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A Circle Trip to New Orleans, Chicago and Portland 8/30-9/6/1998

Following a summer when I was again hired by Amtrak as a train attendant and a wonderful summer school job working with Joan Smith at Century High School, I had an opportunity to ride the re-positioning move of Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 261 excursion from North Kansas City to Minneapolis after a summer of excursion and attendance at public events. The route would be all new mileage except for twenty-seven miles in Nebraska that the California Zephyr covers, and featured a bonus since passengers would overnight in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, enabling me to add that state to my rail map.

Once confirmed that I was on the steam trip, I asked John Balaty, the Santa Ana night agent, to book me on Amtrak on two circle trips. The first was via the Texas Eagle with an hour and forty-five minute window to connect with the Empire Builder but fate took over as the Sunset route fell apart again with trains running eight to ten hours late and passengers being bussed from San Antonio to Dallas or put up in hotels to wait for the next day's train out of San Antonio. As such, it did not seem a very good idea to go via the Texas Eagle route, so we re-did the first segment via New Orleans so would be riding the City of New Orleans, Empire Builder and Coast Starlight home. Circle number two would be the Southwest Chief to Kansas City, Milwaukee Road 261 to Minneapolis, Empire Builder and Coast Starlight home.

I boarded my customary San Diegan to Los Angeles for the connection to the Sunset Limited and boarded the Sunset at the regular time but were held for fifty-five minutes for our connecting passengers from the Coast Starlight. Once we were finally underway, we travelled via Metrolink's San Gabriel Subdivision with a fast journey down the middle of the San Bernardino Freeway then had a twenty-six minute stop at El Monte, trying to contact Dispatcher 48 with our proper engine identification number. We stopped in Pomona only an hour and eight minutes late before arriving at East Pomona and spent fifty-one minutes waiting for four freight trains to pass. Ontario was reached a minute short of being two hours late, then we made it through West Colton Yard without stopping, only to get stopped for twenty-nine minutes at the BNSF crossing in Colton. As I finally laid down across my coach seat, my last thought was would we be out of California by sunrise?

8/31/1998 I awoke in the Gila River Canyon just east of Yuma, so I worked out we must have been in Yuma about 5:30 AM, putting us about two-and-a-half hours late. This morning's trip will be an all-daylight run down the Gila Subdivision, which leaves only the line east of Tallahassee to Baldwin, Florida as the part of this train's route I have not seen in daylight. I went to the lounge car for the journey through the Saguaro forest and southern Arizona and we made excellent time over this subdivision with all the freight trains tucked away in sidings. With no delays, we made up ten minutes on our way to our servicing stop at Tucson.

I was engrossed in my book, "Rainmaker" by John Grisham and other than fifteen minutes to flag blocks near Vail, Arizona, we lost no more time crossing the very green southeastern Arizona after the summer monsoonal rains and did not stop at the flag stop of Lordsburg, New Mexico, something that had not happened in previous trips. We crossed the Continental Divide on a day with not a single cloud in the sky and made excellent track time, gaining an hour before we crossed the Rio Grande River into Texas and stopping in El Paso. Armed with a 5:00 PM dinner reservation, the call was made just after we met our westbound counterpart running about an hour late. The steak dinner was excellent and was followed by the films "The Borrowers" and "Hope Floats" in the lounge car, after which I went to bed after Sanderson and slept all the way until San Antonio.

9/1/1998 We arrived two hours and thirty minutes late since during the night, we lost time after a total head-end power failure, and I detrained on a morning with drizzle to get a newspaper to check Mark McGwire's home run chase of Roger Maris' record of 61. My musical choice for today was King Crimson and I continued reading as we crossed central Texas with the sky becoming very interesting as we proceeded east. Just a week prior to this journey, Del Rio, Texas, was clobbered by a tropical depression which shut down the line and caused the Sunset to be rerouted. A quick prayer to the Lord thanking Him for my sobriety was given as we made our way to Houston and another servicing stop, then we made it delay-free through Union Pacific's former nightmare of Houston and made up forty-five minutes by the time we reached Beaumont, at which we were only two hours and thirty minutes late as we exited the great state of Texas and entered Louisiana.

