[Philmont] Albuquerque to Philmont

> From: Jimmy Workman
> We took the train from Raleigh this past summer. It turned into a
> diaster due to late trains and poor service. I hope ours was the
> exception and not the rule.

>From what I've seen of Amtrak, it would appear if you have
connections and change trains, you are really taking a risk
when it comes to schedule. If you are JUST on the line that
goes through Raton (Los Angeles to Chicago, Southwest Chief),
it would appear you usually get pretty close to on time
service. One thing you can do to get a feel for the service
you can expect is to go on the Amtrak web site periodically
and check the current trains on those lines to see how close
they are hitting their times. You could do this several
times before committing to your train tickets and get a
pretty good feel for your chances.

I would guess the biggest problem with connections is the
fact the Southwest Chief runs but once a day, and if your
connection is too late, you will be a full day off.

It should be noted that those taking the train from the west
have fewer issues with scheduling than those from the east.
If you come from the west, since the train gets to Raton
after 6pm or so, you MUST check in the following day. Thus,
even if your train is 8 hours late, you STILL check in on
time. Since the train from the east is scheduled at 10am or
so, Eastern crews tend to arrive on check in day. If the
train is very late, this can be very disconcerting. I think
over the years I've been on this list (and its bowline predecessor)
most of the complaints about the train seem to come from
the easterners, while the westerners tend to be very happy
with it.
>
> Another thing to watch out for is the boundry on the regional
> travel. The boundry has appeared to vary over the years.

This statement baffles me. What are you talking about?
"Bound[a]ry on the regional travel?" Huh?
>
> We went to Santa Fe and used Leading the Way Tours,

How did you get to Santa Fe? The Southwest Chief doesn't
go through there. Did you take Leading the Way from Alb to
Santa Fe, then to Philmont? Something other than a train?

Don Roberts
Fullerton, CA
Getting ready for the 2008 trek lottery and hoping we do
better than 2007 when we ended up something like 1450 in
the wait list!

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Received on Tue Sep 26 11:19:09 2006