Thursday, September 19, 2024
I woke up in North Carolina, and it was still fairly early when we hit Virginia. Claude, our Porter, told us to get the cameras ready. As we came out of a tunnel in southern Virginia we crossed the James river. Quite beautiful.
In DC, we spent a bit of time at the station whiled Amtrak changed out the two diesel engines for a single electric engine, as everything north east of DC is on electrified line. I was part of the sidewalk superintendent group supervising the train workers.. They tolerated me very well!
I detrained, Yes, that’s a word, at Newark New Jersey and got ready to board another train to the Newark airport, but I realized as I got ready to get on the train that I had forgotten to claim my baggage from Amtrak baggage. Ran around like a chicken with my head cut off and still made the train.
I am staying in a hotel at the Newark airport because it’s about half the cost or less than anything I could find in Manhattan. I have a very nice King size bed in a king size room, and the bed is comfortable, and the breakfast was good.
A crazy thing about this Best Western, is that I can probably throw a baseball from the front door to the train station where I will head back to New York. But because of fences, parking lots, and whatever, going from the train station to my hotel involves a 1 mile trip on the airport Airtran People mover, and a 2 mile roundabout trip on the hotel shuttle that I swear, went on and off of seven different freeways! Urban geography is different!
Next: New York City
