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Riding Eight Amtrak Routes In The Opposite Direction During Spring Break 4/9-19/1998

During McFadden Intermediate's Spring Break, I decided to travel by train to the east coast, repeating all but three routes but in the opposite direction. This would start in Chicago and end in New Orleans, enabling me to see more of some routes in the daylight. The to-and-from end points would be east on the Southwest Chief and west on the Sunset Limited. In January, I called Amtrak to make the arrangements then during one of my trips down to Solana Beach, finished the transaction with Julie, the Amtrak agent there. I waited three months and did my usual train riding until departure day.

This trainn arrived in Santa Ana on schedule and whisked me to Los Angeles, and upon my arrival, was greeted by Joseph, a Lead Service Attendant on the San Diegans, who was going to be my car attendant for tonight's train. I walked down the platform to the mail cars and found my friend and former assistant conductor from San Diegan 587, Lawrence Dixon, and we chatted for a few minutes before Joseph had me board and gave me a full window seat on the left side for a change.

We departed on time, pulled up and back to connect onto the nine Express Trak cars then left the City of Angels. With no interest in tonight's film and feeling rather tired, I turned in at Fullerton and mostly slept until Williams, Arizona.

4/10/1998 There was snow on the ground but we were running on time, passing the fleet of BNSF freights, meeting seven just within 25 miles of Dalies, New Mexico, so business was obviously booming. We arrived in Albuquerque twenty-five minutes early, allowing me time to walk over to the Greyhound depot store to buy some batteries and a ring from an Indian vendor on the platform. Earlier, I started reading John Grisham's "The Partner" and in a similar fashion to "Runaway Jury", I could not put it down so reading took up most of the journey. North of Albuquerque, we continued to meet freights as we crossed Glorieta Pass on a beautiful clear day and dinner of Prime Rib occurred near Las Vegas, followed by cartoons and the film "The Old Man" as we crossed Raton Pass and entered Colorado. Bedtime started at La Junta and ended at Kansas City.

4/11/1998 It was a cloudy day with a gloomy sky as we rolled across Missouri and the corner of Iowa and I photographed the Southwest Chief crossing the Mississippi River on the Santa Fe swingbridge at Fort Madison. I finished the book in western Illinois then enjoyed the on-time ride into Chicago. Prior to arrival, we cut off the Express cars on the wye before reversing into Union Station then I went upstairs for a postcard, two "Char Dogs" and the mailbox downstairs on my way to the round-trip Metra train to Elgin designed to fill the layover before my next leg of this Amtrak adventure.

"Lake Shore" was the nickname of the Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula Railroad, which travelled between Cleveland, Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania starting in 1852. This railroad was merged with several others and became part of the New York Central Railroad. New York Central officially used the Lake Shore Limited name for its first luxury train route that traveled between Chicago and New York City starting in 1897. Service ended in 1956 and Amtrak revived the route in 1971 and 1972, called the Lake Shore. The route returned in 1975 and has been in operation since under the Lake Shore Limited name.

This was my first eastbound ride on the Lakeshore Limited and following the usual Chicago boarding chaos, I walked past the rear RoadRailer into the Amfleet II coach and chose a large window seat on the left so I would be on the same side as the trees and could see them in their pre-spring characteristics. We departed thirty-two minutes late, travelled by a dark Comiskey Park and made our stop at Hammond-Whiting before I called it a night.

4/12/1998 Following another night of restful slumber, I awoke east of Buffalo and learned that there had been a major snowstorm less than three weeks ago and the trees had yet to start their spring cycle. The countryside was no less beautiful and without the leaves, everything was exposed.

East of Utica, New York, I tried to photograph the same trees so I could compare them to their autumn state and enjoyed the rock strata and small waterfalls that were normally hidden by the leaves.

