4 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Use this thread to discuss our trip on Train #92(15), the Silver Star from wherever you board in Florida, to Cary, NC (and one person going beyond to Washington, DC).

[KevinKorell]

Our trip on Train #92 is finished, except for two people who remained onboard to Washington and Baltimore. Breakfast this morning was OK, crew did their jobs but nothing above and beyond call of duty. I can't vouch for dinner last night since the Jacksonville contingent didn't board until 10:30 PM or so. Surely others can offer their impressions. Very good sleeper attendant named Avia was talkative, and extremely helpful to everyone. She took an interest in our train interests as well. Train was early in JAX and left on time, however somewhere overnight we lost about 1 hour. A few minutes were made up, and we arrived into Cary 9:05 AM, 50 minutes down.

[EdFindlay]

The AC broke leaving half of the sleeper roasting while the other feeling cold, two members of the group would have been impacted if they stayed on into Virginia...it wasn't fun standing there for two minutes while the train stopped let alone being pleasant for anyone who had to sit in there for two hours...

[KevinKorell]

For those who went beyond the Research Triangle, the train was 14 minutes late into Washington, DC and only 3 minutes down into Baltimore.

[BillMagee]

Shortly before the Silver Star arrived in Tampa, the conductors taking over at TPA had the boarding passengers line up to have their tickets scanned. As a sleeper passenger, I was directed to the far end of the platform – Zone 7. I was even offered a cart ride, but politely declined. The backing train appeared just before 5pm. In a few moments, the train was in, the doors open, and boarding started. I was in room 8 of car 9210, and I settled into my comfortable little closet for my trip up to Raleigh. The train pulled out of TPA right on time at 5:17pm. The extremely competent and friendly car attendant made her appearance shortly after leaving TPA, and she had already made a 6pm dinner reservation for me. I mentioned that I had some friends boarding at Orlando and she had no problem moving my dinner reservation back to 7:30. The Star rolled into Orlando just about on time, and Penny, Joe and Joe boarded. We went off for dinner (with Joe and Joe just getting dessert), and a few minutes later at Winter Park, Grace and Alan boarded, and they joined us at the table across the aisle. Things were very quiet in the dining car, so quiet that the usual Amtrak practice of seating everyone together in a couple of tables was not being observed. A young couple had a table by themselves, something that Amtrak for some unknown reason usually does not allow no matter how few customers there are. Hats off to the dining car crew for allowing common sense to prevail. The tilapia special was great, as was the split of cab, and with the light patronage, we were able to linger and enjoy a more relaxing meal than typical Amtrak. We rolled into Jacksonville about 20 minutes early. The Jacksonville group boarded, and shortly after departing, I turned in for the night using the upper bunk of the roomette. The next morning we had lost about an hour, but with about a scheduled four hour connecting time at either Cary or Raleigh, that was actually a good thing. Breakfast was “ok”, which by my taste is about as good as Amtrak breakfasts can be. I had ticketed myself into Raleigh giving me the option of changing to the Piedmont in either Cary or Raleigh. With still lots of time to spare, I decided to stay on the Silver Star until Raleigh. We arrived Raleigh about an hour late, and I called it a ride. I just bummed at Raleigh for a couple of hours, joined about an hour later by Chris who had gotten off at Cary and then enterprisingly took the eastbound Carolinian to Raleigh to get some extra AGR points. He had to track down a conductor to get his ticket scanned, but with that done, he got the entry code for the “lounge” and we waited out the rest of the time there.