The Road to SMOFCon, Day 3: Williams AZ to Albuquerque NM

[kevin_standlee]

Today's route of travel was a mere 361 miles according to Google Maps, and we got away from Williams an hour earlier than planned, despite the passenger door continuing to balk at unlocking in the cold.

Comments

[paradoox]

Huh? Hyatt Place on Starwood Points??? Those are two different chains ....

-Confused

[kevin_standlee]

No idea why I typed Starwood there. I don't think I even have an account in that system. Oh, well, I've edited it.

[paradoox]

Ah. I was especially confused because I think the main hotel for that Westercon (or one of the hotels) was a Westin / Starwood. At least I'm pretty sure that's where and I stayed during that Westercon.

[kevin_standlee]

You're right. Now I'm confused. I don't recall ever staying at enough Hyatts to earn this many points, but I apparently have done so, and while I'm sure I earned a decent amount of SPG points over that Westercon, I can't find any SPG account in my records, and I've not stayed in any Starwood properties in ages, particularly after I started accumulating Platinum-level perks at IHG. Oh, well, I had the points and I've got the two free nights, and I'll try not to worry about how I got here.

[lisa_marli]

We did the train from Williams to the Grand Canyon. It is wonderful fun and waking at the Grand Canyon was lovely. Warning- unless you pay extra, you are expected to empty your room in Williams on the night you are up in the Grand Canyon. Also phone and Wi-Fi connection at the Canyon are iffy.

[kevin_standlee]

Oh, I'd assume that if we were going to do that we would have to vacate the first hotel to stay in the second, but we've almost gotten used to this station-to-station hotel thing. The connectivity thing might be a feature, not a bug.

[kshandra]

While I totally see how you could have heard the lyric as "bright red", the color of the vehicle is irrelevant; the salient detail is that it's a flatbed Ford.

[scott_sanford]

I have seen photos before, but I didn't know the flatbed Ford was actually a part of the park. Excellent.

[kevin_standlee]

Yeah, but it scans either way for travelswithkuma

[pcornelius]

If the steam boiler is in the B-unit, what's in the box labeled "Power Car"?

[kevin_standlee]

An electrical generator for all of the electrically-driven stuff on board. With Amtrak this doesn't apply because they don't use steam heat anymore, and everything is driven off the the 480V head-end-power from the locomotive. We don't know the details, but it appears that they're using the power car to supply power to on-board electrical services, while using steam heat for heating.

[pcornelius]

Well, that's fascinating, and not even slightly kludgey.
All the electric power you could ever want in the first two positions, and a generator car in third.