We arrived at Albany-Rensselaer on time, where the Boston section of the train was removed, while the New York section would continue to the Big Apple. In addition, the RoadRailer was removed and a café car was added to the rear. We departed on time and left town via the Post Road cut-off to reach Conrail's Albany-Boston mainline then made the twisting climb up the grades of the Berkshire Mountains before plunging through State Line Tunnel and into the State of Massachusetts. As the Lakeshore descended the eastern flank of the mountains, we passed a zone where the trees appeared as giant sticks, leading to a most interesting view. East of Springfield, the Lakeshore Limited passed numerous lakes then went through Palmer with no delays and we took the siding for our westbound counterpart before stopping at Worcester and Farmingham, prior to arriving at my stop at Back Bay where I detrained. It was here the zipper on my bag broke and I had to create a way of closing it to allow me to carry it to my hotel.

I picked up an MBTA (commonly known as "T") commuter train ticket and some timetables but after checking in at the Midtown Hotel, learned that my train was scheduled to leave before the first T commuter train would arrive at South Station. I freshened up then wrote and mailed fourteen postcards, mainly to people back home before trying to fix my bag with limited success. Beside the room's telephone was a subway guide which gave me a way to get to South Station in the morning then I went to bed expecting to sleep the night away.

4/13/1998 At 1:48 AM the fire alarm went off and an inaudible message came through the public address system. As I evacuated my room, a voice said, "Stay in your room!" but I went downstairs to the lobby where the fire department and police who told me to go back to bed. Back in the room, I had fire on my mind and it took me a little while to get back to sleep. Once the wakeup call came, I prepared for the day and checked out then walked to the Green Line station, which I took to Park station and transferred to the Red Line to South Station, where I had a McDonald's breakfast and waited for my next departure.

I was finally going see the section of rail from Boston to New Haven in daylight, as my only other time over that section was on the Night Owl. In addition, it would give an opportunity to see the progress of the electrification project on the last diesel-hauled portion of the North East Corridor. The Old Dominion departed twelve minutes late and the timetable and books stated it was only a mile to Back Bay station, but I disagreed. The train then made the quick sprint to Route 128 station, passing several T commuter trains. I noted that in some places, the poles were up and in others, either just the foundations were in the ground or were waiting to be installed. The train crossed the Canton Viaduct and entered Rhode Island, then a few minutes later, the Capitol building of that state came into view prior to our stop at Providence.

West of the town, the catenary wire had already been strung and we ran almost as an express train, bypassing Kingston and Westerly, Rhode Island and Mystic, Connecticut before making the next stop at New London, mainly due to Foxwood Casino for its early risers. We reached the shores of Block Island Sound before paralleling Long Island Sound for most of the rest of the journey to New York City. Every few miles, the train passed through a small town and each was separated by a bridge over a river and wetland. Just before New Haven, we traversed the largest bridge of the trip so far over the Connecticut River, which drains a four state area. The run from Boston to New Haven had a charm of its own, unique to any other part of the Amtrak system.

At New Haven, our train switched from electric power to diesel power for the remainder of the route then ran non-stop to New York City, dodging Metro North commuter trains and track work projects. At Bridgeport, the bridge project was completed since my last visit in June but everything else was the same except that the commuter station billboards were no longer advertising the "Lost in Space" robot picture. We crossed Hell Gate Bridge before passing Amtrak's Sunnyside Yard then plunged into the East River Tunnel and arrived at Penn Station on time.

I had ridden the early morning train from Boston so I could see what was in Bay Head, New Jersey and for fourteen dollars, purchased a round-trip to Bay Head on New Jersey Transit, which involved four different trains. I boarded the New Jersey Shore Line train and chose a seat in the five-seat-across Bombardier coach with three tickets to get me to my destination but the Conductor took only two as the third would be needed for the shuttle train from Long Branch to Bay Head. We departed Penn Station on time with an electric locomotive pulling us through the Hudson River Tunnel and across the New Jersey Meadowlands on the North Eeast Corridor, stopping at Newark, Elizabeth, Linden and Rahway before ducking under the Corridor track and out onto new trackage. South of Woodbridge, the train ran along the shore of the Raritan River to Perth Amboy.

