Thank yall for the comments.
Osso, I did not intend to come across as flippant about the possibility of delays. My brother told me some horror stories of delays of massive proportions that he had heard about. I do have 5 days of my 30 to burn and will try to distribute them, with emphasis on the ends of very long segments where an hour delay can become a multi-hour or worse delay. The complication is that I have to make hotel/train reservations based on things going according to plan.
Ominously, the Amtrak System Timetable book I got starts out with a two page map of the system with page references to specific routes. The page numbers are wrong!
Yes, Mac11, The Sunset Limited does run from LA through Houston to New Orleans, but I want to ride The City of New Orleans from Chicago so The Southwest Chief from LA through Albuqueque works better.
