# Coast Starlight live trip report part 2 (NB)



## Diane (Jan 2, 2004)

Not keeping track of the time today - Departed Oxnard nearly on time, if not on time. The car attendant was waiting for us on the platform, in the rain "are you the Wallace family?" he greeted us as we walked up.

Turns out he had also made lunch reservations for us. We were called to lunch just outside Ventura and shared a table with a Benny, a vacationing student headed back to the University of Washington.

On the way back to our car, we got distracted by the "Scenic Commentary " by Richard, the Parlour Car Attendant. He started working for Amtrak in 1973 and has been on this line for quite some time. He is very knowledgeable about the Southern California coastline. his commentary included geography, natural, political and military history of the area between Santa Barbara and Vandenberg AFB. Listening to him was very interesting and educational.

Our trip back to Seattle is a little different than what we had planned. We were scheduled to depart Oxnard on December 29th to arrive on Jan 1, but severe weather in northern California and Southern Oregon has played havoc with the rail lines and the highways. So we rescheduled for today. Unfortunately, there was not a family sleeper available, so this time we are in a deluxe sleeper which seems perfectly adequate - the bonus is bigger windows!

We’ll be looking to get the consist posted before too much longer.







Here's a photo of the coastline along Vanderberg






Here's a pic Ashley took after San Luis Obispo






another


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## Diane (Jan 2, 2004)

Here’s the first part of the consist:

Engine 119

Engine 114

Baggage 1733

Transition Sleeper 39007

Sleeper (Wisconsin) 32117

Sleeper (Illinois) 32081

Sleeper (Pennsylvania) 32106

Pacific Parlour Car 329974

Departed San Luis Obispo @ 4:05 pm

Off to the wine tasting!


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## tp49 (Jan 2, 2004)

If things continue as you have reported then you should be into San Jose around 9PM tonight. Let's see how this prediction pans out.


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## Allen Dee (Jan 2, 2004)

I did hear the horn of this train as it passed through Santa Barbara. However, I was at work and was unaware that this was a continuation of the live trip report.


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

Arrive Paso Robles 5:10

Depart Paso Robles 5:11

Arrive Salinas 7:04

Depart Salinas 7:10

Max speed so far is 74.1 mph

San Jose

The interesting tidbit of news here relates to our sister train. Turns out they are terminating her in Oakland and then using a commuter train to service the route from Oakland to Los Angeles. Apparently #11 got stuck behind some broken track (?) or equipment and is currently some 14-16 hours behind schedule.

Max speed 79.4 mph

Depart San Jose 9:07 p.m.


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

arrived oakland at 9:58 p.m.

max speed siince San Jose 74.7 mph

Average (according to the GPS) 39.2 mph


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## tp49 (Jan 3, 2004)

At 10:27 14 is just passing CP Magnolia (per DS 62 on railroadradio.net)and will be just about to Emeryville that'll probably put you into SAC around 30 min down probably around 12:30 AM.


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

Emeryville at 10:33 pm

That’s it for tonight. Check in with y’all in the morning!


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## tp49 (Jan 3, 2004)

Just a note on the turning of 11's set what they are doing is they terminated 11 at Emeryville, they'll service that set at the Oakland Coach Yard. 14(3) will run from LAX to either OKJ or EMY with the low level horizon set including the Horizon food service dome. Passengers will switch to the standard set at OKJ or EMY for the remainder of the trip to Seattle.


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

Day two…..

Woke up around 7:30 outside of Dunsmuir, CA. Lots of snow, and quite wonderfully, lots of animal prints in the snow. Looks like a lot of rabbit, some deer, maybe a small fox or coyote, and something much smaller like a mouse or other small rodent.











Bad news – the train scheduled to arrive in Seattle last night arrived 11 hours late (this morning)











We arrived in Klamath Falls around 9:30 am, and have been sitting here for nearly an hour. I think we are waiting for a second crew. Now an announcement - the Union Pacific crew is here – just waiting to get last minute orders


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

11:00 am – another announcement: the UP crew has received their orders and are now checking out the switches.

So anyways, we had some time to walk around and this is what we’ve seen:






This is the same engine that was in the lead on our trip down.











I got some better pictures of the damage on the front end of 119

Big Picture






Top her off, please






trainsickles






Comes with high performance all-wheel disc brakes. Wonder if they are anti-lock?






no caboose 






Klamath Falls Station


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

11:40 – announcement – waiting for our sister train (the one that is terminating in Oakland)

11:45 – sister train arrives

11:49 – we depart Klamath Falls

Here’s the rest of the consist:

38056 – Dining car

33042 – Sightseer car

34035 – Coach

34510 – Coach

34111 – Coach

34078 – Coach

34046 – Coach

Lunch near Chemult. The Dining Car had to turn people away as they completely ran out of food for lunch.

Willamette pass summit @ 2:12 p.m.

We are stopped at 2:31 pm. Announcement – the conductors are outside inspecting the train. When done, they will be putting the chains on the engines and we will be off.