At Long Branch, I made an across-the-platform transfer to the diesel-powered shuttle train to Bay Head and we travelled south with stops at Asbury Park, Bradley Beach and Point Pleasant before arriving at Bay Head, where I was dropped off in the middle of a street before the crew pulled down to switch ends to return to Hoboken. While in Bay Head on a nice warm day, I worked on my bag and had help from six very friendly Bay Head residents who could not believe that I had come from California to here by train. My new-found friends did their best but had no luck and while I repacked everything, they told me everything and more than I wanted to know about the community.

My train for Long Branch arrived to start the journey back to the Big Apple and everything was done in reverse order. I changed trains at Long Branch and had a very enjoyable ride back to Penn Station, having accomplished all that I had planned today and saw a new part of New Jersey where I met some very nice people. Once back at Penn Station and while I waited for my next train, I had a Boars Head roast beef sandwich with a special thanks to Peter McNamara, my conductor on San Diegan 587, who told me about it.

I played my favourite game in New York City, watching the Solari departure board flip over and my train's name climb to the top with the track number later displayed. I waited for that information and won the game again, being the first one to board the Silver Meteor and chose a window seat on the left before assiting two other passengers do the same. The Meteor left on time and my ticket was collected but no hat check was put up to reserve my seat and to let the crews down the line know where I was going. We popped out of the Hudson River tunnel in the last light of day before speeding across the New Jersey Meadowlands to Newark, where I obtained my first seatmate, as a mother sat next to me with her two daughters across the aisle. We were all going to Winter Park, Florida. The television monitors came on, but our side of the train did not have any audio, making watching the film a waste of time so I turned in after Philadelphia and slept all the way to South Carolina, with the exception of being woken up twice by train crews who wanted to know where I was going.

4/14/1998 I woke up to the twilight as the Meteor was travelling along the Atlantic Coastal Plain so pine trees, sandy soil and water anywhere it was low was the order of the day. This was the start of my daylight mileage on this route and we made brief stops at Florence and Kingstree before an extended stop at Charleston due to heavy baggage loads. At Yemassee, there was a Marine who had boarded last night in Washington, DC detraining after he took thirty minutes preparing himself for the duties of his day. Several passengers complained to the conductor about being woken up during the night and I added my two cents worth that if the crew used hat checks, none of that would have happened.

I went to the lounge car for some cookies and juice for breakfast in what was supposed to be a non-smoking period where several people were smoking and I made the mistake of making a comment. At Savannah, the train made a lengthy servicing stop which cost us twenty-eight minutes that would not be able to be made up. On the move once more, I purchased a chicken meal for an early lunch and sat back watching Georgia turn into Florida after a brief stop at Jessup then at Jacksonville, we had another extended stop and my car attendant bought a coffee mug for me.

We left Jacksonville one hour late as my seatmates from Newark were finally alive so much so that they were very entertaining and kept me laughing all the rest of my way to Winter Park, where I detrained on a nice warm spring day. I wrote a postcard and walked to the post office to mail it before working on my suntan.

CSX 5856 North at Winter Park before the Silver Star arrived.

After going south on the Silver Meteor route, it became time to go north on the Silver Star route for the first time. I tried for a window seat but had to settle for an aisle seat, one which offered me no view but after a few minutes, I decided to ride in the lounge car with a view until sunset. I went to the dining car for dinner and had a grilled prime rib and key lime pie; the steak was poor but the dessert excellent. After dinner, I met a college student returning to Buffalo from Spring Break, which filled the time to Jacksonville, where I bought another coffee mug then worked on three word search puzzles before calling it a night as we sped through Georgia. At 5:15 AM, the conductor woke me for my stop at Raleigh and after a twenty minute trip awake, the Silver Star arrived fifteen minutes early. Schedule padding has its benefits.

