Boston to Philly and back

Last weekend I had another opportunity to take a trip via train, this time down to Philadelphia to attend my little brother's college graduation. Since amtrak was running a special triple points promotion, I decided to take the regional up to Boston rather than boarding the Acela in Providence. This time, I visited the station at 7 AM in order to get myself a 12 hour upgrade to first class. Having obtained my ticket, I ran off to work for the morning.

I took the regional up to Boston that was running about thirty minutes late. I comfortably waited at the station in Providence, which is equipped with pretty fast wifi. When I boarded the 170, it was pretty empty and I grabbed a pair of seats to myself. The ride was quick and we were in Boston in about 45 minutes. Once I got to South Station, I head directly to the Club Acela. I checked in and let the attendant know I wanted assistance from a redcap. After waiting in the seats for a few minutes, Frank, the redcap came over. He took my suitcase and gave me a little card with his name on it. He also let me know that we would be boarding at 2:45 pm, which was 30 minutes prior to the train's departure time.

At exactly 2:45 PM Frank came back into the Club Acela to collect his charges. He led us out to the platform, which was being guarded by a gate agent. The gate agent let us through and we boarded the rear car of the train, where the first class car was. There was a male african-american attendant aged about 30 today who was the main interface with the passengers. He seemed stressed out when we boarded and mentioned to Frank that the train was completely sold out. I was glad I went up to BOS to board early! I snagged a single seat on the left hand side (ocean side)

Jack & Diet Pepsi with peanuts

Rib Dinner

The service left something to be desired today. We all had drink orders taken before we left BOS, and the train kept getting more crowded at each stop we made. He didn't come by to take dinner orders until after we left PVD, at which point every single seat in the car was occupied. It was like pulling teeth to get drink refills, and they ran out of the dish I wanted for dinner. I got the ribs rather than go hungry. They were OK.

Right outside of PVD, we stopped for about half an hour. Apparently there was a problem with the pantographs which was announced by the conductor. The staff did a great job of letting us know exactly what was going on during the delay, and I was very impressed by that. We arrived late into NYP, and the car almost completely cleared out. I think I was one of only three people continuing farther south. The attendant came by to take food orders again after we left, and he seemed annoyed when I ordered the ceasar salad, which is what they had been out of during the first half of the trip. I told him I was getting off in Philly, and I had my food pretty quickly. I asked him for another drink and he eventually slammed down a plastic cup of bourbon on my table. The next thing I knew, we were in Philly and I was running off the train, almost nervous for a second that I was going to miss the stop.