Following Lake Charles, where the poor "Amshack" shelter needs a new roof and rear covering, it was time for another steak dinner from the excellent dining car staff of the Sunset Limited. As we neared New Iberia, it was announced that if anyone was going west tomorrow that Hurricane Earl was expected to hit the coast at New Iberia at 11:00 AM and passengers breathed a sigh of relief thinking that they had escaped Earl's presence. Darkness took hold as we crossed the bayous toward New Orleansthen we crossed the Huey Long Bridge over the Mississippi River and it was announced, "The CSX railroad is imposing a fifteen mile-an-hour speed restriction on all trains along the gulf, so Amtrak is canceling the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans substituting buses for the train!"

This told me that the hurricane had turned on a more northeasterly path and the passengers were rightly upset but found comfort from my saying, "The buses will get you to your destination more quickly and safely at highway speeds of seventy versus the forty the train takes for most of the trip." I detrained in New Orleans two hours and twenty minutes late and took a taxi cab to my usual hotel, wondering where Earl was.

After checking into the Maison St. Charles Day's Inn, I turned on the television finding the Mayor of New Orleans telling the city that Earl was on a path straight for the city and all flood gates had been closed. The storm should hit the Gulf Coast about 7:00 AM and the city about 7:00 PM. You may park on any street median except the ones with trolley tracks. All schools are closed as well as all government offices." With that I crossed the street to a very busy store to get a new tape player as everyone else was getting supplies to weather out the storm then returned to my room for a night of well-rested sleep.

9/2/1998 The next morning on went the television and Hurricane Earl had changed its track again, this time more northeastward and would miss New Orleans completely, but would cause problems in Mobile. I opted for a ride on the St. Charles Streetcar Line through a nearly- deserted Big Easy with a steady northeast wind of about thirty miles an hour but there was very little humidity. Could this be the calm before the storm or just wonderful nice weather I have heard about before the storm hits? Once back at the hotel, I decided that since it was such a beautiful windy morning, I would walk back to New Orleans Union Station and saw only one other person out walking. Once at the station, I bought the usual postcards, a Subway sandwich and spent an hour writing all the cards watching Hurricane Earl updates before boarding my next train. While I was bound for Chicago, Earl was aimed at the panhandle of Florida's coast.

I was very relieved when I saw not only my train, but also the same Sunset Limited crew ready to return to Los Angeles. We departed on time and passed our southbound counterpart by the airport before crossing the causeway at Lake Pontchartrain. I rode the lounge car as far as Hammond, seeing Charlie the Alligator at his home in Ponchatola before returning to my reading as the train continued north through the Mississippi forest, arriving early at every stop and had to wait with dwell time until the true departure time. We arrived at Jackson early then on the way towards Yazoo City, I had a dinner of chicken fried steak, a first on Amtrak and an excellent meal. Following the stop at the fabled Yazoo City, tonight's films were shown - "The Sphere" and the Disney comedy "Meet the Deedles". We arrived in Memphis where the station was being rebuilt and I visited the subbing Amtrailer in place of the true station then after a night time stroll along the train since we were early again, I returned to my coach seat and slept well into central Illinois.

9/3/1998 Waking up on a train always begs the question of one's location and not knowing what transpired during the night in terms of operations, upon our arrival in Rantoul, Illinois, we were early, thus proving to me how well Illinois Central handles trains. My breakfast of cookies and tea put me in an excellent mood as we sped north across the Illinois countryside, paced a Metra electric train through Homewood and entered the St. Charles Airline and the views of downtown Chicago before we reversed into Chicago Union Station ten minutes early. During my layover, I took a Metra train to Aurora, bought and mailed more postcards and visited Gold Coast for char dogs before going to the north waiting room to await my next train, where I met Thomas McCain, a representative from Oregon Operation Lifesaver, which helped to pass the time.

