Chicago Union Station is packed there's a Lincoln service that's at the Cardinal gate that's delayed I'm in coach because you can't bid up itineraries involving multiple trains for some reason apparently a trip does dur orse and he not like who can do with and now it's apparently too late to affort so it's apparently a trip report 28 ooh we've got a private car I've been ass sign seat 25 all right we boarded it's a beautiful athlet 2 with lots of leg run I complain about being coach but honestly I love coach on an athlet 2
someone was flabbergast at the fact that the train goes like a u to get from Chicago to New York the Cardinal is kind of the longest way to get to the Northeast but it's also the most scenic way so I'm really excited we're off only about 10 minutes late somehow no seatmate leaving Chicago I'm really tired and I want to go to sleep but I can't because I haven't scanned tickets yet am track there has to be a better way these seats are insanely comfortable time to take a nap right now that's what I'm it's
an amra bathroom it's now 10:14 it's quiet time it's a little before midnight I'm just kind of stuck in a field somewhere outside of Indianapolis and somehow I'm at peace we're in Indianapolis there's a smoke break here and I'm going to the front because the Cardinal La ham tracks Hospital train where it takes coaches to the place where the coaches end up so I'm curious what they're bringing big haul today so our locomotive is there then there's a comet car a couple of baggage cars and then a sleeper car down there and then two locomotives
still got the private cars too wonder how far they'll be going to the elevator back on the train time to sleep for real and when I wake up we should be in the mountains I didn't sleep that well I'll probably end up taking naps throughout the day honestly we're crossing from Kentucky into West Virginia they just announced that the cafe car won't be serving alcohol till 1 because it's Sunday I didn't know that was a thing I wonder if that's a state law or an amtr law smoke break in Huntington but I'm using as a
fresh air breake this am Shack is the single most depressing thing ever Reef look inside yeah well it has bathrooms and seats so it's got amenities it's just uhu men SH now you're looking at the menu shot in the cafe car to have a bagel for breakfast yes that is in fact a $3 Bagel better than nothing who puts cream cheese in packets like this such a weird decision here's Charleston not a fresh air break the Cardinal actually has very few it's basically Huntington and then straight on to Charlottesville West Virginia state capital yeah just
left Montgomery the least used amra station in West Virginia and now it's when it gets really Scenic I say as the trees block the really nice view this is the end of the New River now we're going to go on that for a while it's actually one of the oldest rivers in the world like 300 million years old or something like that this H Lake in pwn is a 243 I'm so tired that it would probably Mak sense to sleep but this is so beautiful I just can't when Nathan and I took the card and
little Thurman we're actually on the other side so I guess maybe it just depends on the day what track you run on it old Thurman feels kind of sad to just pass through without getting off this place is awesome you should come here if you haven't we stopped here for long enough that I feel like someone must have gotten on her off but I didn't see anyone so now that we're leaving Thurman I'm officially in Uncharted Territory but sadly the river's on the other side we're arriving at Prince West Virginia which is a town that's
similarly tying to Thurman but this one gets pretty decent ridership as we can see here oh wow very decent ridership here's Hinton which has a massive building oh and some history this is the John Henry Historical Park we're at otter station but the station's on that side that was a very short stop I don't think that anyone got on or off white t for Springs is our last station in West Virginia it's a resort town and uh the building seems to be Christmas themed we're in the alagan tunnel this will take us out of West
Virginia and into regular Virginia the cafe car is a bit short on supplies so we have to get the dreaded [Music] douras there's some sort of CSX Yard here at clipton Forge I'm not going to show the station because it's a least Ed so I want to wait on that here's some uh old school cars just rusting away I guess we're now on on the Buckingham Branch Railroad which is the only time that Amtrak operates over a class 3 Railroad and I've heard from other people who've been on this line that it's very slow I
mean yeah I also heard the track was pretty rough on this Branch yeah this track is awful it's so bumpy we're now leaving sttinton which is our last unique station but not our last unique platform think of that where you will for now someone got out in the wrong direction so we're doing a cross train transfer to get them in the right way they're hopping off to the other Cardinal now got a fresh air brake in Charlottesville which is a really interesting station because the Cardinal uses a different platform from everything else that comes here
so we actually take a slightly unique route from charlotsville to C pepper to kind of make our way over to the mainline there's also this James River bus that goes to Richmond I believe here's a quick Glimpse at the station it's pretty nice in here dude that's what you do in your boss here are the other Ram track lines joining us we're now officially not unique here's C pepper all right that's it for Co pepper that's so rough we are in Manasses which means that we're in DC commuter territory which means that we're getting close
to the Northeast Corridor which means we're getting close to the end of this trip entering DC we're in DC they made it very clear don't go in the station we're going to leave as soon as we get an electric locomotive the long distance trains in the Northeast Corridor are usually drop off only once they hit DC so theoretically from here we shouldn't be stopping too long at each station all right time to go also it was like cold outside so I want to get back in here quick now it's going to be like practically high
speed down the Northeast Corridor I woke up this morning in Appalachia and now the same train is blasting down Northeast Corridor at like I don't know 90 mph or something Baltimore Wilmington so that was the Cardinal but is it worth it let's ask our special correspondent will I go take a shower hi I'm sick and the power's out in my building but here's the review so I've decided that every time I ride a complete Amtrak route I'm going to put it onto two tier lists one for scenery and one for the overall quality of the
route so for the Cardinal the scenery is probably the best you're going to get on the East Coast the mountains are absolutely beautiful the New River Gorge is spectacular I don't think I can put it in s tier because it doesn't quite rival what you see on the west coast but in terms of East Coast Amtrak it's probably the best you're going to get so I think it gets very high a tier unfortunately the overall quality of the route isn't great and a lot of it is because of the Buckingham Branch as I mentioned in
the video the tracks are really crummy and it makes the line go really slow but they also are the ones restricting the train to three times a week which is a terrible schedule not to mention that they force Amtrak to use really small train consists which means that combined with the low frequency the Cardinal sells out really regularly especially in the summer in fact until the Advent of flexible dining with Co sleeper passengers had to eat the cafe car food imagine paying for a ret and having to eat douros the Cardinal is nowhere near the
fastest train between the east coast in Chicago but if you happen to be leaving on one of the days that it's leaving and you have 5 to 10 extra hours to spare it's worth it for the scenery is it a useful service though not really and I have to give it a d tier I'm sorry Cardinal you're a great trip but you're really hard to use man I'm glad the power's out so you don't see my ghastly sick face
