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travelogue: mr williams takes the Sunset Limited
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by mr williams: [QB] “Am I brave, foolish, or just plain mad” was the thread I posted last September having booked a coast-to-coast trip on the Sunset Ltd. I posed the question not because there is a predisposition to madness in the williams gene (although some might disagree) but due to the number of horror stories I had heard about getting stuck in the Arizona Desert for hours on end with no water, sanitation or air-conditioning and arriving in LA a whole day late etc. Even a tough old coot like me might have their patience tested by such an experience but given that the sleeper supplement was only half what I was being asked for on my two possible alternative trips (Chicago-LA on the Eagle/Sunset or Chicago-San Luis Obispo on the Empire Builder/Coast Starlight via Portland), also that I really wanted to see something of the southern states and that the williams spirit of adventure still has some gas left in the tank it really was too good an offer to turn down. So, eight months later, it was off to the airport and Florida here we come. The holiday couldn’t have started better as when I got to the departure gate the nice man explained to me that the flight was full, so I had been upgraded from Economy to Business Class to help fit everybody in. Yes, I think I could live with that, thank you very much! Business class really takes the pain out of transatlantic travel. We took off under grey skies and to my surprise, headed due west. On every previous flight I’ve taken to America, we’ve flown out over south-west Scotland (for obvious reasons, the town of Lockerbie no longer appears on the in-flight maps) but this time we were heading out a different way, and I suddenly realised that it would take me over my childhood home. The clouds had cleared and my mind took me back forty years to when I was a small boy and would look up at the jets flying high overhead. We lived right next to a railway line, and that’s where I got my interest in trains. Passenger services had been withdrawn several years before, the line had been reduced to single-track, and the closure of a local coal-mine and a brick factory reduced traffic even further but there was still a trickle of fright and coal trains throughout my youth. There were never any trains on weekends and it was commonplace to see people (even my law abiding parents) walking their dogs along the tracks or using them as a short cut to get to the local soccer pitch and sports club. Although illegal there was almost an unwritten local understanding that nobody trespassed on weekdays but trainless weekends and public holidays were fair game. We never once saw a police officer or railway official as in those days they probably really did have better things to do with their time. To get around a particularly steep area, a very prominent horseshoe curve had taken the track over two small river valleys, and although the line was finally closed and lifted in the early 1980’s the horseshoe of the old trackbed could clearly still be seen from six miles above the ground. It was a very poignant moment as I have not visited this area for many, many years. My mother passed away twenty years ago last month and my family, childhood friends and former neighbours have either all moved away from the area or are themselves no longer with us, so I have had no cause to go there for nearly two decades. I really must go back one day….. Sunday morning dawned over Orlando and to my surprise I woke to hear the sound of heavy rain lashing against the motel window. The local news channel reported that there had been severe thunderstorms and flooding over the Florida panhandle and I wondered if there might be problems ahead. I thought of calling Amtrak but decided that there was no point in worrying about it. I was on vacation, I wasn’t in a hurry and if the line was flooded there was nothing I could do about it anyway. It was a humid, steamy morning but by 9.00am the rain had stopped so after breakfast I strolled to the nearby garage shop to stock up on provisions for the trip. I always travel light and never check baggage, picking up any bits and pieces I need on the way. My most unusual purchase was a one gallon container of drinking water ($1.09) which I thought might become priceless at some point in the next three days! The station at Orlando was crowded with several hundred people, most of whom were awaiting the southbound Silver Meteor which was showing as “on time” and therefore due in the next few minutes. I picked up my ticket from a very disinterested counter clerk who never looked up once, preferring to chat to his colleague, and strolled out onto the busy platform. The sound of a train horn caused everybody to pick up their bags and move forward but whilst it was indeed an Amtrak train that was approaching, I could see that it was a “Superliner” consist so couldn’t have been the Meteor. It wasn’t doing more than about 10mph but it went straight through the station without stopping, much to the consternation of one Silver Meteor passenger, a man in his late 50s who picked up his bag and started running after it! Fortunately, an Amtrak employee caught up with him before he could get too far down the track and he rather sheepishly shuffled back into a corner of the platform whilst a number of onlookers had varying degrees of success in trying to suppress their laughter. 