About the Author...

Carl J. Morrison

I was born in 1942, near Hayden, Indiana, on a small farm along the B & O Railroad with steam trains running behind our farm between Cincinnati and St. Louis.  My bedroom window was within earshot of 1950's steam engines pulling off the siding behind the farm on summer nights. I migrated with wife, Sue, to Orange County, California, in 1968 to continue a career of teaching business computer courses in high school and community college. I spend spring and summer breaks traveling with Sue and children, Matthew and Carla, preferably by train. The Morrisons have traveled in Europe, from Brindisi, Italy, to Bergen, Norway, via 'European Express' as well as coast to coast, and border to border in the USA on Amtrak.

Carl found the first Internet railroad site while visiting the home page of the new book, "24 Hours in Cyberspace," on the Internet.  This site would be the first recipient of his travel writing.  This e-travelogue was written in 1996 and is still online at http://www.cwrr.com/Lounge/Reports/starlite/starlite.html

It was a travelogue about My Wife, Sue, and daughter, Carla, and Me traveling on the Coast Starlight from Fullerton to Seattle to visit a niece who lived on San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington.

Carl and Sue live in Placentia, Orange County, California. Carl teaches at Cypress High School, Cypress College, and California State University Fullerton.

My first recollection of a train ride was when my mother took me from Seymour, Indiana, to Indianapolis, to see the Christmas lights in the large department stores there.  This was my first time to see an escalator as well.

I always saw freight trains pass along the back property line of  our farm, and remember waving at the train crews, and section crews as they passed.  According to my father, his grandfather was a steam train engineer, but he passed away before I was born.

My father loved trains also.  He even hopped a freight with a friend, after high school, from Indiana to Kansas to work the wheat threshing teams northward.  As I worked with Dad on the farm, we would go into town to get cattle feed and often we'd be stopped by a passenger train across our path in North Vernon, Indiana.  I can remember looking from our farm car, up into the diner and seeing black waiters, with white jackets and white towels over their arms, waiting on diners at tables with a single rose in a vase and table cloths on the tables.  I remember saying to myself, "I want to ride up there and have dinner in the diner some day."

Enough about me, we're all here in Orange County, California now and this is a GREAT place to watch trains.  Tehachapi Loop and Cajon Pass are two traditional places to watch freight trains because of the geographic implications of moving trains in those two areas. 

My favorite spot for watching trains, both freight and passenger, is Fullerton Station. 

At Fullerton Station, there are more trains to see than at most stations because of the north-south and east-west tracks that pass the station.  The wye just east of the station is the switch point for east or south bound trains.

You can watch BNSF freights taking inter-modal containers to and from LA/Long Beach Harbor. 

You'll see Amtrak California Surfliners going north and southbound.  There are 11 south- and 11 north-bound Surfliners that stop at Fullerton each day.  Most have the final northbound stop of Los Angeles, but four continue on to San Luis Obispo daily.  All southbound Surfliners have the final southbound destination of San Diego.

My favorite journey is on the flagship Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to as far as Seattle.  We catch the Surfliner in Fullerton and transfer to the Coast Starlight in L.A. then continue on up the coast for the longest ocean-view train ride in America (from Ventura to Pismo Beach) since the train goes along the coast past Vandenburg as opposed to Hwy. 101 which cuts inland through Buelton, missing much of the coastline.

Weekday mornings and evenings you will see Metrolink and on special occasions, like the races at the California Speedway in Fontana, there are Metrolinks as well. 

Each evening, Train 4, The Southwest Chief, leaves Los Angeles at 6:45 p.m. and stops in Fullerton at 7:37 p.m. headed for Chicago where it arrives about 44 hours later.  The westbound, Train 3,  Southwest Chief from Chicago stops at Fullerton Station about 6:44 a.m. finishing its 2256 mile journey.

Many Sundays, after attending services at Fullerton United Methodist Church (above) I walk one block to the station and have lunch, on the patio or inside, at the Santa Fe Cafe at the station, and watch Surfliners and freights pass.  During my lunch time there I see an average of six trains pass per hour.

The former Union Pacific Station was relocated on the west end of the parking lot, backing up to Harbor Blvd, and is now a Spaghetti Factory.  If you ask for a table 'along the tracks' you can watch and feel the trains pass as you dine.

In the station you can pick up the latest copy of Making Tracks Amtrak California, put out by Caltrans Rail Division. 

You can also get timetables for the Pacific Surfliner, Southwest Chief, and Sunset Limited.  Sunset Limited does not pass through Fullerton, but you can take a Surfliner into L.A. to catch it.  Train2, the Sunset Limited, goes from Los Angeles 2,764 miles to Orlando, Florida, with bus service on to St. Petersburg, FL.

You may have to ask the ticket agent for my favorite publication by Amtrak, Amtrak America, Your Travel Guide to Amtrak Routes and Services.  I like the US map of Amtrak US and Canadian destinations, Named Train Routes in the East (p.4) and Midwest and West Routes (pg. 23), Passes (p. 40) and Discounts (p. 41), Fares (p. 42), and, my favorite part, Amtrak Accommodations, (P. 48-51).  Finally, a way to travel one way by Amtrak and return by air is available on P. 52.

