Maglev
Conductor
For my first post, I am going to share a story about an experience from almost forty years ago. I call this story “Rave by Rain” because it is the famous slogan “Travel by Train” with a few letters missing. This seems fitting for Amtrak in the late seventies.
My family lived in Hawaii, but I had a scholarship to attend a prep school in New Hampshire. My parents could not afford to fly me home for breaks, so I would visit relatives on the mainland and travel by train. Over Christmas break at the end of 1977, I bought a “USA Rail Pass” and traveled to Oregon by way of Texas to visit my sister.
The trip started out with a chartered bus to Boston’s South Station, where a large group of fellow students and I boarded a car that had been set aside for us on the train. In the distant past, this particular school chartered trains to New York, but I felt like the accommodations we had in a brand new Amfleet Amcoach were among the finest students from the school had ever seen. I joked about sitting in my Amchair eating an Amsandwich from the Amcafe. In the bathroom, there were Amenities—Ampax Ampons?
At Penn Station, I left my classmates and boarded the Broadway Limited bound for Chicago. At that point in my life, I liked trains but was not very knowledgable. There was an older couple seated across from me, and the man kept talking loudly about going around the “Huss Show Curve.” I did not know what he was talking about—I had never heard of the “Huss Show Curve.” The next morning in Indiana, I awoke next to a bakery with a large picture of Little Miss Sunbeam on the side.
In Chicago, I boarded the Lone Star bound for Houston. I was excited to see the Hi-Level coach Amtrak had inherited from Santa Fe’s El Capitan. I stowed my suitcase downstairs, and settled in for a long night. One mundane thing that stands out in my memory is watching TV or radio tower lights appear in the distance then pass. I was impressed with the scenery in Oklahoma the next day, and with the way Fort Worth rose over the barren plains As we were arriving in Houston, someone took pot shots at our train and hit two windows in my coach. Our arrival in Houston was the first of two times on my trip that my train was met in a station by law enforcement officers.
In Houston, I transferred to the Sunset Limited bound for Los Angeles. It was also equipped with High-Level coaches. Crossing the Pecos River high bridge and seeing the not-so-grand Rio Grande were highlights. That evening, I got my usual sandwich from the cafe for dinner. It seemed odd that a turkey sandwich had a piece of ham in it. But then an hour later, I was retching in the bathroom downstairs trying to rid my stomach of what was likely not just ham. I spent a miserable night making numerous trips to the bathroom.
We arrived early the next morning in Los Angeles, and I was still not feeling well at all. It was a gray day as the Coast Starlight made its way north through a smoldering landscape that had recently been burned by brush fires. The scenery seemed to match how I felt. I vaguely remember Oakland.
But the next morning, I was feeling better and I made my way to the dome car to eat my breakfast pastry. On that icy morning in Klamath falls, several fellow passengers and I watched in amazement as a car slid through a stop sign and collided with another. Soon, we were descending the mountains into Eugene where I left the train to spend Christmas week with my sister.
My departure was on New Year’s eve, and the southbound Coast Starlight was jammed with revelers heading for the Rose Bowl. I spent the night in the dome car, where a few other passengers and I stuffed newspaper over the lights to allow an unobstructed view. It was fun to watch the girders of trestles pass overhead.
Amtrak would not reserve a half-hour connection between the Coast Starlight and Southwest Limited in Los Angeles, so I left the Starlight in Oakland and transferred to an Amfleet-eqipped San Joaquin, where the legroom and bathrooms were more spacious than the Northeast Corridor train. It was a foggy day as we traveled through the valley, and many of the fields had just been plowed—so at times all one could see out the window was brown and gray. I had my New Year’s Day dinner at the Bakersfield Greyhound station, where I later boarded a bus to Barstow. I was only 15 years old when I made this journey, and nowadays Amtrak wouldn’t allow an unaccompanied minor to make such a trip. When I think back on it, I was probably lucky to get off that bus unharmed because there were some pretty creepy characters on board.
The Barstow Amtrak station was an old, closed building with a very dark platform. But there were a few other people waiting for a tardy Southwest Limited, so the time passed quickly enough. By then on the trip, I spent almost all my time on the train in the lounge car for conversation and card games. Also, the thick cigarette smoke had a stimulating effect. I slept very little on the whole trip back. The scenery in Arizona was beautiful and I was surprised to see volcanic cinder cones that looked like something right out of Hawaii.
In Kansas City, I was deposited on a cold, dark, subterranean platform to wait for the National Limited, as there was no access to the station. In those days, there was a through sleeping car from Los Angeles to New York. The smoking coach on that train had the fewest seats I have ever seen in a coach, with a glass divider in the middle and huge bathrooms. In the lounge car, there was an interesting assortment of hard-core drinkers, army inductees heading for basic training, and Amish who wouldn’t play cards but were interesting for conversation and ceaseless knitters. As we crossed the Mississippi river, the lounge car attendant stopped serving alcohol but lowered the blinds halfway for the benefit of the “red eyes.”
Later in the evening, I was sitting in coach as we were jolted by an emergency brake application. The train had hit a car on the tracks. Some of the inductees hopped off the train while we were stopped and stole a case of beer. But there is no escaping the law on Amtrak—in Indianapolis, the train was met by MP’s who put a hasty end to the bandits’ military careers.
The next morning as we passed through mountains of Pennsylvania, I had my only meal of the whole journey in the dining car. It was classic railroad French toast, and I will never forget it. I was then on to New York, and from there took what by that time seemed like a quick hop up to Boston. I was actually a couple hours late getting back to the school, and had a few stern words form the Rector, but it was worth it!