12.20 became 12.30, 12.40 and 12.50, and the train had still not arrived, nor had there been any update to the “on time” which was still showing on the information board. I couldn’t help thinking that the person who issued my ticket was the same person responsible for making announcements. To be fair, one Amtrak employee on the platform was on his radio, loudly berating somebody over the lack of information and a minute or so later an announcement was made apologising for the “slight” delay, and the train would be here “in two or three minutes”. At 1.05 it would be here “very soon” and at 1.15 its arrival was “imminent”. At 1.20 it finally rolled in and I would estimate that about 120 people got off, and about the same number got on. It departed at 1.32, just over one hour late, leaving the stage clear for the main event, which would be here “in 7 or 8 minutes”. At 1.48 (already three minutes after departure time) the consist that I had seen going the other way some 90 minutes earlier rolled in and was announced as Train #1, the Sunset Limited. Just one engine, transition sleeper, sleeper, diner, sightseer lounge, 2 coach (the second of which was a coach/baggage) and for whatever reason another sightseer lounge (no separate baggage wagon but one was later hooked onto the rear, presumably from the Texas Eagle at San Antonio). Unusually, the sleeper attendants checked the tickets on the platform (in the past the Conductor has come around to collect them in the rooms after departure) and I made my way to Room E on the upper level. I was on the right-hand side of the train which meant that there was the slight disappointment of having the sofa face away from the direction of travel, so the armchair would have to be used for much of the journey. However, unlike my 2003 trip on the Southwest Chief at least the windows were clean. This was the first time I had travelled in a deluxe sleeper and I settled in to what would be my home for the next 71 hours (assuming we arrived on time), with large atlas, binoculars and camera at the ready. It was an inauspicious start as we didn’t roll out of Orlando until 2.03, so we were already 18 minutes late before we had gone anywhere. The sleeper attendant, Sharon, came in to introduce herself. A slightly nervous, always looking flustered woman in her 40s, she was a “spare” on the roster so worked whatever route was needed to cover for staff absences and vacations etc. She made no secret of the fact that the SL was her least favourite route due to the frequent delays, the sheer length of the journey and the countless permutations of sleeper passengers getting on and off, but she did her job professionally and with courtesy, she was always “on view”, made sure that the coffee and juices were always replenished, the beds put up and down when required and you cannot ask for anything more. Apparently, there used to be a second sleeper car from Orlando, but it had been taken off towards the end of last year (Sharon had heard it would be restored for the peak summer months), but this meant that there was only one empty standard berth once we left Jacksonville and this was due to be occupied from Pensacola. All the public sleepers in the transition car were occupied and several passengers complained that they had booked deluxe many months in advance, only to get a call from Amtrak later on telling them they had been downgraded to standard. In coach, it was a different story – I would estimate that even after Jacksonville there was no more than about 35% occupancy, everybody travelling solo had a double seat to themselves and there were a number of empty doubles. The couple in the next sleeper to me were only travelling as far as New Orleans. I knew this as the very loud southern gentleman spent much of the first hour shouting to the people who were going to collect them from the station. Why he didn’t use a telephone I don’t know, but the volume made me glad he wasn’t going all the way to Los Angeles….. We headed north, and I understood why some Trainweb members had recommended Winter Park as an alternative joining point. The sun had come out and it looked a very pleasant place to spend a few hours. I was surprised at how rural and isolated much of the route was between Orlando and Jacksonville. We had the most wonderful sight of a large, white bird (either a stork or a crane) which had caught a fish and was carrying it in its claws as for a few seconds it flew parallel to the train but about an hour into our journey I saw the first of several really astonishing wildlife sights. We had stopped for no apparent reason for a few minutes and as we pulled away again, I looked down to see, not 12 feet from the tracks, what I thought at first glance were two large farm fowl of some sort, possibly turkeys, but upon taking a closer look I saw that they were VULTURES. I’m not joking; they were straight out of cartoon time, jet black with a few red markings, the famous hooked neck and an evil expression, feasting on a sizeable fish carcass. Sadly I didn’t have time a get a photo as even I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I thought I might see something like that in the Arizona desert but not here. We had our first announcement from the dining car manager: there would be no sittings for dinner, it would be “first come first served”, and both the dining car and snack bar would be open from around 5.00pm. We were already slipping behind schedule, the 18 minutes at the start had become 27 by DeLand and 36 by Palatka, and I wondered if it was an omen