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New York to San Francisco. Random while travelling.
New York to Chicago - Lakeshore Limited (Train #49)
A poster at Penn Station for the Acela states that "all our cabins are depressurized", which is a rather nice line to take.
At Penn, the guard at the bottom of the escalator calling Train 49, the Lakeshore Limited for Upstate, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Something rather romantic about the rattling list of states, heading westwards.
Just before the train leaves, the traditional call of "All Aboard" which I haven't heard in years; it's like stepping back to the old days of train travel - but all the while sitting in a remarkably comfortable coach seat, at which there is power (for the charging of laptops and iPhones, for which I'm rather grateful). The audiobook of 'Artists in Crime' on the iPhone assists with the feeling of the golden age, a gentle backdrop to the scenery and the train.
Made a reservation for dinner at 8pm; something to break up the evening a little, and keep me awake to try to get sleep patterns into some sync. And to get some sleep!
The Hudson rolls past on the left; it's cold, and has been cold - there's ice in pools by the side of the rails, and in the river itself, small ice floes gathering at the edges and floating midstream amongst the tug-pulled barges making their way to New York.
The sun is setting, and there's no wind, so the river itself glows gold and peaceful. The reflections are almost perfect, as the water is still. One of the photos I've taken is a perfect sheet of gold water - one of those happy accidents that I have no idea what I did to acquire (and this is te point and shoot, so I really have no idea).
Just passed through Cold Spring - feels odd not to stop, get out and go and have breakfast at the Old Forge. The line north of Cold Spring is atrocious; the train feels as though it's about to shake itself apart. The train horn sounds regularly, as it passes through small towns and villages along the river.
Typing and looking out of the window - almost missed a ruined castle on an island, just out in the river. Hopefully the photo will have some detail - maybe it'll blow up enough to see something of it.
Further north, the ice floes become more numerous and closer together, so that the river is almost completely covered. It's beginning to break up, a crazing of ice with a few paths through it where the ships pass through.
An icebreaker of some sort has been through - there are piles of ice, cracked and shards, towards the edges of the river: broken and pushed aside.
A pepperpot lighthouse, on a small island - little more than a rock - just out from the rivershore. Red brick, perfectly formed on a miniature scale (it can't be much more than 30ft high), and a light swinging out as a small flash from moment to moment.
Knitting was finished somewhere just before Rochester - a London-New York scarf. I should have taken all the wool and needles from the main bag. The snow seems to have finished as well; the covering in Syracuse is nowhere in Rochester.
3:45am, woken by the red lights that illuminate a tower in Cleveland. I finally figured out how the leg rests work and can get comfortable enough to sleep - these chairs are not to be recommended if it's crowded and you have trouble sleeping whilst sitting, although in the end I do sort of sleep taking up just the one chair space.
Daybreak in Toledo, dull and uninteresting, and we're stuck here for a couple of hours whilst Amtrak try and figure out what to do with a guide dog that belonged to a man who died in one of the sleepers overnight.
A couple walk past while I'm having breakfast; Pennsylvania Dutch? She's in a long blueish dress and a white bonnet; he's in shirt and trousers held up with braces. The 19th century just walked through the dining car.
The train conductors have old-fashioned high caps - adding to the feeling that this train is somewhere still in the mid-20th century. It all looks right, the way collective memory believes that it's supposed to be. The right caps, calling for All Aboard, and the gentle unrolling of north eastern states under the wheels and from the call of the conductor. The train itself is rather more modern, thankfully. I wouldn't want to sleep on the old British Rail benches.
The snow is back - lining the edges of fields of spiky stubble, a soft earth brown that stretches away across plains here, punctuated by red barns with white roofs. The occasional line of trees separates fields and lanes.
It's snowing in Chesterton ... Indiana? Illinois? Not sure whether we've crossed the state border. We're crawling along at the moment, probably following freight.
Peggy Sue's Diner - on Main Street USA, near the railroad crossing. It has a sign out the back, to alert anyone on a westbound train, although it looks like no trains have stopped here for some time. The sign looks like it hasn't been repainted in a while either.
Freight train comes past eastbound - have we been waiting for that to cross on the tracks somewhere?
Main Street, Chesterton, apparently - for Peggy Sue's Diner - just passing a water tower - the second with Chesterton on it. Obviously a bigger town than I thought at first.
Chicago Skyway: best name for a road, ever. Chesterton must have been in Indiana, because we've only just now left Gary and its relentless industrial belching of steam.
Into Chicago, two hours late. The Pennsylvania Dutch couple get off the train - she in a long black coat with a small cape to it and a black bonnet over the white cap. He's in a long black coat as well, with a wide brimmed black hat.
Luggage arrives remarkably quickly, so I repack the carry on and move the suit into the checked luggage. I also pack my coat, as I won't need it on the train - then decide to go for a walk, and realise that I might not need it on the train, but I definitely need it to go outside in Chicago. It's snowing and somewhere below zero. That walk was curtailed to a swift march around the block, and then back into the station. It's on a grand scale, and the main hall is being set up for an event - more ballroom than train station.
A little later, I see another Pennsylvania Dutch couple. She looks almost like a child, in the same bonnet and a dress colour that I want to call purple but that isn't quite right. Pink/red, a dusty colour. He's certainly barely in his twenties. Maybe they are Amish after all. I'm trying to remember which train station featured in 'Witness'. Do the Amish take trains?
Chicago to San Francisco (California Zephyr - Train #5)
On the train - JR is our car attendant - Luke would have kittens in multiple and various colours at all of this. It might prove impossible to remove him if we ever actually let him onto one of these trains.
I'm next to the coffee machine; someone knew what they were doing when the room assignments were made. The room is on the upper level - better for views, and easier to move around (access between carriages is on the upper level). Only mild drawback is that the showers are downstairs, but that's not exactly a major issue.
The room is snug - you definitely need to get on well with anyone you want to share with, but it's a beautiful piece of planning. Door closed, curtains drawn, I'm in a small world of my own with the USA rolling past the window. The ultimate room with a view, perhaps. Dinner is at 6:30pm - I should try to get a later slot tomorrow.
The conductor has a nice line in laconic patter. We're apparently rather full, which prompted the following: "if you're sitting in coach, have a look at the seat next to you. If there is anything in that seat which is not a person, please remove it."
Much repetition of the fact that this train is non-smoking (actually, I think all Amtrak trains are now non-smoking) with the comment that there are no warnings - if you smoke on the train, you will be put off the train at the next stop. "There are people walking home from where we put them off on the way into Chicago yesterday. They're very wet by now".
Princeton, Illinois: "this is not, N-O-T, a smoking stop". It's also not a very large station; the train stops once for a few moments, then pulls forward and stops again. I suppose the first stop was to let people off, or get them onto, the sleeper cars at the front of the train, and then the second stop was allow people on/off the coach cars at the back of the train.
The cellphone signal is now coming from Iowa Wireless USA. The schedule says that we're coming into Galesburg, Illinois, so Iowa must be stretching their reach a little.
Flatland, USA. A gentle rise looks vertiginous by comparison to the area around. Perfect place for a marathon.
Note to self: get fruit at Denver station if possible. The onboard snack bar believes in candy, cinnamon rolls, doritos and pretzels. The four major food groups, apparently.
Conductor announcement: "Gather up your belongings and get downstairs to detrain"
Conductor announcement: "This is a short smoke-stop, time for about a half a cigarette"
Train sandwich just before Galesburg, where we crossed above a freight train on the line below.
Another train museum, at Galesburg. Sometimes it seems that every station in the USA is also a train museum.
Leaving Burlington, Iowa - "Next stop, Mount Pleasant, in about 30 minutes or half an hour". Uhuh. "Steve's Place: the place to BE!" - but looks more like a pool bar than a centre for existentialist philosophy.
Dinner with a talkative Australian, a sprinkler-system installer from near Denver and Diego, who says very little. Possibly because the Australian dominates the conversation, possibly because it doesn't quite sound like English is his first language. He looks a bit like someone who was on the Lakeshore Limited, but that person was with a couple of others, so I don't know whether that's just a similarity. If it is the same guy, he's changed out of a suit into a college sweatshirt and jeans. The Australian is on a five week tour around the US; he's a maintenance manager for a cold storage logistics company. Maybe they have better vacation plans in Australia? It's not the first time he's done this - looping around the US on a 31 day pass, staying with random people that he finds on the train or just sleeping on the train. He was much taken with a stay on a farm in Iowa, particularly the tequila for breakfast.
