rolanni | CONduit: Our Descent into the Underworld

Wednesday, May 26
On the train to Salt Lake City, room #6, car 532, the California Zephyr

Dinner last night was pleasant. Our tablemates were a couple from out Vancouver way, who had started across Canada by rail on the first of May, gone out to New Brunswick, Montreal, Toronto, then across to New York City and were making their way to California, thence up the coast and to home. Interesting folks, with good stories about their travels. They were fans of the Calgary Flames and thanks to

windrose I was able to talk to them about the Shark's/Flames playoffs.

We ate in the last shift -- 7:30 p.m. train time, or 8:30 home-time and dawdled over the meal, talking. Back in our room, Steve and I broke out the travel Scrabble game, but the lighting wasn't up to the challenge, so we turned off the lights and talked, watching the night roll by the windows until I nodded off and Steve put me to bed in the bottom bunk and retired to the upper.

Time shifted again sometime during the night, putting us back another hour from home time. According to train-time, I woke at 5 a.m., swallowed the pill, and lay there staring out at Nebraska until I drifted back to sleep. In spite of which, we were both awake, dressed and at breakfast by 6:45.

Our tablemate for breakfast was Bob, a retired school administrator, traveling home to Denver after a trip back East. The talk ranged from ground fog to jackrabbits to politics and the state of Colorado's new legislature. We were joined toward the end of the meal by Mike, a retired long-distance trucker, who was taking the train out to California to see his daughter.

Lunch is just over. Our tablemates were again interesting and pleasant people -- we've had a good run of company this trip. I learned from them that the striking black-and-white birds we see in such quantity out here are magpies. The talk bounced around from teaching school to salmon fishing in Alaska, to writing, and reading, until we were finally thrown out of the dining room by our waiter.

In between breakfast and lunch was the Moffat Tunnel.

Let me tell you about the Moffat Tunnel.

Built between 1922 and 1927, and located at 9,000 feet above sea level, the tunnel passes beneath the Continental Divide. It is 6.2 miles long, the sixth longest tunnel in the world. A train may traverse the tunnel in 10 minutes, and while the passage is being
made, the doors between the cars are locked, so diesel fumes and coal dust do not enter the train.

At the ends of the tunnel, so we were once told, are steel doors that automatically close at the exit end as soon as the train enters, and which roll back, in the ultimate exercise of precision and blind trust, bare minutes before its struck by an onrushing locomotive.

Three times now I've been through the Moffat Tunnel. The first time, the conductor explained in detail about the steel doors; how much they weigh, what the timing is, at what speed the train traverses the tunnel, the length and the time. This may or may not have been Railroad Humor, for no subsequent conductor has mentioned the doors; the announcement for the tunnel only mentions its imminence, its length and how long the train and its inhabitants will be hidden from the eyes of the sun. I've forgotten how much the steel doors weighed – in fact or in fancy -- their existence, and the operation of the tunnel -- that sticks with me, though. It's the sort of thing that does.

I don't much like the Moffat Tunnel, truth be told. And this time, I'd managed to forget that it was on the route entirely. I'd somehow convinced myself that we'd be going through Raton Pass, though I knew full well we'd be traveling on the Zephyr and the Pass is on the Southwest Chief's route.

The approach is beautiful: A long slow climb out of Denver into high country, with long views of meadows and the real high country, still snow-covered today -- rising up behind it all. The air is clear, thin enough to bother a low-lander's sinuses, the sunlight a sharp-edged blare that strikes the land like a spear.

The train climbs higher and the meadowlands give over to ragged rock face -- pine trees growing out of sheer cliffs; purple flowers growing out of crumbling red rock. We pass through tunnels -- paltry, wannabe tunnels. The cliffs are so close on both sides of the train that if you could put your hand out the window your fingers would be smeared with red rock dust.

Up we go then, not hurrying but not dawdling, either. We come out of the last of the wannabe tunnels into a brilliant meadow. A stream runs busily through the long grass and the tangled scrub. Flowers star the grass -- pink, purple, yellow, white. The wind
ruffles the leaves of the trees. It is a peaceful place, a perfect place. And it is here that the train stops for a few minutes. They say -- the conductors and the attendants, that
they stop here to do a safety check before approaching the tunnel. Me, I think they stop here to allow their passengers to pray, and to fill their minds, hearts and souls with this last peaceful, perfect image before they enter the underworld to dice with Death.

Brakes certified and prayers done, the train begins to move, crawling at first -- no more than five miles an hour -- but picking up speed steadily. We pass through the train yard, the tunnel approach; train workers in hardhats and yellow safety vests stand solemnly at the side of the track, or pause and turn from their tasks, to raise their hands to us as we run by.

There! Ahead, the tunnel. A last worker stands trackside at the mouth, a portly man in a white hardhat, a faded blue t-shirt under his orange safety vest. He touches two fingers to his hat in salute as he looks up into our window -- and then the darkness has us.

The darkness inside the tunnel is so absolute that the eyes weave fantasy images out of the blackness -- long inclines of broken rock stretching off into the dark distance; dwarves with their picks at ready, lacy swirls of grays, like clouds. The images do not fade when you close your eyes.

There is neither time nor distance in the tunnel. Perhaps we traverse in ten minutes. Perhaps we traverse in ten years. Who can know? But traverse, we do, pulled forward to our doom, or to the light.

This time, the magic works, the dice fall well, the steel doors slide back, and the train roars out into the blare of the sun.