Sue and I always get a room on any long distance trip we take, even if it is not over night.  We do this because meals are included when you book a room on any Amtrak train.  And, on the Coast Starlight, they have a Pacific Parlour Car with full-time attendant where sleeping car guests can enjoy coffee, juice, and pastries in the morning and cheese and wine tasting in the afternoon, plus soft drinks and coffee during the day.  This is a spacious place to meet other sleeping compartment travelers, play board games, or just watch the scenery go by.  If you are using the downstairs handicapped room, the car attendant will bring your meals from the diner.  The diner has a chef and meat, fish, chicken, and vegetarian selections are available at each dinner.  The dining car manager will come through the car and ask when you would like to have dinner so you will not have to stand in line, as coach passengers do. 

The named trains are usually made up with a baggage car and employee 'transition sleeper' immediately behind the engine, followed by sleeping cars  and the diner in the middle of the trainset.  Between the sleeping cars and the diner is, on the Coast Starlight only, I believe, is the Pacific Parlour Car mentioned above.  Following the middle-of-the-train-diner is a sightseeing lounge car for the coach passengers, then the coaches.  If you watch the Southwest Chief go through Fullerton, you will see, after the coaches, up to 15 'Express Freight' cars.

All foot traffic through the double-decked Superliner Amtrak cars is on the upper level, yet you enter the train on the lower level and there are coach seats and rooms on the lower level as well.  If you use the handicapped room, it is on the lower level, for good reason.  If you want ultimate privacy in the sleeper cars, select a room from the lower deck where no one passes your room except those few people who might have a room past yours on that level of that car.  A center staircase in each car allows for access to the upper level.

If the ticket office is out of the Amtrak America booklets, go to www.amtrak.com and request one to be mailed to you, or call 1-800-USA-RAIL.

Sue and I always get a room on any long distance trip we take, even if it is not over night.  We do this because meals are included when you book a room on any Amtrak train.  And, on the Coast Starlight, they have a Pacific Parlour Car with full-time attendant where sleeping car guests can enjoy coffee, juice, and pastries in the morning and cheese and wine tasting in the afternoon, plus soft drinks and coffee during the day.  This is a spacious place to meet other sleeping compartment travelers, play board games, or just watch the scenery go by.  If you are using the downstairs handicapped room, the car attendant will bring your meals from the diner.  The diner has a chef and meat, fish, chicken, and vegetarian selections are available at each dinner.  The dining car manager will come through the car and ask when you would like to have dinner so you will not have to stand in line, as coach passengers do. 

The named trains are usually made up with a baggage car and employee 'transition sleeper' immediately behind the engine, followed by sleeping cars  and the diner in the middle of the trainset.  Between the sleeping cars and the diner is, on the Coast Starlight only, I believe, is the Pacific Parlour Car mentioned above.  Following the middle-of-the-train-diner is a sightseeing lounge car for the coach passengers, then the coaches.  If you watch the Southwest Chief go through Fullerton, you will see, after the coaches, up to 15 'Express Freight' cars.

All foot traffic through the double-decked Superliner Amtrak cars is on the upper level, yet you enter the train on the lower level and there are coach seats and rooms on the lower level as well.  If you use the handicapped room, it is on the lower level, for good reason.  If you want ultimate privacy in the sleeper cars, select a room from the lower deck where no one passes your room except those few people who might have a room past yours on that level of that car.  A center staircase in each car allows for access to the upper level.

Finally, at Fullerton Station, there are now four private cars and a caboose on the siding, behind a new fence.  These cars are being rebuilt in place and will be on display, particially or in whole, at Railroad Days the first Weekend in May each year. The Fullerton Railroad Plaza Association put on this event yearly and plans a whole complex at the Fullerton Station including working railroad restoration shops, the Santa Fe 3751 steam engine, retail shops, etc.  This organization takes 'Scenic Railroad' trips a couple of times a year.  The last one was from Fullerton to San Diego with a harbor cruise, Coronado Island and Hotel tour, lunch there, San Diego Model Railroad Museum, then back on the Surfliner to Fullerton.  My story of that trip is at:

http://trainweb.org/carl/FRPA_SCSRA/

There are more trains than Amtrak and in more places than in the USA, of course. 

I mentioned the TEE, Trans Eurpoean Express, that we have traveled and the EuroRail pass we used at the time.  Canadian trains are called VIA and they have a pass you can purchase as well.

Mexico has some noteworthy trains as well. 

I have ridden two trains in Mexico: 

The First Class public, CHEPE, Chihuahua-Pacific.  I took the CHEPE in September, 2003, from Los Mochis, on the Sea of Cortez, to the Copper Canyon and back.  The Copper Canyon is longer, deeper and greener than our Grand Canyon.  I did a report for TrainWeb.com on this trip and it can be found at:  http://trainweb.org/carl/CopperCanyon2003/