The Denverite drinks Celestial Seasoning teas.
The bed is another part of the planning miracle; bedding stores in the top bunk, and so a mattress, sheets and blanket are brought down for the converted beds. It's remarkably comfortable. Changing into pyjamas on a train does feel a little peculiar, though.
So many stars - 2am, and there are no lights to be seen other than the stars. No diffuse glow of a far off city on the horizon, no street lights, no houses awake. The Nebraskan plains are a lightshow of stars, even seen half-asleep from a train bunk.
Calling at a halt somewhere - maybe Holdridge, maybe McCook, there are no announcements at this hour of night. The car attendants know who's getting off where and wake them without disturbing the rest of us. It's 3am, or thereabouts, I don't bother to check. The stoplight winks on and off, warning of an intersection but not actually obliging anyone to stop and wait for any length of time. It's cold, and snow is falling. No-one seems to stir - if anyone is getting on or off, they're doing it further back from here.
Early morning, taking advantage of my completely confused body clock to get into the shower ahead of the crowd. Takes a moment to figure out how to get water out of it (buttons and levers and push this, pull that), but when I figure it out, the water is both hot and plentiful. The driver takes pity, unknowingly, and we don't rock or roll too vigorously whilst I'm rinsing the last couple of thousand miles off (959 from New York to Chicago, and maybe 900 so far on this leg. If we've stopped at Fort Morgan, I missed it. I suspect we haven't stopped though, as we were certainly running late before I went to bed.
Add train bunks to places I apparently can't sleep - although I'm keeping an open mind, it may just be that my system is too confused to sleep properly. I'm rested, anyway, which is good. I think I mostly slept on and off - but the train horn sounds almost continuously at times, as we pass railroad crossings, and I'm only about three cars back from the locomotive. It's sounding now, a howl across the plains. I think we're in Colorado. The train rocks a bit, but it never felt particularly worrying. I noticed when I packed the bedding away in the upper bunk that there are straps that you use to secure yourself, for those who sleep up there. So that won't be me.
It is getting slowly lighter; it's possibly 5:55 if we're on Mountain Time (if we are in Colorado), or 6:55 if we're still in Nebraska and on Central Time. It's 12:55 in St Albans. 7:55 in New York. Is it any wonder I don't quite know whether I'm tired or hungry? I think I am hungry, and not tired, but it's all slightly confused.
"Little fluffy clouds ... the skies were all pink and yellow and red and the sun was on fire. You don't see that any more. You might still see it in the desert" - loosely paraphrased from The Orb. You might also see it on the Colorado plains. Sunrise is just astonishing. The clouds that hung over Illinois and Iowa yesterday are gone and are replaced by an endless sky darkening blue as the sun rises over equally endless plains. This makes Norfolk look mountainous. The light shifts across the plains, staining the stubble in the fields from red to bronze and now to an old gold. It is spectacular.
The sky is endless - the land is so flat that all you are aware of is a sliver of fields and then nothing but sky.
A small creek meanders alongside the track, lazily turning on itself and twisting. It seems young, still following a path of least resistance and not yet wearing its own straighter path.
The frost in the scrub by the railroad catches the rising light and glints and glistens as if sprinkled with crystals.
Feedlot full of cattle - battery cattle, it seems. Barely room to move, fenced in. A little further back, in a flurry of snow, someone else lets their cattle roam. Mother & calf in the flurrying snow.
We're passing through Otis. NE or CO? No idea. During breakfast we passed through Yuma (but not at 3:10). Breakfast was army ration-style reconstituted eggs, but not too bad for all that. The coffee is good and hot.
Breakfast companion was a guy heading for Sacramento. Beanie hat and chin fluff beard, planning to do Forestry Studies at college and work somewhere like Yosemite. I can understand that. Apparently I missed another medical emergency - around 3am, we stopped somewhere and were met by a police car and an ambulance towards the back of the train. It looks as though we're a couple of hours late now, perhaps. It's 6:50am ( Mountain Time. I think) and I'm fairly sure we haven't got to Fort Morgan yet - which was a stop scheduled for 5:05am. I don't think I slept through it.
Donkeys in a feedlot in Otis, in with the cattle.
Mile marker 199 on the road beside us. 199 miles from the end of the road - but where's that?
Silos line the railroad, spigots hanging out over the tracks in wait for a hopper.
31 miles to Fort Morgan. We are at least two hours behind. Not that it matters - and it'll mean time in Denver in the sun, not the cold early morning. Another railroad crossing and the high tink-tink-tink of the bell warning drivers. The same sound as at Francelos when I was a child, the signal to hurry up and get across the tracks if you're on them, or stay off them if you're not.
The snow overnight must have been a little fierce: there's snow blown into the walkways between carriages, and around the door downstairs - a small pile of fine snow, built up in the corners.
Conductor announcement: "We are running a little late. We do apologise for the inconvenience and the tardiness". I love the word "tardiness". Denver will be a longer stop - rates "a cigarette ... or two" rather than the half-cigarette the previous stops have been rated as.
First sight of the foothills of the Rockies, rising at the edge of the plain, many miles away in the morning light. Just the tops now, caught bright gold with the shadows underlying them. We're climbing towards Denver, a steady rise to the Mile High City.
This area is astonishingly lovely - flocks of birds, two levels, drifting over the plains. The plains themselves roll on in shades of dust and gold, scrubland rising and falling gently towards the sharp relief of the mountains. Above it all an endless blue, shading from light at the mountains to dark blue above and then back to light through the horizon. The foothills of the mountains are cast in shadow now, a dark underscore to the snow and light as the mountains rise above. There's a fence along the railtracks. That, and us, are the only indication that there are human beings on this planet.
The train tracks are curving in a loop and suddenly the mountains appear to the right and not just ahead, rising closer and higher at the edge of the plains.
"Rent a horse: riding lessons" - railside sign
The conductor explains a little more about the delay - besides the "medical emergency", the Burlington North Santa Fe Railroad decided that we really needed a stopover in the Lincoln, Nebraska, railyards for half an hour or so late last night, and restricted speed for a stretch of track. Amtrak runs on tracks owned by the freight companies, so is somewhat at their whim.
"No Taxation Without Representation: stop forced annexation. www.commerceteaparty.org" - railside sign
Commerce City
Denver's Pioneer Cemetary
Conductor announcement: "We're backing up into Denver Union Station and we ask that everyone remain seated during the backup manouevre"
Denver is cold and a long way up; I have a headache from a short walk, probably half due to the chill (did I say it was cold?) and half to the elevation. It's still a completely clear sky, with the clear light that comes with altitude. Union Station is another monument to optimism and grandeur but fails to have anything resembling a store - a few vending machines, but nothing more, so it was a quick stroll around the outside and then back to the room. On the way back, I pass the Celestial-Seasons drinking Denverite as he leaves the train. Embarrassing that he remembers my name, but I couldn't even remember his halfway through dinner. Mind you, the introductions were a bit quick, and I joined after they'd done the first round of intros so I got them all at once, and all from the talkative Australian.
I have a cell phone signal, it claims to have an edge connection, but email is not co-operating. No open wireless networks either. Reset network, email is now co-operating.
Wandered the length of the train; it's shorter than I thought it would be, for some reason (three sleeping cars, the dining car, lounge car and three coach cars). Maybe it reflects the tickets sold and is longer in the summer? Two people with long-handled brushes are scrubbing the windows.
Denver seems to have a rather new baseball stadium. Can't remember the team, though - didn't realise there was anything other than the Broncos here (and I'm in the generation that thinks John Elway is still playing ...)
The train has picked up newspapers in Denver, so a copy of The Saturday Post awaits when I get back to the room from walking around the station; the main news in Denver today seems to be that the Rocky Mountain News has closed, 55 days short of its 150th anniversary - surely they could have found the funds to make it to that date? The Post is at pains to reassure people that the best of the News' columnists will be writing for the Post from now on. They've also expanded areas of the Post to cater for things that the News used to deal with. It's rather sad.
Heading out of Denver, apparently back the way we came - but then we pass the points at which we switched to reverse into the station, and keep on going.