As I waited patiently in the Amtrak Raleigh Station, I freshened up, bought another coffee mug and read USA Today. At 7:00 AM, I walked outside and sat on a bench waiting for my three-car train to arrive.

North Carolina Department of Transporation GP40-PH2 "City of Charlotte", nee Baltimore and Ohio 4008 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1972 leading the Piedmont. The state developed this train as a regional follow-on to the Carolinian, which had entered service in early 1990. With the growing popularity of the Carolinian, state officials sought to add a second daily round-trip between Charlotte and Raleigh. However, Amtrak initially balked, claiming that it did not have enough rolling stock to spare. Undaunted, in autumn 1990, NCDOT approved the acquisition of five used passenger cars and the leasing of two diesel locomotives. The board planned to have the second train enter service by early 1992.

Operated since May 1995 by Amtrak and the NCDOT, the Piedmont runs four round-trips daily between Raleigh and Charlotte and is a sister to the Carolinian, which runs from Charlotte to New York City. The Piedmont route is co-extensive with the southern end of the Carolinian, largely paralleling Interstate 85. It operates along the western portion of the state-owned North Carolina Railroad, which runs from Charlotte to Morehead City. NCDOT owns the rolling stock used on the Piedmont, unlike the Carolinian, which uses Amtrak rolling stock. Both trains are marketed by NCDOT under the NC By Train brand.

I boarded the middle 66-seat coach, 400004 "Long Leaf Pine", ex. Chicago and North Western 5348, exx. New Jersey Transit 5348, nee Kansas City Southern 278 built by Pullman Standard in 1965 and chose a seat in the middle on the right. Before my car coach 400001 "Cardinal" with a very similar heritage and ahead was an unnamed lounge car. These cars were rebuilt the Delaware Car Company for this service in February 1993 and are cleaned and polished after every round trip. The State of North Carolina takes a lot of pride in the service and I commend them with my highest praise on the service they provide and the coaches are perhaps the nicest ones in which I have ridden on the entire Amtrak system.

We departed Raleigh ten minutes late and started off on the same route as I came in on the Silver Star before branchingd off onto the North Carolina Railroad just before the first stop at Cary. We then proceeded east and climbed through Morrisville and by the Triangle Research Center before we paused at Durham then continued on through Bennett Place, crossed the Eno River, travelled through Hillsborough, Mebane and crossed the Haw River prior to arriving at Burlington, where no one boarded. The train next went through Elon College, Gibsonville and McCleansville before we turned south onto the Norfolk Southern mainline towards Charlotte and our next station stop at Greensboro. Travelling down mainl ine at a much higher rate of speed, we passed through Jamestown before stopping at High Point, sped through Thomasville, home to the world's largest Duncan Phyfe chair, Lexington, Linwood, by the Norfolk Southern yard, crossed the Yadkin River, past the former Southern Railway shops at Spencer before arriving at Salisbury. We ran through China Grove, where the Doobie Brothers song played in my head, and Landis before stopping at Kannapolis. The Piedmont then made its final sprint to Charlotte, passing through Concord and Harrisburg before a red signal at Newell brought the train to a stop. Ten minutes later, after receiving a green signal, we made our way to our last station stop of Charlotte and it had been a great train trip on a very special train and once again, I would like to thank the State of North Carolina for providing me with a very unique and special experience.

I walked out of front door and across the street to a bus stop to wait for a bus to take me into town and was joined by eight other people. A taxi station wagon arrived and offered to take all of us into town for a dollar apiece. All but one took him up on it and four minutes later, I was the first stop at the Days Inn where I checked into a room for my sixteen-hour layover, then walked three blocks to a drug store for postcards and wrote them then purchased a hot dog from a street vendor prior to returning to my room for a well-deserved nap. At 4:00 PM, I walked around town before finding a food court with a Steak and Shake. Returning to my room, I watched some television before sleeping until the 2:30 AM call, when I prepared myself and took a taxi back to the station.

