Romancing Railroads- Chicago to San Francisco on Amtrak

Part 2- People experience

I pity those who did not open themselves up to interacting with strangers.  I soaked up every bit of people experience that I could have, with the time left after camera and writing time.  The dining hall, smoke breaks and lounge cars were the places for interaction.  There was interest, respect and understanding when I talked about my country, culture and mythology, very little of which was known to them.  Bias, if any, was kept aside.  In at least one situation, even our biases were discussed with respect.  I met a grandfather-grandson duo; they could not convince the middle generation about rail travel but decided to do it by themselves.  Grandfather knew that cities in India have been renamed.  He told me that the image of rail travel in India that Americans have is people traveling on the roof of coaches.  I explained to him that there are rides options available over a wide spectrum- from free ride to tickets costing a few cents to Palace on Wheels- the high end options treat passengers like a King but at a price point which many average Americans will not be able to afford.  We also talked about the positive bias that many in India have that America is a land of milk and honey where dollar rains from the sky and where all is perfect.  Such simplistic imagery from both sides result from lack of knowledge about the two countries.  The discussion ended with a respectful understanding of each other’s position and a warm farewell handshake. 

On the first day, during breakfast I was seated with Charlotte from Pennsylvania.  She is a charming woman of 83 years- traveling with her daughter and great grand-daughter.  We chatted, and she allowed me to take her photograph for my blog.  She told me how extensively she traveled within the United States with her husband.  She also told me that she has six children, 25 grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren and 6 great-great-grand-children.  She survived a stroke, a heart bypass, cancer and is waiting for a cataract operation.  She is the center of her extended family, and carries forward her husband’s rule that grandchildren cannot be punished. 

My co-passenger Tom in nearby Roomette was a interesting fellow.  He is a retired air traffic controller who is now fed up with planes.  He travels with bagful of gadgets ad heart full of joviality.  It takes a while to realize that his apparent profanities are in the nature of good-natured bantering. He gets away with questions such as “Are you Gay?  These days you need to ask.  I am not”.  He loves to drink ad enjoys company of women.  He tipped the coach attendant handsomely soon after boarding, generously offered me the use of his wifi hotspot when I lamented that the train does not have on board wifi, spent most of his time in the Lounge Car making friends and drinking his heart out with them, few times in the day stumbled back to his room and crashed till  he was fresh enough to go drinking again,  diligently came down to smoke cigerettes at every smoke break station despite having a nicotine patch on him (he offered me one too, seeing him my mind questions the efficacy of the product), and introduced me to his “true soulmate” when I went to his room to make sure he packed all the things that he had scattered all over the room.  Me and his drinking partner helped him pack and get him out of the compartment just in time; though “soulmate” showed no apparent affection during departure and did not come down to bid him goodbye. The coach attendant was more worried about him, and searched his room when he de-boarded.  His sunglass was found, with which I ran to hand over long after we hugged and wished each other a safe journey.  The train conductor held the train even after “all aboard” shout till I completed the 200-meter dash.  During farewell, he told me that he is rich and famous, and I should look him upon in Google.  I told him I only care about the fact that he was a good man.  Undefined bonds are the signature of momentous Amtrak journeys.


Tom and I became smoke break buddy with Shawn, who worked as engineering draftsman in New York but lost his job.  Instead of sitting and home and ruing his bad luck, he has set out to see his great country.  He is going to Seattle, but he discarded the direct train from Chicago to go via San Francisco because this route is more scenic.
  
I met Patrick and his girlfriend, who were painting in the Lounge Car with rapt attention.  They permitted me to take photos and we chatted.  They are heading back to Colorado.  She teaches Yoga and Reiki there.  She wanted to come to India to do a course, but was persuaded by family to do a certificate course in Virginia instead. 
I met Elaine from Wisconsin.  She was knitting designs on wool in the Lounge Car.  She permitted me to take her photo.  She is traveling with parents and brother to visit relatives.  We talked about Kumbh Mela- the religious festival which us the largest human congregation on earth.  


I also met with two elderly sisters from Missouri who are doing two stretches of Amtrak to reach Seattle, from where they will take a cruise.  “We have been planning this for a long time”.  Part of our lunchtime conversation revolved around spices. 
I met a father who is traveling with his two young sons- trying to prepare them for extensive train rides in Europe.  They are headed to Glenwood Springs, Nevada for adventure sports. 


In our sleeper compartment, there was a group of boisterous elderly sisters who boarded from various locations- they are taking their mother for a vacation.

In one of the smoking stops, I had a great conversation with the train Conductor about the history and railroad heritage of some of the towns along the route of California Zephyr.  A town in Colorado is named Helper as the early settlers helped the goods trains to climb up the steep mountain slope by adding their own engines and pulling the trains. 

