greatcats
Engineer
I spent five nights in San Francisco, the main purpose was to attend the Gathering, but I also spent the evenings going to three symphonies at Davies Hall, a jazz piano trio at the San Francisco Jazz Center on Frankln Street,, and a full length silent movie accompanie by a Mighty Wurlitzer at the Castro Theater. Monday i spent riding cable cars and attending a midday prayer service at Grace Cathedral. I will leave it to others to comment on the Gathering, which I certainly did enjoy and my thanks go to Alan and colleagues for their good work in assembling our event.
I had flown from Flagstaff via Phoenix on US Air Thursday afternoon. The first flight was late and missed the connection at Phoenix, and the airline booked me on the next flight nearly three hours later. I was not too pleased, but it did not matter much, arriving San Francisco shortly after 6:30 pm, which was actually 20 minutes early!
Tuesday morning I took the MUNI train down to the Embarcadero and obtained breakfast at Noah's Bagels, which was consumed in the dingy Ferry Building Amtrak station. I heard that this station is supposed to move to a new transit center. The present station is well located, but a dreary place. The bus took me over the bridge in plenty of time for the CZ, and we departed on time. ( I really like Emeryville station, whiich IS a pleasant place to wait. )This was an AGR points run, so i am not going to make any formal complaints and overall it was a great ride to Denver, where I am writing this in a hotel several blocks from the newly re-opened Union Station. I was in Roomette 2 of the very last car, which I enjoyed, becuase I really appreciated some of the vistas from the rear of the train. My SCA, Linda, was a pleasant lady who was nice enough to the passengers, but could have paid some more attention to the restrooms, sorry to say.
Everything went smoothly until we lingered in Sacramento station. The problem was a mechanical issue - I heard something about brake rigging - with the old Heritage baggage car. A manager was called to assess the matter and the decision was to remove this car from the train. Naturally, the power had to be cut off when the baggage cars and locomotives uncoupled from the rest of the train. ( I was bemused by one lady passenger remarking that she could not understand why the power was off because of a problem with the baggage car. ) This delayed the start of the serving of lunch, but the staff had already taken the orders and the food came out rapidly when the power returned. The baggage car was moved to an adjacent track in Sacramento station and we heard a crew of four transferred the baggage to the compartment in one of the coaches. This resulted in a delayed departure of an hour, most of which we made up.
Regarding the food on this trip, I was not too enthused. The " special " at lunch was a new concoction: Turkey Meatballs with Marinara Sauce and mashed potatoes. My verdict: Not horrible, but definitely mediocre. For dinner I had the traditional steak, which was pretty good, with a peppercorn sauce of meager potency, baked potato, and vegetables made up of beans and carrots, which I thought was a modest improvement over some of the other blah vegetable selections I've had.
Cheescake with strawberry sauce is commercial, but quite tasty, and no complaints about the wine.
For breakfast I had the frittata - I did not care much for it. For lunch today I had the Angus burger. I do not order burgers very much, but I find the menu choices so limited it was what appealed to me the most. I was entitled to dinner, but passed, as I had in mind an Italian resturant here in Denver, which was definitely several cuts above the Amtrak cuisine.
As indicated above, i wasn't too thrilled with the food, but I did compliment the dining car staff. The LSA, a young man named Loren, was very professional and courteous, and the two lady servers both did a good job. The cook? She did what she could with what she was provided by the company.
This is not the first time I have ridden the California Zephyr, having ridden it westbound in 1981 when it was still run by the Rio Grande. I've been on it at least three other times, but this was the first time to ride it east from California. For the most part my sleeper was in fairly good condition and my room was comfortable enough. The onboard crews and operating crews were very good, except for too many loud and frequent announcements from the snack bar guy.
