Thursday, October 25, 2007
Amtrak from Austin to San Antonio and back
Amtrak from Austin (21 Oct) to San Antonio and back (25 Oct)
One of the adventures I promised myself was a trip with The Texas Eagle. Already the name seemed enough to take the train from Austin to San Antonio, but I got more then I bargained for.
Train doesn’t seem to be a common way of transport in the USA and now I understand why. First of all there is not many of them on a regular timetable. For example there is just 1 train a day between Austin and San Antonio and it leaves at 8:10 pm.
I had booked the train to San Antonio and my friend Chelsea was so kind to take me to the station. Even though she lives in Austin she was not sure were the station was or how to get there, so we looked it up on the internet and she then knew where she had to take me.
But the station is so well hidden that it was hard to find and there were no signs indication the direction at all. I guess that is another reason people don’t take the train: it is hard to find a station.
The trip normally takes 3 ½ hours. But this time the train already arrived at Austin with a 2 ½ hours delay. Some of the people also waiting for that train where quite surprised, for usually the delay is just 1 hour! But now I did arrive in San Antonio at 3:30 hour’s pm (that’s after 2 o’clock in the night on 22 Oct) instead of 11:30 pm (21 Oct). That is a delay of over 4 hours for a 79 miles trip that takes you not even 2 hours by car.
I don’t know what the polices of with Amtrak, are but in Europe if the train from Amsterdam to Paris is 20 minutes late; you get a refund on your ticket.
But the man taking care of the station was a nice and kind man, so that maked waiting a little less of a bore.
Another thing that surprised me is that the train moved really slowly I guess it wasn’t going faster than 60 kms. per hour and kept blowing its horn almost all the way. Also the train stopped for almost 1 hour to let a freight train pass. So I guess to Amtrak cargo is more important than passengers?
I wonder what the trip back will be like …….. It is supposed to leave San Antonio at 06:00 hours.
The trip back.
Well the trip back did start a bit better. We left with a delay of ‘just’ 40 minutes. No announcement about the cause of the delay what so ever.
And as the journey starts the horn blowing starts to. Again the train goes at the horrifying speed of a drunken man crawling from bar to bar….. Oops, we stopped; there is a freight train that passes us, that will take at least 5 minutes. Oh, now we are moving back To San Antonio it seems. Now I guess we are on another track but it is odd that we now move in opposite direction. But as it turned out we went towards Austin and the train also picked up some speed.
We arrived ‘just’ 90 minutes late in Austin.
Amtrak is not the best way to get around, but the staff is really nice and helpful.
One of the adventures I promised myself was a trip with The Texas Eagle. Already the name seemed enough to take the train from Austin to San Antonio, but I got more then I bargained for.
Train doesn’t seem to be a common way of transport in the USA and now I understand why. First of all there is not many of them on a regular timetable. For example there is just 1 train a day between Austin and San Antonio and it leaves at 8:10 pm.
I had booked the train to San Antonio and my friend Chelsea was so kind to take me to the station. Even though she lives in Austin she was not sure were the station was or how to get there, so we looked it up on the internet and she then knew where she had to take me.
But the station is so well hidden that it was hard to find and there were no signs indication the direction at all. I guess that is another reason people don’t take the train: it is hard to find a station.
The trip normally takes 3 ½ hours. But this time the train already arrived at Austin with a 2 ½ hours delay. Some of the people also waiting for that train where quite surprised, for usually the delay is just 1 hour! But now I did arrive in San Antonio at 3:30 hour’s pm (that’s after 2 o’clock in the night on 22 Oct) instead of 11:30 pm (21 Oct). That is a delay of over 4 hours for a 79 miles trip that takes you not even 2 hours by car.
I don’t know what the polices of with Amtrak, are but in Europe if the train from Amsterdam to Paris is 20 minutes late; you get a refund on your ticket.
But the man taking care of the station was a nice and kind man, so that maked waiting a little less of a bore.
Another thing that surprised me is that the train moved really slowly I guess it wasn’t going faster than 60 kms. per hour and kept blowing its horn almost all the way. Also the train stopped for almost 1 hour to let a freight train pass. So I guess to Amtrak cargo is more important than passengers?
I wonder what the trip back will be like …….. It is supposed to leave San Antonio at 06:00 hours.
The trip back.
Well the trip back did start a bit better. We left with a delay of ‘just’ 40 minutes. No announcement about the cause of the delay what so ever.
And as the journey starts the horn blowing starts to. Again the train goes at the horrifying speed of a drunken man crawling from bar to bar….. Oops, we stopped; there is a freight train that passes us, that will take at least 5 minutes. Oh, now we are moving back To San Antonio it seems. Now I guess we are on another track but it is odd that we now move in opposite direction. But as it turned out we went towards Austin and the train also picked up some speed.
We arrived ‘just’ 90 minutes late in Austin.
Amtrak is not the best way to get around, but the staff is really nice and helpful.
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