My family lived in Hawaii, but I had a scholarship to attend a prep school in New Hampshire. My parents could not afford to fly me home for breaks, so I would visit relatives on the mainland and travel by train. Over Christmas break at the end of 1977, I bought a “USA Rail Pass” and traveled to Oregon by way of Texas to visit my sister.
The trip started out with a chartered bus to Boston’s South Station, where a large group of fellow students and I boarded a car that had been set aside for us on the train. In the distant past, this particular school chartered trains to New York, but I felt like the accommodations we had in a brand new Amfleet Amcoach were among the finest students from the school had ever seen. I joked about sitting in my Amchair eating an Amsandwich from the Amcafe. In the bathroom, there were Amenities—Ampax Ampons?
At Penn Station, I left my classmates and boarded the Broadway Limited bound for Chicago. At that point in my life, I liked trains but was not very knowledgable. There was an older couple seated across from me, and the man kept talking loudly about going around the “Huss Show Curve.” I did not know what he was talking about—I had never heard of the “Huss Show Curve.” The next morning in Indiana, I awoke next to a bakery with a large picture of Little Miss Sunbeam on the side.
In Chicago, I boarded the Lone Star bound for Houston. I was excited to see the Hi-Level coach Amtrak had inherited from Santa Fe’s El Capitan. I stowed my suitcase downstairs, and settled in for a long night. One mundane thing that stands out in my memory is watching TV or radio tower lights appear in the distance then pass. I was impressed with the scenery in Oklahoma the next day, and with the way Fort Worth rose over the barren plains As we were arriving in Houston, someone took pot shots at our train and hit two windows in my coach. Our arrival in Houston was the first of two times on my trip that my train was met in a station by law enforcement officers.
In Houston, I transferred to the Sunset Limited bound for Los Angeles. It was also equipped with High-Level coaches. Crossing the Pecos River high bridge and seeing the not-so-grand Rio Grande were highlights. That evening, I got my usual sandwich from the cafe for dinner. It seemed odd that a turkey sandwich had a piece of ham in it. But then an hour later, I was retching in the bathroom downstairs trying to rid my stomach of what was likely not just ham. I spent a miserable night making numerous trips to the bathroom.
We arrived early the next morning in Los Angeles, and I was still not feeling well at all. It was a gray day as the Coast Starlight made its way north through a smoldering landscape that had recently been burned by brush fires. The scenery seemed to match how I felt. I vaguely remember Oakland.
But the next morning, I was feeling better and I made my way to the dome car to eat my breakfast pastry. On that icy morning in Klamath falls, several fellow passengers and I watched in amazement as a car slid through a stop sign and collided with another. Soon, we were descending the mountains into Eugene where I left the train to spend Christmas week with my sister.
My departure was on New Year’s eve, and the southbound Coast Starlight was jammed with revelers heading for the Rose Bowl. I spent the night in the dome car, where a few other passengers and I stuffed newspaper over the lights to allow an unobstructed view. It was fun to watch the girders of trestles pass overhead.
Amtrak would not reserve a half-hour connection between the Coast Starlight and Southwest Limited in Los Angeles, so I left the Starlight in Oakland and transferred to an Amfleet-eqipped San Joaquin, where the legroom and bathrooms were more spacious than the Northeast Corridor train. It was a foggy day as we traveled through the valley, and many of the fields had just been plowed—so at times all one could see out the window was brown and gray. I had my New Year’s Day dinner at the Bakersfield Greyhound station, where I later boarded a bus to Barstow. I was only 15 years old when I made this journey, and nowadays Amtrak wouldn’t allow an unaccompanied minor to make such a trip. When I think back on it, I was probably lucky to get off that bus unharmed because there were some pretty creepy characters on board.
The Barstow Amtrak station was an old, closed building with a very dark platform. But there were a few other people waiting for a tardy Southwest Limited, so the time passed quickly enough. By then on the trip, I spent almost all my time on the train in the lounge car for conversation and card games. Also, the thick cigarette smoke had a stimulating effect. I slept very little on the whole trip back. The scenery in Arizona was beautiful and I was surprised to see volcanic cinder cones that looked like something right out of Hawaii.
In Kansas City, I was deposited on a cold, dark, subterranean platform to wait for the National Limited, as there was no access to the station. In those days, there was a through sleeping car from Los Angeles to New York. The smoking coach on that train had the fewest seats I have ever seen in a coach, with a glass divider in the middle and huge bathrooms. In the lounge car, there was an interesting assortment of hard-core drinkers, army inductees heading for basic training, and Amish who wouldn’t play cards but were interesting for conversation and ceaseless knitters. As we crossed the Mississippi river, the lounge car attendant stopped serving alcohol but lowered the blinds halfway for the benefit of the “red eyes.”
Later in the evening, I was sitting in coach as we were jolted by an emergency brake application. The train had hit a car on the tracks. Some of the inductees hopped off the train while we were stopped and stole a case of beer. But there is no escaping the law on Amtrak—in Indianapolis, the train was met by MP’s who put a hasty end to the bandits’ military careers.
The next morning as we passed through mountains of Pennsylvania, I had my only meal of the whole journey in the dining car. It was classic railroad French toast, and I will never forget it. I was then on to New York, and from there took what by that time seemed like a quick hop up to Boston. I was actually a couple hours late getting back to the school, and had a few stern words form the Rector, but it was worth it!
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