CONduit: The Adventure Continues

The further adventures of Amtrak Train #49, Car 25117, Lake Shore Limited

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

The train rolled into Cleveland Station at 7:10 a.m., four hours behind schedule. Luckily, our connection to Salt Lake City doesn't leave Chicago Union Station until 2 p.m. We may make it. If we're close, says one of the attendants, they'll hold the train
for us. If we're not, Amtrak will put us up in a hotel and put us on the next train going our way. If that happens, we'll miss the library gig Thursday night. Urp.

But that's the future. In the past...

Around about 10 p.m. last night, Crew Chief Bob Schmidt discovered that Steve and I were going all the way to Chicago and moved us down to seats 23 and 24, mid-car. Once in our new digs, we had a glass of wine. Bob Schmidt stopped by to chat a bit and tell us about one of the conductors, who writes horror. Duty called eventually, Steve dozed while I had at Merry Gentry. It had been an adrenaline filled day and I was still somewhat wired.

The train quieted down by bits and pieces as people put their cellphones away, and settled in to sleep. At last, mine was the only light on. Steve slept fitfully and I didn't even want to try, but at last Merry wore me out and I nodded off. Sleep, as I say, was broken -- broken most thoroughly by a longish stop sometime in the early single digit hours. We looked, but there was only darkness outside the windows -- no station, no city, nobody on the road, if road there was – no stars.

Good ol' #49 at last got underway again. A crew member came by, saw we were awake and stopped to let us know that the train had run over a railway tie that had been left in the middle of the track. The conductors had removed it and the train was now moving
on. Which it did at a good clip. We both dozed off again, my head on Steve's shoulder, letting the train rock us to sleep.

And woke up to silence, the train once again motionless and nothing outside the windows but black night and the occasional headlight glare from a truck on the distant road. This was around 2:30 a.m., after we'd been stopped for awhile. It was too still and my back hurt from being crammed in the seat at a weird angle, so I straightened up, turned on the light and got back with Merry. My goodness, what adventures that girl has.

Steve woke up and we talked a little, low-voiced. One of the passengers across the aisle woke up and started folding papers, first loading her CD player and slipping the buttons into her ears. The guy in the seat behind me had a nightmare, kicked the back of my chair repeatedly, snorted awake, shifted position and went back to sleep.

We saw dawn bleach the edge of the sky a little after four, and at 5:30 a.m., the train started to move again.

The story from another crew member: The tie had in actuality been a pile of ties, which had splintered when the forward engine caught them up and though the conductors had removed the larger pieces, they had missed several which had gotten up into the workings and the wheel wells. In addition, the cowcatcher had been deformed by the impact and displayed a worrisome tendency to catch on the track. Concerned that we might derail, the conductors called ahead to CSX, which sent a crew down to weld the damaged cow catcher. The forward engine, with its compliment of splinters, was powered down and the back-up engine brought on line. Its now pulling the cars and pushing the forward locomotive, ever nearer to Chicago, bold heart.

The cafe car opened at 6:30 a.m. and breakfast was a microwaved bagel with cream cheese for me, an apple muffin for Steve and strong railroad coffee all around.

This train has been ill-wished from the beginning of the trip, according to Bob Schmidt, who naturally doesn't put it that way. There is, for instance, no dining car for the first class passengers and them others what're eager to pay five-star prices for two-star food. When they were putting the train set together at the yard in New York, the dining car was found to be defective in some way, and so it was "shopped." However, no other dining car was available, so a second café car was added, back near the sleepers, and stocked with frozen Stouffer's dinners, and that's what first class had for dinner. We did better, I'm thinking, with the d'angelo's sub that we packed in.

It's 7:40 a.m. and we're at the Elyria, Ohio station as I type. The schedule says we should've been here at 3:27 a.m.

This is going to be interesting.

Straying for a moment from the theme of disasters, the day outside my window is pleasant: slightly overcast and misty over Lake Erie as we rumbled through Cleveland. The marinas are so tight with watercraft you could walk from one end to the other, stepping from deck to deck. The Donald Z. Nelson was at dock being loaded with sand, or ore, or coal. A lone sailboat was out beyond the breakwater, sails full of wind. All of the water we've passed over or run by has been brown, and running swift, frothy with yesterday's rains. There are standing puddles in fields and yards, some patronized by a few puzzled but game Canada geese.

One of the joys of traveling by train is the lovely rolling greenness of the passing countryside. One of the horrors is seeing first hand how very much junk there is in this world. Man is the animal that clutters and leaves without cleaning up after himself.

Steve is dozing again. Me, I think I'll stare at the window a bit and then open the sample chapter file.

* * *

Eleven-fifteen. Just outside of Waterloo, Indiana. An hour delay for a disabled freight train on the track ahead. The cafe car has run out of food. Well, maybe they'll hold our train for us at Chicago.

