My First Time in Rommette on an On Time but Slow Diner Texas Eagle eating $75 worth of Food

Greeting from the small (maybe sofas a few leather chairs a single bathroom and a computer with a printer) but modern First Class Lounge at the Gateway Transit Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

I have been really bad this trip for some reason about posting and I have a bunch in the works that I am planning to pre-date about my time in Austin and San Antonio. I am in this lounge waiting to make a connection on the Missouri River Runner to Kansas City. St. Louis I hope to return to sometime soon but I only have one night to spend in Missouri and decided on Kansas City, mainly to attend a Royals game. It would be cutting it to close before I board the Southwest Chief tomorrow night if I waited, that was my original plan. I have access to the little, unstaffed lounge that I am alone in (and the only complimentary beverage is water bottles) because I just traveled in my first roomette from San Antonio. I booked a roomette because for once it was only $100 more than coach fare including 4 meals and a better nights sleep compared to hundreds more. I am a heathy eater and managed to eat about $75 worth of food in the dining car (I did not quite get the maximum value in terms of coach menu prices in the dining car which would have been about $9 more because I didn’t have my dessert a-la-mode at lunch, didn’t have a soft drink at dinner and had only time to order the Continental breakfast before I got off in St. Lewis since the dining car’s service was so slow). I also booked my ticket to Alton for about a $1 more (the stop north of St. Lewis) knowing it would give me full occupancy of my sleeper during the up to an hour layover there.

The day began yesterday at about 5:15am. The hostel was a two mile walk from the Amtrak station which I knew would be a good start to my day before spending all of it on the train. When I am awake I really like going for early morning walks and there was something fun about wondering the dark streets of San Antonio. I got to the station early, which I wanted just to be safe especially because I couldn’t print my ticket off the day before. I go into the station, there is a slight line for the ticket window so I use the Quik-Trak machine. I then sit outside the station and wait for sunrise to get a few more pictures and boarding. I talk to a station attendant who tells me that there is no pre-boarding for the sleepers, we have to join the line which is forming outside of the station where our tickets will be lifted on the platform. He also starts to tell me that my sleeper is at the other end of the train but I correct him. He apologizes and says they just moved the sleeper. The train has two one at each end, the front run a transition which I believe also has passenger space sold in it and is also the crew’s dorm. I finally the join the end of the line and notice the farther with his wife and kids has just the internet print out and tell him he needs to run inside, he runs back to grab his wife’s license as the line slowly moves and comes back just before the end of the line boards at about 6:50. I walk back towards the sleeper and my attendant is manning the rear coach (behind the diner, the Eagle has such a strange consist) he checks my name off his list and I board my first Superliner going upstairs to Roomette 7, in my favorite place on the train, just one set of Rommettes before the back door. The Texas Eagle today has its unique Superliner consist of a single P42 followed by the Transition Sleeper, then a Coach/Baggage car, followed by a regular Coach Car, next is the Sightseer Lounge, Diner, another Coach car and a Sleeper (these two cars are positioned at the back because if today’s train is a through train to the Sunset Limited they are switched in an out from the Sunset).

At 7:00 we start backing out of the station as I hear the conductor at the back window. He hasn’t opened the back door. We get an announcement from the dining car saying not to come, it hasn’t opened yet.

My attendant, David who seems like exactly my age and the youngest on Amtrak gives me an intro speech that sounds straight by the book. This includes showing me how to use the Amtrak call button. The other sign of his age is the Game Stop (video game store) loyalty tag hanging from his keys.
At 7:18 the back-up move ends as we stop and start moving forward. Then we cross a river and start leaving San Antonio as I go down and shower. I rolled out of bed this morning realizing I might as well skip the hostel’s slightly nasty shower and try Amtrak’s. It’s a perfectly decent shower, hot water readily available. My only complaint is a lack of shampoo.
Afterwards I feel refreshed for the day and hungrily wait the call for breakfast. I sit with my feet up on the opposite one in my small roomette (who’s seat i find less comfortable than a coach seat) as we follow I-35. There is a frontage road on each side of it quickly out of town. We block many grade crossings of morning rush hour commuters. Pass a bunch of motels advertising $35 a night (plus tax I assume) too far out of town for someone without a car.

At 7:40 the first call for breakfast comes and I go in and sit with an older couple who have come to San Antonio from Fort Worth for their 50th Anniversary and their son who just spend three months driving from Cape Town to the southern Sudan. I get in and it’s an express menu with only Scrambled Eggs, French Toast and the Continental. Dinner is just a burger, chicken or pasta. I ask the steward about this menu who makes it clear that the rest of the meals will have a fuller menu. I have the French toast and bacon, which is quite good. Just like the couple I had dinner with coming down into Texas, they also prey (asking me first). They lived in Kansas City for awhile and tell me its a sprawling city that requires a car. We stop at the Amshack in San Marcos (two canopies) and I am disappointed I didn’t bring my camera.

