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Sunday, August 16, 2015
Making My World Live Without Me
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Not much to do today but get ready for my train trip. It departs New Orleans tomorrow, and will have me out of pocket for two weeks.
But the day before I go anywhere is always jammed with work. Most of this is pulling all my data together for me to keep fresh editions of the Menu Daily coming to my readers throughout the trip. This is always much harder than I think it will be, and is almost enough to keep me from going on vacation at all. Still, it looks as if I will actually accomplish that for the first time.
The only leisure time today is brunch with the religious brother (and future priest) Ryan Richardson. We know him from our meeting in Rome a couple of months ago. Today, the venue is less auspicious: Ox Lot 9, the restaurant of the Southern Hotel in Covington. We owe Brother Ryan at least a brunch for officiating over the renewal of our marriage vows in St. Peter's in the Vatican. This was arranged by three couples traveling with us, who allowed us to horn in on the blessing.
We dine lightly. Everything looked good, but the soft shell crab BLT was certainly the best thing on the table. Two modest-size (but who needs more than that for a brunch?) crabs are made into sort of a poor boy, with three thick slices of smoky bacon and a white remoulade sauce, heavy on the savory herbs. Eating it as a sandwich would have been difficult, so I pulled it apart. No law that one has to eat all the bread in front of one.
Then a lady came up to our table, attracted by Brother Ryan's Roman collar. Let's just say that she had a lot of problems, mostly involving her son and his wife. She also seemed to be having trouble paying her restaurant bill. We were there quite a while, trying to sort this out, but it was beyond our capabilities.
Back home, we skip all remaining meals and I pack my bags. Mary Ann is will be holding down all the fortresses, from the radio show to the feeding of the cat Twinnery. That takes a load off my mind.
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[title type="h5"]Monday, August 17, 2015.
Putting The West Into A Box Of Trains. The First Time.
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Mary Ann awakens early to take me to Union Passenger Terminal, where the first of my four trains leaves at nine in the morning. This is the Sunset Limited, Amtrak Train Number One. That's just an identifying number, not an accolade. But the Sunset does have claims to fame. It bears the oldest train name in America, in continuous use for over a hundred years.
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Crossing the Huey P. Long Bridge on the Sunset Limited.[/caption]
The train crosses the Mississippi River on what for a long time was the longest railroad bridge in the world. The Sunset's bridge over the Pecos River gorge in West Texas was at one time the highest such. Not far away, the second transcontinental railroad in America was made whole with the pounding in of a silver spike.
I ruminate over all that as the train crosses the Huey P. Long Bridge and heads into the sugar cane fields. I am disappointed to learn that there is no breakfast served on this train on either end of its journey. But there is fresh coffee and juice in the sleeping car. I get a cinnamon roll from the lounge car, sit back, relax, and mull over the purpose of this ride. I have wanted for some time to travel on two major routes that have not carried me in the past. I glided only along the southern third of the Coast Starlight, from Los Angeles to Davis, California. I will shortly cover the rest of it. I have never been on the Empire Builder, which runs just south of the Canadian border from Seattle to Chicago. It is alleged to be the most magnificent route in the country, through the Rockies.
This train mania of mine dates back when I was some nine years old, living less than a block from the Illinois Central main line. I watched the trains go by, taking particular note of the passenger trains with their empty sleeping car rooms and empty dining car. I didn't know it at the time, but I was looking at one of the greatest of American trains near the end of a long decline.
After we moved away from there, I forgot about trains for twenty years. Then a friend told me that he visited his brother in Jackson, Mississippi by taking the Panama Limited. Also around that time, Arlo Guthrie had a big hit with Steve Goodman's song "Riding On The City of New Orleans"–about the other train on the Illinois Central, and how pathetically outmoded it had become.
I have a liking for pathetically outmoded institutions. The entire culture of old transportation has particular appeal. I went to Union Passenger Terminal one day in 1978, picked up some schedules, and starting thinking.
The two-week trip that grew from that curiosity was not quite a train-lover's dream come true. The trains were too degraded for that to happen. But it was a crazy, nerdy pleasure, one that nobody I knew at the time had ever so much as considered. It happened in a time when I was already writing journals, although not as assiduously as I do now. Nevertheless, I can recall every detail of that trip and treasure the memory.
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The Texas Big Bend Country, from aboard the Sunset Limited. [/caption]
It was one day longer than the current itinerary, but it covered many more miles (over 10,000, as opposed to my upcoming 7,500). In those days, you could buy a pass that allowed you to ride unlimited in coach, at the rate of fifteen days for $150. But it had a drawback: you couldn't book a sleeping car space in advance, even if you were willing to pay the upcharges. Once the train got moving, however, you could find the conductor and buy any empty sleeper space that had not been reserved. Doing this, I managed to get sleeping compartments in five of the eight trains involved.
