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Southwest Chief and Texas Eagle to Joliet, Illinois 4/19-24/1993

After everything that transpired during the previous trip earlier in the month, Bill Compton decided not to go on the second segment of this journey with me, which was to Joliet on the Southwest Chief and my first ride on the Texas Eagle.

Since I was ticketed with two seats, I wouuld not have to share a seat with anyone and rode took the usual and completely uneventful San Diegan to Los Angeles to connect to the Southwest Chief.

We departed on time and went the usual way through Pasadena then I stayed up over Cajon Pass before retiring for the night.

4/20/1993 This ride provided no surprises and it was a normal quick trip to Albuquerque then passed through Lamy, went through Apache Canyon, climbed Glorieta Pass and descended its east side. The train travelled through the "S" curves at Chappelle, passed Wagon Mound and completed the afternoon with Raton Pass, where darkness took hold on the descent to Trinidad. I had a late dinner of a New York Strip and went to sleep after La Junta.

4/21/1993 Early the next morning at 4:30 AM, we suddenly stopped and minutes later, I saw the crew outside the train so dressed and went to the Sightseer Lounge Car for a better view when the conductor walked in and I asked what had happened and he told me that because of the rains last night which were very heavy, a flash flood washed out the tracks near Saffordville and cut our route to Emporia fifteen miles away. The Santa Fe has agreed to re-route us via some branch lines to their southern main line so we can continue our trip east. He then added if I wanted some new trackage to ride this morning I will definitely be getting it. I thanked him and walked back to my bag to get my Santa Fe employee timetable so I could at least know where I was and as I walked back to the lounge car, realized I may be the only person on the train happy with the new situation.

The train reversed to Strong City where the locomotives ran around the train before we proceeded the sixty miles back to Newton. Santa Fe put two locomotives on the rear of to pull us down the branch line to reach the southern main line and while I was enjoying the experience of riding these new routes, it was still dark. We made our way backwards to Mulvane on the Arkansas City Subdivision but since I was in the lounge car, it did not make any difference and we made good time doing forty miles an hour. We slowed for Wichita and travelled east in the dawn with the total mileage being 42.7 to Ellinor, where we joined the southern main line of the Emporia Subdivision for 108.4 miles and finally reached Emporia with the sun shining. Now three hours late, while I did enjoy the detour, I initially thought my chances of reaching Chicago for the Texas Eagle were dashed but since that train serves Joliet as well as the Southwest Chief. I could make my connection there.

Leaving Emporia now on the normal route, we made our way to Topeka where east of town, we followed close to the banks of the Kansas River and I was passing through countryside I had only previously ridden westbound in the dark. We passed through Lawrence then viewed the waters over the banks flooding the low-lying farmlands and rejoined the freight mainline at Holliday, travelled through the vast Santa Fe Argentine yard, which was full of trains waiting to go west, then arrived at Kansas City. Just before our departure, it was announced that anyone connecting with the Texas Eagle should be off the train and we departed Kansas City three hours late with me still on board.

Our route took us over the Kansas City Terminal Railroad passing switchers with local trains before we returned to Santa Fe-owned trackage. The lounge car was full of people waiting for service to resume then by the time we reached Sibley and the crossing of the Missouri River, we were back into the rain and it was a very heavy shower, perhaps the same system which dumped all that rain at Saffordville last night. We travelled through the downpour for over an hour before reaching Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, with its very attractive red brick station and it was easy to see how Walt Disney came up with the idea of Main Street, USA at Disneyland. After lunch, we stopped at Fort Madison, our only stop in the state of Iowa, before we crossed the Mississippi River on the Santa Fe swing bridge, the joint highway/railroad bridge, then crossed the hills and plains to Galesburg, Illinois. Near Chillicothe, we crossed the Illinois River then climbed some hills before we rounded the famous Houlihan's Curve, site of many Santa Fe publicity photos over the years and stopped at Streator, where Conrail's freight connection to bypass Chicago, is located, before we arrived at Joliet at 5:24 PM, or three hours late, and I detrained.

I had seen photographs taken at Joliet but never thought I would be getting off an Amtrak train here. I had just over an hour to spare before the Texas Eagle was scheduled to arrive so I went and explored Joliet Union Station then returned to the platform just in time to see a Metra Rock Island Line train arrive, led by F40PHM-2 207, nee Regional Transportation Authority 207, built by Electro-Motive Division in 1992, which gave me an opportunity to examine the engine and the interior of these commuter cars and decided that one day I wouuld ride a Metra train from Chicago to Joliet. A solid set of Santa Fe warbonnets on a hot freight train sped through before I saw the headlight of the Texas Eagle.

