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travelogue: mr williams takes the Sunset Limited
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by mr williams: [QB] The second large Gin and Tonic was not a good idea. I hadn’t realised that it was nearly nine hours since breakfast, I hadn’t had any lunch so I was effectively drinking on a empty stomach. As I wandered back towards the platform I ran into Gordon for the final time. He had hoped to catch the 11.00am to San Diego but would now be on the 4.10pm. I got on the train and made myself comfortable in business class only to find, as the train pulled out just under an hour late, that I was facing backwards and not on the coastal side of the train. I was perplexed for a moment but the explanation was simple – on every previous occasion I’ve taken the Surfliner the engine has been at the front of the train heading south between SLO & LA but this time it was leading as we went north. I had wandered onto the platform, seen the engine and assumed it to be the back of the train when it was the front. A trip to the snack-bar was called for to mop up the Gin and I installed myself in my changed seat, complete with coffee and sandwich, to read the newspaper as we rolled through the LA suburbs. I realised I hadn’t seen a newspaper since we left Florida and it suddenly occurred to me that on my previous trips there had been newspapers on the CZ and SWC for sleeper passengers, but none on the Sunset. Have they been axed? At one suburban stop we had to reverse back out of the station into a siding to let a freight train pass. As we pulled away a woman standing on the platform waiting for a southbound train just looked in horror, mouth wide open, as she thought she had missed her train but at least she didn’t try chasing after us. It was stop-start-stop-start but we eventually reached Santa Barbara just before 7.00pm, some 90 minutes late. I was one of about 80 that got off, less than that got on, but I wondered how many had made other arrangements as we were so late. I love Santa Barbara. If I ever win the lottery this is where you’re likely to find me. The original plan should have seen me arrive at 3.00 pm which would have left time for a wander around the shops of State Street and the magnificent harbour before dinner but that was now out of the window. My hotel was only a few minutes walk from the station and I just dumped my bags and headed for my favourite restaurant, the “Moby Dick” on Stearn’s Wharf, for dinner, a magnificent sole stuffed with crab and prawns. It was grey and overcast and although it stayed dry my plan to have a stroll around a few of the local watering holes was superseded by the realisation that I hadn’t had a huge amount of sleep since I had arrived in America, I had been up at about five every morning and it was time for a much needed early night. For the second time in five days I awoke to the sound of torrential rain battering against the window. This was Santa Barbara in May, for heaven’s sake!! On every previous visit blue sky and sunshine had been the order of the day but this was British weather at its best. The rain stopped and after the healthiest breakfast of the week (cereal, juice and a banana!) I strolled around to the station to buy my ticket for the morning Surfliner to Grover Beach but my walk up State Street turned out to be a waste of time as most of the shops didn’t open until 9.30 or 10.00. On the way back I was accosted by a vagrant who claimed to know me and, as an old friend, could I lend him a few bucks (why have I been approached by more beggars on the streets of Santa Barbara than everywhere else in America put together?), and arrived back at the station just in time to see the on-time southbound Surfliner from San Luis Obispo. At least 80 people got off and the same number got on and I could see that it was at least 80-90% full. It was grey, gloomy and miserable as I checked out of the hotel and as I approached the station for the second time in just under an hour the heavens opened. For those of you unfamiliar with the Surfliners there are about eleven each way a day between San Diego and LA. Five of them continue up the coast to Santa Barbara and two of the five go all the way to San Luis Obispo. The second train to SLO only started up towards the end of last year, leaving LA at 7.30 am and returning from SLO in the early afternoon. The train pulled in just three minutes late but unlike its southbound counterpart this was not a busy train. I counted just eight off and six on. This was the first time I had travelled on this type of consist (proper engine at both ends, baggage car and just four single level passenger coaches, one of them being the combined snack-bar and business class, although there were only 14 business class seats in all). I counted just 16 passengers in coach and four in business, and the Steward in business class hardly had to strain himself when it came to handing out newspapers, juice and Danish pastries. Two more joined us in business class at Goleta. I asked him why it was so quiet, and was this a typical loading? He said that although today was particularly quiet, the train hadn’t been a great success, and there are already doubts about its long-term future if things don’t pick up. It was unfortunate that not long after the service had started the floods had shut the line for over six weeks. Also, the train schedule seemed to please nobody: northbound it was too late for potential commuters going to Santa Barbara, there was no great demand for a local morning service between SBA and SLO, and he felt that not enough had been done to publicise the Amtrak thruway bus which connected both ways at SLO for both the Caltrain and Capital Corridors at San Jose (I recall that when this train was first suggested it was talked of as being the basis of a possible “Coast Daylight” service between LA and SFO. By connecting with the Thruway link between SLO & SJC, it is now possible to get from LA to SFO in the daytime in around 10 and a half hours). Southbound, loadings had been better, but the return schedule was, depending on your final destination, both too early or too late for leisure travellers and too early for commuters! I couldn’t help thinking that whilst there is definitely enough demand for a second Surfliner to/from SLO, it would be better running this train south in the