Riding the parallel universe's Amtrak?

My dad and I took the Auto Train north for our trip to New York.

That the service was good wasn't too surprising--sometimes, the service is good on Amtrak. That the food in the dining car was good was a bit more surprising, since dining car service on Amtrak has been recently hit with budget cuts--but the salmon was excellent last night. The really astonishing thing was that the Auto Train--an Amtrak train running on CSX rails--got in to Lorton almost an hour early.

I love train travel, however, this train trip was a pleasant surprise, with things going well that recent news and prior train trips would have suggested wouldn't be the case.