My brother Bruce, the Amtrak agent in Sacramento, once said, "A train has to stop some place in the middle of the night" and tonight, it was in Charlotte. The Crescent arrived twenty minutes late and I was assigned a window seat on the right then stretched out across both seats and napped until Gastonia where passengers knew they were supposed to detrain, but the attendant thought that Gastonia was after Spartan, South Carolina and told them to go back to sleep. I had to show the attendant my Amtrak national timetable to prove the passengers were correct. I walked to the lounge car for a few cups of tea as I waited for the dining car to open where I had the best pancakes and sausage on Amtrak. On the way back, I bought a Crescent polo shirt then watched the moon and clouds play a little hide-and-seek. The Norfolk Southern mainline was extremely busy and we stopped at Tarber to let one freight train pass on the mainline then we crossed Lake Keowee just west of Clemson before crossing the Tugaloo River into Georgia. We had been travelling all morning on a layer of the Appalachian Mountains as the railroad runs across fills and through rock cuts.

My car attendant asked me to move up and over to the other side of the coach as she had a large group boarding in Atlanta and I was happy to do that as now I would have audio for the rest of the journey. I knew that Atlanta was close as we had a MARTA heavy rail commuter train paralleling us into town and we arrived and I detrained to inspect another station's interior.

It was a cloudy and dark day, one on which my camera was not getting enough light for picture-taking and was downright gloomy as the Crescent departed Atlanta forty-six minutes late. The morning entertainment started with Bugs Bunny cartoons as we crossed the Chattahoochee River then reached the Kennesaw Mountains as the film "Fairy Tales" began. The mountain line section allowed for many views of both ends of the train and we reached Bremen, the highest point on the Atlanta-New Orleans mainline then crossed into Alabama at the Tallapoosa River, after which off to the south was the highest point in the state of Alabama, Cheaha Mountain before we arrived at Anniston. West of town, we passed the Anniston Army Depot with tanks and other military hardware on display.

The car attendant next showed the film "Seven Years in Tibet" but stopped it after fifteen minutes because the tour group who wanted to see it went to lunch. The Crescent crossed the Coosa River and later passed through the 500 foot Crooks Springs tunnel then after a few miles of downgrade, we left the Appalachian Mountains and passed through Leeds, followed by Irondale where Norfolk Southern had a large yard. Arriving in Birmingham, a city famous for its steel production, a trivia question was asked, "What are the three minerals needed to make steel?" I thought of the old Kaiser Steel plant in Fontana, California, coal from York Canyon in New Mexico, Iron Ore from Eagle Mountain, California and limestone from Cushenbury, California. I had the answer so needed to find the Train Chief and won a Crescent coffee mug. All those materials were found within five miles of Birmingham and the former steel mill owned by Sloss Furnaces, a National Historic Site, stood out against the backdrop of a very modern skyline. The steel industry here was put out of business by overseas steel production as well as the tighter American pollution standards.

Someone finally answered my question about the aggressive green vine that covered everything from the ground up. Trees, telephone poles and buildings were all covered by kudzu. At Birmingham, I entered my 100th Amtrak station before we departed thirty minutes late to commence the crossing of the Black Belt, a narrow strip of prairie where most of Alabama's cotton plantations were. As the train stopped at Tuscaloosa, there was a sign proudly proclaiming "NS AGS South 55 Days since last injury!" The Crescent next passed the Moundville Archeological Park, one of the largest of Native Mississippian Culture which was seen after crossing miles of swamp then traversed the Black Warrior River on a drawbridge, passed miles of catfish farms before crossing the Tambigbee River with its limestone banks before entering Mississippi. We stopped briefly at Meridian before Laurel, where red soil was left for the light sandy soil of the middle region of the state.

