Yes we're here in Florida, having arrived 6:42 PM starving. After a nice buffet dinner in Winter Haven, we drove about another hour to my parents' place here in New Port Richey.
It was a decent trip, as predicted just another mundane trip on Silver Service. Things haven't changed. I started tracking our train's progress from the Club Acela in PHL before it even left New York. It was already late by the time it got to Newark, NJ, so I knew we'd be in trouble.
We lost a lot of time in Washington. First there was that overbooking problem. 20 people had noplace to sit, so they were asked to sit in the lounge car until something became available. Unfortunately, from what I heard on the scanner, nobody was being discharged from the train until Florence, SC the next morning. So the booths in the lounge car became a hotel for 16 people (one family of 4 refused the offer and asked to be let off the train in WAS).
Then once that was done, the engineer reported a hot box indication in one of the coaches. Remember we had just gotten our diesel engine, so this did not show up out of New York. Somebody from the station mechanical had to board the train and he checked all of the circuit boxes in each car. No problems were found, so the train was eventually released with the bogus indication still lit. We were out of WAS 40 minutes down.
I slept from about Quantico, VA through the rest of Virginia and most of North Carolina. I woke up when the train wsa in the Fayetteville, NC station, and we were 1 hour 20 minutes down by then. We ranged anywhere from there to 1:45 down for the rest of the trip.
I was also in text-message contact with Viewliner, who was on the SILVER STAR, #91(2), who had also seen the AOE train in the Savannah station. His train was similarly about 1-1/2 hours late.
Well I said before some things never change. Until we got to Palatka, FL I had heard not one station announcement on our PA system. Some people were startled to learn they were already in their destination stations. The bathrooms were attrocious (one of ours was flooded and smelled musty early into our trip). I had to stand in water to brush my teeth (at least I think it was water). At our seats, Michael's tray table and foot rest were not working right. My leg rest kept on going down. One of our overhead light bulbs was burnt out.
We saw #90(2) in Florence, awaiting our station work to be done. We also had a meet with #98(3) between Palatka and Deland, and had to wait in the hole just north of Deland's station for the northbound AUTO TRAIN to pass. We also passed #92(3) between Winter Park and Orlando.
Now a week of relaxation, and then it's back on the rails for more fun next weekend!
Kevin didn't include the departure time in his note, but since I received the email at 11:20 I have to believe that the train hasn't lost any more time.
Hopefully things will hold together for Kevin & Michael and they won't loose any more time between here and Florida. 
