July 9 - Today three generations came down from Vermont to see the 40th Anniversary train at the Springfield, Mass station.
The creators and crew of the train are to be greatly praised for their efforts. Whether you're a button and lever pushing child (engineer's control stand and whistles), Old Fart (first Amtrak route attempts) or a sometimes rider over the past forty years there's something for everything. The crew is so outgoing and seems as interested in you as we were in the train. My granddaughter was quite impressed by her conversation with a female Amtrak engineer. Amtrak Police were there with Roxie the bomb sniffing dog and the grandchildren posed for a picture with her. The LSA manning the souvenir counter wanted to buy my Vermonter hat. Normally, he said, he does Boston-Newport News. And the further end of that car had those damnable weird Star-Trek tiny liver shaped stools with mini-counters which would have definitely prevented any laptop activity whatsoever. I've read from time to time on All-Aboard about that goofy design and we're fortunate that reason prevailed and it was never adopted. But at least I got to see them
When I asked if I could take pictures on the platform without a ticket, crew's eyed rolled and they looked at each other with a kind of "why does this have to keep coming up?" look. Anyway I took lots of pictures, especially of the spotless head end with its two locomotives, F40 406 appearing to be nothing more than a (quiet) genset with GE 822 leading with not even a squished bug on it.
My daughter's comment was that it would have been nice to include a Viewliner and a Superliner car or two in the consist. Probably because it would make the train too long to fit the siding where it's parked for display or there are clearance issues in the east they can't do this. Or it could just be they are to short of equipment to be able to do this.
And there was NO mention that I could find of New England's favorite train, the Montrealer (RIP).
And there's lots of handouts and coloring activities for the little ones. The whole event makes a great family outing.
And, of course, if you're in Springfield, you're not far from Palmer and the Steaming Tender Restaurant in the restored station. The restaurant owners are not particularly happy that the Vermonter will soon be rerouted away from Palmer and Amherst and back onto the old B&M Conn River line.
Jonathan
The creators and crew of the train are to be greatly praised for their efforts. Whether you're a button and lever pushing child (engineer's control stand and whistles), Old Fart (first Amtrak route attempts) or a sometimes rider over the past forty years there's something for everything. The crew is so outgoing and seems as interested in you as we were in the train. My granddaughter was quite impressed by her conversation with a female Amtrak engineer. Amtrak Police were there with Roxie the bomb sniffing dog and the grandchildren posed for a picture with her. The LSA manning the souvenir counter wanted to buy my Vermonter hat. Normally, he said, he does Boston-Newport News. And the further end of that car had those damnable weird Star-Trek tiny liver shaped stools with mini-counters which would have definitely prevented any laptop activity whatsoever. I've read from time to time on All-Aboard about that goofy design and we're fortunate that reason prevailed and it was never adopted. But at least I got to see them
When I asked if I could take pictures on the platform without a ticket, crew's eyed rolled and they looked at each other with a kind of "why does this have to keep coming up?" look. Anyway I took lots of pictures, especially of the spotless head end with its two locomotives, F40 406 appearing to be nothing more than a (quiet) genset with GE 822 leading with not even a squished bug on it.
My daughter's comment was that it would have been nice to include a Viewliner and a Superliner car or two in the consist. Probably because it would make the train too long to fit the siding where it's parked for display or there are clearance issues in the east they can't do this. Or it could just be they are to short of equipment to be able to do this.
And there was NO mention that I could find of New England's favorite train, the Montrealer (RIP).
And there's lots of handouts and coloring activities for the little ones. The whole event makes a great family outing.
And, of course, if you're in Springfield, you're not far from Palmer and the Steaming Tender Restaurant in the restored station. The restaurant owners are not particularly happy that the Vermonter will soon be rerouted away from Palmer and Amherst and back onto the old B&M Conn River line.
Jonathan
