Just watched this engaging new trip report from Lonestar Trip Reports: “Chicago to Portland by Train: 46 HOURS on Amtrak’s Empire Builder!” A full 2,257-mile journey across eight states in about 46 hours. Great watch if you’re into rail adventures and seeing America the scenic way.
Watch the full report here: [VIDEO]
[VIDEO] A few surprises especially among the two worst.
The Cardinal is a train I was on briefly but only as a last minute means to get home. I've never traveled on it to get to either Washington, DC or New York where it finishes it's journey. Watch the video to see why they consider it the worst.
And then of course the best among the 10 best is the Floridian - which essentially replaced the Capitol Limited and is intended to be temporary. The Floridian is Chicago's Florida connection and before it entered service late last year when you leave Chicago you have to change trains in Washington, D.C. to take a train into Florida. As the couple above may say this is the perfect way to get down to a cruise that departs Florida.
And then they mention my favorite standby, the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles.
For me, I like trains because I like the journey. And it's not often I get to ride through the southwestern United States and see the deserts, buttes, mountains, etc.
[VIDEO] This was posted to YouTube 10 months ago and I'm sorry I missed it. Paul Lucas took the long journey from Chicago, IL to Emeryville, CA. It's one train I've never been on sadly, perhaps that will change in the future.
As you may know I like trains and one of my favorite trains is Amtrak's Southwest Chief and earlier this week it suffered a derailment in Mendon, Missouri - which is not that far out of Kansas City, Missouri. It hit a dump truck at a crossing which is said to suffer some issues such as a lack of visibility of any oncoming trains, it's at an angle, and there are no gates to discourage cars from crossing the tracks. Unfortunately there were three four fatalities and of course in a situation like this a number of injuries.
The pictures I've seen of this accident the locomotive that hit the truck looks bad, and of course all the superliner cars behind were on the ground on the side. And it looks like the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad has some work to do to repair the tracks.
I've been following the Amtrak Alerts twitter since this derailment and seen that the Southwest Chief had been terminating out of Kansas City until the derailment scene is cleared. Though the twitter account is now showing trains are now departing Chicago.
This below video shows the scene cleared of that Amtrak consist. I see the railroad is already getting ready to get some work done on the tracks to put them back into service. [VIDEO]
Perhaps it won't be too long before the Southwest Chief will again makes stops in LaPlata, Ft. Madison, and Galesburg....
