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travelogue: mr williams takes the Sunset Limited
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by mr williams: [QB] I was in that “half-awake, half-asleep” mode when I felt the jolt that pulled us out of San Antonio. It was an exact 5.40 departure and it was just getting light, but something in the back of my brain said “there’s something not right here”. It took a few seconds whilst the sleep cleared but when it did I realised that the clock was not showing 5.40 but 6.40, and we were pulling out exactly 1 hour late. I reached for my watch to make sure of the time. So why was it still dark at that time of the morning? The answer, of course, is that we were still on Central Time as we had been for the past 900 miles. As you are no doubt aware, as you go west you get darker mornings and lighter evenings (4 minutes for every degree of longitude) so it was only now just getting light. Considering how far south we were and we still had 400 miles until the next clock change they must really have some long summer evenings in West Texas. But that didn’t explain (and I never found out) why we left an hour late. The Texas Eagle hadn’t suffered a calamitous delay and we had been at the station before 4.00am so I can only presume freight delays caused it. The first thing I noticed as I strolled into breakfast was two new faces among the dining-car staff that had joined us from the Texas Eagle. However, they stayed at the Eagle end of the diner whilst the Sunset sleeper passengers were seated at the top end. I only had two breakfast colleagues, the appropriately named Antonio from San Antonio and his wife Velda. They were travelling to Maricopa (yes, somebody actually goes there) where they were being collected by their daughter who lives near Phoenix. He was a very sprightly 79 year old retired electrical engineer who devoted much of his time to “The San Antonio Ragtime Appreciation Society”. We reached Del Rio just under an hour late and the nicotine brigade was told “three minutes only”. After a quick stretch of the legs I got back on at the far end of the train to see what the Eagle portion was like. The sleeper only had one empty roomette and the through coach was 75-80% full. But the Sunset coaches still hadn’t got above 40-50% even though we were told that far more coach passengers than normal had joined at San Antonio. The scenery was now very different; “Southfork” look-alike ranches popped up every few miles whilst from on high we were watched by Texas Eagles of the feathered variety and two F-16s from Laughlin air force base. The “Trails and Rails” service was providing a narrative in the Lounge Car but I was feeling weary so passed on that one, preferring to doze in my armchair. It was cloudy and overcast outside, and our progress was stop/start, stop/start every few minutes. The Conductor announced that the delays were being caused by an endangered species of rattlesnake setting off sensors on the track, and we had to slow down to let them get clear. I wished I could have believed him, as a rattlesnake is one of the few things left on my list of things to see in the wild in America (I saw a bear in the Sierra Nevada on just my 4th ever day in the US). Lunch was with Pat and Gordon. Pat (the Arnold Palmer look-alike) was not in the happiest of moods as at breakfast he had been in the company of somebody who had done nothing but complain incessantly about Amtrak, its service, its standards, on and on and on. “If I hadn’t been raised as a Southern Gentleman, I would have said ‘Lady, if you don’t like it, then why don’t you just….’” We got the picture. The dining-car manager announced that for the only time on the journey there would be sittings for dinner at 5.00, 6.30 and 8.15. We all went for the middle one. The skies had cleared by the time we put our watches back for the first time in almost thirty hours as we left Alpine to start an uninterrupted run of nearly four hours to El Paso. I wasn’t the only person to comment on the fact that I don’t remember seeing a freight train at all that afternoon, but as we rolled across the West Texas desert my eye caught sight of something which, although strangely familiar, I just couldn’t recognise. What on earth was it? At first I thought it was a plant as it was about two feet tall, blue-green, and easily blended in among the cactus and scrub. But no, it definitely had a face….and with the most stupid expression…..what the hell was it? And then it dawned on me….as the train thundered past it took off on a pair of the most gangly, ungainly legs you will ever see – no, it wasn’t Sharon, it was a real life Roadrunner!! I only saw it for a few seconds but it was one of the highlights of the trip. In my mind’s eye I had visions of the Roadrunner zooming past us, legs going like an egg-whisk, being chased by the Coyote on an Acme Rocket-sledge, followed by the jogger with his walkman and bringing up the rear the man from Orlando with his suitcase…….boy, had I been on that train too long…… We made up time during the afternoon and were only 20 minutes late into El Paso. