Greetings from Chattanooga!
I had a fairly good day in Baltimore. There the police department must have gotten the Civil Liberties Union Message a year ago regarding photography not being illegal and a Civil Right. I just had one station agent tell me no pictures before I called up customer service who said its fine (there website says that too but he wouldn’t look at my iPhone and threatened to call the police), other cops saw me as well and didn’t care. This is in contrast to my last trip to Baltimore when it was quite nicely made to be very clear that photography is prohibited, pictures were completely fine on the Light Rail. I spent the day finishing off the Metro, its heavy rail subway line that was supposed to become part of a large Washington Metro-like system but only one line was ever built, I then got some work done on the Light Rail so I am one more relatively shortday visit away from finishing that system off.
I explored a little and had dinner in the inner harbor before it was time for my Amtrak train, Regional #137. The train pulled in and left on time at 8:58 and I noticed that it had a cafe/club car in the middle of the train plus a regular Amfleet-I Business Class Car (wonder who was allowed to sit in club seats, on a longer ride I would go and see). I boarded a nearly empty car, and the northbound Palmetto running just a little late pulled in. I noticed it was a mix of Amfleet-Is but mostly IIs and had a cafe car painted with the Northeast Regional Logo for its lounge car. At 9:11 we pull into BWI across from a northbound Regional train (with a regular labeled cafe car) that looks fairly empty. 12 more minutes to New Carrolton. We pull in at 9:25, the Metrolink platform off in the distance. 9:32 pass the Ivy City Yard off in the distance and start slowing down. 9:34 pass Galidett U/New York Avenue and an empty Acela. At 9:36 were pulling in. I get off and slowly wonder off the train getting a few photos to add to my collection of this area for ticketed passengers only. I take a little walk in the station deciding its crazy to wait over an hour just for a particular bus seat. At 10:00 I wonder up stairs and am about tenth in line, how unfortunate, should have come up earlier to nag one of those sought after front window seats. There are three lines with overnight buses going to Charlotte and Toronto. Listening to voices with Southern Accents around me its clear I am going to Knoxville Tennessee and not some Northeast City. First they board the bus one by one, numbers please, for Charlotte, then our turn comes.
10:50 Not close enough to the front to get one of the two front seats with extra legroom but I chose one just behind, at least I’ll get the view.
At 11:14pm last call I hear I am last one on the bus as maybe two people double up, there is a computer gennerated beeping noise which ends as soon as the driver comes in and turns the air on. At 11:20 the bus finally pulls out and we get the Megabus safety video and start leaving going straight to the capital. There is then an add for Grey Line New York City, which I find kind of funny. Then an ad for Woodbury Commons really loudly. The bus isn’t as dark as I would like, there are green lights above every seat. The bus slowly left Union Station, it was fun getting a nighttime birds eye view of the capital. We enter Virginia at 11:35pm and get on I-66, the interstate with the Metro in the middle of it. Just a few Metro trains pass (one I notice is in service, another isn’t) and we get caught in a traffic jam due to construction. It takes us until 12:05am to pass the end of the orange line with its two bumper blocks. The night is spent by me attempting to sleep and not very well. At 2:40 we are in Ralphihe for our one rest stop of the express trip. 15 minutes and disappointing for me, I have an empty water bottle and can’t find a fountain to fill it up in. The bus leaves promptly at 2:55, the driver not counting passengers but she does come upstairs. We get to our one intermediate stop in the town of Christansburg, VA, at a park and ride lot with a sign and bus shelter. We are an hour late at 4:23am. A few people get off (but not the girls sitting in front of me), the driver comes upstairs and tells us to keep our feet off of the seats, and get back on I-81. At 6:18 we pull into the Tennessee welcome center. It’s a driver switch stop no one is allowed to get off (another difference with Greyhound, they never say no to smokers getting off). I want a picture of the bus next to and at the height of all the big rigs sleeping. Dawn is here. We pull out at 6:29. It is a relatively scenic ride in the dawn through eastern Tennessee in the mountains. We get to the southern end of I-81 (another interstate I have been on both ends of, once I rode on it north of Watertown into Canada) and slowly arrive at the ultra-modern (opened in 2010) Knoxville Transportation Center at about 8:15, just a little bit late (schedule was for 7:55).
