greatcats
Engineer
I decided to take off a few days off from my tour bus driving job at Grand Canyon, my favorite topic. The weather is cold and business exceedingly slow, so off to San Diego, where the climate is fine. I considered the train, but don't care for the awkward early morning arrival in Williams and then having to go to work, and considered flying. But since i enjoy driving the Torota 4 Runner, the decision was to drive, and see some country that I have not passed through. Stayed one night in Yuma, and stopped by the Amtrak stop. The site seem to mainly be a UP freight facility, with no station building. A sign at the tunnel leading to the platform warned me to stay out unless I was a passenger. Not wishing to incur UP wrath, I departed and headed west on Interstate 8. Obsserved an unused looking railroad track near the Mexican border, which i think is part of a partially utilized freight line that goes in and out of Mexico. San Diego arrival early Fri. afternooon, Jan. 16 and checked into a nice downtown hotel and the car went into the garage, where it has remained. Enjoyed St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, the Zoo, the aircraft carrier Midway, and visited a jazz club. On Monday I walked over to Amtrak and the beautiful Santa Fe station. I was last in this building in 1977, when only three train per day operated SAn Diego to Los Angeles. Now there are about 12 Amtraks per day, plus Coaster commuter train six days per week. I had a printout of my reservation, with the barcode that would supposedly scan at the Quik Trak machine and issue the ticket. It did not, but insertion of the credit card did the trick. I had reserved Business Class, a bargain - with AAA discount $62, to Fullerton and back. Why Fullerton? Having been though there on the Southwest Chief, it looked like a nice station and city and I've been in LAX. So off we went at 8:10 a.m., with attendant Gloria, a peach. She is the kind of employee who makes one feel good about Amtrak. I enjoyed the ride along the ocean through San Clemente and south of San Juan Capistrano. Otherwise, the ride, in the rather nice but not plush, Business Class car, was uneventful. We were on time arriving Fullerton, and proceeded to examine the town. Nice place, yes - interesting - not really. This was MLK Day, and many businesses were closed. The local museum, which could have interested me, was closed. SO, I paced around for awhile and had a respectable sushi lunch and by early afternoon was reading the New York Times seated out on the station platform. There was brief conversation with a BNSF Road Foreman, who was checking on freight operations. Departure was at 4:40 on a fairly crowded train which gradually emptied out. I was given a small comp bottle of wine and bag of snacks from the courteous attendant. The brilliant sky rivaled a good sunset at the Grand Canyon and we passed the ocean in fading twilight. Other that being 6 minutes late due to waiting for northbound trains to pass, it was again uneventful. The service was essentially quite good, although I would not say it won awards. Fullerton was so-so - rather wish I'd gone to LAX and visitied the Mexican market near there. That's it for this report - I have the TV on here in the hotel and am watching the inauguration.