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, not as hot as Layfayette had been 24 hours earlier but still enjoyable. The smokers were in their usual cluster as the jogger came up the platform. “Oh, he made it!” I exclaimed. I explained that he hadn’t got back on at New Orleans, but had run all the way to see if he could catch up with us…the group laughed, but there’s always one, isn’t there…..”You mean he’s run all the way from New Orleans!!!!.....that’s incredible!!!!” Her husband winced in embarrassment as everybody else chuckled. It just didn’t click with her, she really thought this man ran run nearly 1,200 miles since yesterday morning and in the end her husband had to take her to one side to explain as the more her friends laughed, the more confused she got, and the more her friends laughed … I decided to beat a hasty retreat as much as anything because there was something I hadn’t done for two days and was determined to do whilst we were sitting in the station, and that was to have a shave! I am not an electric razor fan and whilst showering is possible at 70mph, wet shaving is most definitely not recommended. We pulled out of El Paso exactly on time, and what before we started had been an unlikely, if not impossible, prospect of arriving in LA on time was now not out of the question. We went no more than 100 yards before Jose came on the PA with an urgent call for the Conductor to come to the snack-bar. 200 years later we slammed to a stop. After nearly 30 minutes there was an announcement apologising for the delay, but there had been a slight medical emergency. A woman had felt faint and had nearly collapsed. I couldn’t see from my sleeper, but apparently a fire engine (not an ambulance) had been called, again for the obvious reason that the fire-brigade could get a casualty off the train and track far easier than an ambulance. Fortunately, it wasn’t needed. Ken, the eye-surgeon, had been in the sightseer lounge at the time. He had examined the woman, pronounced it as nothing serious and said she was fit to continue her journey. And so to our final dinner. We had become quite a group over the past two days, my bright red “England” shirt being both a beacon and catalyst for conversation. Sharon told me that somebody had come up to her and asked “who’s that English guy – he knows everybody on the train!” I was joined by Bill, Jackie (a sleeper passenger that I had chatted to on the platform), and Charles, a coach passenger who was doing a 15 day USA/Canada rail trip which included 11 nights out of 15 on the train in coach. Rather him than me. The table opposite consisted of Antonio & Velda, Gordon and Ken, fresh from his medical duties. Pat was clearly disappointed that he turned up 30 seconds too late to join us and filled up a table with some of the smokers, although he moved to the empty seat after Charles departed early. I was surprised that we passed within a few yards of the Mexican border, but the fence was no more than four feet high, and a group of Mexican children from the settlement just the other side could be seen waving to the train and they were clearly on the US side of the border. I thought the fence would be ten to fifteen feet with barbed wire, and this was not what I was expecting at all. It was a different menu tonight, so I went for the Chicken Casserole in white wine and being the last night I allowed myself the strawberry tart instead of the fresh fruit salad. We had drunk them out of Cabernet Sauvignon the night before but they still had some suitable half-bottles in both red and white. Jackie had worked for NASA for over 30 years, but had been laid off in the late 90s and had struggled to find suitable employment since. We all nodded in sympathy (in my home city there is virtually no unemployment, and finding work is easy, but finding well-paid white collar work is another matter as so many firms have cut back on hiring and only promote from within). The obvious question you ask somebody from NASA is “did you meet any astronauts”. She had met plenty over the years, but unlike the early years most astronauts these days are anonymous to the public at large. She had, however, met some of the “greats”, including Scott Carpenter (her favourite), Jim “Houston, we have a problem” Lovell and the first American in space, Alan Shepherd. Bill was impressed but could add something of his own – he had met Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier, when he came to give a talk at his Air Force base. Ken was next – although he had never met the astronaut himself he had performed cataract operations on both the parents of Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham! This was astonishing as well as entertaining, but Antonio, who had been listening quietly, was about to trump everybody. He pulled out a small, battered photograph showing several rows on men in white coats and a man in a suit sitting in the middle of the front row. “This is me in the back row; this photo was taken when I worked at the Marshall Space Centre in Huntsville, Alabama in the 1960’s. The man in the suit is Werner von Braun.” We gasped in amazement….Werner von Braun…the head of the Apollo programme. “er…did you meet any of the astronauts?”