As I wrote in a previous blog entry, our short trip from our hotel to Cincinnati Union Terminal in the middle of the night was uneventful... and very quiet. Catching this train in the middle of the night was a piece of cake. It was still about 90° outside but it was nice and quiet with absolutely no logistical problems.
The only remarkable event on this night was that we had to check our large rolling luggage... four pieces. There were four of us and we had packed for a two week trip anticipating sweaty clothes everyday so we had quite a bit to pack. We each had a rolling piece of luggage and a small carry-on bag. Fortunately, we planned for this possibility (needing to check our big luggage) so had already put everything we might need on the train in our carry-on bags so this was a painless change of plans.
We had already planned for this because we knew that these new Viewliner II train cars had very limited luggage storage in the sleeper cars. We had planned to simply put our luggage on one of the racks in one of the coach cars and then lock the luggage together with a long cable luggage lock. The Conductor had other ideas though.
We've had someone accidentally grab one of our pieces of luggage on another trip and we don't want that to ever happen again. Now, if our luggage isn't in our line of sight, we lock it. This was an accident (this person left their own luggage on the train and simply grabbed a look-alike piece of luggage) but we didn't get that piece of luggage back until around midnight on the following night.
One of our complaints about Amtrak on this trip out to Ohio was that the windows were consistently filthy (as seen in the photo above). We have other complaints worth mentioning and discussing with Amtrak but I'll write about that in another blog entry. When I say that the windows were filthy, I mean they were completely covered in dirt as well as marks and scratches from brushing against tree branches. This really impeded our views significantly and made photography from the train very frustrating.
These Amtrak routes are almost always very scenic and having filthy windows makes seeing this beautiful scenery an exercise in futility and frustration. Riding through scenic routes is a huge Amtrak selling point but the filthy windows makes this selling point absolutely ridiculous.Needless to say, these filthy windows significantly impacted my photography through these windows. I had to search for the cleanest patch of window, hold the camera in that one spot, and then shoot photos hoping for the best. This cleaner spot was never in a place right in front of me. It was always in a spot over my head and away from my seat.
As you can also see in the photo above, Kenzie and Lukey were quite comfortable in their own roomette for this entire journey.
On this leg from Cincinnati to Manhattan we rode through many small and dying coal towns. We saw gorges, rivers, waterfalls, mountains and rural countryside on our way to Washington DC. The route from Washington DC to Manhattan provided more cities and suburbs with some views of the Atlantic Ocean.
Our roomettes were right at the beginning of the row of roomettes so we were right next to the large rooms and the coffeemaker, which is in a little cubby to the right in this photo below. Lukey and Kenzie shared a roomette right across the hall from our roomette so we could see each other all the time and talk to each other...
The photo below shows our view from our roomettes looking the opposite direction down the rest of the sleeper car past all the roomettes...
It is a fairly long story but Sheila calls Lukey "Bob" due to a funny incident that happened when Lukey was around three or four years old. In short, when Sheila said the name, he thought the name was hilarious and couldn't stop giggling.
At a certain point during this trip, I looked over into their roomette and Lukey had placed his neck cushion on his head, perhaps out of boredom. I yelled over to their roomette, "Hey Sponge Bob Square-Head, what are you doing?" He just smiled back at me with a huge grin on his face...
I had hoped to get more photos of this town, Thurmond, West Virginia, in the photo below. The railroad tracks run through the center of "town" right past old storefronts which are now abandoned. There is no roadway here, just railroad tracks and a sidewalk. So, rather than a main thoroughfare roadway as we see in all downtown areas (ie, usually called Main Street), we have no roadway and only a sidewalk and railroad tracks instead of a roadway.
This is a true dying coal town. For a long time the population of this town had been less than 20 or so. Today, the population of Thurmond is 2.. yes, 2. There were more people at the train station than the number of those who live in this historic town.
Time for a short nap...
We are now in Charlottesville, Virginia where our good friends, Perry and Kerri live. (We're overdue for a visit down there with them!) We had a 15 minute stop here so we got out to walk around for a bit and get some fresh air...
Lukey chose to stay in the roomette while Kenzie, Sheila and I got out for a bit in Charlottesville. You can see part of the station out his window behind him...
We are in Washington DC now...
At Washington Union Station it was time for another short walk and some fresh air...
At this point, nightfall was fast approaching so capturing photos out the window from our roomette was done for the day.
The rest of this leg to Manhattan was uneventful. We arrived in Manhattan on time and then grabbed a car outside Moynihan Hall at Penn Station to get to our hotel in midtown Manhattan. This was a nice leg on Amtrak and we had a good time! I just wish the windows were clean!
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