Texas Eagle Turns Turkey.
The following is from a friend who just finished an overnight ride on the Texas Eagle with his eight-year-old daughter. He is not a happy camper.
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Talked to some of the crew lounging in the “cafe car”. The consist is a locomotive, one Superliner sleeper, one cafe car, and four coaches.
It’s not fun being right behind the engine. With multiple grade crossings per mile, the whistle is blowing constantly.
They said this was the “summer consist”. Hope things get better—at least we should have the option to eat in the cafe car. Looking forward to September.
I had an interesting chat with the cafe car attendant. (The crew’s) take on the Eagle is that Amtrak wants to get rid of this train and may not ever do (traditional) dining service on board.
It looks like the long distance trains that only have one overnight are not well liked [by Amtrak management]. They cut the Cardinal’s dining car long before Covid, so who knows?
I’ll let you know about the Sunset Limited—hopefully extending it to Mobile will bring them to daily status and full dining.
There is no snack bar—just one table in the dining car (no onboard cooking) manned by a very disheartened employee who didn’t even announce the limited service for over two hours.
My granddaughter was upset with no kids menu or kid-friendly food.
The sleeping car attendant apologized profusely in advance for his shortcomings, claiming he has a lot to do There was some mention that “maybe in October” there would be food service. Very disappointed in the trip. Glad I’m not booking another long trip till next year.
I subscribe to a couple of rail camera services so I can watch all the trains I can’t ride. I’ve noticed that Amtrak now puts the sleeper cars at the front of train instead of the back, at least in the case of the Southwest Chief and California Zephyr, which really confounds me. When I rode the California Zephyr in 2013, the sleepers were at the back. For people paying higher prices, it seems like they’d give you better placement. Are they trying to discourage us?