Hardcore Training With Amtrak
Despite the signage, I've not actually had to show ID to get on the train; The Quik-Trak kiosk scanned my booking confirmation & printed me out a couple of boarding passes, and a nice if beset by people with questions lady pointed me at the Metropolitan Lounge, which people with sleeper tickets get access to, probably due to Awesomeness.
Once IN said Metropolitan Lounge, I was pointed to the conductor for train 5, the California Zephyr.
The conductor for this train looks exactly like what I expected for a conductor; Portly older guy with a full beard & a direct but relaxed manner.
The lounge is a bit like a retro-styled airport lounge. Chairs/benches, people sitting around, wood panelling, that sort of thing.
The car attendant's name is Greg, and he seems like a friendly & on-to-it guy.
The train rocks back & forth on occasion, fairly suddenly, so grabbing handholds is going to be a thing. Don't think there's enough room to be thrown out of bed, though I could maybe get wedged between door & bed if I lost some weight.
The plan was for this to be a relaxing trip, and I think it's working; I've already nodded off a few times, and the trip started maybe 50 minutes ago.
The roomette is just long enough that I can rest my feet on the seat opposite, and I've stowed my bags, at the suggestion of Clay in the roomette opposite, whose feet can be seen in one of my photos, in the partially-folded down top bunk. Gives me more room, and makes things less obvious to people walking the hall, such as the guy who blatantly checked out the room as he wandered past on his second trip up & down the carriage.
I don't have any form of internets on the train, but I just discovered that I can use the map function in the picture viewer on my phone to track where, roughly, I am. There's no context, but it'll give me an idea of where I am.
Just passed through Sandwich, Illinois.
I thought you'd all like to know.
Don't want to alarm anyone, but I may have just spotted a hill, or at least some non-flat terrain, at 15:37.
16:10 - The announcer just told us, in tones of resigned "you should have listened earlier", that getting off the train for a cigarette at a non-designated smoke stop means you'll need your receipt, or some more money, to get back on.
Or you can catch the next train, tomorrow.
"We're not fooling around with this."
17:00 - Apparently what I'll be doing this trip is napping, because I just cannot stay awake. I probably haven't had an early night in over a week, so combine that with getting up early and there's some serious sleep debt happening.
Forgot to mention: Earlier I spotted what was probably a deer, bounding through essentially deer-high crops of some sort.
18:00-ish. I THINK we just crossed the Mississippi into Iowa. It's a ... wide ... river?
Looks like the train is running around a half-hour slow, which isn't that much worse than some of my flights.
2150ish - I have eaten a steak on a train, and it was pretty good. The way they do seating here is to allocate people into four-seat booths, though in this case it was the end of the dinner rush, so there was only one other person, a yoga instructor travelling in coach to go to see her daughter, who'd just given birth.
About the same time I got back, Greg the Car Attendant came by to build my bed, in which I am currently lying. It's surprisingly comfortable, though I'd not want to be any taller. Or wider.
The curtains on the corridor side block almost all of the light and almost none of the noise, though the train is nice and cool; I've read stories of trips in cars with faulty aircon, where the heaters just won't turn off.
Time, I think, to get some sleep.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Turns out that there's so little of anything out here that sleeping with the curtains open has a similar effect to having them drawn; Bugger-all light comes in at night.
Thus, I left them open, allowing the perception of a little more room, and for one of those gradual 'Wake With The Dawn' things. Also the occasional "Hey, there are lights. Wonder where the hell we are?"
Getting up to go to the restroom is an involved process, as it involves putting on shirt, pants & shoes in a narrow, unpredictably moving space.
I think it's around 3am Mountain Time, but I'm not sure, so I'm leaving the clock alone for now. We just paused (briefly) at Holdrege, Nevada.
7:30 ( or 6:30 ) - Probably in Colorado now.
It may be time to ATTEMPT an on-train shower.
...
OK, that basically worked.
They have a 'hit the button for 30 seconds of water" system, which seems to work fine.
Post-shower I had breakfast, and have now eaten steel-cut oatmeal on a train, while chatting to a New Jersey Grandmother. Oddly, she was very nice, which runs directly against what the Yoga Instructor at dinner said.
Come to think of it, said yoga instructor did mention spending her layover at Chicago Union Station drinking IPAs, so maybe there was an element of The Booze there.
9:04 - Set the clock back an hour, as we's on Mountain Time now.
The train is now in Denver, taking on passengers & stuff.
Did actually leave the train, briefly, to stand on the platform, but aside from a view of the train, there's not a whole lot on offer at Denver station.
It's less crowded than LAX, I suppose.
We're climbing up and out of Denver now, and are in actual mountains (Mountains, Gandalf!), with the attendant tunnels & windings back & forth that such things entail.
I did go to the lounge car, where there are bigger windows which go a little bit onto the roof, but it's kind of crowded in there, and the seats are either full, or (charitably) being saved for a friend who's just nipped off to get their camera, or go to the loo.
There are some people from the Trails & Rails Society giving a commentary, which is interesting, but to be honest, my roomette suits me fine, I don't have to stand, and Clay in the roomette opposite has his door open, so I can see some of what's happening out of that side too.
Mostly it's The Scenic, sometimes with The Train IN The Scenic.
Also tunnels.
This is a spectacular place; Anyone up for tramping in an area with eagles, elk & bears?
