Travelogue of Michael Hansen's Trip on
the Amtrak Ann Rutledge
Its about 4:00 PM, on Monday, July 12, 2004, and I, along with my Mom,
have just arived at the Springfield Amtrak station, waiting on our
delayed train number 304, the Northbound Ann Rutledge, to
Chicago. We came down Saturday night on train 305 to visit my 86,
going on 87 year old Grandfather. I spend an enjoyable Sunday and
today railfanning and recording Amtrak action at the Springfield Amtrak
station. We were hoping that the train didn't make up all the
time Amtrak said it would, because that would be a very close
connection; I had called "Juley" before leeving and she had said that
the train was 31 minutes late but was expected to make up time, and
arive at Springfield at 4:12 PM, 12 minutes late. But that was
not to be. Upon talking to Keven, the station agent, we learned
that our train was at Alton, account a broken-down UP work train ahead
of it. We went back out to the car, and I called Amtrak again,
learning that number 304 had departed Alton at 4:07 PM, and was
expected to Springfield at 5:09 PM, 1 hour 9 minutes late. At
about 4:50 PM, we headed into the station, and headed outside about
5:05 PM. Number 304 came in at 5:19 PM, 1 hour 23 minutes
late. We boarded, and got seets in the first car behind the cafe
car.
Tonights Ann Rutledge is pulled by Genesis engine number 175 or 135
(Sources differ, the engineer said 135) and includes cafe car 20253 and
2 coaches. We departed at 5:23 PM, 1 hour 23 minutes late, and
made our first stop at Lincoln at 5:50 PM, and departed at 5:51
PM. We came to a stop at 6:05 PM to meet train number 21, the
Southbound Texas Eagle with engine number 1. Train number 21
finally passed at 6:25 PM, and we backed out of the siding at 6:30,
coming to a stop at 6:31 PM. We started moving forward at 6:32
PM, having spend 27 minutes on the siding. While we were wating
for number 21, I took out my tape player; I continued listening to it
until we got to Bloomington, at 6:55 PM, 1 hour 55 minutes late.
We departed at 6:58 PM, 1 hour 55 minutes late. We headed to the
cafe car; but there were no open tables, so we turned around and headed
back to the bathroom. However when I got there there was no
toylit paper; and the door wouldn't shut propperly. If I had not
known about no toylit paper, that could've been a problem; its pretty
evident this train didn't leeve Chicago prepaired. But this was
no match to what happened at Bloomington. A Mother with 2 kids
boarded and the conductor basicly left her to find her own seets.
If I am correct, the standard practice is to ask passengers seeted
alone to move in with other passengers to accomodate 2 people from the
same family/group. However, this conductor didn't feel he needed
to take the time to do this.
We arived at Pontiac at 7:24, and paused while the conductor coppied
down orders, and highballed at 7:25 PM, about 2 hours late. We
arived at Dwite, at 7:40 PM, and didn't depart until 7:46 PM, because
we were loading a passenger who used a wheelchair. We made our
next stop at Joliet, IL at 8:20 PM, and left at 8:23, 1 hour and 58
minutes late. I gstarted gathering up my stuff after our arivel
at Summit, IL, at 8:47 PM. We made a 2-minute stop hear, and
departed at 8:49 PM.
I put my computer away on departure from Summit; before our final
arival at Chicago, we made a brief stop to allow traffic up ahead of
us, then it was in to CUS. We arived at 9:18 PM, 1 hour 32
minutes late. We headed over to the Ogilve Transportation center
to board the 9:40 PM Metra train to Geneva, made up of the new 6000's
Sumitomo coaches.
My trip on Amtrak was enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to my trip on
train number 30 on August 2, 2004.
Equipment Consists and other notes (Entire Trip)
Train 305 (12)
AMTK91 P42DC
20163 cafe/bisnass class car
25071 AmfleetII Coach
25000 AmfleetII coach
54579 Horizon Coach
Trains we saw in Springfield:
AMTK832, train 22 (10)
AMTK61 Train 304 (11)
AMTK135 Train 305 (11)
AMTK94 Train 303 (12)
AMTK49 Train 22 (12)
Notes:
We met up with the AMTK1 just south of Bloomington on train 304 (12)
Consist of Metra train 69
METX140 F40PH-2
6002 coach
6015 coach
6067 coach
6042 coach
6063 coach
6062 coach
8445 coach/cab
