Introduction
I graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, 40 years ago, in 1970. I have been back for the last 4 reunions,
once every 5 years, so this would be my 5th reunion. The campus has changed a lot – many new buildings, a new student mix, and
of course new faculty, but the average enrollment at DePauw is basically the same as it was 40 years ago!! I was one of 3 Geology
majors at DePauw in 1970; however, the Geoscience Dept. (http://www.depauw.edu/acad/geosciences) is much expanded now, and they have
about 30 majors now, in 3 different academic programs. After all these years, I still believe that DePauw is one of the finest
small liberal arts colleges in the country!! – http://www.depauw.edu/ (Go Tigers!!!).
So I booked our AMTRAK reservations on line atwww.amtrak.com, as well as our Enterprise rental car. Of course, AMTRAK no longer serves Greencastle; however, back when I was
at DePauw, the Monon Railroad ran the line, and I remember taking the Monon from Greencastle home to Chicago a few times. The
closest AMTRAK comes to Greencastle now is Crawfordsville, home of DePauw’s arch rival Wabash College, approximately 30 miles north,
on the Cardinal route. From Crawfordsville, we would get our rental car. Of course, our preferred accommodations on all
our overnight train trips is sleeper, and I was able to book bedrooms for us on the N-bound and S-bound Silver Meteor and the eastboundCapitol Ltd; however, all I could get on the W-bound Cardinal was a roomette for the 2 of us – I don’t believe roomettes are practical
for 2 adults, but one night would be fine, especially since we were going to be getting up and off the train early in the AM. And of course the Cardinal only carries one Viewliner sleeper, 3 days a week. And the one Viewliner sleeper only has 2 bedrooms
and a handicapped bedroom; all the other rooms are roomettes, and the bedrooms were sold out before I made our reservations. If the Cardinal did not have the 3-day a week only schedule, we would have left a day later, since the reunion didn’t actually begin
until Friday, and we got on campus on Thursday.
My first surprise was that there was actually an Enterprise rental business in Crawfordsville,
since Crawfordsville and Greencastle are both relatively small midwestern towns. So I booked a reservation, but, on their web
site they stated that Enterprise does not do “one-way rentals,” (pick up car at Crawfordsville and drop off in Chicago, in our case),
so after I made the reservation, I called Enterprise a few weeks later, and they said that yes, they would do a one-way rental for
us, but it would cost us more. The next thing I noticed was that Enterprise in Crawfordsville doesn’t open until 8:30 AM, and
the Cardinal is due in at about 7 AM. What to do with the extra 1½ hours? And, according to the AMTRAK “Train Status” web site,
the Cardinal had been running on time quite a bit lately -- oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it! A few days before
we left, I called Enterprise again and asked if there was a way to get our car early – no, there wasn’t, but the agent (Enterprise-Crawfordsville
is basically a “one-man operation!”) would be in at 8 on the morning we arrived, and we were to call him at 8, and if he could get
to the phone before the voice mail kicked in, he’d send someone out to AMTRAK to pick us up So we were all set.
Tuesday,
June 8-Wednesday, June 9 – Silver Meteor
Winter Park, FL to Washington, DC
On the day we left, I checked the AMTRAK “train status” section
of the web site several times, and each time I was informed that the Meteor was expected to arrive in Winter Park on time. We
were all packed and ready to go, and, since my wife’s daughter Melissa is currently living with us, we had ourselves a built in “chauffeur,”
rather than having to rely on an expensive and possibly unreliable taxi. Melissa took us to the Winter Park AMTRAK station,
after a short stop at the local McDonald’s for lunch, since Jan & I knew that, by the time we boarded the train, the lunch service
would likely be over for the day. We got to the station at 1:30 or so, and the agent told us the Silver Meteor was still expected
on time. I also asked the agent where the sleeping cars would be – for a while, the sleepers were consisted at the rear end
of the New York to Florida Silver Service trains, but I had heard that the sleepers were now back at the front end of the train, immediately
behind the baggage car, and the agent confirmed that for me. Melissa stayed with us a for a while as we were waiting for the
train, and soon, southbound Train no. 97 came into the station, approximately 1 hour late. This would be the train that we would
most likely be coming home on in 10 days. While I was waiting, I was watching a landscape crew across from the station planting
a topiary shrubbery arrangement in the park adjacent to the station, and planting shrubs that were arranged as letters spelling out
“WINTER PARK.” The scheduled departure time was soon approaching, but no trace of our train yet, so I asked Jan to inquire of
the agent on duty when the train would be arriving, and he told her it would be here in approximately 15 minutes, which it was. Since the sleepers are in the front of the train, we normally board the train just north of the station, across the street, but still
on the station platform. I had taken our luggage to that location early, and was waiting for the train when the baggage handler
came out in his baggage cart and asked me to kindly wait across the street, on the station side, until the train came in, so I did. Our luggage could stay across the street near the boarding location. The train soon arrived, and as it pulled into the station,
Jan and I walked across the street to our waiting luggage and boarded car 9812, the 3rd sleeper ahead of the dining car. We
were in Bedroom B of the Tranquil View sleeper, and our sleeping car attendant was Carlos, who was a good attendant..