When I get there my first agenda is figuring out if there is a place to leave my backpack to enjoy my morning. The new Transit Center lacks lockers and I walk the little over a mile to the Greyhound station which is technically closed between a few departure but a door is open, it also lacks lockers. I get some pictures of the old Southern Railroad Knoxville Depot and start walking into downtown. I stop for breakfast at a small coffee bar and the lady asks me if I had just gotten off Megabus. I say yes and I have a layover. She offers to store my bag in the shop, something I much appreciate. I go wonder around Knoxville, taking the elevator up to the observation deck (completely unmanned and empty) of the Sunsphere. I also found the historic Blount Manion and have a really personal (I was the only one there) interesting tour, home to one of the founders of Tennessee, which I thought was a good way to begin my visit to this state. I then visit the East Tennessee History Center which was slightly less interesting and return to get my bag, and go back to the bus station.
I get there and see a few other people waiting but no evidence of a line. A double-decker Megabus comes in, this one branded as low-cost bus service from Atlanta (its final destination) and the driver announces he will load luggage before doing numbers. He does that. There is a total blob and I am maybe the fourth person on the quite empty (maybe 20 people) bus, the first two getting the prime window seats. I settle for one behind the front staircase and have a similar obstructed view ride. We get the safety video again but lacking any of the ads for things to see in New York at the end. I like our driver on this run and it is an uneventful slightly scenic ride (me catching up on a little sleep) to Chattanooga. The Megabus stop here is not in a convenient place, at a shopping mall east of the city.
A CARTA bus for downtown pulls out as we pull in, I grab my bag and wait about 20 minutes for the next bus, paying my $1.50 my fare, CARTA doesn’t do transit and get off for about a mile walk to Chattanooga’s amazing youth hostel just south of the Choo-Choo, a hotel in the historic Southern Railway Train Station. I check-in and take the free Electric Shuttle (small electric minibuses) into downtown which seems to be mainly used by tourists staying in downtown hotels and has quite chatty drivers and explore. I have dinner before calling it an early night in the excellent Crash Pad, an uncommon Hostel. The bed is quite comfortable and has a feature I wish was more common in hostels (although VIA Rail Canada does it), curtains to draw around me for some privacy. The goal of this hostel is to have the atmosphere of a boutique hotel and I say it has accomplished that. There is the standard little kitchen and a common area with nice wooden furniture. My only complaint about the place is the uncomfortable-ness of the furniture since it lacks pillows and cushions. There is no one foreign staying there and I am clearly the only one there without a car, unlike any of my other youth hostel experiences.
For my full day in Chattanooga I woke up early and take something that resembles a train. I hop on CARTA buy a 24-hour pass for $6 ($4 bus fare, $2 for a reusable CARTA Smart Card to put it on), and ride it down to St. Elmo . From there I buy a round-trip ticket on the Lookout Mountain incline railway a cable stained operation that claims to be one of the steepest in the world. It’s a really neat ride up to the top. The line uses two cars that always both run at the same time as they are counterweighted against each other. There is a single attendant and a recorded narration is played during the ride up but not coming back down. I walked over the Chattanooga National Military Park and was struck by the views into the valley down below and the fact it has a monument from the State of New York due to all of the divisions of troops from my home state involved in the battles of Chattanooga. I took a walk along rugged trails on the sides of Lookout Mountain before taking the Steep Incline Railway down, making a point of sitting in the front seat. I got back to the base and got some final photos of it including going beneath its closest wooden road overpass. There there was a clear line of fallen lubrication grease from the wheels that hold the cables in place (although I did notice in sections they rise above the tracks).
I took CARTA southbound a few more miles to the end of route 15 because I wanted to walk to the state line of Georgia (a state I hadn’t been to) and Tennessee just for the hell of it. I got a picture of the Welcome to Georgia, Were Glad Georgia’s on Your Mind Sign. Tennessee didn’t really have one. I took CARTA back into downtown and spent the rest of the day wondering through downtown (including the Walnut Street Bridge, a pedestrian turned bridge across the Tennessee River which made me realize how great the High Bridge will be if they ever open it) and also did a full visit of the Choo-Choo, the hostel in the historic station which including photographing but not riding the New Orleans Streetcar which ran on maybe 100 yards of track from the gardens and besides the stationary railcars (some containing bedrooms, others dining rooms) out into the parking lot and back. Half of the short track that loops around the property is presently closed for some unknown reason. I made the mistake of spending $4 to see the model trains exhibit which was a total waste. It was just a dark florescent lit layout in a dingy room that did not provide very good viewpoints (from just one side not both) and had a grumpy man staffing it at the entrance. I then wondered around some more before returning to the hostel where I am posting this.