"All Aboard!" Chapter 3

Wednesday afternoon a little after two, the announcement was made by the Amtrak Conductor, "All Aboard!"

Ginger and I showed our tickets to the Sleeper Car Attendant of the train car we were boarding. He welcomed us aboard and showed us the way to our room. This Amtrak train was called, "The Texas Eagle".

Since we were taking such a long trip across country, Ginger and I had decided to have a private sleeper car room instead of traveling by coach. The benefit of traveling in a sleeper car is that at night we could lie down in a bed and sleep in privacy, which also included being able to get comfortable and sleep in our night clothes.

Sleeper Car Attendants treat you like royalty. They set up your beds at night and then they make them up in the morning. Early in the morning they make a big pot of coffee and keep it freshly made all day long. They also make sure there is fruit juice and bottle water to drink at all time without any extra cost. It is all included in the train trip price. The picture of Ginger shows her in our sleeper car room. You will notice a yellow button behind Ginger on the wall. If we pulled that out, the Attendant came to our aid. The Attendant also carried our baggage on and off the train for us. Each morning we were given a newspaper to read.

Three meals a day were also included with our sleeper car ticket price. One of the above pictures shows what the dining car looked like. It was like eating in a very nice restaurant. If for some reason we didn't want to eat in the dining car, our Sleeper Car Attendant would have brought our meals to us in our room. All we would have had to do is pull our little yellow button for that service.

In the dining car restaurant the meals were wonderful and we had a nice menu to choose from. The thing that Ginger and I enjoyed the most about eating in the dining car was that we met so many nice and very interesting people. We never ate alone. There were usually two other people eating across from us.

The train we were on was heading for Chicago but there were many stops along the way. It was a twenty-four hour trip. Most of the time the stops were very short. There was just enough time to let people off the train and new passengers on. There wasn't time in most of the stops to get off the train to look around, so we just looked out the window. The middle picture is
of one of those stops. The train station was in Marshall, Texas. One of the stops the train made was longer and we had time to get off the train, so we did. It was in Saint Louis.

The next chapter will be called, "See You in Saint Louis".

Judy