The train climbs surprisingly quickly from the plains, twisting through the switchback rails and tunnels (21 so far, and counting). Behind us, at one point - and possibly still, I haven't been able to see - came a car on the rails. Looked like a pick-up, with the wheels replaced by train wheels.
There are photographers from time to time, trackside. They're certainly photographing the train, but it's hard to tell whether that's their primary purpose.
There are houses here. Envy. Sheer envy. It must make for hard living as well, but ... the view (and clean air).
Wonder what the altitude is now? I'm getting tired, so ... fairly high? The maximum elevation we reach will be over 9,000 ft, apparently.
Have resorted to headphones - the people in the sleeper next door seem to have decided that they'd rather watch a slasher movie (or something that sounds like it) than look at the Rockies. They aren't using headphones.
We're heading into the Moffat Tunnel - 6.2 miles, takes 10 minutes to go through it (faster than we've gone for a little while: the train does not rush through the Rockies - useful from the scenic point of view, but necessary given the way the track curves). No walking between cars in the tunnel, because that would let dust and diesel exhaust smoke in.
A ranger stands by his car at the side of the tracks.
Through the tunnel and out into more snow. Much more snow - and Fraser, for the Winter Park Ski Resort. Another quick walk - its a smoke break, as the train doors need to be open to make sure that the fumes from the tunnel are vented. I go out, fresh air is always good. At 8,500ft, it's rather bracing even in the sun. A couple of quick photos, of icicles and the train standing ready, and I'm ready to head back in.
The lounge car - the sightseeing bubble - is fun, so I stop there for a little while just to watch the scenery roll by on both sides. That is a slight drawback to the rooms, as the view is solely to one side. I wonder what I've missed on the other side of the train. Next time - and there will be a next time - I'll have to try and get a room on the opposite side. The extensive windows in the lounge car draw the scenery in but, on the whole, I like being a hermit in my room so I head back to it.
Hot Sulphur Springs. Sounds more appealing than they look - the pools I can see are rather murky and dubious and appear hot only in so far as they are not iced over; all other open water seems to be a mass of ice, even the rivers. I was expecting steam for some reason.
"Enjoy Your Shooting Range"; sign in the middle of nowhere.
Where and what is the FInland Station? (No, not scenery. A line in a Pet Shop Boys track).
This part of the Rockies looks remarkably like the Yorkshire Moors. With more sun, less cloud, less oxygen, and a lot more snow. So, on second thoughts, nothing like the Yorkshire Moors at all.
"Bob's Western Motel" - motel long gone, apparently, but the sign patches up the inside of a open stable. The horses don't seem to care.
Lunch alongside the river - maybe the Colorado river? Will need to look it up when I get near a map again. The first wildlife I've seen for a while - a field of deer. Lunch table companions were a couple from Toronto (he runs a car dealers' association) going to Sacramento, and a guy from Colorado (seventh generation Colodaro, whose great-grandfather won the deeds to a town in a poker game. The town's now a ghost town) going to Salt Lake City, who removes asbestos for a living. The dining car attendant, Kathleen, reckons she's trying to set me up with cute guys at each meal. Uh-huh. We have different definitions of cute (not that there's anything wrong with them, but ... they aren't Michael), but I think I'm somewhere between flattered and amused that they are all mid-twenties.
Interesting how few people are going all the way on the train - I'm one of just three in this car who are going through to San Francisco. Looks like a lot will leave in Salt Lake City and in Sacramento.
Just as well I brought the camera battery charger and a spare battery; I've gone through one battery and the second is starting to wane - the first is now recharged, though.
What is the dominant rock in the Rockies? It looks red (almost oxidised, like rust) and striated; fading to old yellow with age and exposure.
We double back and over and over the river again. Hard to say which meanders more - the tracks or the river.
The train passes a house here, miles from anywhere. A child outside is waving; the driver hoots back - a quick beepbeep hello, not the long drawn out howl that he uses for approaching crossings.
The hills here seem pleated; the snow in the folds highlights the effect. Clouds of aspen (I think they're aspen) cluster at the foot of the hills, a shimmering grey halo of leafless branches.
The curtains do blackout well - just went into a tunnel. I have no lights on in the room, and no light came in from the corridor outside; I opened the curtain a touch just to check that the lights out there were still on (the power went out just before Denver for a little while). The lights were indeed on. The conductor just announced that that was Sweetwater Tunnel. And this is the Colorado River.
The sun has shifted to my side of the train now; it's hot, an odd contrast to the cold-looking snow outside.
287 photographs taken since I last took them off the card this morning. Yeah, that seems about right.
The tunnel for the interstate bridge above us: "Do Not Enter". Given that the interstate here is split level, if you've made it as far as that bridge without realising you're going the wrong way, that sign will not help.
Exit 119: No Name
Dinner reservation achieved for 7:30pm - that's a bit more reasonable than yesterday's 6:30pm.
The western side of the Rockies has more clouds, high cirrus wisps that diffuse the sun and are beginning to glow gold as the sun descends.
Do red lights mean something other than 'stop' on a US railroad? Because we keep going through them. No, not that the lights coming past are red, I'm used to that, but that the lights I can see ahead on a curve - before the locomotive gets to them - are red.
Pitstop at Grand Junction, Colorado, and finally something resembling capitalism reasserts itself - there's a souvenir and snack shop. It is definitely a mom-and-pop type place, and I'm amused to see most of the train crew in there buying Coke, Diet Coke (the train only stocks Pepsi products), and all the varieties of crisps that the train doesn't sell on board (including members of the dining car crew). I settle for a Frappuccino (hey, got to keep up the effete Coastal thing) and some souvenirs for Luke. A Union Pacific train engineer's hat, and a set of railroad logo pins. The Frappuccino turns out to be 'best taste by Feb 02 09'. Hmm. I drink it anyway. It's still sealed and smells ok. I also got some chewing gum - Wrigleys Winterfresh - which, on unwrapping, is in foil-covered sticks. Classic chewing gum; can't remember the last time I had some. Whatever I buy at home always turns out to be pastilles. Do they even sell chewing gum in sticks in Europe anymore? Apart from strawberry-flavoured Hollywood gum in France.
Back down to the plains now; back to earth - and we've made up an hour of our time somewhere along the way. The mountains recede into the distance, circling the plain. Next stop, Utah.
Major Moose, the local Ford dealer's mascot. About 2 stories high and tied down to stop him floating away.
More llamas/alpacas (can't tell the difference at this distance).
The train is picking its way through canyons between curves and towers of red rocks; it's timeless - eternity in the stone, and nothing but rockfalls in the last couple of hundred years. A sudden (and undoubtedly clichéd) awareness of what the first settlers found as they ventured west. For those with a European background, nothing would have prepared them for this. The rocks are high and curving, pockets worn out in places: the river running through this must have been immense once. Now, a small, slow-flowing stream curves through the middle of what was once the riverbed. The railroad curves alongside. The sun has set here, early, hidden behind the escarpments on the other side. The rocks still glow red, with a silver green patina of some sort of lichen, or perhaps heather.
It looks other-worldly, with the trees apparently dead, ghostly twisted forms and an unremitting palate of reds and yellows and silver-green-grey. Nothing is moving apart from us. Pools of red-grey mud lie by the track; boulders litter the ground. The place feels arid, and barren.
Some freight trucks, empty, seem to have been abandoned on the track beside us. They have no locomotive, and are in the middle of nowhere (I don't think I've ever meant that quite so literally before). All rust coloured, apart from one unexpectedly bright blue truck. They're open, with no covering. Perhaps they are meant to carry logs, lashed to the centre struts? But we might be as far from any logging operation as it's possible to get in the continental USA.
The sun has set behind the hills; in the dusk, even the red is now leached from the surroundings. It's a world of greys, and we're trundling through it at about 20 miles an hour, probably caught behind a freight train again. That has its advantages, since this is all stunning to look at.
>
Utah is deserted; no lights at all for miles and even then it's usually the railway signals. The clouds have covered the stars; there really is no light out there. I half-convince myself that we're travelling through deep space.
The dinner group tonight included a student from Bristol, travelling around the US and then onto Italy and maybe Norway - staying out of the UK for as long as possible before going back to archaeology somewhere (hasn't decided where); a teacher of culinary arts to 16-24 year olds, heading for Reno to visit a friend; and a student from Japan, heading home after a course in English in New York, and making the most of what's left of his student visa with a trip to Vegas. Dinner was lasagna - I'd like to call it deconstructed, but that would make it sound more planned than I think it actually was. Flat lasagna, anyway.
