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The Coast Starlight to Seattle for a Baseball Game 8/13-18/2002

Without a large trip this summer and not wanting to be restless around home, I cashed in more of my Alaska Airlines miles for a round trip to Seattle in a sleeping car, since Amtrak was a partner with the airline for their mileage plan. There was a rumour floating around that Amtrak was going to remove the Pacific Parlour Cars in an effort save money. Did they not realize that people ride the Coast Starlight just because of the uniqueness of those cars? Ray Burns, co-owner of Trainweb.com, called Amtrak and was informed that they had no plans to remove the Pacific Parlour Cars at present. I, for one, would miss these cars immensely if they were no longer in the trains' consists.

The other reason I wanted to go to Seattle was to finally see a baseball game at Safeco Field and I purchased a ticket for the game between the Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners. The Best Western at Pioneer Square was sold out so I called the old dependable Kings Inn, receiving their Amtrak rate for my two-night stay.

My mother drove me to the Santa Ana station and I used a Guest Rewards coupon to upgrade to Pacific Business Class but had to pay the additional one-way fare since it could not be used with a AAA fare. My train arrived on time and I enjoyed a cup of tea as I listened to "Styx Live 2001", which bought back the memories of seeing them at the Orange County Fair last month. In no time, we were crossing over the Redondo flyover above the Alameda Freight Corridor with Santa Fe 4-8-4 3751 patiently waiting on the garden tracks until next Monday, when it was schedule to pull its own train to the National Railway Historical Society convention in Williams, Arizona. As we passed the Amtrak coach yards, I saw my Coast Starlight and it did indeed have a Pacific Parlour car in the consist, unlike last week when this trainset had a Superliner II lounge car in its place.

The Coast Starlight reversed into Union Station and shortly I boarded sleeper 32083 "Iowa", the same sleeper I had on my last southbound Starlight trip and was assigned to Room 12 downstairs on the Pacific Ocean side. I visited the Parlour Car for some cinnamon rolls and a cup of tea, meeting the ever-wonderful Tony, the Parlour Car attendant. My sleeping car attendant was Hayward and an dear old friend, Steve, was the lounge car attendant. We departed on time with three Horizon fleet coaches tucked in behind the locomotives.

The main changes from my last trip was that the Pasadena Gold line was closer to completion and their shop area along the west bank of the Los Angeles River was under construction. I rode a plush comfortable chair in the Parlour Car to Van Nuys before returning to my room for a musical interlude while the we passed through the Santa Susana tunnels then went into the siding at Hassan for Pacific Surfliner 776 before arriving at Simi Valley. From Oxnard to Carpentaria, I enjoyed a steak burger then returned to the room to relax until Santa Barbara, where I detrained for some fresh air. Our trip north along the Pacific Ocean was under a blanket of thick dark clouds with the sun making a brief appearance only once. As the train turned away from the coast, blue skies became the rule of the day. The regular crew change occurred at San Luis Obispo before the we climbed the fabled Cuesta Grade then as we proceeded north down the Salinas Valley after Paso Robles, I enjoyed a steak for dinner. The only negative thing about the meal was the menu no longer includes caramel turtle ice cream cake for dessert.

My waiter asked me the difference between VIA and Amtrak and I had to look no further than this car's spotted windows then told him about the cleaning the Canadian has as it crosses Canada. My evening was taken up with the early film of "Spiderman" which took the train to the darkness of the Pajora Gap before I returned to my room for Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I called it a night after a fresh air stop at San Jose where we left one hour late on account of slow orders in the Salinas Valley. We passed a late-running southbound Train 11 at Newark and I wondered where I would be waking up in the morning.

8/14/2002 I awoke as the Coast Starlight was travelling along the north flank of Mount Shasta and the sky had a reddish hue to it from all of the wildfires in Oregon. I had a pancake breakfast with a single lone view of Mount Shasta through the blanket of smoke. We were running forty minutes late and still had the three Horizon coaches with us and I surmised they must be dead-heading to Seattle for use on the Seattle Seahawks football specials from Portland. We made our servicing stop at Klamath Falls and later saw a large number of birds on Upper Klamath Lake; I was not sure if the reason was all the smoke in the air. However, we lost the smoke near Chemult and had perfectly clear skies for our crossing of Cascade Summit. While the outside views were so peaceful, the public address system blared "no smoking in the coaches" and "You must be under twelve to use the Kiddie Car!" My book for this journey was the "Great Railway Bazaar" by Paul Theroux.

