# The Coast Starlight | SEA > LAX | July 3-4, 2010



## ColdRain&Snow (Jul 6, 2010)

Excited to get my trip underway, I ventured to King Street Station at about 8A on the overcast morning of 7/3/10 and went to the ticket counter. Strangely, the barcode on my printed reservation page corresponded to a California Zephyr trip later in the summer, leaving the agent and I a bit baffled. He was able to pull up my ticket for the Coast Starlight trip, but this experience caused me to make a mental bookmark for the future- check things out every step of the way for accuracy, especially if using Quik-Trak.

With that minor glitch behind me, I walked over and got a seat right next to Door 2 where I recalled from a previous trip they would be boarding Sleeping Car pax. It was Fourth of July Weekend, so the station filled up quickly and the conductors began the check-in process from their respective podiums. As the time approached to open Door 2, I could see that the check-in line was still quite long, so I decided to forgo the check-in and either have my SCA pull the ticket or assume that the conductor would pay me a visit once we were underway. As I trotted out to Car 1132, I immediately noticed that the trainset was very clean and shiny. This observation would set the stage for the rest of the trip.

As I got closer to Car 1132, I was really stoked to see that Roomette #10 was on the ocean side. Knowing it’s a crapshoot, it was a nice feeling to have lucked out this time! When I got to 1132, a very kind and pleasant woman greeted me- her name was Patty, and she would go on to be one of the best SCAs I have had to date. Patty pulled my ticket and welcomed me aboard the Montana, a Superliner II in very nice condition. When I got to my room, several things jumped out at me right away. First, the air conditioning was blasting cool air, and the lever at the vent worked (I have found that many of them no longer do). After my Friday evening flight aboard an Alaska Air 737-400 that had a malfunctioning air system (plane was sold out and became a hotbox), I was happy that the AC would be a non-issue during this trip. The other thing that I couldn’t help but notice was how fresh and clean both the car and my room were! Everything seemed immaculate: carpets, windows, seats, and surfaces. It was so refreshing to be in a Sleeping Car that was clean and neat where even the air seemed to have a fresh scent. I would find out later that Patty certainly played a role in this, but I did ask her about it when she first stopped by. She told me that this particular car had recently been a “cold car,” meaning that it had been stripped down and deep cleaned before being restocked for service. I hope they will make this a regular practice in the future as it really made an immediate, positive impression as soon as you climbed onboard.

As the Coast Starlight whisked us through downtown Seattle, Jeff, the Dining Car Lead announced that the train was full and that he would be doing lunch reservations both days. A few minutes after his visit, the train crossed a very minor bridge and made a violent series of left-and-right shakes. It was the most severe movement I have ever experienced onboard a train, and I immediately assumed that some type of derailment was occurring. But the Coast Starlight simply shook it off and kept on highballing into southern Washington. Wow, that was the first time I have felt scared on a train, but I soon felt silly since it was just an odd occurrence across a tiny bridge. Perhaps there was something wrong with the span, though I did not hear the engineer or conductor mention anything. And with that, I ventured down to the Dining Car and had lunch. The menu looked familiar, but the food was very good throughout the trip. Among the fellow pax I shared meals with were a professor, a couple that were grape farmers, and an expert model train enthusiast who had just attended a national modeling expo. I really enjoy the diversity that the meals aboard Amtrak trips afford. Good food and great conversations were the rule throughout the trip.

This was my second trip where I brought along a radio scanner, and it was really fun to have that input during the journey. The OTOL frequencies were right on the money for the entire route, so kudos to the folks over there that manage them. There were several highlights from the various exchanges:

•	As another Amtrak train passed us early on in the trip, their engineer quipped to ours, “That is one fine looking train today!” to which our engineer responded, “Sure is!”

•	11’s engineer called Dispatch to report that there were several cows wandering around the adjacent track, to which the dispatcher replied, “Mmmm, barbecued ribs!”

•	On Day 2, the conductor reminded the engineer about a “VIP” stop at Ventura (non-CS stop) which had me wondering who was catching a lift to LA. Turns out we were just dropping off one of the engineers who had been operating the train earlier.

There were some other funny moments too, and I continue to find that the scanner is a great complement to the trip. It’s really interesting to learn about how the track warrants work and all of the terminology associated with them. When we would hit restrictions, I usually had heard about why and what to expect such as a track gang working alongside us somewhere. I am very much a details person, so these snippets of information add color and substance to the trips. Fun stuff.

