Since we moved south and decided to rent in the downtown area putting us just blocks from the Amtrak station, we have been talking about taking a trip by train. We had booked train tickets for May of 2020 to New Orleans to meet up with my parents for a day or two before they boarded a cruise but you all know what happened in early 2020. Those plans were quickly upended and we found ourselves with Amtrak credit that needed to be used before the end of 2021.
The Crescent line runs between New Orleans and New York City daily passing through Birmingham. If you know anything about Amtrak, it is the Viewliner cars they use on this route. The double decker Superliners are more common as you go west. I understand tunnels in the east can't accommodate the taller Superliner cars.
Our train was supposed to depart our city around 1pm and so we worked half a day and then started tracking the status of the train. Amtrak trains are notorious for being late so when you take the train you just have to commit to traveling on "Amtrak time". When we saw our train was looking like it would arrive around 2pm, we left our apartment around 1pm.
When you arrive at the Amtrak station, you just walk in and have a seat. There are no metal detectors. No one checks your ticket at this point. I suppose as long as you look like you belong, the security guard doesn't come bug you. Supposedly Birmingham had a renovation to their train station but really it is pretty basic.
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| Greyhound shares a station with Amtrak. |
About 2:15pm, the doors to the tracks opened. Still no one looked at our ticket. They made some announcements about which number to stand near depending on whether you were coach or in a sleeper car but it was hard to understand them and really the platform wasn't that big and the numbers not that far apart. The train pulled into the station at about 2:20pm but not before a freight train passed by.
Earlier in the week, we had received an e-mail inviting us to bid up our coach seats. Seeing that the train to New Orleans was busier than the train coming home, we thought we would bid for a roomette and our bid was accepted. A roomette is an enclosed space in the sleeper car with a door that has two facing seats that convert to a bed, a pull down upper bunk, a sink, and a toilet (the toilet is no longer in roomettes in newer sleeper cars, there are shared restrooms in the car instead). There are also two outlets and a table that folds down between the seats.
We were pulling out of the station only minutes later. Here are a few photos as we left Birmingham. The windows were so dirty and the sun hit at a bad angle that I really didn't get any more even marginal photos.
On our way to New Orleans, we passed through a number of fairly small stations. I was most surprised by the station in Tuscaloosa. The block the station is on is not long enough for a train and so while loading and unloading passengers, the Amtrak actually blocks a city street. None of the stops were long enough to step off the train, even if we had been on time.
Roomettes come with some perks. All your meals are included as well as any non-alcoholic drinks you want along the way plus the first alcoholic drink is complimentary. Unfortunately, as a cost savings measure, the dining car and made-to-order meals were discontinued in 2019 but the re-heated meals we had were pretty good and the brownies among the best I have ever had. Plus the bread that came with the meal was surprisingly fresh and good.
As evening set in and darkness overtook the sun, we drew closer and closer to New Orleans. The train stopped unexpectedly north of Slidell, LA and an announcement was made that we had to wait for a car to clear the tracks before we could continue. Half an hour later, we were once moving again and soon started seeing the lights of New Orleans and arrived at the station around 10:15, over an hour past the scheduled arrival time (I guess we had made up time somewhere as we left Birmingham about 1.5 hours late).
We walked the 7 blocks to our hotel, the
Fairfield Inn located in a historic building just a few blocks off the French Quarter. This hotel was a gem. It showcased the beauty of its history with a wooden staircase and wooden beams but was fully modern and comfortable. We also learned the next morning that even with COVID restrictions and breakfast being served in a bag, the staff were so pleasant and provided us with quite a variety and more than we could eat each morning.
If our train had been on time, we had talked about walking the French Quarter a bit after arriving but it was well past our bedtime. There would always be tomorrow.