* * *

We raised the station at 2 p.m., Chicago time, left Train 49, walked into the station by one door and were immediately waved out another.

"Train Five! To your right! Train Seven! To your right!" called the Amtrak employee at our entry gate. We obediently went right, dragging the duffel bag, and fetchingly draped with Sabu, my handbag, Steve's camera and laptop.

"Train Five?" asked the attendant at the next gate. "Straight down on your right."

So we went right again, traipsing past the mail cars to the first sleeper and Reggie the car attendant, who happily had us on his list. Upstairs we went, bearing, uh-huh, right, to room six and here we are, on our way to Naperville. It's 3:10 p.m., Chicago time, departure just forty minutes late.

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.

CONduit: Census

We saw a number of animals on the trip. Partial list below.

Moose
Bald Eagle
Hawks 'waaaaay up there
Crows/Ravens
Comorant
Cat (in Sandusky)
Dogs
Blue Herons
White Herons
Canada Geese -- lots and lots of Canada Geese
Loons
Ducks -- mallard, black-and-white
Cows
Horses
Ponies
Mules
Llamas
Goats
Jackrabbits
Grey heron
Magpie
Golden eagle
Red-tailed hawks
Prarie dog
Deer
Antelope
Parakeets -- in Chicago Union Station, two in a cage which was sitting precariously atop a luggage cart piled high with suitcases
Buzzards
Pelicans

Flowering Cactus

Rafters -- mooning the train
Kayakers -- playing in the rapids
Hikers -- mooning the train
Fishermen -- what train?

CONduit: We Arrive

Thursday, May 27, 2004, 11:25 a.m.
Prime Hotel and Convention Center
Salt Lake City Utah
The View from the Tenth Floor

The Zephyr raised Salt Lake City's Amtrak box at one minute before midnight, Wednesday, a mere 40 minutes behind schedule. The plan was to catch a taxi and get ourselves to the Wyndham-that-was up at 215 West South Temple Street. Unfortunately, we didn't see any taxis hanging out at the train station, as they do in so many of the cities we've been in, so the plan became (1) collect the checked bags and (2) badger the poor guy behind the counter in re taxicabs.

Fortunately for him and for us, (2) was not necessary, for who to our bleary eyes should appear as we entered the station but the stalwart and brave Kammi Davis and her sister Jaimee, come to whisk us off to the hotel. This was accomplished after some creative use of the trunk and a little judicious shoving of the baggage. Then we were off through the glittering metropolis of Salt Lake City, Utah, which was all but entirely closed down at just-past-midnight on a weekday. On the way, Kammi explained that taxicabs in Salt Lake City rarely visit the train station, and that most things downtown close around 8 p.m. Huh.

Arrived at the Wyndham-that-was. Check-in was a dream, greatly facilitated by Heidi on the desk. Kammi and Jaimee guided us to our room, and Kammi spent some time trying to explain the Salt Lake City Trax system to two fried brains, before taking her leave with much good cheer.

The room is lovely; spacious and light, with a view of a section of the city and what is perhaps the Temple, but might just as well be the Federal Courthouse. The con has graciously provided flowers, and a fruit basket, Pepsi, bottled water, and a bottle of wine with a variety of cheeses in the fridge, which is really very nice of them. Pretty flowers -- all colors of carnation with baby breath and ferns, and the fruit basket is very tempting.

Alone in our room -- a room that didn't move! -- we flipped for first shower (Steve won), unpacked, sipped a glass of wine, nibbled some cheese and fell into bed, exhausted but
clean, at 2:30 a.m. SLC time.

At 8:30 a.m., Housekeeping knocked on our door, wanting to do up the room. In our exhaustion we had failed to notice that the all-important Do Not Disturb sign was missing not only from the doorknob, but from the entire room. Steve explained to the lady that we had gotten in very late and wanted to sleep. She apologized and moved on to her next room. We went back to sleep.

At 9:15 a.m., Housekeeping again knocked on the door. Steve had the almost-identical conversation with a different lady, who apologized and went away. He came back to bed, and we both lay there, waiting for the next knock at the door. At 9:30, we conceded defeat, got up, dressed, and descended upon the in-house restaurant, a Shula's without a single television set! -- where we broke our fast. The coffee was very good. The less said about the extruded bagel-like product, the better. Steve seemed happy with his eggs-over-easy and I snabbled some of his whole wheat toast. We're now back in the room -- ironically yet to be made up -- briefly, plans are for a brief tour of the neighborhood, lunch, a conversation with the concierge about how to acquire a taxi to take us to the library gig tonight. And a nap. Definitely, a nap.
* * *
Here ends those bits of the trip report which were written on the road. Con report follows -- tomorrow, more like.