This is a travelouge about the first trip Dad and I ever took on Amtrak. Dad and I made a deal, if I safe up for my ticket, he would "save" up for his. Our trip took place in March of 1994, the plan called for a short ride from our home in Raleigh N.C. to Washingto D.C. via the Silver Star and return the next day via the Carolinian, sure it was a short trip but I was quite excited.
The pastor of our church dropped us off at the ex-Southern Ry. depot on the morning of March 21,1994. The Silver Star pulled in one hour late. We soon settled into our seats and were on our way. First on our agenda was to take a tour of the train, we walked through the coaches and soon found the sleepers. Were not sure if Amtrak frowns on this but we were curious and looked into every room! At Rocky Mount the conductor read us from the route guide a short history of the town, Jim Thorpe used to play with the baseball team the Rocky Mount Railroaders here. At Richmond we decided to have the "dining car experience", the people we sat with had come from a vacation in Bermuda and were going to connect with the Montrealer[since been discontinued]at Washington to go to their home in Montreal. We arrived in Washington about thirty minutes late, we watched a bit of the activity at Union Station before taking the Metro to our hotel in Chinatown. We dropped are bags off and then took the Metro back to Union Station to watch trains.
Later that night we rode the Metro around to find a souvineer for Mom, we never found anything but the subway ride was fun.
Return trip.
Before leaving on the Carolinian we rode the Metro to Rockville, this was a pretty fun ride because the subway runs along the CSX/MARC/Amtrak mainline. We were soon back at Union Station to watch the rush hour, I noticed a lot of MARC ex-BN E-9's. At the Great Train Sore inside the terminal we bought a good 25th anniversery of Amtrak book, I read this for most of the trip back. Mom picked us up at the station and from there we went to my brothers soccer game. But I stayed in the car planning our next trip
So far we have ridden over six thousend miles on Amtrak and I hope to someday say I've ridden every Amtrak route.
-Joshua Trower.
