Trip Report: March 14 - 25, 2002
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
CULTURAL TOUR OF THE PACIFIC COAST
Day 1. Thursday, March 14, 2002. We work until 1am getting our client files in order and our office locked up for ten days. Calling Amtrak Reservations, we learn that Train 14, the northbound Coast Starlight, left Emeryville one hour late, but "it could make up time", and arrive in Klamath Falls at 8:15am. Ever hopeful, at 7:15 we phone Brian Lewis at the Klamath Falls Station to learn that an 11:15am arrival is expected. It would have been nice to get an extra couple of hours sleep, but we are sort of awake now.
Arriving at the station at 11 we find the usual intercity bus waiting for the Starlight's arrival. The driver tells us that this is now a regular job and he meets the Starlight on a daily basis to carry connecting passengers for the Empire Builder either to Portland, if the Starlight is not too late, or Pasco, if it is really late. He wonders "When is Amtrak going to get its act together?", but my advice is to take the work while it lasts, there may not even be an Amtrak next year.
We've been hearing stories about cessation of checked baggage and layoffs of station personnel, and have decided it's time to get out on the rails ourselves to find out what is going on. But there are two agents at the Klamath Falls station, and they still provide a checked baggage service.
Travel Tip: If you would like to see Amtrak not only survive, but to possibly thrive, write to your Senator to tell him you want him to support the Hollings National Railroad Defense bill. This can get our nation working to build a viable rail passenger network. Ask him to work against the McCain bill to break up and privatize Amtrak, this is just that "friend of the airlines" plan to scrap intercity rail service. We feel that there is a need for both airlines and rail lines in a country of our size and wealth.
Train 14 pulls in smartly behind two Genesis locomotives, in two different paint schemes, part of the Warrington legacy (i.e. spend millions in the logo design studio and paint shop, but cut station staffing and eliminate checked baggage service in many cities). There are two sleepers and three coaches, and we still have a diner, café-lounge, and Pacific Parlour car. Our sleeping car attendant, Hadko, is a heads up man whom we had met on other Starlight trips. He hefts our bags on board, shows us to our standard bedroom, and makes up the upper berth so we can take naps on the way to Eugene.
Richard is staffing the Parlour Car today, and as we enter we are greeted by name. The last time we saw Richard was on our previous Starlight trip in December. At that time he was showing railroad short subjects in the Pacific Palace Theater on the lower level. Today he will screen "Shrek" after sunset, he won't show movies during the scenic daylight portion of the trip. This morning he is giving a geographic and cultural lecture on the Pacific Northwest, from Klamath Lake to Seattle. Richard performs beyond the call of duty and makes for a most interesting experience for his First Class passengers. The scenery today is stunning, the recent storms having left the Cascade Range a winter wonderland under a sparkling blue skies.
We pass on the Parlour Car's Continental breakfast, and are called to lunch at 12 noon sharp in the diner, where we join two young ladies from Fresno who are on their way to Seattle. Validating prior experiences that you meet most interesting people when seated in the dining car, we learn that one of our table mates is a tile-layer, plays the guitar by ear, and had a great-grandmother who was a full-blooded Cherokee who, according to family history, dined on raw buffalo meat.
These two ladies changed from the San Joaquin to the Coast Starlight in Sacramento, waiting there for two hours for the delayed Starlight. Acknowledging that the station had once been a beautiful structure, they felt it was a frightful experience to traverse the dank tunnels to the waiting room, where they were stuck until 1:30am in its dimly lit cavernous interior. We have experienced the Sacramento Station at night, and do not recommend it. It is a shameful edifice for the capitol city of the wealthiest and most populous state in our union.
Another example of the Warrington legacy is the new Coast Starlight menu. Shunning multicolor printing for simple blue on a white background, the menu presents entrees which are familiar, but apparently not prepared the same way. Our chef salad was attractively presented, but our guess is that it was prepared in Los Angeles 30 hours earlier and left in the refrigerator to wilt. The salad contained next to nothing in the way of meat and cheese. Fortunately Sylvia carries a bag of unsalted nuts, which provided for a little protein supplement to her meal. On the flip side, the clam chowder was excellent and they still serve the turtle pie for dessert. The table service was excellent, but passengers paying hundreds of dollars for a deluxe room deserve better entrees.
After lunch, a short nap in our bedroom and we were in Eugene at 3:30pm. How many times have we done this while still being surprised at how pleasant an experience it is compared to the drive to Eugene? It is raining as we pull our wheeled bags the short walk to the Hilton Hotel. We have tickets to a performance of the Eugene Symphony and Women's Chorus and the Willamette Repertory Players doing Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to the music of Felix Mendelssohn. The music was a dream to listen to, as it is rarely played in its entirety, with soprano and chorus.
The story is somewhat sappy, and the players frantic and gushy, but many in the audience enjoyed it. This was our last opportunity to enjoy the conducting of Miguel Harth-Bedoya before he leaves Eugene for his new post in Auckland. Harth-Bedoya appeared to be fuming rather impatiently during the ham acting on stage, which included several gratuitous invasions of his podium by Puck. For the only time in our experience, he did not return to the stage for the standing ovation which they always give him in Eugene.
We return to our room on the sixth floor of the Hilton, facing north to towards the Union Pacific tracks, and fall asleep to the sound of locomotive air horns signaling the many grade crossings of downtown Eugene. A loud crash bang outside takes me to my window, where I observe a shiny new black pickup truck smashed head on into a very large tree. There was not even the sound of brakes squealing. Within moments a police car appears, then another, followed by a fire engine. There were apparently no injuries as the fire department soon pulled away. The driver of the damaged vehicle was probably drunk or asleep, or both, and completely relaxed when he hit. The tree seemed to be aloof to all of the human foibles interfering with its winter rest. "What fools these mortals be," Puck, by Shakespeare.
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