The KFS Comedy Hour. After crossing the Cascades on a picture perfect sunlit evening, we arrived into Klamath Falls early. Wanting to walk off my steak dinner, I decided to take a couple paces along the length of the train. As I approached the last Coach Car, I observed a heavily slurring, twenty-something guy arguing with the conductor vociferously. My first thought was, “This guy had better cut this crap out soon or he’ll be thrown off the train.” Turns out that the conductor had already handed the guy his walking papers, and the police were enroute. It was rather funny to see this guy trying to argue that he wasn’t drunk even as he could not articulate the sentence to say so. I know it wasn’t funny for the conductor, and I felt bad that he had to deal with the guy. Not 2 minutes later, four Klamath Falls Police cars swooped in to the last coach. When the guy saw them pull up, he immediately began to walk towards them by crossing over the inside track. As several police officers were jumping out of their cars, the guy trips on the rail and does a spread eagle on the pavement, throwing everything he had in his hands all over the area. One of the officers pulled him up and sat him down near her police cruiser, after which time he laid down in the dirt on his back and muttered that “I’m going to Burbank damnit!” It wouldn’t be so, and the Coast Starlight left him behind, lying in the dirt, arguing with the Klamath Falls Police Department. Seriously entertaining…

Afterwards, I told Patty about the drama that had broken out at the back of the train, and she went on to tell me a story that blew my mind. Some time ago, a woman and her male companion, er pimp, were thrown off the Coast Starlight in the middle of the night because she was a working girl who went to work on the train! Apparently, she had managed to get a few “customers” into the restroom before she was caught. Not surprisingly, pax caught on quickly and called in the conductor who stopped the train immediately and tossed them off. That was a new one on me…A working girl working it on an Amtrak train!?! Wow.

After a restful sleep, I woke up in the northern Bay Area and recognized the voice of the conductor immediately. It would be Phil Sloan who I had I come to know on my January trip on 11. He’s an amazing conductor who, aside from carrying out his regular duties, points out an impressive array of the sights along the SAC to SLO route. Along with his encyclopedic knowledge of this stretch of California, Phil also infuses humor into his announcements, such as this one that had me fooled for a second. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Information Desk has just informed me that there will be a total eclipse of the sun at 12:24 PM.” About 30 seconds later at 12:24P, we went through a tunnel and the train went dark. I imagine the kids got a real kick out of that, and I appreciated his fun-hearted spirit all the way down to SLO.

We ran early for the majority of the trip, so we had some extra time in SLO to walk around and admire the train. Among the elements of our consist were:

•	2 P42s running back to back.

•	An unmarked Transition Sleeper.

•	3 Sleeping Cars: 1132 was a Superliner II (Montana), and 1131 and 1130 were refurbished Superliner Is.

•	Pacific Parlour Car was the Santa Lucia Highlands.

•	More consist details to follow soon when I post captioned trip pictures.

The weather was beautiful on the Fourth of July, so our traverse along the California coastline was really scenic. We passed many campers along the way, and the vast majority of them waved enthusiastically at the train as we passed by. I think there was something very American about seeing a passing Amtrak train on July 4th as I have never seen such an enthusiastic embrace of the train as we did on this day. I couldn’t help but wave back much of the time. We had the same reaction as we passed by a Fourth of July parade taking place in the bay area suburb of Morgan Hill. Everybody was waving, hooting, and hollering as we rolled by, and it was really endearing to experience that.

A special callout to my SCA, Patty. She was an excellent SCA who was always around and there when you needed something. The bathrooms were kept fresh throughout the trip, and I even saw her run one of those non-electric vacuums down the hallway. Aside from keeping her car so pleasant, Patty herself was also very pleasant. I had several enjoyable conversations with her, and it was clear that she was there because she wanted to be. As we approached LA, I made it a point to thank her and let her know that she really made my trip a memorable one. What a sweet woman and an outstanding Amtrak employee!

Since the train was early getting into Los Angeles, we would not see any fireworks from the train. As we entered Union Station, I reflected that this was an excellent trip full of great pax, a great crew, and a great trainset. It is the kind of trip that every one of us deserves to have, and it is my hope that we’ll see more of them in the future as Amtrak continues its evolution.

I will post a link to my captioned trip pics soon. Thanks for reading!


