Category Archives: Trains

Gas prices

Posted on June 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Gas prices

Are headed to $10 a gallon. That will hurt many. What will hurt all of us is when the price of diesel hits $10 a gallon. Everything moves by train or truck.

UPDATE: Diesel is $9.19 a gallon in L.A. Hold onto your hats! Via James Woods on Twitter.

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Posted in Lyin' Biden, The Economy, Trains

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The mask nazis won

Posted on December 15, 2021 | Comments Off on The mask nazis won

I would suspect that Amtrak’s decision to halt the vaccine mandate for employees reveals that most of the holdouts are front-line workers on the trains themselves.

“I would bet, and it is essentially admitted by the statement from Amtrak, that a much higher percentage of the critical workers are refusing the vaccine than exist in the total employment ranks.  The most productive and critical employees within any organization are independent minded, dependable and capable of a much larger influence than the average person.  It is inside that core group of highly critical employees where effects from a vaccine mandate refusal makes the biggest impact.”

The mask nazis, in other words, whom we encountered on our last train trip, who threatened to throw off the train any passenger caught not wearing a mask. And put them off in the furthest reaches, the most rural, part of the schedule. Their performance soured us a bit on government railroad but we’re still considering a rail trip to Sedona next year.

Via The Conservative Treehouse

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Posted in Amtrak, Trains

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Train tickets

Posted on February 3, 2021 | 2 comments

Bought our end of April tickets to Oklahoma City. Trying again to get within range of Higgins in the Texas Panhandle and OCS comrade Russ Wheat’s grave. At least we can expect no ice storms this time.

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Posted in Amtrak, Infantry OCS, Trains

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Austin to Oklahoma City

Posted on November 13, 2020 | Comments Off on Austin to Oklahoma City

Another fun Amtrak trek, made on Oct 25, returning on the 28th. We’d intended to rent a car/truck and drive to Higgins in far north Texas, to see the grave of an old Army friend. We ran into an ice storm instead which kept us in the hotel in OKC. But we had fun anyway.

The most fun were the train rides, the third and fourth after our jaunts to Colorado and back in 2019. We had a bedroom enroute to Fort Worth, as usual, but with room service of a meal this time, and thence a coach seat to OKCity. And the reverse on the 28th, but this time had a small roomette from Fort Worth to Austin. Which also got us room service from a friendly staff person.

The only bad part is the four-hour layover in Fort Worth. Those wooden benches in the old station are very uncomfortable for so long. But we enjoyed the ride of even the coach seats. Rocking along from side to side.

As for the train cars, they were clean, so far as we could tell, if a bit shabby. All that deferred maintenance imposed by the crooks of Congress who only maintain Amtrak’s northeast corridor, which they use, of course. Flyover country gets the schnitz. Schmucks.

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Posted in Amtrak, Trains

Ice Storm

Posted on October 28, 2020 | Comments Off on Ice Storm

Nailed us in Oklahoma City, ice everywhere with a little snow and temps in the 20s. Farther west, where we were planning to go, the worse it got. Worst of all at our destination: Higgins in the Texas panhandle, and OCS buddy Russ Wheat’s grave, where the snow was more than a little and the temps in the teens.

So we stayed in the hotel, where three nights and two days in bed was quite fun. And Amtrak was enjoyable, as usual. Had a roomette where the conductors brought our meals. Got back to find that ice on the local lines caused a power outage which killed the furnace. So was a mite chilly until we got it going again. We’ll try again in April.

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Posted in Amtrak, Infantry OCS, Trains, Weather

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Streamliner Memories

Posted on July 8, 2019 | 2 comments

Sigh. Just looking at the pics (or pix, if you prefer) brings back memories of our two thousand mile Amtrak excursion earlier this year. We only got a few canyons (in Colorado and New Mexico) and no mountains at all in Texas and Kansas) but we want to do it again next year. This time we’ll cut the distance to Colorado in half by going and coming back across West Texas.

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Posted in Amtrak, Barbara Ellen, Blogosphere, Trains

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Can’t stop thinking about the train

Posted on March 6, 2019 | 2 comments

Bar and I agree, we can’t stop thinking about our train trip and want to do it again this year. In October, probably, when it’s cooled off a little in West Texas, which is the route we’ll take.

South to San Antonio and thence to El Paso. At that point, it’s a toss-up. Back to Trinidad or continue west to her birthplace of Phoenix? We’ll see.

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Posted in Amtrak, Obsessions, Texana, Trains

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