Announcement at 2:43 pm – the real reason we are stopped is that Union Pacific has a snow spreader on the track ahead of us and as soon as it is done clearing the track, we can get on our way – about a half hour

Rolling again at 2:50 pm – that half hour must have started when we stopped <_<

3:30 pm – still rolling at a slow but steady 33mph. There is a place neat Fields, Or, where the track doubles back on itself for (in our case) a large descent. After we made the first hairpin, we were able to look back up the mountain where we had been a few minutes ago and we saw another train following us, approx 4.5 miles back

4:57 p.m coming into Eugene now


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

departed Eugene @ about 5:20. An announcement from the Conductor - people scheduled to make the connection with the Empire Builder will miss their train tonight and will be staying the night in Portland.


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## Diane (Jan 3, 2004)

arrive Albany @ 6:45 pm

Dinner at 7:00 pm

Again, they ran out of food. No steaks, no chicken tenders, no evening sepcial (the holiday meal, same as last night's special) , no desserts. But on the upside, we did get fed! The stuffed Chicken Breast was really good.

We had dinner tonight with Maxine, a Grandmother traveling home from vacationing in Southern California. She was traveling with her son and his family who filled another table. Maxine was one of the nicest people we've shared a table with on this leg of the journey.

during dinner we stopped at Salem and have since departed.

Of special note were two of the dining car staff. Specifically, our waitress at dinner tonight (didn't get her name) and Aaron, the dining car attendant.






Our waitress was so understanding about running out of food and dessert, she gave Ashley a hot chocolate of her own. she was really quite generous, and it was appreciated by all of us at the table.






Now Aaron, has really, somehow, managed to keep a smile on his face and warmpth in his voice despite running out of food at lunch and dinner and also running out of dessert. His demeanor has made this trip all the more enjoyable.

8:12 pm conductor's announcement. We have stopped because a detector has given a warning, a hot axel. Typically this is not anything important, but it still needs to be checked out. Estimate a 10 minute delay.

8:30 - rolling again


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## Diane (Jan 4, 2004)

Portland at 9:24 pm

This will be the last posting for this trip. it is late, we are tired and I think a nap would be in order before we get to Seattle.

This trip has been wonderful - even in the worst conditions (huge delays, lack of dessert, etc). Through it all, the staff shines and we still had a nice trip. 

Cheers

The Wallace Family


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## AlanB (Jan 4, 2004)

Diane & family,

Thanks again for a wonderful blow by blow trip report. 

I'm glad that you and your family had a great trip, even if things didn't go quite as planned. :blink:


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## EmpireBuilderFan (Jan 4, 2004)

Diane said:


> departed Eugene @ about 5:20. An announcement from the Conductor - people scheduled to make the connection with the Empire Builder will miss their train tonight and will be staying the night in Portland.


This is unfortunately more common than not. I was quite surprised a couple of weeks ago when the Coast Starlight actually made its connection with the Builder. Usually Amtrak will bus passengers from K-Falls to Pasco, WA, but I suppose the nasty weather prevented that from happening.


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## Amfleet (Jan 4, 2004)

I really liked the fact of a live trip report with update information and photos. The technology that one can use to do such a thing is pretty neat. Great job, it was a pleasure riding a long with you and your family.


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## Diane (Jan 5, 2004)

I am glad that the live trip reoprt has been well received. We had so much fun doing it. One thing that I learned while doing this was to listen and watch. You can really learn so much about a the people around you, the scenery you are passing, the train and how the train operates.

Not only did we have a great time we learned a lot too.

By the way I loved the deluxe sleeper! If I can afford it that is the way I will travel in the future.

Diane


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## battalion51 (Jan 5, 2004)

I'd like to see this wireless capability become more widely available. I was talking with one of our Engineers a few months ago and one of the things we noticed is that if there is a mechanical failure (engine car or otherwise) it'd be a great thing if employees could take a picture of the broken item, send it to the Mechanical help desk in Chicago so they can know exactly what they're looking at, instead of guessing. This probably could be done with a camera phone, but Amtrak should really be in constant connectivity with all the trains, for tickets, delay reports, employee time tickets, food stock, etc. IMHO.


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## AlanB (Jan 5, 2004)

battalion51 said:


> I'd like to see this wireless capability become more widely available. I was talking with one of our Engineers a few months ago and one of the things we noticed is that if there is a mechanical failure (engine car or otherwise) it'd be a great thing if employees could take a picture of the broken item, send it to the Mechanical help desk in Chicago so they can know exactly what they're looking at, instead of guessing. This probably could be done with a camera phone, but Amtrak should really be in constant connectivity with all the trains, for tickets, delay reports, employee time tickets, food stock, etc. IMHO.


Your probably right, it would be a good thing. Trouble is, who's going to pay for it? :unsure:

Currently Amtrak can't even afford the upkeep on it's trains and tracks. Cellphones for the crew would be a luxury item. :blink:


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## battalion51 (Jan 5, 2004)

Actually Alan every train (or at least long distance) carries a Nextel cell phone on board, usually the PLS or LSA has the phone. This way if the crew needs anything it can easily call crew base for that information, and another train or station can then be contacted. Every station also has a Nextel to communicate between each other.


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