Breakfast takes me all the way to close to Austin, a fresh air stop. I was just there but didn’t get back to it on my one day in Austin, so I only currently have nighttime photos of it from my arrival. I go to the back window as we cross the colorado river and enter the station. We arrive at 9:30. I notice a long line of passengers and that there ripping tickets and issuing seat checks on the platform. I have enough time to run up to the locomotive and back to my car. A family goes to the family bedroom after the attendant gets their picture. We pull up at 9:49 closer to the station to let a women in a wheelchair get on to the accessible bedroom at the bottom of my car. They use the little portable ramp, not the wheelchair lift in the newly built platform enclosure. There is a bad moment as she crosses the unused track next to the used one, her power chair barely making it. Soon we are in the middle of Loop 1, the freeway which takes us out of austin.
At 10:00 we move from the middle of Loop 1 to the side of it. The dining car announces he has closed for breakfast. Those boarding the sleepers in Austin do get breakfast. This is followed by the cafe car attendant who says he is still open for breakfast with the required safety announcement. His twist is “Children tell mommy and daddy no running and jumping”

• 10:06 – leave the highways beyond and continue through the suburbs
• 10:10 – pass what looks like a cement factory and enter a more rural area
• 10:16 – pass Chasco.
• 10:20 – Hutto, it has a decent sized high school football field. We soon are back in fields of Alfalfa (I think)
• 10:24 – now a water tower for Hutto.
• 10:32 – We stop briefly to let a freight train go by, over the PA we get Austin history a little late. He mentions the state capital and the famous bats that I never saw, the largest urban bat colony. He says to use the upper level to get from one part (not the car) to other parts of the train. We’re 4 minutes from our stop next stop, Taylor.

Were moving again at 10:40 and I decide to sit in the almost completely empty lounge. We pass a hub for the Carts bus which I saw evidence of in Austin so maybe I could have gone on a bus adventure up to Taylor, Texas. We slowly go through a freight yard as we enter town and come to a stop at a simple brick building. I get a few photos from the train before deciding to do the back window ride in. We’re doing a double stop for the sleeper an I go down stairs, see David has the window open and ask if I can snag a picture but David the attendant says he is so new he’s on his introductory probation and doesn’t want to get fired. I understand and expected a no, but have gotten photos like that a few times before.

We pull up at 10:53 for a sleeper passenger. I get a picture of a maybe a ten foot long platform with a tactile warning strip as we slowly leave. The lady who got on the sleeper in Taylor is just going to fort worth. We pass a cemetery as we leave Taylor and enter the farms and fields of Texas again. Corn here I think.

At 11:09 we get an announcement that freight train congestion by the up has been delaying us again. We enter a yard with a few abandoned switches and two other rusty rail as a freight train waits for us on one blocking a grade crossing. It’s a mixed goods train mainly of Idaho (and other lumber) and some tank cars followed by coal and then box and hopper cars. It’s an old fashioned train, not a modern intermodal one. We’re 40 minutes late. I hope we can keep that lateness into St. Lewis for breakfast purposes. My camera battery dies and I exchange it but realize the single plug is too far inset into the headrest consul in my sleeper and need to go up to the Lounge to charge it. I do that, it’s luckily a newer one with outlets. I notice the coaches are on my much more preferred first come first served half reserved for groups, half singles, no seat assignments being given.

• 11:42 – quickly pass through a town my phone labels as little river academy.
• 11:43 – Pass some cows around an irrigation pond. One I notice is peeing in it.
• 11:47 – Go over a loop road with intersections and start to enter Temple Texas, the next fresh air stop as we pass houses and slowly switch railroads.

We arrive into Temple Texas at 11:48 to maybe 30 people getting on. I hop off and go through the gated opening in the fence and get some pictures of the historic cars. The main station is closed since its Monday I don’t get into the little Amtrak annex. We finally leave at 12:07, the luggage rack is getting crowded in the sleeper. I get back to my room and notice a copy of USA today at the door. I go sit in my sleeper as we leave the houses of Temple beyond which is the transportation and heritage museum.

At 12:17 is an announcement that lunch hasn’t started yet because of breakfast going on so late. Were just 25 minutes late to McGregor Texas. I am actually quite hungry again waiting for the first call to lunch.

At 12:35 we get to McGregor as the line for lunch extends into the next Coach and am seated with a mother and high school son on his way to Tanglewood’s summer camp, Boston they tell me is their final destination. Their actually going to Pittsfield, Mass. There is also a man who is a retired electrical engineer from San Antonio. The service is abysmal since there is just one chef downstairs cooking for the entire, full diner. We almost immediately to through Crawford, home of the Bushes and stop in Celborne when our food finally appears. I have fried chicken and mashed potatoes. This is the market place special that I thought would be similar to what looked so good on the Sunset limited, it was a little too fried for my tastes. The dinner roll and salad were just what I needed to tide me over for the 2:00 meal. One man at another table (who’s service was faster than ours) is screaming at the attendant, who is telling him to call up Amtrak’s customer complaint line. I am finally eating my cheesecake and quickly finishing it as we pull into Fort Worth. I step off again, The Eagle, going the other way, is getting set to leave about 30 minutes late across the platform. I get a few pictures but it leaves before anything decent. A TRE train comes through and I re-board my sleeper seeing the conductor opening the back door. I ask about the backup move and why we don’t just use the TRE tracks into Dallas since this would render the time consuming back-up move unnecessary. I am told that “the TRE doesn’t want us messing up their schedule.”

• 2:55 – start backing out of Fort Worth. The conductor has the door open. I sit in my room and enjoy the noises of the train yard, door open. Sitting facing forward for the back-up move on the opposite seat.
• 3:04 – still in the yard, finally start moving again back to beneath the highway interchange to continue the back up move.
• 3:08 – hear the conductor closing the back door and leave. Soon we’re moving forward again. I realize it’s time for an afternoon nap as we take the ridiculously slow trackage into Dallas. I already blogged this track on my way north. The Eagle needs to be moved to use the TRE tracks. I doze off a bit and they announce were starting and stopping due to equipment on the tracks as we go through Grand Prairie. I see plenty of workmen along the tracks.
• 4:15 – keep seeing water as we enter Dallas. We then go under freeways and stop again.