On Friday, we took the kids to Beth’s parents for the weekend and set off on our trip out to Indiana for my cousin Josh’s wedding. My parents flew out on Wednesday, Lauren flew out on Friday, and Michelle, Tim, Brandon, and Nicole drove out leaving early Friday morning.
We opted to take the train out and back. Since so many people have been curious about the experience, I’ll give some of the details and our thoughts on the trip.
After helping get the kids settled, we got dropped off at the Lansdale SEPTA station and took a train (1 hour) into Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. We had a 30 minute layover there where we grabbed lunch (Jersey Mike’s!) before boarding the Amtrak Northeast Regional train to DC (2 hours).
We arrived in DC with a 1 hour layover which went very quickly. We left our bags in the Club Acela lounge and got a drink at Starbucks and wandered the station for a little bit. We got back to the Club Acela just before they called us to board.
The station had this model train setup in the main hall:
Since we were staying in a bedroom (the train has coach cars that seat 74 and sleeping cars, called “sleepers”, with 5 bedrooms and 14 “roomettes”), we had access to the first class lounge (the “Club Acela”) and early boarding. We avoided the line and got to walk out onto a relatively empty platform and down to our car. We put our luggage on the train (big bags downstairs at the luggage storage shelving and set our little things in our room) and then went out to take a few pictures for the kids. We talked with our sleeping car attendant for quite a while enjoying the brisk DC air before our long ride in the train.
Here are a few pictures we took while outside on the train platform. Since we didn’t bring the kids along and they would have loved to see everything, we tried to get some pictures of the trains to show them when we’re back.
These locomotives weren’t pulling our train, they were on the next track over for a commuter train.
This was our sleeping car on the left with the yellow stool outside.
The trucks/wheels of the baggage car.
Looking inside the baggage car (which the kids will think is a box car and assume is the same one George, Kayla, and The Man in the Yellow Hat ride in to California in Curious George 2)
As our departure time grew close, we went back in (and upstairs) to our room to get situated. The sleeping car attendant came by to make sure we were familiar with the room (how to open/close/lock the door, how to work the faucet, etc) and give us some information about the trip. Shortly afterwards, someone from the dining car came by to take our dinner reservations (we took the latest seating, 7pm, to help break up the evening). After him, the conductor came in to scan our tickets (and they scanned fine from my Kindle Paperwhite which was great).
These were pictures we took inside to show the rooms. These first two are the “Roomette” with 2 seats facing each other.
Bethany is sitting in the separate chair in our “Bedroom” room on the train.
I’m sitting on the “couch” seat.
Bethany and I enjoyed the quiet, read, I worked on some plans for a train table for Josiah and Lilly, and even dozed off for a bit before dinner. At dinner, we were seated with a couple from Oregon who were returning from an Thanksgiving visit with family in the DC/VA area. We talked with them for a while after dinner and headed back to our room around 9pm. We tried to watch a movie but phone reception was too weak to download it (via the MiFi) and so instead I ended up wasting about an hour trying to get it to work. Instead, we got up and walked down to the observation car and checked out the snack bar downstairs (not to eat, we were stuffed from dinner!) and then came back. We’d planned to step outside at Pittsburgh (there was a 20 minute scheduled stop there) but instead opted to get some sleep.
We both had a hard time sleeping at first, getting used to the sounds of the train which were more apparent after everyone had quieted down for the night. We tried earplugs but were too concerned we’d accidentally miss our alarm in the morning (which would mean we’d miss breakfast and possibly the chance to shower!). After finally getting settled, we fell asleep but it was much later than we would have liked!
In the morning, without any earplugs, the 5:45 alarm was hard to miss. We each got a shower (which was an experience on a moving train), packed up our room, and headed out to breakfast. Breakfast was great (and a great start our day) but the sun still wasn’t up after we finished breakfast! We went back to the room to make sure we were ready before approaching South Bend, Indiana. We went downstairs as we were pulling in at South Bend and said goodbye to our sleeping car attendant as we walked down to the station building to get a cab.
This was the station at South Bend, Indiana looking from the train platform.
It was a 5 minute cab ride from the Amtrak station to the airport (at $10 which the rental car company is supposed to reimburse me). The rental car experience was another pleasant surprise – I walked in and after checking my ID, they handed me the portfolio with keys and a parking spot number. Nothing to sign, no attempt at selling additional insurance, etc. I might have been at the rental counter for 60 seconds, maybe!
Beth drove our RAV4 down to Fort Wayne where we checked in early and rested in the room (watching “Tower Heist” with room service lunch) before getting ready for the wedding.
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