As the Coast Starlight approached Eugene, the public address system came alive once more. "For Train 28 passengers, no bussing today!" What a lucky group of passengers they were! I stepped off in Eugene into a furnace, as most of Oregon was in their last day of triple-digit temperatures. Seattle was supposed to be in the nineties today, but back in its normal range tomorrow. Today, thank God for the air conditioning on the Starlight. We continued north to Albany, where a large tour group detrained and I rode the Parlour Car until the wine-tasting started, preferring the musical choices in my room as well as my book. Portland Union Station was a really busy place with Amtrak's Empire Builder waiting on our connecting passengers to leave, Amtrak Cascades 754 awaiting the 6:15 PM departure for Seattle and a BNSF shipper's special on its way to Sacramento on a roundtrip down the Inside Gateway.

I had an excellent steak dinner and ice cream sundae, with AJ being my waiter for each meal this trip. The only drawback was when I was going to sit down for dinner, the steward told me I could not sit there and now being off balance, the train of course rocked and my back went out. I enjoyed my music while I tried to stretch out my back and rested the rest of the way to Seattle with a most beautiful trip along Puget Sound into Tacoma. We made our way to Seattle in the last twilight of the day, passing Safeco Field and the new Seattle Seahawks Football Stadium, which I was surprised to see finished after it was under construction in March, and arrived a mere 25 minutes late.

I caught a taxi to the Kings Inn and called home to check in with my mother before I called Heidi in Grants Pass, Oregon, who lived through those record high temperatures and the smoke from the wildfires. then called it a night.

My back was no better this morning but while it might slow me down, it was not going to stop me from doing what I came to Seattle to do and I walked first to MacDonald's for breakfast then Ralph's for some supplies.

Next it was a three-block walk to the south end of the Seattle Monorail, which I rode to the Space Needle and it was a quick ninety-second ride of a mile, but smooth and relaxing. I toured the Experience Music Project and this "Artist Journey" this time was being "Funked" and included a moveable ride. In the Special Exhibit Gallery was "Clothing" including Slash's of Gun and Roses top hat, Kiss' Gene Simmons dragon boots a Devo hat and Steven Tyler's scarf on his mike stand, just to name a few. While this is an American Music museum there was a gap because of no Beatles, Rolling Stones or Who, as well as no Progressive Rock and no "Chicago". Still, it was a worthwhile place to visit. I walked down the hill for a shorter-than-normal Waterfront Streetcar ride, which ended in Pioneer Square due to construction near where it normally terminates. I retraced my path back to the hotel for an afternoon of resting my back.

In the late afternoon, I walked down Bell Street back to the Waterfront Streetcar and I hopped aboard the first trolley going north as it became the next trolley south and I could get a good seat in case there were a lot of baseball fans boarding at Broad Street. I detrained at the end of the line at Pioneer Square along with a whole trolleyload of baseball fans, split evenly for both the Mariners and the Red Sox. Walking to Safeco Field meant I had to walk past the new Seahawks Stadium and once inside Safeco Field, I found my way to my seat on the top deck on the first base side. I bought two hot dogs and a 7-UP before enjoying the view of with Seahawks Stadium at left field and the downtown Seattle skyline behind it.

As the BNSF mainline is right behind Safeco Field, an Operation Lifesaver video was shown. This is a really outstanding ballpark and I enjoyed my stay. Boston's Cliff Floyd hit a solo home run to start the scoring in the second inning then Seattle scored four unearned runs before the Red Sox came back with two runs but that was all. The Red Sox lost to the Mariners 4-3. A quick walk ahead of the crowd to the Waterfront Streetcar took me back to Bell Street where I walked a different way back to the hotel then called it a night.

8/16/2002 Up early and still in pain, I caught a taxi back to Union Station before walking along the 4th Avenue Viaduct to the east of King Street Station and walked to the point even with the north end of the Seahawks Stadium where I took pictures of both of the Sounder commuter trains as well as both of the Amtrak Cascades Talgo trains leaving for Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia. I went across the street for a really good cinnamon roll and a cup of tea prior to returning to King Street Station for a USA Today and to wait to board the southbound Coast Starlight.

At departure time, there were no conductors on duty to take tickets inside the station, nor any train. When it reversed in a few minutes later, I noticed that there was no Pacific Parlour Car but it did have a Superliner II Sightseer lounge car in its place. At least I had a Parlour Car going north. The sleeping car passengers were then allowed to walk to our cars, with mine being 32117 " Wisconsin". Elizabeth Kosoki was my car attendant and took my ticket before I found Room 11 on the lower level of the 1130 car. We were told that northbound 14 did not arrive until 1:00 AM this morning and it was the same set of equipment that we passed at Newark running so late southbound, so it would be interesting to see how late we become in our journey. At 10:14 A.M., we started south a mere twenty-nine minutes late and I went to the sightseer lounge car for a cup of tea and met José the car attendant.