In the middle of all this conviviality, I learnt from train Conductor that two young passengers in their 20s were thrown out of train by the Amtrak Police in the middle of Nevada desert for “disruptive behavior”!!

The photos of people in this blog have been taken with their permission.  They are aware that the photos will be used in my travel blog.

 

Romancing Railroads- Chicago to San Francisco on Amtrak

Part 1- The Journey
You are doing it the right way- the train Conductor from Hawaii told me, when I was trying to take a selfie with him at the Grand Junction Station in Colorado and Shawn and Thomas ran in to photobomb my project.  He meant that making friends, knowing people and enjoying the journey is the core spirit of travel in Amtrak long distance trains.  We were talking about the past glory of Amtrak and the vibrancy of the railroad towns some decades ago. 

The station was about halfway in my journey on Amtrak’s Route 5- California Zephyr- between Chicago and San Francisco in June 2017.  The route is 2,447 miles long and takes 52 hours, departing Chicago daily at 2 pm.  A returning train Route 6 starts from Emeryville, CA daily at 9:22 am.   The train travels through 7 states, covering many of the most historic and scenic areas of America’s west.  Some of the stretches are accessible only on Amtrak (or on a Kayak).  It crosses two great mountain ranges- Rockies and Sierra Nevada.  It crosses two of America’s longest rivers- Missouri and Mississippi, and runs parallel to Colorado river for over 250 miles.  It crosses three time zones- Central, Mountain and Pacific time.  It serves two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners to the passengers in its dining car- not counting the café sales and coffee service.  It provides four categories of accommodation- sitting coach, cozy roomettes, spacious bedrooms and family room.  The rail route is ancient- when it was created in 1869, it made life easier for the fortune seekers heading west, many towards San Francisco for the gold rush.  The train is named after Zephyrus- Greek God of the west wind.  The train runs with 8-9 double decker coaches, some sleeper and some seating, and not counting the occasional privately hired coaches hitched on to the main train.  It stops for 33 stations along the way.  A small crew of 11 on-board staff works timelessly to make the journey memorable.  Train driver and conductor crew change once every 8 hours. 

Considering that the journey is long and I will possibly not do the trip again and again, I booked myself a Roomette.  A roomette is a coupe of two berths, with large window.  It has temperature control, charging point, reading light and music control (which does not work).  It is a cozy accommodation with curtain and door.  Being in the category of First Class Sleeper accommodation, it has special privileges, including free on board meal and beverages, towels and bed linen, evening turndown service, shower room and ample restrooms.  First Class passengers also get access to Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago Union Station and assistance with luggage transportation.  Two rows of roomettes are aligned on both sides of the upper deck in one side of a sleeper coach.  A typical sleeper class coach alignment looks like this (Diagram courtesy: www.craigmashburn.com)-

Unlike in some countries such as India, Amtrak charges the full room or roomette to one person, irrespective of whether (s)he is traveling alone or in group of two.  So the cost difference for one or two person to travel in sleeper class is only marginally different.  The extra amount is payable towards the cost of food, which is included in the cost of the ticket for sleeper class passengers.  So while the sleeper class ticket costs about three times more than seating accommodation, the difference is partly offset by the cost of the six meals served on board, in addition to unlimited coffee in the mornings.  More importantly, the seating passengers mostly depend on the viewing lounge coach to enjoy the beauty of the route- if they manage to get a seat that is.  But the lounge coach has too much glass on all sides and creates reflection, which spoils the photographs.  The sleeper coach has several other advantages- 24 hr coach attendant who provides clean towels/turndown service/water; wake-up call before designated destination; changing room and shower facility; unlimited coffee and fruit juice from 6 am till 11 am.   


The easiest way to travel between Chicago O’Hare airport to Union Station is by the CTA Blue Line train.  It takes about 15 minutes to board from the domestic terminals, costs $5 and cuts the uncertainties of traffic by transporting you to the Clinton station in 45 minutes flat.  Union Station is 2 blocks away.  However, the escalator is very narrow and there are a few flights of stairs to climb, so if you have heavy bags then taxi may be a better option.  If you have big bags that need to be booked in the luggage van, you need to reach the Union Station , more than an hour in advance.  For Sleeper class passengers, it anyway makes sense to reach early- complimentary beverages and hors d oeuvre is served in the spacious Metropolitan Lounge for the waiting passengers.  If you need transportation assistance for traveling to the coach, that is arranged too.    

