On Friday, May 28, 2010 I rode Amtrak's Texas Eagle No. 21 from Little Rock, AR to Fort Worth, TX then returned to Little Rock on Amtrak 22 the next afternoon.  Both trains were basically full with only a couple of empty seats. The southbound Texas Eagle No. 21 had 195 in the three Superliner coaches and 34 in the sold-out sleeping cars, a total of 229 aboard. The three Superliner coaches each hold 60 passengers upstairs with two of the cars seating 10 downstairs, potentially holding 200 people, so if we had 195, then there were only 5 empty seats! Excellent ridership for sure. The dining car steward took reservations for lunch and dinner on both trains and I think the meals were excellent (the menu is reproduced later on this web page). Here are some photos and comments. (All photos by Ken Ziegenbein)

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LEFT-Arrival board at the Little Rock Amtrak station on May 28. The trains actually met here about 3:30. The northbound had a delay in Texas, which made it about 4 hours late (a truck had not yielded to the train in the Forth Worth area). RIGHT-I was on the rear Superliner coach and this was looking out the back of the car somewhere in Texas at 8:51 a.m.


LEFT-Leaving Mineola, Texas at 9:46 a.m. That's US Highway 69 at the crossing. RIGHT-Passing cars on US Highway 80 as we were heading west toward Dallas (to the left) at track speed of 79 mph. It's always fun to see us pass cars like this.


LEFT-Arriving on the outskirts of Dallas at 11:07 a.m. We were almost on time. RIGHT-Reunion Tower at the Dallas Union Station at 11:18 a.m. We would be here for a few minutes and I went outside and took more pictures. Everyone was invited to de-board and take a walk or smoke break here (I never smoked in my life).


LEFT-Plaque at the Dallas station. RIGHT-Dallas Union Station.


LEFT-Our locomotive Amtrak 205 at the Dallas station, pointing west toward Fort Worth at 11:24 a.m. RIGHT-Taken from the end of the platform in Dallas.


LEFT-Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) train leaving the station to the left, Texas Eagle to the right. RIGHT-Trinity Railway Express train using an older RDC-type car at 11:40 a.m. in Dallas.


LEFT-In Fort Worth, Texas now at 12:54 p.m., early. We go south on the old Santa Fe, then back into the Fort Worth station so the train can be headed south from there. This move has been done since the 1970s. You can see the famous Tower 55 in the upper center.


LEFT-Manually changing the switch. He got off the train to do this. It's now 1:00 p.m. RIGHT-Nearing the Fort Worth Ticket and Transportation Center. It's an intermodal center with city buses and even Greyhound has a station inside.


LEFT-The man taking the picture on the platform is Jerry, who is picking me up. We went to college together. I was in town for the annual "24 Hours@Saginaw" event, where we count trains at the Saginaw depot (a half hour north of here) during a 24 hour period and have hourly lectures and slide/movie shows. The event ran from 7 p.m. Friday May 28 to 7 p.m.. Saturday, May 29. There were 59 trains passing the depot during that time and over 50 attended at least part of the time. RIGHT-Passengers getting off the train.

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Pictures below are from Saturday, May 29 as I was on my return trip to Arkansas.


LEFT-Trinity Railway Express train loading for Dallas at 1:16 p.m. Saturday, May 29, 2010. I'm on my way back to Arkansas. RIGHT-TRE heading east.


LEFT-Amtrak Texas Eagle southbound No. 21 backing into the Fort Worth Station at 2:12 p.m. May 29 as a TRE Express train heads west. RIGHT-This baggage will be put on the southbound Texas Eagle.


LEFT-Texas Eagle No. 21. RIGHT-My train, Amtrak Texas Eagle No. 22 is arriving on the track to the left at 2:15 p.m.


LEFT-Amtrak locomotive 500 was on the point of No. 22 as it arrived from San Antonio and Austin. This is a biofuel experimental engine being used on the Heartland Flyer. RIGHT-No. 500. This engine was taken off before our train left for Arkansas.


RIGHT-Hundreds of passengers getting ready to board my train on the right at 2:19 p.m. I hid the faces of those identifiable.


LEFT-No. 21, the southbound, is ready to leave on the left track. Again, I hid the face of the identifiable person for privacy reasons. RIGHT-UP 5353 passes us somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas on the westbound trip, taken from my coach seat. By the way, the track between Fort Worth and Dallas is some of the roughest track on this line, mainly because we switch between two tracks often to pass freights. On the other hand, the track in Arkansas between Prescott and Little Rock is the smoothest I've ridden on anywhere. We were going the max 79 mph and it felt almost like we were stopped at a station in some parts of this line. Good work UP, at least on this part of the line.


LEFT-On board the moving train. RIGHT-In the Sightseer Lounge car, zipping along well east of Dallas at 6:21 p.m.


LEFT-Enjoying the east Texas trees. RIGHT-A lake and a fishing boat seen from the lounge car in east Texas.


LEFT-In the diner or cafe car having my dinner on May 29. Here's the menu being used at this time, including breakfast, all-day and dinner items. Prices were very reasonable and the selections good. RIGHT-I had the Garlic Butter Marinated Flat Iron Steak, which I thought was good. It was thick and juicy and cooked to order.  I had already put butter on my baked potato before I thought to take this picture.


LEFT-Marshall, Texas at 7:21 p.m., on time. RIGHT-Sunset from my train's coach seat in Jefferson, Texas at 7:52 p.m. We're crossing the Kansas City Southern RR tracks here.


Here we are in Little Rock at Union Station. We pulled in at 11:15 p.m., a half hour early. This picture was taken at 11:24 p.m. It was a great journey and I met lots of people who enjoyed the ride too. Like anything else, some trips are better on Amtrak than other trips, but this time the crew was excellent and the passengers were having a good time.

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