restart or a spot [Music] [Music] [Music] another my other strangers long-distance I think we were trained for 48 they seem to be referring to it as 48 not sure if the Train number actually changed at some point they're just doing that for short so this is departing the Buffalo station 10:15 morning and I haven't been doing a lot of video shooting here because since we left Louisville all the scenery looks just like this just trees going by early it was available field or anything the most exciting thing we pass at 10:17 we're going through a town that I can't tell what it is it's a Batavia on the map of New York State western part of it the TV is here halfway between Buffalo and Rochester we're pretty close to high 90 [Music] [Music] we're just now at 1034 south of the town up north chilly New York State but across the highway so at 10:42 a.m. we're pulling into the outskirts of Rochester there was a great big quarry with a bridge over it that looked very picturesque and I didn't see it coming until it was too late so this is the Rochester New York station question at 10:53 in the morning we're pulling out of the Rochester station about an hour 15 minutes our next station stop is vera juice Syracusan out 50 minutes well those of you that are just going to Albany of course you your lunch is included so if you want to have back to the sleeper lounge now you can do that for those of you traveling on through the Massachusetts are going to be doing something a little different this is the first time we've had the conference all together the way it was about three or four months ago so what I'll have to do this afternoon I will have to get your dinner orders so I can give that to Pierre Pierre will have to deliver to the cafe / and I will have to deliver to the room once we depart Albany I do want you to keep that bye of course if you're hungry you could have lunch balanced dinner that the dinners going to be a little bit early just the fact that we won't have that car we do have to make sure that we get everybody's orders so we can here can drink that to the cafe and I could deliver them to you a little bit after we depart out me so please keep that in mind when you have lunch of course you can have lunch have dinner that's up to you and yes has that your child answered Albany you're more than welcome to go back for lunch now if you by thank you heading to lunch [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so at 12:30 in the afternoon we've gone through Syracuse which happened while I wanted went went to lunch and now we're heading on our way to Utica we just passed the little town of Manoa which is right here so we have to go this distance yet to get to Utica and then come down this way to Albany one thing I didn't mention about this train was in a way that's similar to the Empire Builder the Train is combined as one train heading from Chicago and then in the case of the Empire Builder when it gets to Spokane Washington it splitted the two trains one half of which goes to Portland Oregon and the other half which goes to Seattle Washington this train heading Eastern Chicago gets to Albany and there it is split into two trains one half of which goes to Boston and the other half of which goes to New York City apparently until just about a week ago and for quite a while I think a lot of the summer anyway the train was not operating that way because there was a bridge there was a bridge out on the route going to New York so the Train only went to Boston and people who wanted to get to New York had to disembark in Albany I believe and then they I don't know if they ran buses or something to get them down to New York there was some alternate maybe they changed to a different train or maybe they went to Boston and then came down from there to New York I'm not sure but it was some alternate way of doing it than the way it's supposed to be scenery wise this trip has been pretty disappointing there are brief moments of nice scenery but by and large the tracks are just surrounded by bordering row of trees on either side and just when I think that there is not going to be an opening on this side I'll look out like I do right now and find a little lake but it's not two feasible to monitor both sides of the tracks simultaneously so I wouldn't recommend this route as one to take for the scenery and I kind of knew that about it anyway just from various reviews I've read that a lot of these routes although they go through basically scenic country the tracks aren't laid out in ways that have very good vantage points for the majority of the trip you know contrast that with the big Western trains for example which Empire Builder is Southwest Chief and of course the California Zephyr which it seems like they almost lay the tracks out deliberately so you get a lot of great scenery and and of course the Cardinal which is one that I've used before I have a video on it is a good way to get from Chicago to the eastern cities such as DC and New York City and so on and it takes a little longer but it's still the tail end of one day and a good chunk of the day most of the day the second day to do the trip and it's you know once it gets down into Cincinnati in that area then it's scenic pretty much the whole way for the rest of the trip so that remains my preferred way of getting at least if I do want to take a train I only really took this one because I wanted to get to Alba knee in particular and this would seem like the best choice there's a lot of people on this particular train staying and the sleeper cars who are from either Australia or England I'm not sure which it sounds more like to me like it's Australia and 1244 this is the town of Canastota [Music] at 12:53 were just on the outskirts of Verona and about ready to cross i 90 here analysis state highway 31 at 1:09 we're just leaving the town of Oris Connie which is right here we've been coming on the north side of 90 since shortly after Syracuse or about ready to come into Utica and this blue line here is the famous earring canal I'm not sure if we're going to come close enough to it to see it though be nice if there was a bridge over there something and it's 112 we're into Utica maybe he'll be working mom has never taken here again Oh we'll let you know what we're just about ready to cross hi 790 which is a bypass for i-90 Adirondacks Enix defunct actually still doing something and at 119 we're gonna pull out of Utica station just had the train horns few seconds ago and we're moving the reason I questioned the Adirondacks Scenic Railroad is just that it's all just overgrown with weeds around everything