Auto Train and Home

(Previous: Sanford, FL 32771)

Eventually, the car was loaded onto the train, and Nicole and I repaired to the World's Smallest Room for the next eighteen hours. It's only supposed to be sixteen hours, but this is Amtrak: that's pretty good performance.

Eventually, after a delay in South Carolina in fueling and watering the train, and after another delay in southern Virginia while a passenger was loaded off the train and taken to a hospital -- and yet more delays because we were then behind schedule and had to yield to freight trains -- we arrived in Lorton, and the cars were unloaded. Nicole and I had been speculating whether Amtrak would be able to get the car started, what with the oddball automatic transmission (which has no Park gear and which requires jiggling to get the car to start) and the manual choke.

Sure enough, after a while, the Austin came out of the train, with five Amtrak guys pushing it (with incredibly greasy hands, I might add). By the time I'd got over to where they'd pushed it, they already had the hood open. I sat down in the car, pulled the choke out about 1/4 inch, and turned the key.

Whizzzz-grunk-hummahummahummahummahummahumma. The Amtrak guys were impressed; they had clearly thought the thing was a bomb and would not start (the spare steering wheel, still attached to the spare steering column, in the rear seat could not have inspired much confidence).

I closed the hood and drove away. It would have been much more impressive if the rear brakes hadn't been making so much grinding and squealing noise.