I boarded the Texas Eagle, led by Amtrak B32-8WH 504, built by General Electric in 1991 to leave the home of Joliet Jake of "Blues Brothers" fame and upon telling the conductor that Los Angeles was my destination, he escorted me back three cars to the empty through coach to the Sunset Limited and the West Coast. After settling in, I walked forward to the dining car and enjoyed a chicken dinner while watching the setting sun then upon returning to my seat, the early morning caught up with me so I gave in and fell asleep across my two seats.

4/22/1993 I slept well and awakened to find myself in the State of Arkansas for the first time on a train and looking out of the window, I saw nothing but forest. It was not long until the announcement that the next station was Little Rock, the state capital, which provided me the opportunity to step off and stand on the ground, or platform, in Arkansas. We departed on time and after passing the urban landscape, returned to the pine and hardwood forest. The next stop had the unique name of Arkadelphia, which thanks to my British Spy wife, Elizabeth, I learned that the site was settled in about 1809 by John Hemphill, operator of a nearby salt works, Arkansas's first industry. It was known as Blakelytown until 1839, when the settlement adopted the name Arkadelphia. The town was named "Arkadelphia," a portmanteau of Ark- from the state's name Arkansas and adelphia from the Greek meaning "brother/place".

About fifty minutes later we crossed the Red River, which has a unique red colour and arrived in Texarkana, the only station located in two states, Arkansas and Texas. I had photographed trains around eastern Texas with Bill Compton in 1987, so the landscape looked very familiar. On the outskirts of town, we passed the former Missouri Pacific tie plant where there was lots of maintenance-of-way equipment then for the next hour, we travelled through the rolling green hills of eastern Texas before arriving at Marshall with its nice depot. Now proceeding westward, we passed the rich oil fields as we made our way to Longview and at this point, my through car only had thirteen passengers and according to the attendant who was going as far as Austin, the state capital of Texas, it should stay light all the way to Los Angeles. We were now paralleling a highway Bill and I drove out of Dallas, and in a short time the skyline of Big "D" dominated the horizon and I thought of J.R. Ewing of "Dallas" fame. We arrived at the station and I had time to look around it before reboarding the Texas Eagle to continue my trek home.

Reunion Tower, or it is affectionately known by locals, The Ball, has been a staple of the Dallas skyline since 1978. The weather was turning stormy and nasty as we approached Fort Worth and we reversed into the station for a crew change before we continuing south into the twilight, now traveling on the Santa Fe. After Cleburne, I went to the dining car for a steak dinner, during which darkness took full hold and I started to feel a head cold developing so returned to my coach seat where I laid down but had to return to a seated position. At Temple, we switched onto the rails of the former Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway where over the course of the next two hours, we stopped in Taylor, Austin and San Marcos before arriving at San Antonio fifteen minutes early. Here, the through coach and sleeper for the Sunset Limited were cut off from the Texas Eagle and before I turned in for the night, two crew members came into our car and turned all the seats so they would be facing in the correct direction of travel, thus putting me at the front of the near-empty coach. I then fell quickly asleep.

Waking up, my head cold was worse and I started to smell cigarette smoke. During the night and since my coach was nearly empty, the train crew made the last six rows the smoking section of the train, much to the chagrin of the passengers who were sitting here. The conductor walked through, but their protests fell on deaf ears and we were stuck with having the smoking area in our coach to Los Angeles. Even though the smoking was limited to the last six rows, the air circulation system distributed it evenly throughou, so we were all in danger of secondhand smoke. Since I was not feeling well, I counted off the miles but did see the Pecos High Bridge for the first time in daylight and spent most of the afternoon at the back door of the train, watching the miles of West Texas fade into the distance.

After Alpine and Paisano Pass, I returned to my seat and slept until El Paso where I had some much-needed fresh air then napped until I awoke hungry for some dinner so I went to the lounge car and ate a hot dog along with a 7-UP before returning to my seat to fall into a deep sleep which lasted the night.

4/24/1993 I awoke in California as we were running an hour-and-a-half late, climbing Beaumont Pass and I felt like my old self. We descended into an overcast San Bernardino Valley and passed through West Colton Yard on the south side, due to freight train congestion, thus giving me a good view of the engine facility and fuel racks along with the crest, or hump, and the inbound holding tracks. That was a nice diversion to the normal route through West Colton. We stopped at Pomona, then made a quick forty-five minute journey into Los Angeles Union Station, where I detrained tired and smelling of smoke. I boarded the San Diegan and the conductor asked me if I had taken up smoking to which I replied in the negative and remarked that he was smelling the Sunset Limited being taken home with me. San Diegan 572 was an uneventful ride and I arrived at Santa Ana, ending another interesting Amtrak adventure.

The last team I coached at MacArthur with Jeff Rosen was Varsity Baseball and we had a perfect 6-0 record, after the reduction from twelve games in prior years. This was the finest baseball team I would coach. Then, after eleven years at that school, I lost my job due to budget cuts.

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