Sleep was more readily accessible this night - I have no recollection of stopping at Salt Lake City, which is mildly tiresome as I would have liked to see it. But the cumulative effect of four nights of disrupted sleep sent me out for the count shortly after I lay down. I woke up at around 4am (Pacific Time = 5am Mountain Time, 6am Central Time, 7am Eastern, and midday in the UK. Any wonder that I have no difficulty waking? Continued to doze for another hour or so, until the coffee pot started to perk. Another benefit of having the room next to the coffee station - the smell of fresh coffee early in the morning. Well, I think that's a benefit). I have the bed making down to a fine art now (and there is much to be said for the "hide it" school of bed making!), and the shower all figured out. Of course, I have to use neither again on this trip.
Two illuminated signs as we pull in - E-Z Bail and the Spare Time Bowling Center. I think this must be Elko, Nevada, in which case we're two hours late again. Or it's Winnemucca and we're half an hour early - which seems a bit less likely. The stationmaster has a magnificent beard, white and flowing in the manner of Father Christmas. We've done another two stop strategy - again, maybe to let off people from a sleeper and then from the coach? Either that or we're held at the signals: we don't usually stop this long at small stations like this. Again, I wonder what criteria they use to pick station stops on route? This looks like a one-stop-light town - if it even has one. The last small station stop was Helper, Utah, but that turns out to be historic - the reason it's called Helper is that it's where the trains to Salt Lake City used to pick up a helper locomotive to assist them in getting over the mountains into the Salt Lake City bowl. Totally missed all that, it seems.
It's getting slowly lighter here now, shapes beginning to form in the lightening dusk - house trim and cars and hills behind them. On the other side of the train, the rising light catches snow on the hills.
I've reset the time on the laptop and suddenly realised that I'm now going to be in the same time zone for a week; that feels suddenly a little peculiar, after the last three days of changing zones - although the changes have been mostly at night, so that I just wake up in a different zone. Wednesday night: UK - Eastern; Thursday night: Eastern - Central; Friday night: Central - Mountain; Saturday night: Mountain - Pacific.
I've just remembered that the clocks go back next Sunday in the US - I've probably posted an all-time record for time changes in one vacation (a personal record, that is. No doubt someone somewhere has done considerably more).
The car that has been sitting in a driveway, lights on, for the past 15 minutes (since we got here) has now pulled out and left. Must be cold outside.
A van has just driven up alongside the train - looks like some sort of passenger vehicle. Maybe this is Winnemucca, then?
The sky is lightening into a faint blue with wisps of cloud. Last night's clouds across the stars have been left behind in Utah.
Ten minutes, and we've gone from near-total darkness to a point where I can see all the detail in the houses around. The blue walls and white trim of the house just in front.
The van has driven off again, and someone else is pulling out of their driveway to head off to work.
The warmed-up car is back again. Forgot something? Or just warmed up the car to go out for milk and bread? Must be milk and bread; he hasn't come out again.
This must be Winnemucca then - just had an announcement to say that we can get off the train to go for a walk if we want to, we'll be here for 10-15 minutes longer. We must have made up the time around Salt Lake City - we were scheduled to be only half an hour late there and I suspect that the train didn't hold there for the half hour scheduled.
This is a dusty looking town; looking chilly in the early morning. There is a W carved into the hillside above Winnemucca.
Moving out across the desert - the sheer expanse of empty space is startling. Tumbleweed - real tumbleweed! lies scattered and caught in the fence that marks the edge of the railroad property. A single house is surrounded by incongrous trees in this land where no trees grow. The hills at the edge of the desert are tinged with snow. This is what the sightseeing car was designed for.
An old riverbed, wide and flat, now has only a trickle of a creek flowing through it in fits and starts.
Breakfast with Scotty, who got on at Elko and is travelling to Reno, to attend the Governor's Forum for People with Disabilities. Scotty has Down's but is definitely not letting that get in his way - he's charming and garrulous and I suspect is more than a handful for his minder. Besides Scotty and his minder there's an elderly gentlemen who's on his way home from delivering a pickup truck to his nephew, and who wants to know what bangers, toad in the hole, and spotted dick are. He's been watching Leo McKern in Rumpole of the Bailey.
Passing by a salt flat, and suddenly it becomes completely obvious that this was once an inland sea as the ground stretches out flat in all directions to the hills in the distance.
I was worried the train might be out of the desert before I'd finished breakfast and could get back to my camera. Hah. An hour after I've finished breakfast, and the end of the Northern Nevada desert is nowhere in sight. Some impressive looking clouds on the far horizon, though.
Conductor announcement: "We should be in Reno around 9:22 or something".
A truck goes past, trailing a cloud of dust that dissipates slowly behind.
There's a Starbucks in the middle of the Nevada desert.
A small paddock, almost green, is home to a flock of Canada geese. Did they get lost?
Into the foothills; we've left the sun behind in the desert.
Roadside: "Best Food! Best Slots!"
"Laub & Laub: Free Legal Answers in 1 Hour" Never mind the quality, feel the speed.
Sparks Marina. Marina?! Its in desert foothills, 300 miles from the coast. Someone's dug a large pond here, though.
Sparks, 10 minutes from Reno. So, which railroad executive lived here when they were setting up the schedule?
Today's newspaper is the Reno-Gazette Journal. It's a weird size - it's square when folded; about the same top-bottom as a UK broadsheet, but much narrower across. Not a lot going on, apparently, when the "Nation & World" headlines are that three people have died in an avalanche in Wyoming and that U2 are about to release their twelth album.
Hey, we get commentary from California RailRoad Museum volunteers from here to Sacramento! Tales of train robberies by Sunday School teachers, and trenches to lower the railroad below the Reno streets.
California, at last.
Approaching Truckee - used to store railroad snow-clearing equipment; and it's a winter resort as well, apparently. Today, it's raining.
The Stanford Curve - 180 degree curve around the valley, to line up to climb the northern side of the valley to the tunnel and the top of the Sierra.
Donner Lake - a glacier formed lake.
Avalanche protection? Or just points protection? We've crossed tracks under that snow shed, anyway. Apparently they used to be called snow galleries and were made of wood; not a brilliant idea when the locomotives were steam fired with large fires going .... they were there for avalanche protection, to minimise disruption to the line from avalanches.
It's snowing in the Sierra Nevada.
Soda Springs. Does it? The skiers are out in force, although it's a near whiteout here.
The road 's's back on itself below us - I can see at least four repeats fading into the distance down the mountain.
The snow has smoothed out the edges of the world, curving at the edge of the track in a soft mound following the path we take.
Winter's ending as we come down from the mountains.
The California is bizarrely green, to eyes that have seen nothing but the plains, the mountains and desert for the last two days. There is blossom on the trees, and the rail tracks follow through small towns and past houses like a commuter train. It seems odd to be on a train that's crossed the country, but to be looking into people's back gardens. I may be influenced by Eurostar, with its tracks kept well away from the domestic.
We pass a mandarin grove, two hours and several thousand feet away from a blizzard.
On the way to lunch, an eastbound California Zephyr goes by.
Lunch with a family from Berkley; he's a consultant on organic waste recycling, she's doing a PhD on plant ecology and they've adopted a daughter from Guatemala.
We're likely to be early into Emeryville; I'm rather loathe to leave now, comfortable in the rhythm and sound and life on the train. A window where the landscape doesn't move? Where's the fun in that? That said, a long walk sounds good as well. Seriously considering getting a rental car when I get into San Francisco and heading out to Muir Beach and the scent of pine and eucalyptus, but it'll probably be getting too dark.
Roseville. Named at a picnic in the 1800s after the most popular girl at the picnic. What made her so popular?
There's an old London bus in a yard full of caravans. Still painted red.
Another yard; this time, the hardtop for a pickup has been left in the middle of grass. It looks as though the pickup has been swallowed by the ground, leaving only the top visible.
An ex-air force base is now used as a business park; there are still entrances visible to the missile silos underground. Maybe they're storage units now?
Birds on a telegraph wire, all facing east.
San Joaquin Valley - more green, more fields.
Suburbia.