The Coast Starlight poked its way to Black River and we stopped at a lovely bend in the river where it was announced that Union Pacific was having a problem with crossing BNSF. It struck me as amusing that Union Pacific can delay this train even when it is not on their tracks. A northbound empty garbage train finally crossed on its way to Seattle and we made our way to Tacoma as I enjoyed a steak burger with the usual ice cream for dessert as we ran along the Tacoma Narrows. Returning to my room, I started listening to the new five-CD set "Yes Is the Word" which I would listen to in its entirety.

We made our way down to Vancouver and entered Oregon by crossing the Columbia River. At Portland I detrained for some more postcards for the classroom wall at McFadden Intermediate then departed one hour and seven minutes late. South of Oregon Falls at Coalco, there was a truck hung up on the grade crossing and the owner was in the process of unloading the contents to see if that would help. The delay was long enough for me to walk to the rear of the train and back. Dinner was a repeat of the others on this journey and I finished long before Eugene, where I went for a walk in the slightly cooler temperatures. Later, we went into the siding at Hampton along Lookout Point Reservoir for a westbound Union Pacific freight.

I finished the "Great Railway Bazaar" as we left the siding and finished the Yes music marathon at Pryor siding. The adventure continued when we came to our second malfunctioning trackside defect detector and under the rules of operation, the train had to be stopped and inspected. I did not watch "Spiderman" again but did see the second feature, "Showtime", starring Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro. One advantage of using the lounge car as a Parlour Car is that more passengers can watch the film because of the four television screens. After the film was over, I turned in for the night.

8/17/2002 As I slept, the Starlight lost more time with slow orders and bad freight train meets. I had my entire French Toast breakfast while the train sat in Sacramento and we departed two hours and twenty minutes late then I visited with our train chief and had a discussion which led to car colouring on Amfleet and Superliners. We stopped briefly for a Capitol Corridor train at the east end of Yolo Bypass before speeding onto Davis then I prepared myself for the day as my room was made up. We crept to Martinez as there were other trains ahead in the station and I noticed a large dinosaur at a Sinclair petrol station next to a Pepsi plant on the west side of the tracks. We then had to wait for the California Zephyr to depart before we did a double stop due to the length of our train.

Just west of Martinez, we were further delayed by another Union Pacific freight ahead of us. The Carquinez Straits where absolutely beautiful with whitecaps being kicked up by the strong winds and following our trip along San Pablo Bay, we arrived at Emeryville at 11:20 AM, three hours and ten minutes late then proceeded to Oakland's Jack London Square station, where the private car "Pine Tree State" was added to the rear and two more locomotives to our point, bringing the total to five. We departed Oakland after our extended stay at 12:40 PM, three hours and fifty-five minutes late.

Just north of the Player Network Coliseum, part of the Red Train of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Bailey Circus train was parked and a few miles south, the passenger section of that train was parked. At their Santa Clara training camp, the San Francisco 49'ers were practicing and once we left San Jose, I napped until Salinas, where we left behind a mother who was smoking on the ground while her children were aboard and she had to take a taxi to Paso Robles. I started the next book, "Parallel Lines" by Ridley Pearson with the first six chapters lasting until Milepost 179, where I decided to go to the Sightseer Lounge to wait for dinner.

Tonight I had the seared pork chops which were excellent. We went into the siding at Camp Robert for the northbound Starlight, which had a dining car in place of the Pacific Parlour Car and I was glad to have the Sightseer Lounge car for this train. The trip down Cuesta had many deer out on the hillsides and we arrived at San Luis Obispo, where I called home and left a message of a possible arrival time in Los Angeles. The Pismo Beach sand dunes looked beautiful in the last low light of the day. At Callendar, we went into the siding for both Union Pacific 4708 West and Pacific Surfliner 775 and while all this was taking place, the sun went down, not allowing a daylight viewing of the passage along the Pacific Ocean, so I turned in for the rest of the trip. We were delayed one more time at Goleta as Pacific Surfliner 783 was entering its layover track. I arose, called home at Ventura before returning to my resting.

8/18/2002 When all was said and done, we arrived in Los Angeles at 12:15 AM, four hours and five minutes late. I led the way for the Surfliner buses which had been called due to the lateness of our arrival, and gave the driver the directions to the stations as far as Santa Ana and told him how to get to Irvine easily. No taxis were on hand, so I walked the shortest way home, entering the house at 2:15 AM, ending another interesting Amtrak adventure.

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