morning, leaving SLO at around 9.00 am with the return departure from LA at around 5.00 – 5.30pm (and thereby filling the current four hour gap between northbound trains). The attendant agreed it would probably be a lot better. I asked him whether Greyhound’s decision to drop a number of smaller towns from their Californian schedules had had any effect on Amtrak numbers. He was a local and knew the area well, and the answer was a disappointing “generally no” - very few people had caught the bus from those places anyway. Outside the rain continued to hammer down and whilst we hadn’t stopped we were going at no more than about 10 mph, and this continued for more than half an hour as we travelled north of Goleta. I’ve never seen California looking so green; normally the landscape is brown and parched but this year long grass and a multitude of wild flowers had sprung up in the fields alongside the tracks. We ground to a halt just north of Lompoc, where nobody had got on or off, and even reversed for a while to let a freight train through. We were now falling badly behind schedule. Nobody got on or off at Guadaloupe either, but as we headed inland, at least the rain stopped and a patch of blue sky could be seen away to the north and west. Eventually we pulled into Grover Beach exactly 90 minutes late, much to the confusion of two Japanese tourists who were on the platform awaiting the southbound return and weren’t sure if this was their train. Six got off at Grover Beach, which is now the only public transport hub for the area as Greyhound have now withdrawn from the neighbouring township of Arroyo Grande (they dropped Pismo Beach some years ago). Considering that there is now no Greyhound service for a catchment area of more than 50,000 people I wonder if Amtrak would look at the possibility of stopping the Coast Starlight at Grover? I’m sure that long distance trains stop at smaller places than that. But the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and my journey was at an end. I had stepped onto the Sunset Ltd almost 3,000 miles and 95 hours ago and it had flown by. Now it only remained to catch the local bus the last mile up to my hotel in Pismo and sample the delights of Harry’s Bar and the Splash Café. How was it? Brilliant. I know some of you will disagree but I would put the Sunset Ltd on a par with the Zephyr. OK, so you don’t have the scenery of the Rockies but the alligators, vultures, the Roadrunner, the Huey Long Bridge and the Houston skyline all stood out. Perhaps I was lucky in finding so many good travelling companions and a good train crew, but the thing that really, really made the difference was having a deluxe sleeper. I’m not a small person and the exercise in wriggling that is otherwise known as trying to undress in a standard sleeper with the beds up was not missed, notwithstanding the extra convenience of more room and en-suite facilities. However, I must criticise Amtrak on its sleeper provision and pricing. This train is supposed to lose $300 plus per passenger plus trip. I’m not surprised. Fair enough you don’t run empty sleepers in February, but this was the first week in May. Amtrak could easily have filled a second sleeper with premium paying customers, not just those who had been bumped out of deluxe into standard but those coach passengers who couldn’t get a sleeper at all. And why are the sleepers on this route so cheap? Yes, they are on a “sliding scale” where the cost goes up as they fill up but the MINIMUM sleeper supplement for shoulder season CHI-EMY or LAX on the CZ or SWC is around $375 standard and a whopping $760 (SWC) and $870 (CZ) deluxe. On the SL when I booked it was $212 standard and just $398 for my deluxe and that, remember, is for three nights, not two. OK, so there’s a mark up and therefore built-in profit on the restaurant prices I know, but my food bill alone was over $160. If there had been two of me in a standard, Amtrak would have made a LOSS of over $100 on the sleeper supplement and would only just have made any extra on the deluxe. And whilst I was pleased to see that there were people using the train for relatively “local” travel eg within Florida, NOL-HOU, San Antonio-Maricopa etc, there’s no getting away from the fact that almost all the passengers going coast-to-coast could be described as “leisure travellers” with relatively full wallets. Whilst Amtrak must not price themselves out of the market and most definitely shouldn’t go down the route of providing “land cruises”, I cannot help thinking that they are not maximising the earnings potential of this train, which they must do if it is to survive. And can you please explain to me why the morning northbound Surfliner needs a business class Steward to look after a maximum of 14 people? We can collect our own newspaper and carton of juice from twenty feet away, thank you. Yes, there were some lengthy delays and it was unfortunate that we fell so badly off schedule right at the end and although there is little they can do about it, Amtrak’s advocates really must put pressure on the freight companies to keep delays to a minimum. But it would be churlish to focus on a few minor negatives and detract from what was a fantastic trip. The only question left in my mind now is “where next”? Well, that will depend on Amtrak’s future and we’ll have to wait and see what is still available in 2006 or 2007, but I’ve never done any of the eastern routes, so the Cardinal might be a possibility. Of the western routes, the Empire Builder is high on the list, possibly combined with the Coast Starlight via Portland. And there you have it. I started last September by asking if I was brave, foolish or just plain mad but the answer is a very definite “I’m glad I did it”. It’s amazing how you can look forward to something for so many months and the next thing you know it’s been and gone, and consigned to the photo album. It’s a baking hot day here in England, the temperature is in the 80’s and at this time of year it doesn’t get dark until after 10.00 pm so I’m off to enjoy the outdoors. It only remains for me to thank all those members who answered my questions in helping me to plan this trip and those of you who read my report. I hope you enjoyed it and until the next time, this is mr williams signing off. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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