A Northwest Airlines strike was occuring and many passengers were taking the train instead. Despite all kinds of mass confusion, we departed on time and I resumed my book as the Illinois countryside turned into Wisconsin and the train neared Milwaukee. West of town, I saw both the old and new County Stadium, where the Milwaukee Brewers play, before I had another steak dinner then at Columbia, Wisconsin, a college reunion group on their way to East Glacier, Montana, took up all the seats in the car in front of me. The other passenger was one I now wished had never been seated by me.

This passenger sat down next to me reeking of alcohol and I asked him where he was going, to which he replied Tomah. Since Tomah was not too far away, I excused myself and went to the lounge car taking a Jethro Tull tape along to enjoy the Wisconsin Dells. Amtrak showed "Hope Floats" again so I listened to Tull until the tape ran out then returned to my seat to get the another tape and found a whiskey bottle along with two empty beer cans lying on my seat, which Amtrak does not sell. I moved his empties back to his seat, moved his bag back in front of his seat, retrieved the new tape and returned to the lounge car. The Builder arrived at Tomah and I heard someone was being thrown off the train and went back to see if my suspicions were correction and looked out of the coach window to see the seatmate in handcuffs with two officers outside the train.

I checked my belongings finding them all there and thanked God that I was sober then returned to the lounge car for the rest of the concert as the train departed. Upon completion, I returned to my seat and found my tape case was gone and my only question was 'how' as I know the who, what, where and when. I found the conductor in the dining car and after explaining what happened, he asked me to show him where it was, so I pointed to its former location and he asked in a very sorry tone, "Was it gray?" That sent a chill down my spine and when I nodded yes, he went on to explain that the drunk said he had left his computer on board and the police came back and picked it up. Three things amazed me, one they took the drunk's word about it, two, they did not open it to see if it was indeed a computer (with the rattle it had, it could not be) and three, they did not read the luggage tags that had my name, address and phone number. My tape case had been given away with thirty-eight tapes inside, leaving me the lone Emerson, Lake and Palmer tape for over 3,000 miles.

I found this to be really funny in an absurd way and said to the conductor, "If that is the worst thing that happens to me today, it is still a great day!" We both had a good laugh at the whole situation and he said he would help get them back so wanted a description so I complied and thought it ridiculous since it was now in Amtrak's hands, the same hands that gave it away in the first place. I returned to the lounge car and found Thomas sharing a good laugh as we crossed the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wisconsin and entered Minnesota proceeding north along the west bank of Old Man River. Time passed as conversation flowed and after stopping in Red Wing, we crossed the river again to enter St. Paul, passed the former Union Station before arriving at Midway station fifteen minutes late due to track work on the Soo Line and our drunk.

The Builder cut off the "Northwest coaches" and the five RoadRailers which had been on the rear since Chicago and I paid a quick visit inside the station to check out the services for my return in ten days before reboarding and falling into a deep sleep as we departed the Twin Cities thirty minutes late.

9/4/1998 The sun shone brightly though the coach's window waking me up outside of Devil's Lake, North Dakota and it was a beautiful late summer morning as we arrived at Rugby, the geographical center of North America. I listened to my lone ELP tape as I finished "Rainmaker" just before detraining at Minot for some fresh air, newspaper and to mail a postcard, where I found no mailbox, just a rack by the Amtrak counter for outgoing mail and wondered how my mail was going to get to California. After crossing the high trestle west of town, I settled into my seat doing word searches until Williston for more fresh air then saw the Missouri River for the first time on this trip and it seemed like an old friend after helping to teach Lewis and Clark to our students at Century High School.

We entered Montana and lost the Missouri as we followed the Milk River west toward Havre then stopped at Wolf Point and Glasgow before meeting the eastbound Empire Builder. We arrived in Havre then I had an early dinner, enjoying another steak and the mountain scenery. Leaving Cut Bank, the Rockies came into view and when the train reached Browning and turned north, great plumes of smoke could be seen from the Challenger Fire in the Flathead National Forest just south of Glacier National Park and our crossing of Marias Pass. After crossing the lofty Two Medicine Bridge, we stopped to detrain the group at East Glacier, where I spotted a grizzly bear on the golf course, definitely not taking up the sport. The Rockies were backlit, yet still extremely beautiful, as we crossed Marias Pass then as the train descended the west slope, flames from the fire became visible, while at Blacktail, BNSF was cleaning up a major grain train derailment. We ducked in and out of the snowsheds as the light of the day began to fade and the Empire Builder later passed my old favorite lodging, the Izaak Walton Inn. Tonight's films were "My Giant" and "City of Angels" then following their conclusion and our passage through the Flathead Tunnel, I was ready for another good night's sleep.

