Train Trip Fort Worth to San Antonio

The first part of our train trip on Amtrak was from Fort Worth to San Antonio.

We have traveled between these two cities many times by car but when you travel by train you see things you would never see by car especially around the larger cities. You can peer into the back yards of the little houses lining the track, not all of them pretty I might add. You can see vast areas of fields and pasture with not an animal to be seen. Above all you can see just how large Texas is and how varied in scenery.

This trip would take about 7 hours with a very few stops on the way. We can do it in about 5 hours by car. Some of the stops are whistle stops ( they stop just quick enough to let the people on and off and not at all if there are no passengers). Others are longer up to 15 minutes or so if the train crew has to change or the train needs to be refueled. The passengers who desperately need to smoke love those longer stops because they rush out to puff away while they can. There is definitely NO SMOKING on the Amtrak trains. As one conductor said,” You do not get a second warning about smoking. We will stop the train and put you off immediately in the care of the local sheriff and you will have to do your explaining to a federal marshal so be warned!”

Colorado river in Austin

We had our first meal on the train, an excellent dinner picked from a varied menu with a lovely bottle of wine in the Dining car. We had to walk through 5 swaying carriages to get to the dining car from our sleeping compartment but that didn't worry us. It made for a nice change and a way to stretch our legs. We shared our table with a very interesting couple who were obviously Mennonites or Amish folk by their dress . They were on their way to San Diego so they too were looking towards a long journey as well.

When we returned from Dinner our steward had converted our seats into two beds,-one a bed with a bunk bed over the top. Mike took the bunk bed which means a lot of skillful climbing to get up there .Do not try to use this bunk bed if you are obese or non athletic because for sure you will get stuck. It always leads to a lot of hilarity with first time passengers and we could hear the remarks and laughter from some of the other carriages.

We were soon fast asleep and as darkness fell,we never actually saw San Antonio on this trip .We felt our carriage being detached from the Texas Eagle and moved onto the back of the Sunset Limited train that would take us to LA as an occasional bump and bang which would disturb your dreams but we were ready for it. We had done this trip before.