The Rail Pass - Segment #8: Texas Eagle

In much the same way that my Seattle - LA Coast Starlight portion of my trip was the overall best part of my 30 day rail pass experience, the Ft Worth - Chicago Texas Eagle portion of my trip is the overall worst part of my trip despite not having the worst train ride.

The scenery paled in comparison to what I'd seen on the California Zephyr, Pacific Surfliner, and even Palmetto from DC early in my trip plus there were a lot of hiccups. It probably did not help that at day 27 of my 30 day adventure, the constant travel was beginning to wear on me.

The lobby of Dallas Love Airport

Instead of taking the Texas commuter rail line as I'd originally planned, upon advice of the baggage attendant, I took Uber. It was not all bad, during the hour long trip, I had an interesting conversation about the recent drop in compensation for rideshares. The driver only received about $30 for my 50-mile hour-long trip. He spoke of earlier times when he could have earned that much with local trips and how it was getting harder to make ends meet and how he didn't know if he'd get a fare back to Dallas. When I arrived to the hotel, I discovered that although there was public transit, it was hard to access and it wouldn't be easy to maneuver with my luggage. I ordered take out from a nearby restaurant and was ignored for 15 minutes as the staff loudly resolved their internal labor disputes.

The next morning, I took another Uber to the Ft Worth multimodal station to ride on another bus to Marshall, TX because even more track work! The bus was delayed but the staff didn't alert the passengers inside that the bus was outside waiting and then there was not clear instruction about which bus to board. Fortunately, as passengers, we all decided to help each other, so that everyone was informed and no one got left behind.

Railcar at the Ft. Worth Multimodal Transportation Depot

Eventually after sitting for what seemed like an hour, we took off for our destination. To their credit, Amtrak did provide us with a catered lunch from a local deli. We made our way to Marshall TX, where there was a Rail Museum we could explore as we waited another four hours before our train departed.

The Marshall train station was originally built in 1912 and remained open after passenger rail service was consolidated until the Amtrak umbrella in the 1970s. It was refurbished in the 1990s after a joint effort from the community and local businesses to prevent its demolition.

States visited: Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois

During one of the last parts of the trip, I met a gentleman traveling from rural Illinois who regularly traveled to Chicago for work a couple times a year. His entire town's population was smaller than the number of people who attended my neighborhood high school. He told me about his experience hosting an exchange student who he now views as his adopted daughter and how his family planned to travel to Spain to see her in the near future.

To my knowledge, we never had exchange students while I was going through school. It was only something to read about in books or watch on TV, so it was interesting to talk to someone who'd actually served as a host family for the program. Finally, I arrived one final time in Chicago. To begin the final segment of my trip back down South to New Orleans!