Upon reaching my assigned coach, I was greeted on the platform by Ms. T- our coach attendant.  She has a more formal name, but prefers to be called thus and passengers like it too.  My room was on the upper floor.  There is plenty of luggage space in the lower level, which alleviated my anxiety of not being able to check in my big bag since I reported less than 1 hour before scheduled departure.  After some excited walk about to feel the lay of the land, I settled down.  The first day’s travel was unimpressive.  For much of the day, the train goes through the small towns and then the vast agricultural lands of Illinois.  Important towns with stops were Naperville, Princeton and Galesburg.  The latter is also a smoking stop so passengers are allowed to alight and light up on the platform.  Galesburg was an important railroad town and it celebrates the heritage with a display of a Burlington steam engine just outside the platform.  Soon after, 180 miles from Chicago, our train crossed the Mississippi River which also forms the state boundary between Illinois and Iowa.  It is 2320 miles long and is the second longest river in the country.  When the sun had set on the first day at around 8 pm, the train was still ambling across the unkempt forest terrains of Iowa.  Major towns covered are Burlington, Mount Pleasant and Creston.  Meanwhile, dining car staff came and took my dinner reservation and handed over a time allotment slip.  I went in and was charmed by the dining car.  It was laid out in two sections, with the serving area in the middle and lower level.  There were a dozen tables laid out in the car, with four seats in each.  If group size is less than four, train staff put others to fill up the table.  Dinner is by appointment, lunch and breakfast is on first come first serve basis.  Seating is assigned, and if seats are full, the staff maintains a waitlist and call by name.  Being alone, I got a chance to sit with eight different traveler groups in the six meals over three days.  Each group was uniquely interesting.  More about them later.

First night dinner was a platter of seared shrimp served with rice and vegetable medley.  Dessert was strawberry cheesecake.  Choosing dishes from an attractive menu option for every meal was not a piece of cake!  While I was at dinner, my bed was turned down to make it ready for the night.  After some post dinner computer work, I went off to sleep.  There is very little track noise, at least in the upper level.   The gentle rocking only aids in sleep.  I slept well, and woke up when the day was breaking.  I was expecting a breathtaking scenery when I removed the curtains, but was disappointed to see rural Nebraska still.  The train was running late, and while the train was scheduled to enter Omaha in Nebrasaka at 11 pm and enter Colorado through Fort Morgan at 5 am, it was two hours behind schedule.  Omaha (500 mile from Chicago) became famous because Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Corporation is based here; and when he comes to chair the company’s annual general meeting in May, over 40,000 businessmen descend on this small town.  Nebraska is very agrarian- I could see herds of cattle, large sprinklers and huge granaries.  I could not take pictures in the first two hours of the morning- my camera was nowhere to be found, and the backrests refused to go up to let me look under the bed.  Only when the coach attendant resumed duty at 7 am and worked her magic, the bed became seat again and the camera was duly found. 

Morning is a perfect time to say a little more about the facilities on board.  The toilets are reasonably spacious, clean, well-stocked with all kinds of paper and soap.  There are four in the sleeper coaches- three in lower level and one in upper.  These are larger and more comfortable than airline toilets, even in large intercontinental flights.  The Conductor rang an alert over the PA system that people should not put anything more than paper down the toilets- the coaches are built in the 1970s, and if a toilet gets clogged the whole train loses vacuum and everyone is stuck.  Fortunately that did not happen during my journey.  There is a large shower and changing room, which is always stocked with fresh towels and bath soaps.  The shower is efficient. 

Breakfast opens at 6:30 am.  If you do not get a seat in the first batch, be ready to wait out in the lounge car for about an hour.  This is a good segway to talk about the Lounge Car, which is adjoining the dining car and separates the sleeper coaches from the sitting coaches.  It is a great viewing gallery with large windows, extra glass on the roof, seating clusters of three with a small table in between.  There is a well--appointed café in the lower level which serves snacks and alcoholic/soft beverages which can be consumed in the lounge.  There is also a lounge with dining room style layout- I think it is a swing space in case there are more passengers to feed.  But the tables were perfect for groups to pursue things they like.  I ordered Amtrak Signature Railroad French Toast, which is served with sausage.  My table-mate was Charlotte from Pennsylvania- a charming woman of 83 years- traveling with her daughter and great grand-daughter. 

Almost as soon as I finished breakfast, the train stopped at Denver, Colorado.  It was 9:20 am, instead of the scheduled 07:15 am.  This is one of the longer stops where crew change, engine is refueled and windows are cleaned.  After lots of stretching, smoke break and photo sessions, “All Aboard” was announced and we started again.  The next 300 miles is a signature stretch of California Zephyr through the Rockies and along the gushing Colorado river.  Indeed, soon the train started climbing the Rocky Mountains and Colorado rushed in to the train.  In the next two hours, till Fraser Winter Park, I witnessed the steep Rocky Mountains and the gushing Colorado River.  The train passed through 31 tunnels, including the 6.2 mile Moffat Tunnel which transported us across the continental divide.  The train followed the Fraser River through the Fraser Canyon and then runs along the Colorado River for the next 235 miles.  This is one of the most scenic stretches of America that I have seen.  The Fraser Winter Park station in this stretch serves the ski resort nearby.  Between Fraser Winter Park and Glenwood Springs, CO (123 miles), the train passed through spectacular, steep-walled and splendidly remote Fraser Canyon, Gore Canyon and Glenwood Canyon.  I saw a few adventure sports groups riding motorboats and Kayaks on the whitewater rapids of the Colorado river.  Several families got off at Glenwood Springs.  The place is popular with vacation seekers- with ski resorts, biking and backpacking trails and whitewater rafting options.  The train then passed through a few other historic towns such as the mining town of New Castle and wild horse sanctuary city of De Beque for about 90 miles before reaching Grand Junction.  This is where the Gunnison and Colorado rivers meet.  The place is surrounded by mountains.  It was past 4:30 pm instead of the scheduled 1:53 pm.  The train was now getting progressively late. 