. Only once, he said. After nearly 40 years he still got choked up remembering the only time he had ever shaken the hand of an astronaut. You would see them around the centre all the time, but thousands of people worked there, he was only a very small cog in the machine in a remote part of the complex. Everybody was busy and nobody would dream of “bothering” an astronaut for an autograph or just to make small-talk. But he would take to his grave the memory of that day in 1966 when he was working at his desk and he became aware that his supervisor was showing a couple of people around. He didn’t pay much attention, people were in and out all the time, but he heard his supervisor say “Antonio, there’s a couple of guys who want to say hello to you”. He glanced up and saw a hand being stretched out towards him. It was only when he stood up and shook the outstretched hand that he realised who the visitors were. It was Gus Grissom and Ed White. It was just a few months before they were killed in the Apollo disaster when their capsule caught fire and exploded on the launch pad. He thought Grissom was a “lovely, lovely man” and from the tears that were forming in his eyes, you could see why it was such a bitter-sweet memory. The silence around the table was electrifying. I swear to you that none of this is made up. What are the chances of finding, in a random group of unconnected people in a dining-car on a train, somebody who had met the Head of the Apollo programme, the first American in space, the first American to break the sound barrier, the first American to walk in space (Ed White) and Gus Grissom who, apart from being the second American in space and the first American to go into space twice, would probably have been the first man on the moon had he lived. It was an astonishing evening. As happened the previous night, the drinks were refuelled and the dining-car staff made no attempt to move us on as the conversation ran long into the evening. Antonio and Velda had to retire early – they were getting off in the early hours of the morning and wanted some sleep as they had had a long day – but “early” meant 10 o clock. Eventually, Gordon, Bill, Ken & I went down to the snack-bar for a night-cap and to say goodbye to Jose. Apart from the stop outside El Paso we had sat in Lordsburg for over half an hour (at least, Bill told me we had – I had been too wrapped up in the conversation to notice) but this meant that we arrived in Benson some 70 minutes late as we put our watches back for the second time in eight hours (why doesn’t Arizona have Daylight Saving Time?). It was just on midnight as I got back to my room and put my clock back an hour, dinner having started at 6.30. The final morning and I half-awoke to voices outside. We were in Yuma and were running 41 minutes late. A realisation that I had an urgent need for the bathroom woke me up far more than anticipated and so as I was now awake I fetched some juice and coffee and did some maths. We were 251 miles from our destination and we had 5 hours and 10 minutes to achieve an on-time arrival. There is considerable padding in the westbound schedule but the eastbound timetable shows LA – Yuma as 4 hours 54 minutes. Therefore, there was little to spare but it could still be done, and I could have the distinction of having been on the Sunset Ltd the day it got to LA on time…..we pulled about a mile out of Yuma station and stopped for 45 minutes. Breakfast was being served from 6.00 – 8.00 and I was in fairly early. The dining-car was quiet and I started with a table to myself before being joined by Jackie, Bill and Gordon over the next twenty minutes or so. Breakfast over and it was goodbye to the dining-car attendant Mike (I had left a tip with every meal but I gave him an extra $10 as he had done a good job of looking after me). Bill had a copy of “National Geographic” with him, as apparently we were going to be right on top of the exact route of the San Andreas Fault for about the next 40 miles. Thanks, Bill, that’s very comforting! We really were rattling along and had made up some time since the delay outside Yuma, but sadly for the smokers Palm Springs was only a three-minute stop. I never realised that Palm Springs was a giant wind-farm and considering I saw little urban development can only assume that the