8 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Use this thread to talk about your trip home from the Fest, whether you were there at the end in Chicago, or whether you left us earlier and travelled home from another point.

[BillMagee]

My trip home on Saturday was pleasant.  A little late out of New Orleans to Charlotte, then a little late out of Charlotte to Philadelphia. Arrived PHL about 14 minutes late, and was home at 6:55 PM - in time to head out to dinner with Marie  All in all, a nice trip home.

 

I record the registration numbers of every aircraft I fly (is anyone surprised?).  Both planes on the trip home had an OTOL history with me. The trip from New Orleans to Charlotte was on A319 N828AW, the same aircraft I was on coming down to New Orleans from Charlotte on Friday. From Charlotte to Philadelphia, I was on A320 N654AW. That was the same aircraft that flew me from Seattle to Philadelphia heading home from the Pacific Coast RailFest 2016  - also on July 14. Small aircraft world.

[saxman]

I left the group in Houston by riding the Green Line one more stop to Theatre District. I walked back to my hotel and grabbed my luggage and headed to the bus stop for route 40 to Hobby Airport. Despite flying out of Hobby countless times, this was my first time ever taking public transit to Hobby. I took it once to Bush Airport. Hobby is fairly close to downtown Houston, but the route took about 55 minutes as it wound through the side streets. It was interesting though as I got to see parts of the hispanic parts of town that I had never really seen before, or at least had been years ago. I arrived at Hobby with plenty of time for my flight back to New Orleans. I changed clothes to look more presentable and took Southwest Airlines back to MSY. About an hour later, I was back in New Orleans like I was the day before. 

[pennyk]

Three of us are on the Captiol Limited now (train 30) heading towards WAS.  The train was held for about 50 minutes waiting for a late Empire Builder (train 8).  We ate the boxed dinner in the Sleeper Lounge and the reviews from our group and other passengers were generally good.  Dick and I will connect to the Silver Meteor tomorrow to head back to Florida, whereas Jishnu will overnight in DC and fly home on Sunday.

 

Thank you Kevin for planning an enjoyable fest.  I think we all did our best to try to enjoy ourselves in spite of the tragedy that we experienced last week.

[KevinKorell]

It was truly bittersweet as we did all we set out to do, and then some.... but we lost a friend (and as a family unit that travelled together, 2 core members of our travelling group) during the process, something that nobody could have expected.

 

I'm currently aboard the Hoosier State, which got out of Chicago on time, but hit a bad signal in St. John, IN which caused about 50 minutes delay.  They are making up some of the time, and with padding they expect an arrival just after midnight in Indianapolis.

 

EDIT:  Arrived 12:01 AM, just 22 minutes down.

Edited by KevinKorell, 21 July 2018 - 12:01 AM.
Updated after arrival

[KevinKorell]

Interesting day in Indianapolis.  Goal of stopping off in this city was to ride the IU Health People Mover. It's not downtown, but it runs between campuses of this hospital.  There is 1 intermediate stop at the end of the Canal Walk. Since I wanted to walk the length of the Canal Walk also, I figured on starting & ending my trips at this intermediate station.  The Canal Walk is about 1-1/ 2 miles in each direction, or 3 miles round trip.   I got to the far end, to find out that the hospital facility in that location, which provides the only access to the station, is closed on weekends.  So I walked back on the Canal Walk to downtown, and then used Uber both ways to & from Methodist Hospital, where I was able to travel on the People Mover out to IU/Riley Hospital for Children and back.

 

After dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory, I walked around downtown some more, went to the Amtrak station to check it out at non-train time (it's a Greyhound terminal too), and then after charging my phone there decided that sitting in my hotel lobby would be safer and a more desirable experience.  The station is a really a sad place which also has no air conditioning.

 

Waiting now for the Cardinal #50, which leaves Indy around midnight and so far is on time.

[pennyk]

Two of us (Dick and I) are on the SIlver Meteor headed for home in Florida.

[KevinKorell]

My trip on the Cardinal from Indianapolis to Alexandria is over.  It was as much as half an hour late at some stops, but kept moving and only a couple of times went into the hole for freights (including immediately after leaving the Indy platform).   Its meet with #51, usually in Virginia west of Charlottesville, went smoothly, at least for #50.  #51 had been running later, so they got the siding which might have made them still later.  However #51 has more recovery time in Indianapolis.   #50 ended up being only 3 minutes late, arriving ALX 6:02 PM.  I'm now at my hotel in Crystal City, and tomorrow it's back to Alexandria and my final Amtrak trip back to Trenton.

[KevinKorell]

My final trip segment on Amtrak was not fun.  I took Regional #174 from Alexandria, VA to Trenton, NJ.    Almost everything that could go wrong did.  Although its Richmond origination was on time, it lost some getting to Fredericksburg. It was 19 minutes late when it left Alexandria.  Maybe a couple of minutes were recovered with the engine change procedure, but with the usual slow pace of passengers taking their time getting to the proper coaches, we still departed from Washington 13 minutes late.  However while we were sitting in the station I was getting a number of ominous Tweets. One said that a disabled MARC train near BWI Airport Rail Station was causing delays to other trains. Another said that there was a train on fire at Princeton Junction, likely NJ TRANSIT, which caused all 4 tracks to be closed.  While I would be getting off at Trenton, I was still concerned because with tracks closed Amtrak would probably hold trains at the next station they come to.   The crew did tell us about the BWI issue, and that single tracking was in effect, and sure enough not long after New Carrollton we ground to either a creep or at times stopped.    After a while, the broken MARC train was successfully removed and we then proceeded at speed to the normal New York-bound BWI Airport platform. We left there 52 minutes late.

 

There were further delays around Wilmington, as for some reason #174 used the track at Platform 1, normally the SEPTA platform.  There was an unclear announcement by the crew, about using Track 1 and walking to the café car to detrain, but not everyone in the rear Business Class car understood that.  So we had to wait a while longer while passengers walked with luggage through several cars to detrain.  By the time we left Philadelphia, we were 57 minutes down.  Next, we ran up SEPTA's local track through Bucks County because there was trackwork on the normal eastbound (Amtrak) track. More slower than normal running.  We also crept over the Delaware River bridge and through Trenton up to the station.  So our arrival there was one hour 10 minutes late.

 

Finally off the train I grabbed a quick fast food lunch in the Trenton station and then when I contacted Uber I was instantly taken home.