9/5/1998 Sleeping soundly, I woke up outside of Pasco, Washington, having slept through all the switching moves in Spokane where, we became the mini Builder to Portland. My plan was to just sit back and enjoy the Columbia River Gorge this morning and photograph it in ten hours. Our conductor was giving an excellent travelling commentary about the Gorge, including Arlington, Oregon being the hometown of Doc Severinsen from "The Tonight Show" and that Tom Selleck was rumoured to have bought an island in the Columbia River, which he did not. Mount Hood had the least amount of snow on it I had seen, but since it was early September, that was expected.

The Gorge was absolutely beautiful and after an excellent four-hour journey down its length, I detrained at Vancouver to mail a postcard and watch trains pass through including photographing my old friend, Amtrak Cascades' Talgo train with its Spanish equpment.

My train back to Southern California departed Vancouver fourteen minutes late following a double spot at the station and we crossed the Columbia River to arrive at Portland Union Station on time. The Starlight proceeded down the Willamette Valley with Michael, my train attendant, and I discussing Jethro Tull. He has an excellent voice and used to be in a band and would be known as the singing car attendant. He actually became the singing assistant conductor a year later. We lost twelve minutes at Hallowell waiting on 14, our sister train then just before Eugene, my dinner reservation was called and I enjoyed a beef tenderloin along with chocolate cake. Following dinner, I enjoyed the climb over Cascade Summit in the last light of the day and tonight's films were "As Good as It Gets" and "Major League II". That tape broke twelve minutes into the film, so it was replaced with the "Odd Couple II" and the entertainment ended at Klamath Falls. We departed here but stopped quickly as a passenger had left a bag on the platform and a crew member walked back to retrieve it. Once on the move again, I returned to dream the night away.

9/6/1998 The next morning, I awoke outside Roseville and was able to see Union Pacific's progress as they rebuilt Roseville Yard. We continued our trek to Sacramento with a long fresh air stop while the engines were refuelled. We made very good track speed down to Martinez and a beautiful clear morning provided an excellent view along the Carquinez Straits and San Francisco Bay then were held outside Emeryville so that the California Zephyr could depart on time. We stopped at the West Oakland coach yard to add a material handling car before arriving at the Jack London Square station where a Capitol Corridor train arrived and did its station work quickly to depart in front of us.

It then became time for another listen to the lone ELP tape, but this time found my fingers playing along and it brought the interests of a music student who wondered what my hands were playing. We started talking and I admitted I did not play. He thought if there was a keyboard in front of me, I could indeed play the music of ELP. I guess that is what happens after you hear something over and over again. I was in a "kick back and watch the world go by mood" so it was just another trip down the former Southern Pacific Coast Line. Nothing piqued my attention until we met number 14 at Santa Margarita, followed by our descent down Cuesta Grade to San Luis Obispo.

Following a fresh air/smoking/watering/postcard mailing stop (depending on who you are or what you did), we continued to the Pacific Coast Line and with the diner being open seating, I enjoyed another beef tenderloin and caramel ice cream turtle cake as the Starlight travelled along the shoreline to Santa Barbara. Peter McNamara became our conductor for the trip to Los Angeles and we caught up with each other as the train raced to Los Angeles, finally meeting a nightmarishly-late San Diegan 781 at Allen Avenue before arriving at Los Angeles Union Station one hour and four minutes late. Amtrak held San Diegan 786 for the connecting passengers off the Starlight and once we were underway, were held for forty-five minutes short of where San Diegan 774 had derailed earlier in the morning.

Arriving at Santa Ana one hour and three minutes late, my first circle trip of the two was complete.

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