Mr. Toy's Train Travel Tales
Page 5
Time to go home
We spent a leisurely day puttering around the house. The train
was scheduled to leave at 3:46pm. At 2:45 I went on line to find out if it
was on time. In fact, it said it was running four minutes early!
My mother and sister took me to the station and we arrived about 3:15. I checked my suitcase and had a good look around the station. The last time I was here was in 1984. What a difference a restoration makes. The old partitions had been removed. What had once been Southern Pacific offices was now part of the waiting area. The desk was a beautiful grey marble and featured brass frames on the ticket windows. The dingy beige paint was gone. Light yellow now adorned the walls with white trim that made the space refreshing to look at. It complemented the spring weather nicely, and I imagined it would no doubt be a refreshing haven during Oregon's dingy winters.
When
I returned home I showed my wife the photos and she was amazed. I was in
turn impressed by the story she then told. Back in 1976 she was a student
at Willamette University across the street. At that time Southern Pacific
wanted to sell the property to the university. The university was expected
to tear it down or convert it to other uses, leaving Salem without a train
station. This was a very real threat as Salem has seen more than its share
of historic building demolitions, which, sadly, continue to this day. (The
most recent casuality, the beautiful Capitol Theatre where I was manager
in the early 1980s was torn down in 2000.) She told me she had joined a group
of students who studied and documented the station's architecture and petitioned
the city not to approve demolition or other uses of the property. Evidently
they were successful, and Amtrak travelers in Salem will be able to enjoy
it for a long time to come.
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It wasn't long before the train whistle could be heard around the bend. This was the first time I was able to get two clear photos of an approaching train. At 3:46 I was on board and rolling out, on time to the minute.
I was in car 1113, right in the middle of the five coaches. The attendant, Louie, assigned me to to aisle seat #64 near the rear of the car, next to a young lady. I didn't mind sharing a pair of seats because it was a holiday travel day and from the looks of this car the train seemed to be full. When I first came to the seat she was well entrenched in the space and sprawled across both seats. It took a bit of rearranging for her to clear my side of her stuff.
Once I was seated it took some time to break the ice with her, and we really didn't talk much overall. Most of the time she was reading or listening to her portable CD player. That's OK, socializing on a train is fun, but not mandatory. Shortly before we reached Albany she opened up a bit. I introduced myself formally, she shared her route guide with me, and we made some brief small talk. Her name was Gill (pronounced Jill). She was from Scotland, currently living in Canada, today headed for San Francisco.
I then walked around the train a bit. When we left Albany at 4:16 I made a few photos from the rear of the train. It turned out the train wasn't full after all. Cars 1114 and 1115 were completely empty! Perhaps they would be full after Eugene. Soon after I had a chance to speak with the assistant conductor. His name was Pete and he was on my northbound train, one of the crew who rescued us in the woods. First I asked if there might be any last minute openings in the sleepers. He said no, and six people had inquired ahead of me. Second, I asked about track conditions near Mt. Shasta. He said we would probably be delayed about an hour there because of trackwork. Later I saw a flyer at the top of the stairs indicating that delays of up to three hours could be expected.
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We reached Eugene at 5:03 and lingered long enough to step outside for a bit. We were moving again at 5:17, two minutes late. As we left that city the Chief of On Board Services made a welcome announcement. His name was Dave Fleming. That name sounded familiar. I had read it in a magazine from 1992 that I picked up at a model railroad show last fall. It had an article about the Southwest Chief, and he was then Chief of the Chief. On our northbound trip we didn't even have a Chief. That didn't surprise me because I had heard the chief's program had been discontinued due to lack of funding. He announced that the track work near Mt. Shasta will delay us about three hours, and the station attendants were supposed to have told us that (they didn't, but I suspected anyway). On this trip I heard the Chief's voice several times, but never actually saw him.
As he spoke we stopped to let Train 14 pass us. That put it almost five hours late, again.
Chief Dave also introduced Monique, our dining car steward. She soon came through the train and took dinner reservations. I asked for an 8:00pm table. She turned out to be just as friendly and efficient as her northbound counterpart a few days ago, but she lacked the quick witted humor of Von. However, that didn't matter. She more than compensated with her charm and good looks.
Feeling
a bit thirsty I went to the snack bar for a bottle of juice (nope, this one
was not a winner). I took it upstairs to the lounge and settled into a seat
on the left side of the train, where all the best views were. A woman named
Arliene, who looked a little like my mother in law, came and sat at the next
seat. She also had an 8:00pm dinner reservation, so we had plenty of time
together. We had a nice chat about all sorts of things. She was widowed recently
and she was just beginning to make trips on Amtrak, with plans to take many
more. This was her third, and she was enjoying every minute. I asked if she
knew about Amtrak's Guest Rewards program, but she had not yet heard of it.
I told her how to sign up.
After
nearly an hour with Arliene we began going through some of the Cascades'
many tunnels. The arched windows of the lounge car offered an interesting
perspective as we passed through the tunnel entrances. Although I enjoyed
Arliene's company, I wanted to do some photographing. So I excused myself
and took my camera to the rear of the car to shoot the tunnels after we came
out of them. I got several before the light faded too much to be useful.
I met Louie back in car 1115, which, along with 1114, was still empty. I asked him if it would be possible to sleep in one of the empty coaches, and he thought that would be OK, as long as I returned to my assigned seat in the morning.
