Something had to go wrong eventually...

Day 21, Feb 23rd

I had a great nights sleep in my Viewliner bunk. As promised, here is a picture of us in our bunks this morning. Note the extra width at the head of the bed to make it easier to turn over and also the significant headroom for me in the top bunk...

We pulled into Atlanta, Georgia at about 8:30am. This meant we had made up nearly all the time we lost at Washington. Atlanta was quite a big stop passenger wise, many getting off and a few joining. It is also a refuelling stop for the locomotives. I took a few shots and a quick video of the config whilst stretching my legs on the platform...

Dining Car service is not offered whilst in a stop, so as soon as we started moving from Atlanta, we headed for the dining car for breakfast. Three egg omelette with mushrooms for me and scrambled eggs for Diane, along with juice and coffee of course.

When we came back from breakfast, Michelle was still converting our roomette into day mode, so we sat in a vacant room until it was ready. I decided to do a quick video of the Viewliner Roomette...



After we left Atlanta, we travelled thru Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and finally Louisiana just before nightfall. Most of the day was spent looking out at typical scenery in the deep south, fields and swamps. I was unable to take any pictures of quality whatsoever, the windows were filthy from when the train left New York and was flying thru New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, throwing up snow and grit from the rails and distributing it on the windows.

The only 2 pictures I took were an example of plant life which plagues the south...

These are examples of a Japanese vine, Kudzu, which was introduced in the southern states to control soil erosion. Unfortunately, it has just taken over and smothers everything in it's path, growing straight up and over and strangling all types of trees. According to a website I looked at, it can grow up to 12" a day!!! I guess it's a bit like our own Lantana in Australia.

We finally rolled into New Orleans on time, having made up the 2 hrs from Washington. Michelle the SCA turned out to be somewhere in between Cindy and Bill. Always a smile, but you really had to wait a while to see her or go look for her. She has given us some tips for eateries from a locals perspective (she lives in the city). All the tips we received previously were given the thumbs down by her because, although the food was good, they were overpriced and touristy. If her recommendations turn out OK then we'll forgive her for having to wait so long to get a juice...lol. The dining car crew didn't improve however. They were nice enough, but light years behind the previous crews in professionalism and demeanour.

What went wrong you may ask...

When we went to claim our luggage, only 2 of the 4 bags have made it to New Orleans. Dianes's small suitcase that we would normally use as carry-on but decided to check thru because of the space restrictions in the roomette was missing, as was my new ski boot bag with obviously my new boots underneath and most of my ski gear and other clothing. The AMTRAK guy had a few different scenarios about what may have went wrong, but we really don't know at this stage. He said that 99.9% of time they come thru on the next train (ie: tomorrow night) and urged us not to panic too much, that AMTRAK would deliver them to the hotel when they arrive. Diane elected not to take his advise and went into panic mode immediately. I asked him why would somebody not ring thru to say 'Hey, we've got 2 bags here that should be on The Crescent to New Orleans, let the owners know they are safe and will arrive tomorrow'? He said that it normally doesn't happen, they just stick them on the next train without ringing thru. Perhaps it should happen that way. I know I'd be much more comfortable right now if somebody at New Orleans said 'Sorry Sir, your bags were inadvertently offloaded at Atlanta, we will get them to you tomorrow'. I think an email to AMTRAK when I get home may be in order.

Anyway, we were 'lucky' enough to get one bag each delivered, so we have clothes to wear tomorrow when we go out and discover New Orleans. Until then...

Later...