Trip Report: January 7 - 15, 2001
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
UP AND DOWN THE WEST COAST
Sunday, January 7, 2001
The northbound Coast Starlight is running only forty five minutes late this morning, so we don't have as much time as we thought to inspect the newly renovated Klamath Falls Amtrak Station. A completely new interior and new restrooms, expanded counter space, and dramatic art deco ceiling lamp fixtures. This is the first major renovation since the station was first opened by the Southern Pacific Company in 1907. But even more surprising than the new station was the number of passengers occupying it. Every bench is filled, some passengers are waiting outside, there are two lines at the check in counter. It looks more like a World War II era train station, or a contemporary air terminal.
Number 14 rolls in without an announcement at 8:30 AM and we board the 1430 sleeper, Deluxe Room C, which we are sharing today with two friends who are traveling with us to attend a performance of the Oregon Symphony, with Music Director James DePriest conducting Respighi's Pines and Fountains of Rome at the Portland Theater. We all enjoy a breakfast on the new Coast Starlight menu, featuring a Fiesta Scramble, while enjoying a clear view of the snow capped volcanic peaks of the Oregon Cascades. Our usual brisk walk in Eugene is followed by a delicious salmon salad in the diner and a wine tasting in the Pacific Parlour car. Before we know it we are passing the southbound Starlight at speed on double track, and are arriving in Portland only thirty minutes down.
Service on Train 14 is excellent, in spite of the invisibility of the on board chief. Perhaps this invisibility is responsible for the only lapse of service that we have experienced on the Starlight in many trips. Our car attendant announces that we are arriving in Portland and we should get ready to disembark, then he disappears, leaving us to dig our bags out of the luggage compartment on this fully loaded sleeper and schlep them onto the platform! By the time we, and all the other Portland passengers, are reaching the waiting room, we notice the attendant returning to the train with his purchase from the gift shop inside the station . He doesn't notice us. He is oblivious.
We stay at the new Westin in Portland on this trip. It is located on a quiet side street just off Broadway and within easy walking distance of Jake's Seafood, Powell's Book Store, and the Portland Theater. The fireplace in the cozy library is very inviting on this cold and overcast Sunday. We are attracted by a full set of Joseph Conrad's novels, a 1928 printing.
Monday, January 8, 2001.
The two guys browse Powell's Book Store while the ladies shop The Rack this morning. A excellent light lunch at the Westin restaurant is followed by an afternoon of work before the evening concert. (Yes, we have brought our Freedom Kit with us, a portable office with laptop, digital cell phone, and printer. So our business is not closed when we travel.) Tonight's concert is excellent, James DePriest is in top form, as is the orchestra, and its concertmaster, Michael Foxman, who performs Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto. And of course the Portland Theater, adjacent to and connected with the Heathman Hotel, is always a beautiful a beautiful place to just be in.
Tuesday, January 9, 2001.
This morning, after an excellent buffet breakfast at the Hilton, we have time to take in OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, loaded with excellent displays, and with a planitarium and the Omni Max theater, where we view an excellent film on the Solar Max, about the eleven year cycle of our sun.
This afternoon, we meet at the Metropolitan Lounge in Union Station with Walt and Charlene, two new Portland friends, whom we first met on our October transcontinental trip, and with Scott Hurd, Senior Amtrak agent at the Portland Station.
The southbound Coast Starlight arrives about fifteen minutes late, but leaves only a few minutes behind, and by the time we leave Albany, we are on schedule. Russ Settell is the On Board Chief on this train, he is greatly visible as he works the train, greeting passengers and helping the crew, and the service throughout is exemplary. Another selection of excellent wines in the Parlour Car, followed by dinner in the diner. I have a superb swordfish while the rest of the party enjoys the New York steak. Tonight the Union Pacific dispatcher fails to block the Klamath Falls Station with a freight, and we arrive twenty minutes early. Our friends disembark here, our attendant has our bed made up and we retire for a short overnight trip to a 9:30 AM appointment in Sacramento. Instead of being able to sleep in, we are roused at 5 AM for an early arrival into Sacramento at 5:40 AM . It is truly amazing the kind of timekeeping Amtrak is capable of when the Union Pacific has no freight traffic available to block the Coast Starlight with.
