The Texas Eagle runs from San Antonio to Chicago (or, from Chicago to San Antonio, if you prefer). Since we almost always leave from and return to San Antonio, the Texas Eagle route figures prominently in our train plans. If we decide to leave from Temple, Texas, the Texas Eagle is our only option. We researched other people’s thoughts before taking our first trip several years ago, and we learned there are two crews for this route. One of these crews is wonderful. The other…not so much. On our first trip, we got the wonderful crew both ways. On subsequent trips, we’ve experienced both crews. We think some of the curmudgeons have retired, so the general quality of the crew had changed from awful to average. On our most recent trip, we traveled the Texas Eagle twice, and we got the same crew both times. This crew seems to have replaced the “grumpy crew” and was a delight to travel with.

Sleeping car attendants are supposed to ready your sleeping quarters for the night while you’re out to dinner (or at a time of your choosing), and they are supposed to make your room up for the day while you’re gone to breakfast. We prefer to set the room up ourselves in the evening, and it’s just as easy for us to make it up for the day in the morning. The other critical tasks car attendants perform are keeping the restrooms suitable for using and keeping the coffee and condiments ready from early morning to later in the evening (only formally available until 11am, but sometimes it’s available longer). Ideally, the ice chest will have ice for juice or water. I’m not sure if this a convenience or something we can expect. There always seems to be ice in a styrofoam ice chest near the coffee pot. We have ridden many times where we’ve never seen our sleeping car attendant, and, as experienced riders, I don’t have a problem with this, but for new riders, not getting a good orientation can result in a very disappointing trip. On this trip, all our attendants were excellent. In our case, ice wasn’t readily available, my husband requested ice, and the attendant brought us a full bucket of ice (I guess from the dining car).

Thank you for visiting for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. Today’s entry is “Grand Tour”-themed, about our Amtrak trip we took last month. I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions in comments. If you don’t want to miss an entry, please enter your email address below, press sign-up, then check your inbox to click the validation link to get these blog posts in your inbox.