We arrive half an hour early.
A poster at Penn Station for the Acela states that "all our cabins are depressurized", which is a rather nice line to take.
At Penn, the guard at the bottom of the escalator calling Train 49, the Lakeshore Limited for Upstate, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Something rather romantic about the rattling list of states, heading westwards.
Just before the train leaves, the traditional call of "All Aboard" which I haven't heard in years; it's like stepping back to the old days of train travel - but all the while sitting in a remarkably comfortable coach seat, at which there is power (for the charging of laptops and iPhones, for which I'm rather grateful). The audiobook of 'Artists in Crime' on the iPhone assists with the feeling of the golden age, a gentle backdrop to the scenery and the train.
Made a reservation for dinner at 8pm; something to break up the evening a little, and keep me awake to try to get sleep patterns into some sync. And to get some sleep!
The Hudson rolls past on the left; it's cold, and has been cold - there's ice in pools by the side of the rails, and in the river itself, small ice floes gathering at the edges and floating midstream amongst the tug-pulled barges making their way to New York.
The sun is setting, and there's no wind, so the river itself glows gold and peaceful. The reflections are almost perfect, as the water is still. One of the photos I've taken is a perfect sheet of gold water - one of those happy accidents that I have no idea what I did to acquire (and this is te point and shoot, so I really have no idea).
Just passed through Cold Spring - feels odd not to stop, get out and go and have breakfast at the Old Forge. The line north of Cold Spring is atrocious; the train feels as though it's about to shake itself apart. The train horn sounds regularly, as it passes through small towns and villages along the river.
Typing and looking out of the window - almost missed a ruined castle on an island, just out in the river. Hopefully the photo will have some detail - maybe it'll blow up enough to see something of it.
Further north, the ice floes become more numerous and closer together, so that the river is almost completely covered. It's beginning to break up, a crazing of ice with a few paths through it where the ships pass through.
An icebreaker of some sort has been through - there are piles of ice, cracked and shards, towards the edges of the river: broken and pushed aside.
A pepperpot lighthouse, on a small island - little more than a rock - just out from the rivershore. Red brick, perfectly formed on a miniature scale (it can't be much more than 30ft high), and a light swinging out as a small flash from moment to moment.
Knitting was finished somewhere just before Rochester - a London-New York scarf. I should have taken all the wool and needles from the main bag. The snow seems to have finished as well; the covering in Syracuse is nowhere in Rochester.
3:45am, woken by the red lights that illuminate a tower in Cleveland. I finally figured out how the leg rests work and can get comfortable enough to sleep - these chairs are not to be recommended if it's crowded and you have trouble sleeping whilst sitting, although in the end I do sort of sleep taking up just the one chair space.
Daybreak in Toledo, dull and uninteresting, and we're stuck here for a couple of hours whilst Amtrak try and figure out what to do with a guide dog that belonged to a man who died in one of the sleepers overnight.
A couple walk past while I'm having breakfast; Pennsylvania Dutch? She's in a long blueish dress and a white bonnet; he's in shirt and trousers held up with braces. The 19th century just walked through the dining car.
The train conductors have old-fashioned high caps - adding to the feeling that this train is somewhere still in the mid-20th century. It all looks right, the way collective memory believes that it's supposed to be. The right caps, calling for All Aboard, and the gentle unrolling of north eastern states under the wheels and from the call of the conductor. The train itself is rather more modern, thankfully. I wouldn't want to sleep on the old British Rail benches.
The snow is back - lining the edges of fields of spiky stubble, a soft earth brown that stretches away across plains here, punctuated by red barns with white roofs. The occasional line of trees separates fields and lanes.
It's snowing in Chesterton ... Indiana? Illinois? Not sure whether we've crossed the state border. We're crawling along at the moment, probably following freight.
Peggy Sue's Diner - on Main Street USA, near the railroad crossing. It has a sign out the back, to alert anyone on a westbound train, although it looks like no trains have stopped here for some time. The sign looks like it hasn't been repainted in a while either.
Freight train comes past eastbound - have we been waiting for that to cross on the tracks somewhere?
Main Street, Chesterton, apparently - for Peggy Sue's Diner - just passing a water tower - the second with Chesterton on it. Obviously a bigger town than I thought at first.
Chicago Skyway: best name for a road, ever. Chesterton must have been in Indiana, because we've only just now left Gary and its relentless industrial belching of steam.
Into Chicago, two hours late. The Pennsylvania Dutch couple get off the train - she in a long black coat with a small cape to it and a black bonnet over the white cap. He's in a long black coat as well, with a wide brimmed black hat.
Luggage arrives remarkably quickly, so I repack the carry on and move the suit into the checked luggage. I also pack my coat, as I won't need it on the train - then decide to go for a walk, and realise that I might not need it on the train, but I definitely need it to go outside in Chicago. It's snowing and somewhere below zero. That walk was curtailed to a swift march around the block, and then back into the station. It's on a grand scale, and the main hall is being set up for an event - more ballroom than train station.
A little later, I see another Pennsylvania Dutch couple. She looks almost like a child, in the same bonnet and a dress colour that I want to call purple but that isn't quite right. Pink/red, a dusty colour. He's certainly barely in his twenties. Maybe they are Amish after all. I'm trying to remember which train station featured in 'Witness'. Do the Amish take trains?
Chicago to San Francisco (California Zephyr - Train #5)
On the train - JR is our car attendant - Luke would have kittens in multiple and various colours at all of this. It might prove impossible to remove him if we ever actually let him onto one of these trains.
I'm next to the coffee machine; someone knew what they were doing when the room assignments were made. The room is on the upper level - better for views, and easier to move around (access between carriages is on the upper level). Only mild drawback is that the showers are downstairs, but that's not exactly a major issue.
The room is snug - you definitely need to get on well with anyone you want to share with, but it's a beautiful piece of planning. Door closed, curtains drawn, I'm in a small world of my own with the USA rolling past the window. The ultimate room with a view, perhaps. Dinner is at 6:30pm - I should try to get a later slot tomorrow.
The conductor has a nice line in laconic patter. We're apparently rather full, which prompted the following: "if you're sitting in coach, have a look at the seat next to you. If there is anything in that seat which is not a person, please remove it."
Much repetition of the fact that this train is non-smoking (actually, I think all Amtrak trains are now non-smoking) with the comment that there are no warnings - if you smoke on the train, you will be put off the train at the next stop. "There are people walking home from where we put them off on the way into Chicago yesterday. They're very wet by now".
Princeton, Illinois: "this is not, N-O-T, a smoking stop". It's also not a very large station; the train stops once for a few moments, then pulls forward and stops again. I suppose the first stop was to let people off, or get them onto, the sleeper cars at the front of the train, and then the second stop was allow people on/off the coach cars at the back of the train.
The cellphone signal is now coming from Iowa Wireless USA. The schedule says that we're coming into Galesburg, Illinois, so Iowa must be stretching their reach a little.
Flatland, USA. A gentle rise looks vertiginous by comparison to the area around. Perfect place for a marathon.
Note to self: get fruit at Denver station if possible. The onboard snack bar believes in candy, cinnamon rolls, doritos and pretzels. The four major food groups, apparently.
Conductor announcement: "Gather up your belongings and get downstairs to detrain"
Conductor announcement: "This is a short smoke-stop, time for about a half a cigarette"
Train sandwich just before Galesburg, where we crossed above a freight train on the line below.
Another train museum, at Galesburg. Sometimes it seems that every station in the USA is also a train museum.
Leaving Burlington, Iowa - "Next stop, Mount Pleasant, in about 30 minutes or half an hour". Uhuh. "Steve's Place: the place to BE!" - but looks more like a pool bar than a centre for existentialist philosophy.
Dinner with a talkative Australian, a sprinkler-system installer from near Denver and Diego, who says very little. Possibly because the Australian dominates the conversation, possibly because it doesn't quite sound like English is his first language. He looks a bit like someone who was on the Lakeshore Limited, but that person was with a couple of others, so I don't know whether that's just a similarity. If it is the same guy, he's changed out of a suit into a college sweatshirt and jeans. The Australian is on a five week tour around the US; he's a maintenance manager for a cold storage logistics company. Maybe they have better vacation plans in Australia? It's not the first time he's done this - looping around the US on a 31 day pass, staying with random people that he finds on the train or just sleeping on the train. He was much taken with a stay on a farm in Iowa, particularly the tequila for breakfast.
