A total of 13 people were involved over the course of our 8-day event, which ran from Saturday, July 12th until Saturday, July 19th, with some smaller segments of the group together longer in travel to and from Chicago.
We had a wonderful time together, with almost everyone seeming to have enjoyed themselves. The goals of our itinerary were all met, as we were able to ace the FrontRunner and TRAX systems in the Salt Lake City area, and the RTD light rail and the Platte Valley Trolley in Denver. In between, there were four segments on the California Zephyr, with 3 crews who for the most part dealt very well with our large group (one crew and consist were the same).
The itinerary, which was kept up to date through our various stops off the rails, now reflects all of our travels. We can now remove the word "temporary". As we saw in Salt Lake City, some changes were made last minute to accommodate our late arrival. The homepage has been written in the past tense, with some things changed to show what happened in Salt Lake City.
If we have to discuss positives and negatives, well the biggest negative to me had to be how we both entered and exited Salt Lake City. We did so at 4:31 AM and 3:57 AM respectively, which meant for a couple of sleepless nights, or for some, an extra paid hotel night in Salt Lake City. This was not any of our fault, but rather a combination of factors stemming from a previous BNSF derailment in Nebraska, and Amtrak's inability to find enough working engines in Chicago to originate the trips.
Biggest positive to me was the camaraderie between members of our group. The faces of our participants have changed over the years, and it is always nice to see people having a good time and seeing that we are a harmless bunch. Of course to me, accomplishing the entire Fest makes the trip highly worthwhile.
While I am still in travel, over the course of the next few days you will see other housekeeping aspects besides the completion of the itinerary as we finalize this event.
So with that, I would like to thank each and every one of our participants for making this event yet another success. Knowing the Fests can continue to be worthwhile, educational, and fun makes me hopeful that we can have many more of these to come. We can build on our experiences and try to make each one just as great, if not better.
Please do share your thoughts, suggestions, complaints, favorite recollections, etc. about this event.
Edited by KevinKorell, 20 July 2014 - 08:54 AM.