The delay however proved to be a boon in disguise.  I got to see America’s wild west in the golden light of the setting sun.  It also helped that my clock was turned back by an hour to Pacific from Mountain time as soon as the train crossed from Colorado to Utah.   The last lap of the train in Colorado and first foray in to Utah was through nature’s playground- the Ruby Canyon.  Wind and water treated the red sandstone as their canvas- creating beautiful landscape with smooth texture mountains in myriad shapes.  The canyon runs for 25 miles between Colorado and Utah till Thompson Springs.  The only access to the canyon apart from rafting is along the rail tracks traversed by California Zephyr.  It became dark soon after the train crossed the canyon.  The list of stops along Utah had places with interesting names such as Green River and Helper.  The latter got its name apparently because apparently the locals used to add “helper” engines to west-bound goods trains to that the trains could negotiate the slope reaching up to Soldier Summit at 7000 feet.  The biggest station in Utah is of course Salt Lake City, which we crossed in the dead of the night. 

Lunch on day 2 was Chicken, Bacon and Cheddar Quesadilla.  I opted for one of the three ACAT (Amtrak Culinary Advisory Team) inspired dishes listed in the menu- vegetarian Asian noodle bowl, followed by vanilla pudding.  The lunch service was relatively poor.  There is no appointment for lunch- I missed the first batch by a whisker and had to wait for nearly an hour till they finished.  That seemed pretty long for a two-course meal.  The few staff serving meals worked hard, but the pressure was starting to tell on their performance.  My table-mate at lunch was served a dish she did not order for.    

The next morning knocked on my window when the train was approaching Winnemucca station in Nevada.  This is a classic cowboy town where apparently the National Senior Pro Rodeo Finals, the Ranch Hand Rodeo Weekend and Mule Show take place.  It is also a designated smoking stop.  After this, the train crossed vast stretches of open space and followed the Truckee river till it reached Sparks and then Reno.  Growing from a small gold mining settlement, Reno economy grew rapidly based on Nevada’s decision to legalize gambling in 1931.     

 The train soon crossed in to California.  I was beginning to lean back in to my seat, assuming that the best is over and I will now pass through familiar terrain.  But California Zephyr surprised me yet again.  Soon after crossing Truckee and Stanford Flats stations, the train started to climb up again.  It was climbing over the Donner Pass to the peak of the Sierra Mountains.  In winter, the Donner Lake area sees over 30 feet of snow.  A tunnel through Mt. Judah is at an elevation of over 7,000 feet.  There are several ski resorts in the area.  At some stretches, the train track was 1,500-2,000 feet above the American River valley on the left side.  The train then had s steep climb-down between Cape Horn and Colfax. 

After crossing the Sierras, from Sacramento till Emeryville through Davis, Martinez and Richmond was sedate.  The last lap along the shore of the San Pablo Bay and then along the San Francisco Bay was very scenic.  We alighted at Emeryville over 2 hours behind scheduled time, and had a seamless transfer to the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf on board Amtrak Thruway Bus service.  It was sheer delight to see my friend and his family waiting to receive me at the Wharf.

This was a momentous trip on may counts.  The time investment- nearly 60 hours- was most un-American and un-touristy.  My co-passengers were all American citizens; many of them retired (some ages ago and some never worked); grandfathers and great-grandmothers traveling with family; unemployed adventurous ones; and short distance travelers.  I had memorable interaction with several of them.  The traveler camaraderie was awesome.  The interactions were laced with respectful curiosity about each other.  A separate blog regarding my people interaction will be posted.  The unknowns while planning this trip were many.  Indian travel agents and even tourism promotion agencies have very little idea of Amtrak routes and vacation packages.  Without first hand and anecdotal experience, it is not easy to make the choice and lock the payment.  The cost was high.  My friend had offered me a plane ticket at less than half the cost and one-tenth of the time.  But despite all this, the returns of the trip was sweet and memorable.  I encourage tourists to include Amtrak travel in their itinerary.  There is no better way to see the heart of America and the soul of Americans than traveling on Amtrak.