It's been about 30 years for me. I did take Amtrak to Florida back in 1979. My brother and I went down there from Boston to visit our aunt and uncle in Deltona. We took the MBTA commuter rail into Boston then the trolley and subway over to Back Bay station where we boarded the Senator to Penn Station in NYC. That train continued to Washington, but we switched at Penn Station to The Champion which took us to Florida. For a railfan, this was the best thing ever, but for a bored brother it was murder. Going down we saw old New Haven Washboards and the newer Bombardier electrics on the New Haven end, even though they were run by MetroNorth by then. Conrail was still running electric freights and some stuff was still painted in Penn Central black. There was a mix of New Haven and Pennsylvania equipment including some GG1s on that part.
Out of Penn Station, we saw all kinds of awesome equipment, rather I saw it because my brother couldn't care less. There were Pennsy MP54s and other electrics along the line through Newark and Trenton, and we saw the Lackawanna (EL by then) electrics out on the Meadowlands as they headed out of Hoboken. After a long journey, we switched to diesel in Washington. There were some delays in Baltimore due to "issues" with our train, but I saw an old Pennsy-painted RS3 switching freight in the yard there. I waved at the engineer in the switcher and he waved back.
The food was awesome! We had red snapper going down with baked potatoes so black that the skin peeled off. They were actually cooked in a coal oven and tasted so much better than any I've had since. The coaches on The Champion were older ca. 1940s to 1950s rib-sided coaches from various roads. We rode in coach both ways, and the interiors were outdated. The problem was the filth. The coaches were dirty especially the bathrooms, and there were cockroaches running about. I told the attendant and he came by with a can of bug spray. That really was gross.
On the trip back, we took the Silver Meteor and the trip was much the same except in Philadelphia I remember seeing United Aircraft Turbo Trains I missed on the way down. During a layover outside of Washington, I watched some freight activity in a nearby yard as the trains served some industries, and going into NYC I saw more EL electrics going across the Meadowlands with NYC skyline in the background.