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## JayPea (Jul 6, 2010)

Sounds like you had a great trip! I'm looking much forward to my Coast Starlight trip next month, as the last leg of a trip that begins with the Texas Eagle. I took a trip on the Cascades from Seattle to Portland a couple of weeks ago and I don't recall any issues crossing any bridge like that. May have been, as you said, a bad span.

Glad you had a great time and glad the trip went great! Many, many trips do go just fine. It's only the occassional bad one and the very vocal person posting about it you hear about and that's what gives people the impression that Amtrak's service and employees are worse than they are!

Looking forward to your photos!


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## the_traveler (Jul 6, 2010)

Great report!

Did you have any meals in the PPC? You only mentioned dinner the first night in the Dining Car. I know you were only there 1 night, but after 4 or 5 days of the same menu, I look forward to the PPC for a change!


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2010)

Great trip report on a great train!  Glad to hear Amtrak is sprucing up some of the cars even in the midst of the heavy summer season! Weve had real problems with the trains down my way, especially the TE and CONO, dirty,ratty cars, has been going on since the run through started on these routes! The CHI yard crews havent been doing their jobs worth a darn seems like! :help:

Be sure and let Amtrak know about the great SCA and the gleaming train, most things they get are complaints so perhaps this will inspire them to spiff up all the LD trains!The_traveler is correct about the PPC, hope you got to enjoy meals and use it during your journey! Look forward to your pics and future trip reports also, thanks!


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## ColdRain&Snow (Jul 7, 2010)

That's a great question, and a topic that I didn't address in the report. After the Tacoma Narrows, I went up to the PPC to check things out and meet the attendant. But when I got there, it appeared as though the attendant was rather uptight and acting irritated around the pax. As soon as I saw his nametag - Dominic - I knew that I didn't want to have meals with him in there. Having read several past posts where he was called out like this one from Carl Morrison, I knew that he wasn't going to be a pleasant attendant. And since everything else had been going so well on the trip, I just decided to ignore him, eat in the Dining Car, and hang out on the far side of the PPC when I was in there. Where was lovely Nanette when we needed her?! :unsure:

I don't know if this had to do with him, but I forgot to mention in the original report that there was no wine tasting offered on the second day. Not that I would have wanted him to lead one, but I did wonder why it wasn't offered as an activity during the trip.


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## Cristobal (Jul 7, 2010)

Conductor Phil is a real hoot! I had him on both of my last 2 trips on the CS (he does SAC to SLO then back the following day) and his announcements always made me smile (even on the return trip and hearing them for the second time in 2 days).

"Here in the Elkhorn Slough you will see many types of birds, many of which are gulls. The most famous are those that live by the sea and are known as seagulls. But there are also those gulls that live by the bay. Those are called "bay-gulls" (a play on the word 'bagels' for the humor impaired). 

Amtrak could certainly use more people like Phil.

Another great trip report! Thanks again for sharing.


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## ColdRain&Snow (Jul 10, 2010)

Adding Trip Pics from last weekend.


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2010)

ColdRain&Snow said:


> Adding Trip Pics from last weekend.


Thanks, great pics from a great route! We all love this train no matter how many times we go or read trip reports and pics like yours!


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## GG-1 (Jul 10, 2010)

ColdRain&Snow said:


> Adding Trip Pics from last weekend.


Aloha

Very nice  :hi:


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## caravanman (Jul 28, 2010)

I was amused by your story of the working girl and clients.. especialy the picture of the conductor tossing them off...

Ed


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## supergrandmother (Jul 30, 2010)

ColdRain&Snow said:


> Adding Trip Pics from last weekend.


Great pictures! I really enjoyed seeing them. When I was on the CS, I would have missed the CA Men's Colony except that a sleeper car passenger on the other side of the train stopped in my roommette to ask if he could take some pictures of it. Turns out his uncle spent about 5 years there in the 60's. It was an interesting story about the uncle serving time there and also running for Pres in 1960 as one of the first African Americans to run for President.


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## ColdRain&Snow (Jul 30, 2010)

supergrandmother said:


> ColdRain&Snow said:
> 
> 
> > Adding Trip Pics from last weekend.
> ...


Wow, that _is_ interesting. I dunno what it was like in the 60s, but the Men's Colony today is probably a very harsh and dangerous place. It is strange to look out the window and see the inmates so close to the train. Two very different worlds come together right there!


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