We travelled through the miles of longleaf pines, which reminded me of the name of the coach in which I rode in the Piedmont yesterday, then crossed the Leaf River and arrived at Hattiesburg, then Picayune before passing through the sandy red hills and crossing the Pearl River into Louisiana. Twilight took hold through the marshes and swamps to our penultimate stop of Slidell then just before the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, one with six miles of concrete bridges and sixteen miles of fill on the western end, my attendant and I walked back through two cars to the rear platform to enjoy the crossing of Lake Pontchartrain. Even in the dark, it was impressive, then I listened to the Rolling Stones "Voodoo Lounge Concert" tape from their New Orleans show as we approached the Crescent City, another name for New Orleans. On our final approach, I met Jeff, a Marine who would be on the Sunset Limited with me tomorrow and was going back to duty on the base outside Yuma. We reversed into New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal twenty-two minutes late.

I was first off the train and into the first taxi which took me to the Maison St. Charles Hotel for another night's rest. I called home and talked to my brother Duane, who told me that my father had become dizzy and hit his head when he fell and was taken to the hospital. I watched the end of a Chicago Blackhawks vs. New Jersey Devils hockey game before calling it a night after another great train ride.

Following a good night's rest and ride on the St. Charles Streetcar line, I taxied back to Union Station to wait for the same Sunset Limited equipment I had seen in Winter Park, Florida then wrote and mailed postcards and talked to Jeff for over an hour waiting for the late-running Sunset Limited to arrive. We started the queue to board at Gate B and soon other passengers joined us but everyone had to wait until the City of New Orleans's passengers boarded and departed before it was our turn. Alex Popadopolous, once of San Diegan service, was our conductor as far as Houston and we exchanged greetings in the process. Departure time had come and gone by the time I was in my usual window seat when a man going to Tucson was seated next to me, who started his trip in Oakland and had been travelling around the country just like I was. It was then announced that we were going to be here a while longer and could detrain if we wished.

I noticed that Tracks 3 and 4 were ballasted with sea shells and learned they were used in concrete and highways and following a short walk, I was convinced they made good ballast as well. Jeff joined me outside and I taught him about Superliners. A new hockey arena was being built next to the Superdome so I suspected New Orleans may be in the market for a hockey team and hoped that if that was the case, the residents will support it in greater numbers than they did the NBA team, New Orleans Jazz, since they moved to Utah to become Utah Jazz. After our locomotives were finally assembled and put on our train, the Sunset Limited departed two hours and nine minutes late.

I had not been sitting in the lounge car for two minutes when a boy named Alex came running through so I put my arm out in the aisle and stopped him, explaining the dangers of his actions with Alex saying he was sorry, would not run again on the train and thanked me for looking out for his safety. The train climbed the grade to the Huey P. Long Bridge and we proceeded west out into bayou country, playing a little Amtrak trivia and just enjoying the countryside. Jeff found me and we obtained a dinner reservation then met Josie, Jesse the older sister, who was fourteen, who with their mother Billy Jo, were all moving to California. Jeff and I excused ourselves to the dining car for an excellent meal of filet mignon with peppercorn sauce plus dessert, then returned to the lounge car to watch "Mr. McGoo" (a stupid film in my opinion) followed by "Old Man" again.

I finally met Billy Jo, moving from Bay St.Louis, Mississippi with her two children to California and asked about the origin of the names. She told me they were all named after outlaws. Jesse Ray is for Jesse James, Josie is really Josie Wales and Billy Jo is named after Billy the Kid. I therefore nicknamed them the Outlaws. They called it a night when the train passed through a series of thunderstorms and Jeff and I watched the end of the films and agreed the ending of "Old Man" could have been better. We crossed into Texas an hour and forty-six minutes late and decided to call it a night as tomorrow would be the long day crossing of West Texas. I slept most of the night away in my coach seat, except the last two hours where I went to the lounge car to stretch out which worked perfectly.