The Denverite drinks Celestial Seasoning teas.
The bed is another part of the planning miracle; bedding stores in the top bunk, and so a mattress, sheets and blanket are brought down for the converted beds. It's remarkably comfortable. Changing into pyjamas on a train does feel a little peculiar, though.
So many stars - 2am, and there are no lights to be seen other than the stars. No diffuse glow of a far off city on the horizon, no street lights, no houses awake. The Nebraskan plains are a lightshow of stars, even seen half-asleep from a train bunk.
Calling at a halt somewhere - maybe Holdridge, maybe McCook, there are no announcements at this hour of night. The car attendants know who's getting off where and wake them without disturbing the rest of us. It's 3am, or thereabouts, I don't bother to check. The stoplight winks on and off, warning of an intersection but not actually obliging anyone to stop and wait for any length of time. It's cold, and snow is falling. No-one seems to stir - if anyone is getting on or off, they're doing it further back from here.
Early morning, taking advantage of my completely confused body clock to get into the shower ahead of the crowd. Takes a moment to figure out how to get water out of it (buttons and levers and push this, pull that), but when I figure it out, the water is both hot and plentiful. The driver takes pity, unknowingly, and we don't rock or roll too vigorously whilst I'm rinsing the last couple of thousand miles off (959 from New York to Chicago, and maybe 900 so far on this leg. If we've stopped at Fort Morgan, I missed it. I suspect we haven't stopped though, as we were certainly running late before I went to bed.
Add train bunks to places I apparently can't sleep - although I'm keeping an open mind, it may just be that my system is too confused to sleep properly. I'm rested, anyway, which is good. I think I mostly slept on and off - but the train horn sounds almost continuously at times, as we pass railroad crossings, and I'm only about three cars back from the locomotive. It's sounding now, a howl across the plains. I think we're in Colorado. The train rocks a bit, but it never felt particularly worrying. I noticed when I packed the bedding away in the upper bunk that there are straps that you use to secure yourself, for those who sleep up there. So that won't be me.
It is getting slowly lighter; it's possibly 5:55 if we're on Mountain Time (if we are in Colorado), or 6:55 if we're still in Nebraska and on Central Time. It's 12:55 in St Albans. 7:55 in New York. Is it any wonder I don't quite know whether I'm tired or hungry? I think I am hungry, and not tired, but it's all slightly confused.
"Little fluffy clouds ... the skies were all pink and yellow and red and the sun was on fire. You don't see that any more. You might still see it in the desert" - loosely paraphrased from The Orb. You might also see it on the Colorado plains. Sunrise is just astonishing. The clouds that hung over Illinois and Iowa yesterday are gone and are replaced by an endless sky darkening blue as the sun rises over equally endless plains. This makes Norfolk look mountainous. The light shifts across the plains, staining the stubble in the fields from red to bronze and now to an old gold. It is spectacular.
The sky is endless - the land is so flat that all you are aware of is a sliver of fields and then nothing but sky.
A small creek meanders alongside the track, lazily turning on itself and twisting. It seems young, still following a path of least resistance and not yet wearing its own straighter path.
The frost in the scrub by the railroad catches the rising light and glints and glistens as if sprinkled with crystals.
Feedlot full of cattle - battery cattle, it seems. Barely room to move, fenced in. A little further back, in a flurry of snow, someone else lets their cattle roam. Mother & calf in the flurrying snow.
We're passing through Otis. NE or CO? No idea. During breakfast we passed through Yuma (but not at 3:10). Breakfast was army ration-style reconstituted eggs, but not too bad for all that. The coffee is good and hot.
Breakfast companion was a guy heading for Sacramento. Beanie hat and chin fluff beard, planning to do Forestry Studies at college and work somewhere like Yosemite. I can understand that. Apparently I missed another medical emergency - around 3am, we stopped somewhere and were met by a police car and an ambulance towards the back of the train. It looks as though we're a couple of hours late now, perhaps. It's 6:50am ( Mountain Time. I think) and I'm fairly sure we haven't got to Fort Morgan yet - which was a stop scheduled for 5:05am. I don't think I slept through it.
Donkeys in a feedlot in Otis, in with the cattle.
Mile marker 199 on the road beside us. 199 miles from the end of the road - but where's that?
Silos line the railroad, spigots hanging out over the tracks in wait for a hopper.
31 miles to Fort Morgan. We are at least two hours behind. Not that it matters - and it'll mean time in Denver in the sun, not the cold early morning. Another railroad crossing and the high tink-tink-tink of the bell warning drivers. The same sound as at Francelos when I was a child, the signal to hurry up and get across the tracks if you're on them, or stay off them if you're not.
The snow overnight must have been a little fierce: there's snow blown into the walkways between carriages, and around the door downstairs - a small pile of fine snow, built up in the corners.
Conductor announcement: "We are running a little late. We do apologise for the inconvenience and the tardiness". I love the word "tardiness". Denver will be a longer stop - rates "a cigarette ... or two" rather than the half-cigarette the previous stops have been rated as.
First sight of the foothills of the Rockies, rising at the edge of the plain, many miles away in the morning light. Just the tops now, caught bright gold with the shadows underlying them. We're climbing towards Denver, a steady rise to the Mile High City.
This area is astonishingly lovely - flocks of birds, two levels, drifting over the plains. The plains themselves roll on in shades of dust and gold, scrubland rising and falling gently towards the sharp relief of the mountains. Above it all an endless blue, shading from light at the mountains to dark blue above and then back to light through the horizon. The foothills of the mountains are cast in shadow now, a dark underscore to the snow and light as the mountains rise above. There's a fence along the railtracks. That, and us, are the only indication that there are human beings on this planet.
The train tracks are curving in a loop and suddenly the mountains appear to the right and not just ahead, rising closer and higher at the edge of the plains.
"Rent a horse: riding lessons" - railside sign
The conductor explains a little more about the delay - besides the "medical emergency", the Burlington North Santa Fe Railroad decided that we really needed a stopover in the Lincoln, Nebraska, railyards for half an hour or so late last night, and restricted speed for a stretch of track. Amtrak runs on tracks owned by the freight companies, so is somewhat at their whim.
"No Taxation Without Representation: stop forced annexation. www.commerceteaparty.org" - railside sign
Commerce City
Denver's Pioneer Cemetary
Conductor announcement: "We're backing up into Denver Union Station and we ask that everyone remain seated during the backup manouevre"
Denver is cold and a long way up; I have a headache from a short walk, probably half due to the chill (did I say it was cold?) and half to the elevation. It's still a completely clear sky, with the clear light that comes with altitude. Union Station is another monument to optimism and grandeur but fails to have anything resembling a store - a few vending machines, but nothing more, so it was a quick stroll around the outside and then back to the room. On the way back, I pass the Celestial-Seasons drinking Denverite as he leaves the train. Embarrassing that he remembers my name, but I couldn't even remember his halfway through dinner. Mind you, the introductions were a bit quick, and I joined after they'd done the first round of intros so I got them all at once, and all from the talkative Australian.
I have a cell phone signal, it claims to have an edge connection, but email is not co-operating. No open wireless networks either. Reset network, email is now co-operating.
Wandered the length of the train; it's shorter than I thought it would be, for some reason (three sleeping cars, the dining car, lounge car and three coach cars). Maybe it reflects the tickets sold and is longer in the summer? Two people with long-handled brushes are scrubbing the windows.
Denver seems to have a rather new baseball stadium. Can't remember the team, though - didn't realise there was anything other than the Broncos here (and I'm in the generation that thinks John Elway is still playing ...)
The train has picked up newspapers in Denver, so a copy of The Saturday Post awaits when I get back to the room from walking around the station; the main news in Denver today seems to be that the Rocky Mountain News has closed, 55 days short of its 150th anniversary - surely they could have found the funds to make it to that date? The Post is at pains to reassure people that the best of the News' columnists will be writing for the Post from now on. They've also expanded areas of the Post to cater for things that the News used to deal with. It's rather sad.
Heading out of Denver, apparently back the way we came - but then we pass the points at which we switched to reverse into the station, and keep on going.
