RE: Capitol Limited
Here is the second segment of Dad and I's 5 day Amtrak journey, Washington to Chicago on the Capitol Limited. After visiting the Smithsonian we took the subway back to Union Station. We killed some time by hanging out in the Great Train Store that is in the station. The Capitol Limited is our favorite train, mainly because it runs with superliner cars, we spend most of the ride hanging out in the sighseer lounge with its big windows, The crew is also very friendly, even to thoughs ridding in coach[we have yet to experience a sleeper on a Amtrak train].We were soon sitting in our comfordable seats.
Rockville-ITS SNOWING! The whole car is shocked. Between Washington and Shady Grove the tracks are right next to the subway tracks, at one point the subway dips underground and comes back up to meet us.
Point of Rocks- This is not an Amtrak stop but it is a stop for the Marc commuter trains, it is a beautiful station.
Brunswick-There is a good sized CSX yard and Marc Locomotive center here. We are in the sightseer lounge, the guys sitting next to us belong to a Railroad historical society, they seem to know everything about the tracks we our on now and let Dad look at an old B&O timetable they had, they were going to a meeting in Portland Oregon via the Pioneer.
Harpers Ferry-We have come up into some beautiful scenery, the station here is built over a bridge that is spanning[I think] the Patomic river, there is an old coach sitting in the middle of town that looks like its been converted into a B B Q resterant.
Martinsburg-I have read that this is the oldest station that Amtrak still uses, built in 1856, they seem to be building a new addition to it.
Middle of night-I think this is Pittsburg, there are a lot of lights, I soon dozed off again.
Cleveland-The station here is not to enpressive, one interesting note is that passengers have to cross the tracks of the light rail system to get to the train, we parrelel this system as far as the airport.
Elkhart-There is a train museum near the station that has a bunch of old trains on display, including a large steam locomotive.
In the diner-We decided to grab some breakfeast, there is one thing that we don't like about eating on the Amtrak and that is the way they ask you if your from the sleepers or coaches, there is something rude about that, we think that they give coach passengers the leftovers. The person who was seated with us washeaded to Los Angeles, he looked like some sort of criminal to me but he turned out to be real nice.
Outside of South Bend-There are a lot of freight trains out, one time a train came about 3 minutes after another, we are running next to the South Shore line interburban
Hammond-There are a lot of yards and industries around this area.
Chicago-We arrived 2 minutes early, there were a lot of Metra trains running about.
We store are baggage in the lockers and rod the Metra out to Geneva Ill., there was a nice train store in the depot there. We also rode the EL train[an experience I will never forget. We got back to the terminal in time to watch the rush hour, we soon departed on the second segment of our trip, Chicago to Boston via the Lake Shore Limited. I will soon be sending you that segment of our journey.
-Joshua Trower.
