I’m on the Lake Shore Limited today, heading back to Michigan by way of Toledo. This is my 29th trip on the Lake Shore Limited, for a total of 23,596 miles. That’s about 20% of my Amtrak mileage, and slightly edges out the Capitol Limited (33 trips for 23,375 miles). I’ve got a complicated relationship with this train. I broke up with it in early 2013, only to make a rapprochement in 2017.
I made my first trip on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited on May 31, 2009, when I traveled out to a NITLE conference at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. I was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at the time. I took the Wolverine down to Chicago and endured a long layover–back then the eastbound train left at 10 PM, Central Time. I rode in the Boston coach out to Springfield, Massachusetts, where I caught a Peter Pan bus up to Northampton.
My notes from that trip mostly concern trying to get an internet connection through a tethered Blackberry that I’d borrowed from my department. Based on that experience, I developed some long-standing beliefs about cell signal strength in various parts of the country. What I left out then is that I was used a Gateway laptop dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu, and the kludged-together open source software for tethering over Ubuntu was way less reliable than the official supported stuff on Windows. Thing is, I didn’t want to be booted into the Windows side, because all my development tools were on Ubuntu. These days the Lake Shore Limited has WiFi (it works sometimes), and hot spotting from my phone is infinitely more reliable than tethering. Cell phone networks have come a long way in 15 years.
After making a least one and often two trips per year on the Lake Shore Limited between 2009 and 2013, I did follow through on my threat and abandon it in 2014-2015 in favor of the Capitol Limited (save a brief jaunt between Springfield and Worcester). I returned in 2016, and mostly back to the once-a-year cadence, but almost always westbound-only, getting off at Toledo to catch the bus into Michigan. The 3:40 PM departure time from New York is convenient–if I take the morning Trans-Bridge bus into the city I can put in a work day from the Metropolitan Lounge. I have cell signal in the evening. The lack of breakfast before Toledo pinches less now that I observe intermittent fasting until 11 AM anyway. Going east, I take the Capitol Limited because it means a shorter layover in Toledo. I’m still not wild about the 5 AM transfer in Pittsburgh.
Speaking of things I’m not wild about right now, let’s talk about the dining situation on the Lake Shore Limited. When I first started riding this train Amtrak had a dining car shortage and made do Amfleet II dinettes. Coach passengers had access, but the experience wasn’t the best. Stimulus funds under Obama got some of the Heritage Fleet diners back in service, and for a few halcyon years we had steak, herb-roasted half chicken, and “Railroad French Toast” onboard (never, never get the omelet).
Right about the time the Viewliner II dining cars started arriving Congress cracked the whip on food/beverage losses again and Amtrak rolled out “flexible dining.” What this has developed into is something similar to First Class on the Acela: prepackaged entrees and complimentary beverage service. Gone are made-to-order steaks, communal seating, and about two-thirds of the onboard staff. Quality has varied. Last month, on the Crescent, it was frankly bad, but I put that down to the Crescent not carrying a dining car at all. I assume meals were prepped in the Amfleet cafe. We’re carrying a dining car and I’m ordering the same meal I had in February so I can make a valid comparison.
The most important ritual on the Lake Shore Limited is the engine change at Albany. An electro-diesel locomotive brings the New York section up the Hudson to Albany, where the Boston section is waiting for us. Our locomotive is cut off, and the train is assembled. While this is happening passengers are free to mill about the platform, and you can always find a few railfans down by the head end supervising.
I don’t sleep well on trains. This surprises people, but it’s true. I wake up every few hours. I put this down to the motion and ambient noise. My only experience with a foreign sleeping car was a CityNightLine service from Vienna to Bonn in 2003, so I can’t really compare experiences. Maybe I’d sleep better given better ride quality. The beds are fine, and Amtrak refreshed the pillows and blankets a few years ago. I have no complaints on that score. The on-board shower for sleeping car passengers is a nice amenity too.
The high point on a westbound Lake Shore Limited trip is the first few hours as you run up the Hudson. Unless it’s the absolute dead of winter you do it in daylight. Most of the time you’re right on the shore; there’s very little development between you and the river. If you stay on past Toledo you get rolling fields in northern Ohio and Indiana, the Chicago industrial littoral. Eastbound is all upstate New York, and if you’ve driven the New York State Thruway between Buffalo and Albany you’ve seen it. The old Erie Canal is interesting.
I’m griping a lot here and I shouldn’t. This is my fifth run to Toledo; I’ve never been later than half an hour. I need a decent transportation solution between the East Coast and Michigan and the Lake Shore Limited fits the bill. We’re a one car family, we didn’t like flying even before Boeing forgot how to make planes. Dinner’s in half an hour.