After
making my pictures I went mack to my seat to await my dinner call. It came
at 7:20 instead of 8:00. I hurried on down and Monique seated me across from
two other middle aged men. On the window seat was a man from Germany, whose
name I did not quite catch. It was either Forest or Horace, but his accent
prevented me from being sure. He had lived a very interesting life as a casting
director for the film industry. He traveled to Hollywood frequently for business,
and he spent much of his free time traveling about the united States. He
had seen many places, but this was his first time on Amtrak. He was on day
11 of a 15 day rail pass. He'd traveled on the Empire Builder, the California
Zephyr, and was on his second trip on the Starlight. His first was last Friday,
on the same train I was on. He was among those who transferred to the bus
in Klamath Falls to connect to the Empire Builder. He said it wasn't a very
good bus. He was very impressed with Amtrak's Superliners, saying they were
among the most comfortable railcars he had ever been in, but the scheduling
left something to be desired. German trains were much better in that regard.
He preferred to ride in coach because "That's where all the crazy people
are. You don't meet people in sleepers."
He said there was a movement afoot to privatize the railroads in Germany. Both myself and the other gentleman advised him to protest such a move.
This German friend and I also talked about movies, and he was happy to learn I once worked as a theatre manager. He had been to Monterey but didn't realize how many films had been made here. I gave him my website address so he could find out more about them on my movie page.
The other man was Tim from Seattle on his way to Yosemite. He recently retired, but had owned a business that involved energy conservation products. We discussed California's electricity problems and we tried to explain the issues to our German companion.
I ordered the chicken breast wrapped in a puff pastry. Not bad at all. For dessert I was torn between the apple pie and key lime cheesecake. I am pretty fussy about cheesecake, believing that the simplest are usually the best. I had a cheesecake in these mountains on my first Coast Starlight trip in 1974, and it was just right. I had cheesecake on the California Zephyr last year and it was flavorless. This posed a dilemma. Do I try the cheesecake and risk diasppointment? The German advised me to have the cheesecake, which he tried on his northbound trip. I consented, and it was one of the best I ever had.
After dinner, around 8:30, I went to the lounge to watch the sunset over a mountain, possibly Mt. Thielson. On the TV the movie Finding Forrester was playing. I was really more interested in the view, but I sort of followed the story. During a critical part near the end, some announcements were made which interrupted the audio. Someone went downstairs to ask Gene, the attendant, to replay that part, and he did.
I saw Gill at the other end of the car and told her I had permission to sleep in the empty car behind us. She thought that was great, but I later ran into Louie who said the conductor wanted everyone in their assigned seats for the night. Hmmm. At 9:20, about 25 minutes before we reached Klamath Falls, they announced that we would have an extended stop there because the relief crew, was on another late train coming north, and had not yet had their mandatory eight hours of rest.
We stopped in Klamath Falls at 9:45. Departure was scheduled for 10:15. I went outside to see the inside of the station. On my way there I was stopped by an elderly lady who said "In two years all the trains will be gone." I asked why she thought that. She replied that she'd been hearing rumors to that effect, and our extended stop was a perfect example of why Amtrak will never make it. I said this was indeed a critical time for Amtrak, but I was cautiously optimistic. I explained that much of this was not Amtrak's fault, rather it was Union Pacific which was causing all the delays. I told her how the rails are the only transportation infrastructure that is controlled by private corporations. This was all new to her. She agreed that it was unfair. I suggested she write her congressman and demand a good rail system. I added that I had not only done that, but I had also written a newspaper commentary and had a letter published in a national periodical. She thanked me for doing that. I then told her I needed to move on because I wanted to get some pictures of the train and station at night. The platform lights reflecting off the silver cars wrapped around the curve was too good to pass up.
But I ran into her again back on the train. She said she didn't think writing to her congressman would do any good. She figured her congressman would be outvoted by those in the other 49 other states. I told her those other states had people who felt just the way she did and many of them have written to their congressmen. Her responsibility was to write to her own. After that she seemed to get the message.
I walked around outside a bit more without my camera and ended up talking to a man from Perth Australia. He was a retired banker on his way around the world. He would spend a few days in San Francisco before heading down to LA, and possibly Vegas. He was concerned that the train's delays wpuld prevent him from arriving in Los Angeles at a decent hour. He did not relish the prospect of a late arrival in a strange city.
It got pretty chilly, so we stepped into the train's nearest door, which happened to be the snack bar. We stood in the vestibule and chatted quite awhile. The outgoing assistant conductor, Pete, came by. He said we could expect to be about four hours late into Sacramento. My companion asked him about his plans going to LA. Pete offered the man some advice, and we ended up talking to Pete for a good 15 or 20 minutes on a variety of topics.
Pete had his own ideas about how to make the passenger trains work right. He wanted to turn them back over to the private railroads. "They'll resist at first, but I think they'll find they can actually make money at it." He thought the government would have to undrerwrite it for awhile, but figured they could eventually make it work on their own. He argued that today's railroads are much more efficient in their operations than they were 30 years ago. Back then there were "so many of them." Now after lots of megamergers there are just a handful. He reasoned that a single large company could operate a more efficient network of passenger trains than several dozen companies all going it alone, as they did in the pre-Amtrak days.
At 11:30 a hotel van arrived with our crew. They spent several minutes in an office just across the platform. The we saw the engineer put on his gloves and head down to the locomotive. The conductors closed up the doors and we were moving at 11:45. I stopped at Gene's counter and bought a Coast Starlight logo pin, a key ring and some postcards before returning to my seat.
Back at my seat I saw Gill was sound asleep and sprawled across both seats. Clearly I would need other arrangements. Louie was talking to someone in the seat behind mine, and I asked him what I should do. After some discussion he unlocked the door to car 1114, and let me in there. I took my pillow in and settled down for the night. After perhaps 30 minutes a conductor came through, but made no comment about my presence there.
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