And a sleeper is essential, insurance against sleepless misery. Whether it's worth the rather high sleeper charges is not agreed upon by all travelers. But I was immediately convinced as the first leg of my trip commenced.
My 1978 journey began aboard the Panama Limited (now called The City Of New Orleans) to Chicago. The dining car was minimal, with all the food cooked in a microwave oven and served by a single waiter. It and the coaches were among the first newly-built passenger cars in decades. Despite this modernity or perhaps because of it, a lot of the romance of the rail was gone. I did persist in the classic sleeping car, where the porter shined my shoes without my asking him to do so, among other services.
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The sleeping car attendant for 30 years on the Sunset Limited. He took good care of me all the way to Los Angeles.[/caption]
The train made it to Chicago the next morning, with time for breakfast--which was about as uninspired as the dinner the night before had been. I transferred almost directly to the Lake Shore Limited, running to New York City alongside three Great Lakes. This was entirely an old train, with a full dining car, a lounge car, and several sleepers. But none for me. That night, I found how uncomfortable the coach car is for sleeping, despite the large size of the chairs.
I was met in Manhattan by a not-quite girlfriend I knew from the Drama Department at UNO, where we both were schooled. I took her out to dinner in a grand French restaurant. We retired to her tiny apartment, where she let me share her bed, but--sorry to disappoint--only for sleeping.
The next morning I left New York for New Orleans aboard the Southern Crescent, one of only two passenger trains still operated by its host railroad, not by Amtrak. It was rail travel of the old school, with great service and food. They cooked using a wood-burning oven, and everything was restaurant quality. I was able to procure a sleeper on this, completing the experience.
The Southern Crescent brought me back to New Orleans, where I spent the night in my own, no more lively apartment. Next afternoon I was on the rails again, with the Sunset Limited taking me to Los Angeles. It was a great ride, in the best old-style sleeping car roomette I would ever have. Even the food was good. I particularly recall a grilled sirloin strip I ate while rolling through New Mexico.
After the two-day Sunset ride to Los Angeles, I made a direct connection with the Coast Starlight, with San Francisco in mind. I didn't need a sleeper for that daytime run. But I was unable to get a hotel in S.F. or anywhere else nearby that night. I jumped off the Starlight in Davis. (I didn't know it at the time, but Davis is home to the dominant educational institution for those interested in the wine business as a career.) I spent the night in Davis and considered my next step. I could either re-board the Coast Starlight bound for Seattle, and from there go to Chicago. Or I could go straight to Chicago aboard the California Zephyr. I chose the latter.
The Zephyr (no relation to the roller coaster in the old Pontchartrain Beach) has the most dramatic scenery of any American train. No surprise, then, that its sleeping cars were all full. Not having a sleeper, however, resulted in most memorable rail passage of my life, topping every trip before or since. It began with a spectacular crossing of the High Sierra in daylight, with snow-topped mountains on both sides. The train wove its way through deep gorges, following the route of the the first American transcontinental railroad (the one with the golden spike).
In the middle of that night, unable to sleep in the coach car, I made my way to the domed observation car. Always full during the day, it offered many seats at two a.m. The train traveled across the level salt desert in Nevada into Utah. I could see ahead, behind and to all sides of the train, and watched the block signals change from green to red as the locomotive passed them. I stayed there for hours as we crossed the Great Salt Lake and beyond. If I had been in a sleeper, I would never have seen this dramatic spectacle.
That experience notwithstanding, I hopped off the Zephyr in Laramie. I spent the night in a small hotel near the train station and, refreshed, caught the next eastbound Zephyr. I was able to get a sleeper on that one, and watched the endless wheat and corn fields brush by all the way to Chicago.
That Zephyr ran late, and I missed my connection with the Texas Eagle to San Antonio. From there I planned to take the Sunset home. Amtrak put me up at a nearby Holiday Inn. I spent the evening and most of the next day looking around Chicago. With my rail pass and my cash wearing thin, I ended the way I started, with a return home in a sleeper on the Panama Limited.
Ten years later, a strange coincidence showed itself. A year before I took my 10,000 rail journey around America, my wife Mary Ann--who I had not yet met--took an almost identical train trip to the one above. What were the chances?
Tune in tomorrow for the diary of my four-train itinerary around the West, with extended stops in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago.
[title type="h3"]To Part 2, New Orleans to Los Angeles[/title]
[title type="h3"]To Part 3, Hanging Out In Los Angeles[/title]
[title type="h3"]To Part 4, Los Angeles to Seattle[/title]
[title type="h3"]To Part 5, Seattle to Chicago to New Orleans[/title]