that as we backed into Jacksonville at just before 6.00pm the skies darkened and the rain began to fall, but hunger was now uppermost in my mind so I headed for the restaurant. I normally eat around 7.00 in the evening so I had ignored the first call to dinner but with my body-clock still on UK time and thinking that there might be an influx of people after Jacksonville I thought I’d get down there just before we reached the station and avoid the line. I needn’t have worried. There were only seven people in the diner, so I made up the second table of four with three people from coach. Dining companion number 1 was a young man of 23 who was going to visit a friend in Pensacola. As a Brit, I always find it astonishing to hear a 23 year old say that (apart from the New York subway) it was the first time he had ever been on a train. It was only because it was a late decision to travel meant that he couldn’t get a cheap flight at a convenient time that somebody had suggested Amtrak and he had decided to give it a try. Dining companion number 2 was a lady in her 60s who was only going as far as Tallahassee and number 3 an elderly, somewhat scruffy gent who sadly was difficult to understanding due to speaking difficulties, but we ascertained that he was going all the way to LAX in coach to meet his daughter who was arranging medical treatment for his throat. There was an eerie silence as everything had gone quiet, and the dining-car manager came along and apologised for the delay in our food arriving, but they had lost all power to the kitchen, and it was about 20 minutes before it was restored. Happily, the throat problem didn’t affect number 3’s appetite or his ability to eat as when the food did eventually arrive he demolished the salmon, as did number 2, whilst number 1 and myself tucked into an immaculate loin of pork, so tender it fell off the bone, washed down by a very agreeable half bottle of Californian Cabernet Sauvignon. A number of sleeper passengers had joined at Jacksonville and over the next hour the diner got busier, but it was noticeable that only two or three come from the other direction. It also became apparent that the dining-car manager only had one assistant, but the two of them coped without any problem whatsoever, apart from the temporary power loss. Dinner over and I returned to my sleeper, on the way having to assist two elderly ladies who, despite it being a smooth ride, were having trouble getting around in a moving train (I dread to think how they would have managed on the SWC across Missouri and Kansas – on that trip people were being thrown everywhere and one jolt literally lifted me off my bed). They were in A or B and went all the way to LAX but this was the only time I saw them as Sharon took the rest of their meals to their room for them for the rest of the trip. I’m not a movie fan and was content to watch, in the words of the hymn, “the golden evening brighten in the west” as the rain had cleared and we were again travelling under blue skies, but the effects of the previous day’s heavy rain could be seen in the fields and by the side of the tracks. Just as my body-clock was reminding me that it was nearly 1.00am in England and I was contemplating z-z-z-z-z-ville the gentleman next door once again decided to have a conversation with somebody several hundred miles away so I thought that a stroll to the lounge for a nightcap might not be such a bad idea after all. There were about 30 people spread out across the two levels of the lounge car, half of them watching the film, some chatting among themselves, and a group of four downstairs who, although no problem whatsoever, had clearly been having a very heavy session at the bar. The snack bar attendant was Jose, an Amtrak veteran with 18 years service, who usually did either the SL or the SWC, but until it was axed, his main run used to be the late, lamented Desert Wind. As LA-Las Vegas comes up as a discussion topic probably more times than anything else on Trainweb, I asked him for his views on why it was axed, why Amtrak didn’t just keep the service as far as Las Vegas, and what was the chance of a Vegas restoration? He made some very interesting comments. Ridership had dropped off sharply in the early 90s and reducing the Desert Wind to three days a week had only made matters worse. Loadings on some trips had fallen to totally unsustainable levels – he recalled one journey where the number on board hadn’t exceeded ELEVEN at any point between LAX and Salt Lake City (Mr. Mineta would love that one). His most interesting comment, though, was on the possible role of the Las Vegas casinos in funding or subsidizing a train. “No problem at all – a number of them offered to do it in 1997 when the line was under threat and they’d do it today – but only if the train stopped at or near their own particular casino.” It’s so obvious when you think about it, isn’t it? The Vegas strip is what, six or eight miles long? You couldn’t stop in a dozen different places and the casinos aren’t going to put considerable dollars into something that drops you a) miles away and b) right outside their competitors. I pondered this as we chatted, but we were eventually approaching Tallahassee some 52 minutes late (and much to the relief of the smokers who had been unable to indulge their craving since Jacksonville) and it really was “next stop z-z-z-z-z-ville”, and time to turn in. Next week, Part 2: "Bring me an alligator - and make it snappy!" [/QB][/QUOTE]
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