The train climbs surprisingly quickly from the plains, twisting through the switchback rails and tunnels (21 so far, and counting). Behind us, at one point - and possibly still, I haven't been able to see - came a car on the rails. Looked like a pick-up, with the wheels replaced by train wheels.
There are photographers from time to time, trackside. They're certainly photographing the train, but it's hard to tell whether that's their primary purpose.
There are houses here. Envy. Sheer envy. It must make for hard living as well, but ... the view (and clean air).
Wonder what the altitude is now? I'm getting tired, so ... fairly high? The maximum elevation we reach will be over 9,000 ft, apparently.
Have resorted to headphones - the people in the sleeper next door seem to have decided that they'd rather watch a slasher movie (or something that sounds like it) than look at the Rockies. They aren't using headphones.
We're heading into the Moffat Tunnel - 6.2 miles, takes 10 minutes to go through it (faster than we've gone for a little while: the train does not rush through the Rockies - useful from the scenic point of view, but necessary given the way the track curves). No walking between cars in the tunnel, because that would let dust and diesel exhaust smoke in.
A ranger stands by his car at the side of the tracks.
Through the tunnel and out into more snow. Much more snow - and Fraser, for the Winter Park Ski Resort. Another quick walk - its a smoke break, as the train doors need to be open to make sure that the fumes from the tunnel are vented. I go out, fresh air is always good. At 8,500ft, it's rather bracing even in the sun. A couple of quick photos, of icicles and the train standing ready, and I'm ready to head back in.
The lounge car - the sightseeing bubble - is fun, so I stop there for a little while just to watch the scenery roll by on both sides. That is a slight drawback to the rooms, as the view is solely to one side. I wonder what I've missed on the other side of the train. Next time - and there will be a next time - I'll have to try and get a room on the opposite side. The extensive windows in the lounge car draw the scenery in but, on the whole, I like being a hermit in my room so I head back to it.
Hot Sulphur Springs. Sounds more appealing than they look - the pools I can see are rather murky and dubious and appear hot only in so far as they are not iced over; all other open water seems to be a mass of ice, even the rivers. I was expecting steam for some reason.
"Enjoy Your Shooting Range"; sign in the middle of nowhere.
Where and what is the FInland Station? (No, not scenery. A line in a Pet Shop Boys track).
This part of the Rockies looks remarkably like the Yorkshire Moors. With more sun, less cloud, less oxygen, and a lot more snow. So, on second thoughts, nothing like the Yorkshire Moors at all.
"Bob's Western Motel" - motel long gone, apparently, but the sign patches up the inside of a open stable. The horses don't seem to care.
Lunch alongside the river - maybe the Colorado river? Will need to look it up when I get near a map again. The first wildlife I've seen for a while - a field of deer. Lunch table companions were a couple from Toronto (he runs a car dealers' association) going to Sacramento, and a guy from Colorado (seventh generation Colodaro, whose great-grandfather won the deeds to a town in a poker game. The town's now a ghost town) going to Salt Lake City, who removes asbestos for a living. The dining car attendant, Kathleen, reckons she's trying to set me up with cute guys at each meal. Uh-huh. We have different definitions of cute (not that there's anything wrong with them, but ... they aren't Michael), but I think I'm somewhere between flattered and amused that they are all mid-twenties.
Interesting how few people are going all the way on the train - I'm one of just three in this car who are going through to San Francisco. Looks like a lot will leave in Salt Lake City and in Sacramento.
Just as well I brought the camera battery charger and a spare battery; I've gone through one battery and the second is starting to wane - the first is now recharged, though.
What is the dominant rock in the Rockies? It looks red (almost oxidised, like rust) and striated; fading to old yellow with age and exposure.
We double back and over and over the river again. Hard to say which meanders more - the tracks or the river.
The train passes a house here, miles from anywhere. A child outside is waving; the driver hoots back - a quick beepbeep hello, not the long drawn out howl that he uses for approaching crossings.
The hills here seem pleated; the snow in the folds highlights the effect. Clouds of aspen (I think they're aspen) cluster at the foot of the hills, a shimmering grey halo of leafless branches.
The curtains do blackout well - just went into a tunnel. I have no lights on in the room, and no light came in from the corridor outside; I opened the curtain a touch just to check that the lights out there were still on (the power went out just before Denver for a little while). The lights were indeed on. The conductor just announced that that was Sweetwater Tunnel. And this is the Colorado River.
The sun has shifted to my side of the train now; it's hot, an odd contrast to the cold-looking snow outside.
287 photographs taken since I last took them off the card this morning. Yeah, that seems about right.
The tunnel for the interstate bridge above us: "Do Not Enter". Given that the interstate here is split level, if you've made it as far as that bridge without realising you're going the wrong way, that sign will not help.
Exit 119: No Name
Dinner reservation achieved for 7:30pm - that's a bit more reasonable than yesterday's 6:30pm.
The western side of the Rockies has more clouds, high cirrus wisps that diffuse the sun and are beginning to glow gold as the sun descends.
Do red lights mean something other than 'stop' on a US railroad? Because we keep going through them. No, not that the lights coming past are red, I'm used to that, but that the lights I can see ahead on a curve - before the locomotive gets to them - are red.
Pitstop at Grand Junction, Colorado, and finally something resembling capitalism reasserts itself - there's a souvenir and snack shop. It is definitely a mom-and-pop type place, and I'm amused to see most of the train crew in there buying Coke, Diet Coke (the train only stocks Pepsi products), and all the varieties of crisps that the train doesn't sell on board (including members of the dining car crew). I settle for a Frappuccino (hey, got to keep up the effete Coastal thing) and some souvenirs for Luke. A Union Pacific train engineer's hat, and a set of railroad logo pins. The Frappuccino turns out to be 'best taste by Feb 02 09'. Hmm. I drink it anyway. It's still sealed and smells ok. I also got some chewing gum - Wrigleys Winterfresh - which, on unwrapping, is in foil-covered sticks. Classic chewing gum; can't remember the last time I had some. Whatever I buy at home always turns out to be pastilles. Do they even sell chewing gum in sticks in Europe anymore? Apart from strawberry-flavoured Hollywood gum in France.
Back down to the plains now; back to earth - and we've made up an hour of our time somewhere along the way. The mountains recede into the distance, circling the plain. Next stop, Utah.
Major Moose, the local Ford dealer's mascot. About 2 stories high and tied down to stop him floating away.
More llamas/alpacas (can't tell the difference at this distance).
The train is picking its way through canyons between curves and towers of red rocks; it's timeless - eternity in the stone, and nothing but rockfalls in the last couple of hundred years. A sudden (and undoubtedly clichéd) awareness of what the first settlers found as they ventured west. For those with a European background, nothing would have prepared them for this. The rocks are high and curving, pockets worn out in places: the river running through this must have been immense once. Now, a small, slow-flowing stream curves through the middle of what was once the riverbed. The railroad curves alongside. The sun has set here, early, hidden behind the escarpments on the other side. The rocks still glow red, with a silver green patina of some sort of lichen, or perhaps heather.
It looks other-worldly, with the trees apparently dead, ghostly twisted forms and an unremitting palate of reds and yellows and silver-green-grey. Nothing is moving apart from us. Pools of red-grey mud lie by the track; boulders litter the ground. The place feels arid, and barren.
Some freight trucks, empty, seem to have been abandoned on the track beside us. They have no locomotive, and are in the middle of nowhere (I don't think I've ever meant that quite so literally before). All rust coloured, apart from one unexpectedly bright blue truck. They're open, with no covering. Perhaps they are meant to carry logs, lashed to the centre struts? But we might be as far from any logging operation as it's possible to get in the continental USA.
The sun has set behind the hills; in the dusk, even the red is now leached from the surroundings. It's a world of greys, and we're trundling through it at about 20 miles an hour, probably caught behind a freight train again. That has its advantages, since this is all stunning to look at.
>Utah is deserted; no lights at all for miles and even then it's usually the railway signals. The clouds have covered the stars; there really is no light out there. I half-convince myself that we're travelling through deep space.
The dinner group tonight included a student from Bristol, travelling around the US and then onto Italy and maybe Norway - staying out of the UK for as long as possible before going back to archaeology somewhere (hasn't decided where); a teacher of culinary arts to 16-24 year olds, heading for Reno to visit a friend; and a student from Japan, heading home after a course in English in New York, and making the most of what's left of his student visa with a trip to Vegas. Dinner was lasagna - I'd like to call it deconstructed, but that would make it sound more planned than I think it actually was. Flat lasagna, anyway.