and looks like the paint is flaking off a lot of the cars which makes me wonder if they're if they've actually touched these things in quite a while yeah no way so that's the first last month the first class smile is blue clothes and a proxy twenty minutes within the first class mouse will close the box clay minutes if you are Miss Peecher they have not had their lunch now it's time to come on in first class miles will close to twenty minutes and will not reopen until we depart all that he wants him first class lounge will close and apart between them it looks like we're about ready to come fairly close to the earring canal maybe we'll get a glimpse of it it looks like we are going to cross it here so we will get a good look [Music] so much for that went over a set of locks [Music] and now it looks like it's going to be on the right side so I'll cross over and see we can spot it there it's just like right over there just beyond the trees there it is but I've got too much dirt on the window [Music] that's New York state highway five on our left we're about ready to cross under or over a 90 again looks like it'll be under and across a river here I'm not sure which one my map doesn't show another waterway in this area except for the Erie Canal the bit looks like a natural river here not a canal so I'm not sure unless they co-opted a bit of a natural river as part of the canal for a ways which I suppose is possible but since the canal I think originally used mule teams to pull the riverboats along for the canal boats a natural river that's winding around doesn't seem like it would lend itself to that so not thinking that was part of the canal there's more the little river there whatever it is that time we just passed that was on the river was called Little Falls I still haven't figured out what the name of that River is the river we've been following is the Mohawk River we're close to it again here unfortunately it's on this side the Sun is hitting us and with the dirt on the window it's kind of hard to see much so the Mohawk River again and at 1:40 date in the afternoon were just leaving st. Johnsville again the scenery is mostly like this even though we're right next to the Mohawk River I can't get out very good shots of it I wish Amtrak would do a better job of cleaning their windows on the outside a window here isn't any dirtier but it's or less dirty but the Sun isn't coming in through this side so that you're more or less disappears in the video over on the right side the trade is really hard to get an angle town of nelliston also right along this is the town of Palatine Ridge New York Highway or New York State Highway five on the left a lot of buildings that look like they need maintenance and of the Mohawk River again in between tribes Hill and Fort Johnston [Music] this appears to be the town of Amsterdam lower doesn't show up on my GPS buildings are all using the name never explanation still in Amsterdam there's Amsterdam right there in the middle of the picture and because we're getting kind of close to where I'm going to be getting off I'm going to be folding up some of my equipment so I can make a quick getaway when they announce the station it wouldn't be like all my other trips where I ride til the last station and there's not a huge rush to get off here they're not I don't know how long the station stop they'll have it might be fairly long but I don't want to put it to the test [Music] at 2:26 in the afternoon were coming into the Schenectady right there and then the next stop will be Albany which is where I'm getting off so I'm gonna have to start packing stuff up now so here at 234 Schenectady looks like a lot of construction in the station it's now 242 in the afternoon and this is approximately at the time when the Train should have gotten into Albany so I think it's made up a lot of time from its earlier apparent lateness having just recently left Schenectady here's the blue dot showing where we are I've had to transition to my phone GPS display so the one that I usually use because it's packed away and we're only going down here to Albany so it's not going to take that long before we get there and I'm all packed ready to walk off the train let me get there yeah and short I think that this lakeshore limited train is more the kind of train you take to get from point A to point B and when you take for the scenery hey it rhymes just a moment ago we crossed by 87 all that loud bang in here is the door between the two rooms since I've moved my suitcase over here there's nothing putting pressure against it to calm it down not sure if that door would have always done that or something you know rubber damper on it's worn out or something that shouldn't do that we're about ready to cross under I 90 there we go and we're sneaking up on the big series of highway interchanges just before the river which by the way is the Hudson River so that's part of the elevated cloverleaf and this is a US highway 9 that we just passed under in one of its ramps now the ground is gonna slope downhill into the Hudson River Valley that's Broadway down there see we're all just sort of sloping down gradually into the River Valley come down here and cross the river coming up this is once again all the nuances the next station stop this will be the last opportunity step off the train for us the fresh air cigarette smoker this will be the last opportunity to step off for a cigarette we change engines from diesel to electric process takes about 20 minutes once again this is an tracks standard procedure you have to use the wrestles like there's no power you wonder welcome to go upstairs in the station the newest lift station also has coffee a snack shop upstairs in the station as well Albany was placed next Albany was still there now around Albany this should be is right here and attention coach 10 insanity sleeper attendants will be stopping by just outside the console here in all this to water one of the rear sleepers do not let anybody here hello love you nice old Pullman cars there the height of luxury in their days they're in pretty good shape too like they're using them for something so we're pulling anything to go right at 2:58 probably by the time we stop it'll be a lot of money the leader and looks like the rental cars are right here couldn't be more convenient you

Channel: youtuuba

Views: 79,975

Rating: 4.8129869 out of 5

Keywords: AMTRAK, Lakeshore Limited, Train Odyssey, Chicago, Albany, Union Station, Viewliner, Sleeper car, viewliner bedroom

Id: ETxb5sugSco

Length: 180min 0sec (10800 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2018