30th Street Station, Penn Station, Niagara Falls!

Last night, we went to bed just a few minutes before 1am. Bethany and I were both so delighted to hear the alarm go off a mere two hours later. We had to get up, put the last of our stuff in the bags, pack the cooler and head downstairs for the van from Rapid Rover. We got in the van at about 3:30am and headed over to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. We got our stuff inside, found our track, and hung out. The ticket kiosks read “Out of Service” until a few minutes after 4am when they came to life. Beth was out changing (I suppose the couple times she changed before we left weren’t enough and she wanted to get in one more before our train arrived) and I got our tickets printed out. We both sat there wishing we could be back home sleeping.
At about 5am (yes, we were at the train station an hour early – I didn’t think we needed to be there nearly that early but the Rapid Rover lady said that was our dropoff time) we headed downstairs to the tracks to wait for the train. It rolled in a few minutes later, there was a mad rush of people to get on the train, and off we went. Beth and I stashed our stuff above us (and the overflow ended up at our feet) and then did our best to nap until New York. I dozed off a few times but Beth was out for quite a while. When we were approaching New York, I woke her up and let her know. She says to me “we can’t be – I don’t have my stuff yet” apparently still half asleep and unaware of what was going on. Despite her concern, we were able to get her stuff, then wait another few minutes for the train to finish pulling into the station.
We got off of the train at New York’s Penn Station and went up an escalator to an insanely packed lobby. In the middle of a sea of people, there was a sign that read “Canadian Checkin” with a long line of people. There was one employee working the counter reviewing our identification – I hope the people who ended up towards the back of the line were all able to make it before the train left. Our credentials checked out, we headed downstairs, onto the train and into our seats.
When we went to Chicago, we took the Capitol Limited from DC to Chicago. They had Superliner cars (double-decker with a small lower-level cabin, several lower-level bathrooms and a large upper-level cabin. The cars we are in now (On the “Maple Leaf” line) are Amfleet cars – these are single-level cars that, at least as I recall, aren’t quite as comfortable as the Superliners. On the other hand, they have 120v outlets at every seat. That kinda makes up for it I think.
Bethany will want to tell you about the train ride, so I’ll let her do that.