Sorry for the delay in responding.
They were fun. :-D I don't mind the question at all--thanks for asking!

Yes, I contributed to the train without the aid of ESGST to make a template for the giveaway. I also (and this is what I more meant) browsed through the train without it.
ESGST has a feature called a "giveaway extractor" or some such which, when you click the button, opens a new tab with a list which it compiles of all the giveaways in the train. This enables you to see all of them at a glance or three, as opposed to loading each giveaway individually. This is a major time saver. Bear in mind, however, that you still have to go to the gib page for those you want to enter.

This feature has some drawbacks, however. Certain methods of announcing the next car do not include any of the keywords that ESGST looks for, and thus it fails to advance past that point. A bigger one for community trains is that you miss all of the description, and thus the uniqueness that each giver puts, whether it be a drawing they made (some did this in the community train, one user in particular with a different pencil drawing/painting with each car.), or what. As this is--for me--one of the draws of the community train, this is a major drawback.
It depersonalizes the train, which makes for quicker traveling in a hurry, but a far less satisfying ride if you have time.
Also, it won't compile a collection of hidden clues that combine to give a gib link (such as a pic with one character in each of 5 consecutive giveaway train car). This means that you might not see every possible giveaway.

OTOH, it will catch a giveaway hidden as a bump link, or other cars linked in the description other than the main "next car."

(A downside to ESGST as a whole is that while ESGST adds many nice features to the site, it also makes each individual page take about 3x longer to load than the (now) very fast vanilla site.)