4/17/1998 We arrived at San Antonio twenty minutes after we were supposed to leave and I detrained to buy a newspaper on this rainy morning and for a look at our train, which included the American Orient Express cars deadheading to Seattle on the rear. We departed an hour late and I was having a cup of tea in the lounge car when here came a little girl running down the aisle. I put out my arm as I always do to stop children from running and stopped her. Her mother, following behind, exploded, "No one touches my child except me!" and when I tried to explain I did it for her child's safety, she just continued to rave. I said, "I am sorry! Just trying to protect your child." She stormed off hot and mad and I tried to forget the whole incident and finally the dining car opened and I had a very good breakfast. As the train continued further west, the clouds lifted and by Del Rio, we had lost them all, then I started to write the story of this trip.

However, I went downstairs and photographed the Pecos River from the High Bridge when we crossed it then returned to my coach seat and my writing when the conductor came by wanting to talk so we went to the dining car and he explained that the mother was saying that I had hit her child repeatedly with my fist and asked for my side of the story. He was then convinced I did not do anything wrong and said he would go back to see her to smooth everything out. He told me to lay low, sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of the journey. About twenty minutes later, he came back and said everything was alright as he walked by. I then told Billy Jo what happened and she advised me not to worry about it. Jeff said the same thing as that lady was a crazy Marine from Oceanside and if I wanted, he would have a talk with her. I said, "Let's just live and let die," which he thought was a good idea. Sanderson came next with my mood slowly returning to normal then with "Annie" blaring from the speakers and since one cannot see the video monitors in the bright daylight, I returned to my seat and continued to write as many antelope were seen while we climbed into the mountains of West Texas and we neared our next station stop of Alpine.

West of Alpine, the train reached Paisano Pass, the highest point on the former Southern Pacific's Sunset Route, even higher than the fabled snowy Donner Pass. Josie returned telling me that the mother was telling everyone who would listen to her lies about me and I told her not to worry about it because I was not. The rest of the "Outlaws" and Jeff returned just as the steward was taking dinner reservations and Billy Jo made four for us as Jesse was eating in the lounge car. We played trivia again and I won a Sunset Limited baseball cap and the Empire Builder cap I had been wearing went into the bag for a long rest. The Sunset Limited reached El Paso, where I showed people where the phone was inside the station before I visiting the mailbox in front, then returned trainside for a little West Texas sun before the "All aboard" was given and we resumed our westward journey.

Our train crossing the Rio Grande River into New Mexico and along the border with Mexico. Our foursome went to the dining car where the three of them had Catalina chicken and Josie picked out the spinach, piece by piece, and I had the filet mignon again. We enjoyed our meal as Billy Jo, who does not normally drink, had two bottles of wine with her meal, the second one making her giddy. At the next table over, the mother was seated with her party, whose members turned around to look at me, but almost had whiplash from turning their heads back around when they saw me looking at them. The mother on the other hand, kept her face from my view, maybe finally ashamed of all of the lies she had told. My dinner was excellent for the last dining car meal of the trip then the films were a repeat of last night so I continued writing as we sped west into Arizona with the first decent sunset. No wonder this train was called the Sunset limited. Jeff and I said our goodbyes at Tucson as we both detrained for some fresh air before I called it a night.

4/19/1998 During my sleep, the Sunset lost a lot of time as we followed a freight train from Frink all the way to Thermal since every siding in between was full of Union Pacific freight trains whose crews had died on the hours-of-service law. I woke up in West Colton and had an orange juice which was far better than what I used to have in the morning on the train in the old days. We were held out of Los Angeles Union Station across the Los Angeles River as I waved goodbye to San Diegan Train 560, with which I could have connected to Santa Ana. We finally arrived at Union Station only twenty minutes late, not bad considering our late departure from New Orleans.

I was the last passenger to detrain after returning all of the seats to their upright positions then retrived a luggage cart for the "Outlaws" and we said our goodbyes and wished each other good luck in the future. I walked down to the end of the platform to wait for San Diegan 562 to arrive from Chatsworth and while I waited, both the Southwest Chief and Coast Starlight entered the station. Train 562 arrived next and after boarding, we left ten minutes late, yet arrived at Santa Ana on time. I enjoyed my sunny California morning as I walked home, ending my reverse routing Amtrak journey.

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