Pbenjay's Blog

Dining car (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We pulled into Philadelphia at about 4:45pm and stayed in the station so engineers could come aboard and fix the falling out window.  Yes that’s what I said; Earlier when we were Newark and the conductor came through to check tickets, the people two rows ahead of me told her there was something wrong with their window.  Oh my, wrong? I should say so, apparently it was out of its frame!  One hour and four hard-hatted engineers later, the window was replaced. 

By 6:45, we’ve snacking on cheese, crackers, carrots and celery and almonds and it’s that time; We have to get ice from the bar car;  I brought a little travel shaker and now someone is very happy, not to mention that he is sitting by himself on the other side of the aisle since the window fiasco necessitated several groups to move to another car in order to keep the families together!

7:45 I know we are already at least 45 minutes behind schedule and now we are in Washington D.C. and once again, engineers have descended upon the train.  The window has not been fixed correctly.  Three hard-hats all agreed that something is not right and they have shut the power off in our car and here we sit.!!!

 9:00 Earlier when the man came through the car asking if anyone wanted to make dining car reservations and we were informed of the 5:00 (must be the Florida early bird special) only time and we declined, he told us we could go to dining car at 8:30 and perhaps there would be a table.  If not, we also had the option of ordering some food and bringing it back to our seats.  So at 8:30pm Peter went to the dining car and immediately returned as the line was all the way into the next car.  He went back at 9:00pm and the dining room was closed.  SO MUCH FOR DINNER! 

Finally at about 9:30 we went to the Bar Car and ordered a Tempting Turkey Sandwich to split.  I’m not even sure it was turkey.  At 10:30 they turned off the lights in the car but I continued to read for at least another hour hoping I would feel sleepy – I did not.

I never fell asleep all night!! I know I dozed off several times because I had little dream vignettes but the arms of Morpheus were elusive and trying to sleep in a seat titled ever so slightly back was really impossible for me.  As I roamed down the aisle to the rest room I was envious of all the travelers sacked out and sound asleep!