I saw some form of bird earlier, but I've got no idea what sort; Had the wingtip feathering & flight pattern of something predatory, so maybe an eagle? Or maybe something hawkish.
Currently passing through the 6.2 mile long Moffat Tunnel.
No photos, because, really, what's the point?
We've just left Fraser/Winter Park, elevation 9000'. Kind of reminds me of the more built-up areas of Oakune or National Park, which is unsurprising, as it's a ski resort town.
The café car attendant plays "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" when she announces that she's going on a break.
This is a very relaxing way to travel; I keep doing the 'nodding off' thing from yesterday.
When I last heard, the train was running maybe 2 hours late, though there's a chance they'll make up the time 'in the desert', according to my breakfast companions. Well, two of them; The third didn't say anything to us, and seemed to be dealing with emails throughout the meal.
Road sign spotted in Glenwood Canyon:
Exit 119
No Name
1/2 mile
We are at Grand Junction, and Greg the Car Attendant cannot, it seems, be found; At least whoever is on the intercom can't find him, though I think I can hear him.
Hope we didn't leave him behind at Glenwood Springs; That'd be embarrassing.
Dinner tonight will be taken in my room, because I can.
~urp~
Dinner was good, and while I've had good experiences with the shared tables at last nights dinner & at breakfast, having a meal with nobody but myself, Clay in the roomette opposite, and Greg making his deliveries was kind of nice too.
Dear Gods, Utah is barren. Spectacular, but barren.
Sitting in a marshalling yard in Who Knows Were, Utah.
And now we're in Nevada.
We passed through Lovelock while breakfast happened; Incidentally, I can report that a 'biscuit' is basically a light unsweetened scone.
We're currently in Reno, or maybe Sparks, Nevada.
The announcer's standard "don't wander off" included a specific reference to not wandering upstairs to hit a casino; "You'll have just enough time to run upstairs, put a quarter into a slot machine, run downstairs, and see the train leave without you."
Something I forgot to mention earlier; The sleeper car ahead of us, #532, had some form of breakdown in the toilet system yesterday, so there have been people coming into #533 to use 'our' toilets. Passing through #532 on my way back from the lounge car* I noted a distinct whiff of outhouse in there, and that was from the top of the stairs, so downstairs, where most of the toilets are, must have been pretty bad.
* there are some great views from there, and swivel seats, but I prefer to be in my room at the longer stops. no idea whether there's actually an ISSUE of people coming aboard & 'foraging', but I'd prefer not to take a risk on this.
if it means I miss out on a convenient swivel seat for the trip through the mountains, well, so be it.
Turns out that the commentary for this section of the trip, which includes Donner Lake, is piped to every car in the train. Granted, anything on the left has to be at a very specific vertical position for me to be able to see it out of Clay's window, but it means that I don't have to cram into the Lounge Car, which was sort of packed going through the Rockies.
Oh, and we're in California now.
Have now seen Donner Lake. It's quite large, as it happens, and looks to have a bunch of recreational boating & the like.
There's some wonderful examples of The Scenic here. I've taken photos where I could, though the trees have a habit of leaping into shot at the last moment.
Just had a burger on a train, and it was pretty damn good.
~urp~
We're about to pass/meet train 6, the California Zephyr heading back to Chicago; I'm wondering whether the various conductors & attendants crack the doors open and do a massively unsafe series of high-fives.
...
Sadly, no high-fives.
Looks like, at this point, we are about an hour behind schedule, which isn't too bad, I think.
Clay, who is a retired cop, agreed with my idea that trying to walk from the bus drop-off (The train doesn't go all the way into SF, so the bus takes you the last bit from Emeryville to San Francisco) wouldn't be a good idea, since, with two bags, I'd be an obvious tourist & easy target.
I think I just passed a road-cone factory. Pallets of road cones, some of them plastic-wrapped, like a field of leeched .AVIs ready for playing.
We seem to have picked up a buttload of time in the last little while; we're in Davis, and are maybe 7 minutes behind schedule.
Clay abandoned train at Martinez, and was kind enough to keep an eye on my (packed) bags while I went to buy a souvenir hat. And break a 50 so as not to get TOTALLY screwed by a taxi driver.
He'd transported a box of Dunkin' Donuts Apple Fritters all the way from Chicago for his father in law, who, it seems, has an apple fritter problem. Amazingly, said fritters didn't end up squished. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that three-day-old unrefrigerated apple fritters are a thing you'd want, ...
My little hand-cranked torch just came in handy for checking under the seats in my roomette for dropped & lost items. These things must be hellish to clean; They're all confined spaces & hard-to-reach nooks & crannies.
Five minutes behind schedule in Richmond, the second-to-last stop for the train.
OK, so, as a quick wrap-up to the trip.
Detrained without incident, and gladly tipped Greg the Car Attendant for his excellent work. (it was his first trip as a car attendant)
The train takes you to Emeryville, and there's a bus to SF. There was more than one group of people who hadn't realised that the trip into SF needed it's own ticket, which sort of surprised me. I mean, when I booked mine, I did it as a Chicago to San Francisco trip, and let Amtrak's systems figure out the rest for me; I can only assume they booked to Emeryville because that's where the train stops, as opposed to SF, where they actually needed to be.
There was some last-minute ticket-buying.
Trip into SF wasn't bad, but compared to a nice comfy roomette, bus seats suck. :)
Let's leave it there, shall we?
Thus ends the rambling train of consciousness of my trip from Chicago to San Francisco.
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