I certainly hope things improve for the Cardinal, I rode Train #50 back in September on my last trip (I'm still scanning all the slides and a full travelogue will be online soon), I'll make a long story short by saying, we left Chicago late due to our crew not being rested in time, we had a drunk passenger who nearly got booted off the train in Indy but was allowed to continue riding to his stop in Charleston, WV, and the kicker: We had 3 Amfleet II Coaches on this train, only two of them were open, and the two that were open had no AC outlets! The third coach had AC outlets, but for course, was "closed and used for the crew only", and we had the wrong cafe car on the train, it was an Amfleet II with a smoking lounge on one end, first off, if you weren't a sleeper passenger, then you couldn't eat in that car during meal times, nor could you even sit in the car! It's as if coach passengers didn't matter! Also, for coach passengers, that cafe car had AC outlets but again, during meal times, if you ain't a sleeper passenger, you're outta here! Truthfully, I don't complain about problems with Amtrak but this was absolutely unacceptable, there were several passengers complaining during the ride about the AC Outlet problem as well as the service. On a much happier note, the rest of the trip and the other 6 trains I rode were great!
Geno Dailey's Amtrak Photo Archive
http://www.trainweb.org/amtrakpix