Other than a freight delaying us early in the morning near Provo, and another slight delay outside of Denver waiting for a Maintenance of Way crew to finish up, we sailed along quite smoothly, and when we finally backed into the station in Denver, the arrival was only about 15 minutes off. In conclusion, even if this train was a rolling dump, the ride across this part of America is one of the great travel experiences to be had. Friday morning I will be on the bus connection to Raton, then SWC back to Flagstaff. ( I was keeping tabs on Mr. Hudson's progress on the previous day's CZ, to transfer to the Texas Eagle via van from Galesburg. They were running late and he was nervous, but he made the connection! )
I had flown from Flagstaff via Phoenix on US Air Thursday afternoon. The first flight was late and missed the connection at Phoenix, and the airline booked me on the next flight nearly three hours later. I was not too pleased, but it did not matter much, arriving San Francisco shortly after 6:30 pm, which was actually 20 minutes early!
Tuesday morning I took the MUNI train down to the Embarcadero and obtained breakfast at Noah's Bagels, which was consumed in the dingy Ferry Building Amtrak station. I heard that this station is supposed to move to a new transit center. The present station is well located, but a dreary place. The bus took me over the bridge in plenty of time for the CZ, and we departed on time. ( I really like Emeryville station, whiich IS a pleasant place to wait. )This was an AGR points run, so i am not going to make any formal complaints and overall it was a great ride to Denver, where I am writing this in a hotel several blocks from the newly re-opened Union Station. I was in Roomette 2 of the very last car, which I enjoyed, becuase I really appreciated some of the vistas from the rear of the train. My SCA, Linda, was a pleasant lady who was nice enough to the passengers, but could have paid some more attention to the restrooms, sorry to say.
Everything went smoothly until we lingered in Sacramento station. The problem was a mechanical issue - I heard something about brake rigging - with the old Heritage baggage car. A manager was called to assess the matter and the decision was to remove this car from the train. Naturally, the power had to be cut off when the baggage cars and locomotives uncoupled from the rest of the train. ( I was bemused by one lady passenger remarking that she could not understand why the power was off because of a problem with the baggage car. ) This delayed the start of the serving of lunch, but the staff had already taken the orders and the food came out rapidly when the power returned. The baggage car was moved to an adjacent track in Sacramento station and we heard a crew of four transferred the baggage to the compartment in one of the coaches. This resulted in a delayed departure of an hour, most of which we made up.
Regarding the food on this trip, I was not too enthused. The " special " at lunch was a new concoction: Turkey Meatballs with Marinara Sauce and mashed potatoes. My verdict: Not horrible, but definitely mediocre. For dinner I had the traditional steak, which was pretty good, with a peppercorn sauce of meager potency, baked potato, and vegetables made up of beans and carrots, which I thought was a modest improvement over some of the other blah vegetable selections I've had.
Cheescake with strawberry sauce is commercial, but quite tasty, and no complaints about the wine.
For breakfast I had the frittata - I did not care much for it. For lunch today I had the Angus burger. I do not order burgers very much, but I find the menu choices so limited it was what appealed to me the most. I was entitled to dinner, but passed, as I had in mind an Italian resturant here in Denver, which was definitely several cuts above the Amtrak cuisine.
As indicated above, i wasn't too thrilled with the food, but I did compliment the dining car staff. The LSA, a young man named Loren, was very professional and courteous, and the two lady servers both did a good job. The cook? She did what she could with what she was provided by the company.
This is not the first time I have ridden the California Zephyr, having ridden it westbound in 1981 when it was still run by the Rio Grande. I've been on it at least three other times, but this was the first time to ride it east from California. For the most part my sleeper was in fairly good condition and my room was comfortable enough. The onboard crews and operating crews were very good, except for too many loud and frequent announcements from the snack bar guy.
Other than a freight delaying us early in the morning near Provo, and another slight delay outside of Denver waiting for a Maintenance of Way crew to finish up, we sailed along quite smoothly, and when we finally backed into the station in Denver, the arrival was only about 15 minutes off. In conclusion, even if this train was a rolling dump, the ride across this part of America is one of the great travel experiences to be had. Friday morning I will be on the bus connection to Raton, then SWC back to Flagstaff. ( I was keeping tabs on Mr. Hudson's progress on the previous day's CZ, to transfer to the Texas Eagle via van from Galesburg. They were running late and he was nervous, but he made the connection! )