We left Winter
Park approximately 18 minutes behind schedule, and were soon on our way through the upland and wetland forests of Central Florida,
complete with pine tees, palm trees, and kudzu vines. To paraphrase a well-known Train Web member, “if you’ve seen one kudzu
vine, you’ve seen them all!!” We sat in the room until the next stop, which was DeLand. The Silver Service trains no longer
stop in Sanford, and the old AMTRAK station in Sanford has now been demolished. Auto Train is still present in Sanford, just
a few hundred yards north of the old AMTRAK station. Again, I brought my railroad maps with me, and followed the route as I
took more video of the scenery and features along the route, and my wife Jan had brought some plastic canvas sewing projects along
to keep her occupied. Our next stop was DeLand, where we departed approximately 20 minutes late. The following morning,
in Washington, DC,. we had several hours between trains, and recent AMTRAK status reports had indicated that the Meteor had been running
fairly close to schedule in recent weeks, so we were not worried about making connections the next day. One of the attractive
features at the DeLand station is the quaint gazebo which is located just south of the station building, adjacent to the parking lot. That and the “woodsy” environment of the DeLand station (which is located several miles west of downtown) makes it one of AMTRAK’s
most attractive stations.
After DeLand, we sat in the Amfleet lounge car until Jacksonville, and I continued following my maps, and
Jan continued on her sewing project. We departed Palatka approximately 23 minutes late. I had noticed that the Palatka
station is also the home of the “David Browning Railroad Museum, which I have never been in – I will have to check that out sometime. Continuing north, we made up some time into Jacksonville, since there is quite a bit of extra time built into the AMTRAK schedule. We therefore arrived into the Jacksonville station within 5 minutes of schedule, and we got out for a few minutes and walked around. We departed Jacksonville at 5:33 PM, on schedule. I checked my watch, and it showed it to be a couple minutes before 5:33, so
I reset my watch, assuming that the Meteor really did leave Jacksonville on time, and I did not reset the watch again during the trip,
except to change time zones. The next stop was Jesup, Georgia, where we departed approximately 22 minutes late again, but I
do not understand why, since we seemed to run at what I perceive to be “track speed” for the entire distance between Jacksonville
and Jesup. I can only assume that there isn’t quite enough time allotted in the timetable to reflect reality and actual track
speeds between the two cities. Passing through Folkston, Georgia, the first town north of the Florida border, I took a video
of the old Folkston depot, which is now a viewing platform for railfans, I believe.
Earlier we had made dinner reservations for 7:30,
and, at that time, we made our way back to the diner for our seating. The diner was fairly crowded, and the steward “Juan” told
us he’d have a table for us “in a few minutes.” Approximately 20 minutes later, we were finally seated. The dining car
crew tonight consisted of Juan and one additional server, and since the diner was fairly crowded, the service was quite slow and not
up to par, as I have observed on previous trips on Silver Service trains. Joining us for dinner were two young men from Hilton
Head, S.C., who were on their way to Chicago. I believe my wife and I each had the braised beef selection for dinner, which
was quite good – no more “flat iron steak,” like they had on our last trip, in 2008! The menu listed 4 selections of wine, but,
this train, as well as the others we were on, only had the merlot and the chardonnay available, so we settled for a bottle of chardonnay
with our dinner. Knowing the wine situation on AMTRAK, we planned for that on this trip, and brought along a nice wine travel
case we had received as a Christmas present last year, which has space for a bottle of wine on one side, and 2 plastic wine glasses
on the other. As long as we drink it in our private sleeping accommodation, we are not in violation of AMTRAK’s rules, so we
had wine in the evening on some nights on the trip, and also some evenings while we were not on the train. After dinner and
our private wine selection, we soon went to bed. Carlos had made up the bed while we were at dinner. Since the lower bunk in
Viewliner and Superliner bedrooms is approximately the size of a standard double bed, both my wife and I decided to sleep in the bottom
bunk the first night, and the top bunk was reserved for our suitcases, as we have done before. Tomorrow night we will be in
a smaller roomette, in which both bunks are rather narrow, so we will probably each sleep in our own bunk then. We went to bed
the first night of our trip after the Charleston stop.