station isn’t well placed for the centre of town. 106 miles to go and 100 minutes to do it, and we really were going a good clip. Even if we missed the on-time arrival, there was no danger of my missing the 12.30 Surfliner, and Gordon was hoping that he might make an earlier than intended connection to San Diego as he was now odds-on favourite to make it for the 11.00am. Road signs were starting to countdown the miles to Los Angeles…98….84….76…..65…..54…we hadn’t even slowed down once since we left Palm Springs. It was time to start packing my stuff and make sure nothing had been left behind, although I left the gallon of water in the jacket closet (well, it was unopened and the use by date is October 2005, so it will probably come in useful before then!). We had covered approximately 2,710 miles, there were just 54 to go, and we were more or less on time, so how come we arrived in Los Angeles 3 hours and 38 minutes late? I was wondering how to break it to you, as you were probably all willing me on, but I thought I’d put you out of your misery now as at this point the wheels start coming off. They were almost literally coming off, but not our wheels, those of the freight train in front of us. We stopped for the first time since Palm Springs about 10 miles from Ontario, and couldn’t really complain given the run we had had. However, a 10 minute delay became 20, then 30, then the Conductor came on to announce that the freight train ahead of us had stopped because their sensors had shown problems with the wheel bearings, and were having to be checked. 40 minutes, 50, one hour, and the next announcement is that the freight has a serious problem, and they have had to call out an inspector/engineer. 70 minutes, 80, 90, 100, 110 minutes and the good news is that the freight train is fixed, and we will soon be on our way. We went about five miles, then stopped again. The crew of the freight train had “timed out”, as they had done their allotted shift and couldn’t do any more (can somebody explain, is this a contractual/Union regulation, or is it Health & Safety that they can only do so many hours no matter what? If it’s the latter, I can understand why they have it, but if your flight is running late can you imagine the Pilot coming on the intercom and saying “sorry folks, time’s up, I can’t fly the plane any more!”) so we would have to wait for the replacement crew to come from LA as the original crew had gone off and left the freight train blocking the track ahead of us (ok, possibly this was unavoidable but we were on double track line and had been since the hold-up started). Jose, who had announced that the snack-bar would close at Ontario, came on to say that it was still open and would remain so until we reached Ontario, whenever that would be. This second hold up was another 60 minutes but to give Amtrak their due they kept us informed throughout. I did, however, start to wonder just how long we would be stuck and if I might need that bottle of water after all. A few of us had gathered around the coffee machine, passing the time. Gordon was not going to get either of his intended connections and I was highly unlikely to make mine. We eventually got going again but the next announcement sent Sharon’s state of fluster to DEFCON 1. All passengers connecting to the Bakersfield bus, the San Joaquins or connecting with the Coast Starlight at Sacramento would be bussed from Ontario to Bakersfield, so get you stuff ready as we’re arriving in Ontario NOW! She didn’t have her manifest to hand, so she flew up the sleeper car, knocking on every door, frantically trying to remember who was going where, and helping to drag cases along the corridor for those passengers who were making a hurried and far from dignified exit from the train. They needn’t have hurried, as we sat in Ontario for another 30 minutes. We made slow progress the rest of the way and I was worried that we were running so late I now wouldn’t make the 2.55pm and would have to wait for over four hours for the 7.00pm to SBA. Eventually the tracks came into sight, and we pulled in at 2.48pm, 3hours and 38 minutes late, and leaving me with 7 minutes to make my connection. There were a few hurried handshakes on the platform, a $20 tip for Sharon (not a lot for three nights, perhaps, but I hadn’t used her as a “gopher” once, and all she had done was put the beds up and down so I thought it not an unreasonable amount), and now where’s that Surfliner? Like the people at Ontario, I needn’t have worried, as it was showing as 24 minutes late. That meant there was time for a large Gin and Tonic in the bar, and as the board changed to 43 minutes late, time for a second one. Next week: Part 4 - The Epilogue: mr williams in wet and windy Santa Barbara, the Pacific Surfliner and my thoughts on a remarkable three day journey [/QB][/QUOTE]
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