Texas Eagle Trip Report April 2024

All aboard!!

I’ve ridden the Texas Eagle before but it was back in 2002 when I rode from Dallas to Austin (I wrote an article for the Dallas Morning News about that trip) so it’s been over 20 years since I took a long journey on this Amtrak route, which runs daily between San Antonio and Chicago. I’ve long wanted to do the entire route but an opportunity recently arose to ride between Dallas and Chi-Town so I grabbed it!

I picked up the Eagle at Union Station in Dallas (like many train stations in large cities, it’s a beautiful building, but Dallas’s station is lifeless, which is a shame.) First things to know: unlike airports, there is no lengthy process to getting onboard: basically, you show up with your ticket, stow your luggage and find a seat. That’s it! (If you have a sleeper car, you will have an assigned room.) If you are picking up the train midway through the route, be sure to periodically check its status; they are often delayed.

 If you want to have your bags checked, you need to get to the station 30 or 40 minutes before the train arrives however you can still carry it on, but it stays in baggage hold on the lower level. I opted for the latter, which is easy and you can get to your bags during the journey if you need to.

We left Dallas around 4 in the afternoon. I traveled at the end of April so we passed through Terrell, the “gateway to East Texas” around 6 PM. The sun was beginning to set and it was beautiful to watch the landscape change from big city to rural small towns. Mineola has a lovely train station, which you can see in the video.  Night descended not long after, so I didn’t see much until the next morning when we were traveling through Missouri and into Illinois.