Sleep was more readily accessible this night - I have no recollection of stopping at Salt Lake City, which is mildly tiresome as I would have liked to see it. But the cumulative effect of four nights of disrupted sleep sent me out for the count shortly after I lay down. I woke up at around 4am (Pacific Time = 5am Mountain Time, 6am Central Time, 7am Eastern, and midday in the UK. Any wonder that I have no difficulty waking? Continued to doze for another hour or so, until the coffee pot started to perk. Another benefit of having the room next to the coffee station - the smell of fresh coffee early in the morning. Well, I think that's a benefit). I have the bed making down to a fine art now (and there is much to be said for the "hide it" school of bed making!), and the shower all figured out. Of course, I have to use neither again on this trip.
Two illuminated signs as we pull in - E-Z Bail and the Spare Time Bowling Center. I think this must be Elko, Nevada, in which case we're two hours late again. Or it's Winnemucca and we're half an hour early - which seems a bit less likely. The stationmaster has a magnificent beard, white and flowing in the manner of Father Christmas. We've done another two stop strategy - again, maybe to let off people from a sleeper and then from the coach? Either that or we're held at the signals: we don't usually stop this long at small stations like this. Again, I wonder what criteria they use to pick station stops on route? This looks like a one-stop-light town - if it even has one. The last small station stop was Helper, Utah, but that turns out to be historic - the reason it's called Helper is that it's where the trains to Salt Lake City used to pick up a helper locomotive to assist them in getting over the mountains into the Salt Lake City bowl. Totally missed all that, it seems.
It's getting slowly lighter here now, shapes beginning to form in the lightening dusk - house trim and cars and hills behind them. On the other side of the train, the rising light catches snow on the hills.
I've reset the time on the laptop and suddenly realised that I'm now going to be in the same time zone for a week; that feels suddenly a little peculiar, after the last three days of changing zones - although the changes have been mostly at night, so that I just wake up in a different zone. Wednesday night: UK - Eastern; Thursday night: Eastern - Central; Friday night: Central - Mountain; Saturday night: Mountain - Pacific.
I've just remembered that the clocks go back next Sunday in the US - I've probably posted an all-time record for time changes in one vacation (a personal record, that is. No doubt someone somewhere has done considerably more).
The car that has been sitting in a driveway, lights on, for the past 15 minutes (since we got here) has now pulled out and left. Must be cold outside.
A van has just driven up alongside the train - looks like some sort of passenger vehicle. Maybe this is Winnemucca, then?
The sky is lightening into a faint blue with wisps of cloud. Last night's clouds across the stars have been left behind in Utah.
Ten minutes, and we've gone from near-total darkness to a point where I can see all the detail in the houses around. The blue walls and white trim of the house just in front.
The van has driven off again, and someone else is pulling out of their driveway to head off to work.
The warmed-up car is back again. Forgot something? Or just warmed up the car to go out for milk and bread? Must be milk and bread; he hasn't come out again.
This must be Winnemucca then - just had an announcement to say that we can get off the train to go for a walk if we want to, we'll be here for 10-15 minutes longer. We must have made up the time around Salt Lake City - we were scheduled to be only half an hour late there and I suspect that the train didn't hold there for the half hour scheduled.
This is a dusty looking town; looking chilly in the early morning. There is a W carved into the hillside above Winnemucca.
Moving out across the desert - the sheer expanse of empty space is startling. Tumbleweed - real tumbleweed! lies scattered and caught in the fence that marks the edge of the railroad property. A single house is surrounded by incongrous trees in this land where no trees grow. The hills at the edge of the desert are tinged with snow. This is what the sightseeing car was designed for.
An old riverbed, wide and flat, now has only a trickle of a creek flowing through it in fits and starts.
Breakfast with Scotty, who got on at Elko and is travelling to Reno, to attend the Governor's Forum for People with Disabilities. Scotty has Down's but is definitely not letting that get in his way - he's charming and garrulous and I suspect is more than a handful for his minder. Besides Scotty and his minder there's an elderly gentlemen who's on his way home from delivering a pickup truck to his nephew, and who wants to know what bangers, toad in the hole, and spotted dick are. He's been watching Leo McKern in Rumpole of the Bailey.
Passing by a salt flat, and suddenly it becomes completely obvious that this was once an inland sea as the ground stretches out flat in all directions to the hills in the distance.
I was worried the train might be out of the desert before I'd finished breakfast and could get back to my camera. Hah. An hour after I've finished breakfast, and the end of the Northern Nevada desert is nowhere in sight. Some impressive looking clouds on the far horizon, though.
Conductor announcement: "We should be in Reno around 9:22 or something".
A truck goes past, trailing a cloud of dust that dissipates slowly behind.
There's a Starbucks in the middle of the Nevada desert.
A small paddock, almost green, is home to a flock of Canada geese. Did they get lost?
Into the foothills; we've left the sun behind in the desert.
Roadside: "Best Food! Best Slots!"
"Laub & Laub: Free Legal Answers in 1 Hour" Never mind the quality, feel the speed.
Sparks Marina. Marina?! Its in desert foothills, 300 miles from the coast. Someone's dug a large pond here, though.
Sparks, 10 minutes from Reno. So, which railroad executive lived here when they were setting up the schedule?
Today's newspaper is the Reno-Gazette Journal. It's a weird size - it's square when folded; about the same top-bottom as a UK broadsheet, but much narrower across. Not a lot going on, apparently, when the "Nation & World" headlines are that three people have died in an avalanche in Wyoming and that U2 are about to release their twelth album.
Hey, we get commentary from California RailRoad Museum volunteers from here to Sacramento! Tales of train robberies by Sunday School teachers, and trenches to lower the railroad below the Reno streets.
California, at last.
Approaching Truckee - used to store railroad snow-clearing equipment; and it's a winter resort as well, apparently. Today, it's raining.
The Stanford Curve - 180 degree curve around the valley, to line up to climb the northern side of the valley to the tunnel and the top of the Sierra.
Donner Lake - a glacier formed lake.
Avalanche protection? Or just points protection? We've crossed tracks under that snow shed, anyway. Apparently they used to be called snow galleries and were made of wood; not a brilliant idea when the locomotives were steam fired with large fires going .... they were there for avalanche protection, to minimise disruption to the line from avalanches.
It's snowing in the Sierra Nevada.
Soda Springs. Does it? The skiers are out in force, although it's a near whiteout here.
The road 's's back on itself below us - I can see at least four repeats fading into the distance down the mountain.
The snow has smoothed out the edges of the world, curving at the edge of the track in a soft mound following the path we take.
Winter's ending as we come down from the mountains.
The California is bizarrely green, to eyes that have seen nothing but the plains, the mountains and desert for the last two days. There is blossom on the trees, and the rail tracks follow through small towns and past houses like a commuter train. It seems odd to be on a train that's crossed the country, but to be looking into people's back gardens. I may be influenced by Eurostar, with its tracks kept well away from the domestic.
We pass a mandarin grove, two hours and several thousand feet away from a blizzard.
On the way to lunch, an eastbound California Zephyr goes by.
Lunch with a family from Berkley; he's a consultant on organic waste recycling, she's doing a PhD on plant ecology and they've adopted a daughter from Guatemala.
We're likely to be early into Emeryville; I'm rather loathe to leave now, comfortable in the rhythm and sound and life on the train. A window where the landscape doesn't move? Where's the fun in that? That said, a long walk sounds good as well. Seriously considering getting a rental car when I get into San Francisco and heading out to Muir Beach and the scent of pine and eucalyptus, but it'll probably be getting too dark.
Roseville. Named at a picnic in the 1800s after the most popular girl at the picnic. What made her so popular?
There's an old London bus in a yard full of caravans. Still painted red.
Another yard; this time, the hardtop for a pickup has been left in the middle of grass. It looks as though the pickup has been swallowed by the ground, leaving only the top visible.
An ex-air force base is now used as a business park; there are still entrances visible to the missile silos underground. Maybe they're storage units now?
Birds on a telegraph wire, all facing east.
San Joaquin Valley - more green, more fields.
Suburbia.
We arrive half an hour early.
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(Anonymous) 2009-03-02 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)