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
A cold windy day greets us in Sacramento, California's state capitol. In spite of the California power crisis, the pedestrian tunnel under the station tracks is now illuminated with blazing outdoor floodlights, making much it easier to read the graffiti. We find a taxi to take us to the Hyatt Regency for breakfast, but the driver doesn't know where it is. We tell him to just take us to the Holiday Inn, which he can see from the Amtrak Station. Although we are ticketed for the 12:45 PM departure for Emeryville, we are able to complete our business ahead of schedule and just make the 10:45 AM departure with two minutes to spare. As the Capitol speeds is way south along I-80, we actually overtake and pass many automobiles and even the 18 wheelers, as the weather turns wet and nasty. Upon arrival in Emeryville less than two hours later, we can see the Four Points Sheraton and attempt to walk the short two blocks to get there. We become disoriented in a sudden rain squall, take a wrong turn, and find ourselves at a busy intersection with no crosswalks, walls blocking the sidewalk, and signs saying No Pedestrians. The Sheraton is across the street, but there is no visible route to get there on foot. We take refuge in The Good Guys electronics store and call the hotel on our cell phone. They have no van and the taxicab company they call refuses such a short hall, so the manager dispatches an employee to drive over to pick us up and take us back to the hotel, which turns out to be quite a lengthy drive. The hotel staff gave excellent service, which is fortunate since street system is not very pedestrian or automobile friendly here in Emeryville.
After settling into our comfortable room and changing into some dry clothing we go to the lobby for lunch only to find the Compass Café closed between 10 AM and 5 PM. Although there is a Denny's in sight across the street, as we mentioned earlier, there is no easy way to get across the street here. However the friendly staff create a sandwich a plate of cookies to deliver to our room. At 5 PM there is a wine and cheese party in the lobby, after which we enjoy a light supper in the Café.
Thursday, January 11, 2001
Aboard Amtrak Coast Starlight #11, Elkhorn Slough, just north of Salinas, California.
After a comfortable night at the Four Points Sheraton in Emeryville, we awoke to learn that our train was going to arrive on time at 8:15 AM. After checking our messages, answering email, and making several bookings for our clients, it was time to head for the station. Although the pavement was wet, no rain was actually falling as we trundled our wheeled luggage through the parking lot towards the elevator which takes one to the pedestrian overpass across the tracks to the Amtrak station.
We passed a new hostelry called the Woodfin Suites even closer to the overpass; we didn't have time to take a look inside, but it looks like the logical place to stay between trains.
The Coast Starlight pulled in just after we'd ordered a cup of tea at the station snackbar and checked the newspaper headlines. It seems that the storm we'd been caught in yesterday had felled trees, knocked out power lines, flooded roads, caused airline flights to be cancelled, and stranded hundreds of tourists for several hours on Alcatraz after heavy waves flipped the gangway used to board the boats. (They were fed popcorn and water during their brief incarceration.) Once we were settled in Deluxe Bedroom E in the 1130 car, the rain started falling again.
The adjacent Pacific Parlour Car on today's consist was sporting newly-upholstered easy chairs. Attendant Tom Anderson was playing a CD of "Clare de Lune" when I went in to obtain a cup of herbal tea; later in the day, he treated patrons to the "New World Symphony". When I complimented him on the music, he pointed out that he brings his own player and CDs.
Lunch delivered to our room seemed like a cozy option on a rainy day, and our car attendant quickly delivered the walnut, pear, and gorgonzola salad with fruit and cheese plates for dessert. A generous supply of apples, oranges, and cookies was placed in our sleeping car just in case we were still hungry.
Our pause at San Jose revealed some interesting commuter equipment we hadn't seen before. CalTrain has acquired some single-level stainless steel coaches with corrugated tops, as well as a new logo. Double-decked Altamont Commuter Express cars on the north end of the yards attest to an option for getting from San Jose to Stockton that doesn't involve fighting the freeways.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that there is still talk of a commuter railroad across the derelict Dumbarton railroad bridge, a scheme that was in the wishful-thinking stage when we moved out of the Bay Area in 1992.
Southwest of San Jose at the Elkhorn Slough, Train #11 encountered a curious delay while stopped at Watsonville Junction "until the tide goes out," the conductor explained. A combination of the storm and the full moon had created an unusual 14-foot tide and the tracks ahead were under water. By the time the UP had inspected them for safety the water had receded enough for us to proceed with caution into Salinas, where we arrived one hour and 15 minutes late.
As Oregonians visiting California, we had expected the sunshine the Golden State is famous for, but so far, there hasn't been any! Mud and standing water are the rule as we head south through the agricultural country of the Salinas Valley. But thankfully, someone else is doing the driving, as we relax and enjoy the ride. There was little opportunity to make up time between Salinas and San Luis Obispo, so we enjoyed the wine and cheese party in the Parlour Car, accompanied by the music of Glenn Miller and a brief but funny stand-up comic routine by attendant Tom Anderson.
Our friends met us at the San Luis Obispo station in the midst of a raging downpour. Anywhere we were not protected by Gore-Tex, we were soaked through just loading our luggage into their car. It was a perfect evening for relaxing in their comfortable home while rain hammered the roof, sipping Tangle Ridge rye, calling out for pizza, and watching a DVD movie.
Sylvia grew up in San Luis, and remembers rain storms as being rare. They still are, but if you've been reading our previous trip reports, you'll note that the last two times we've visited there, the skies opened up.
Friday January 12, 2001
San Luis Obispo to Oxnard
The Pacific Surfliner is scheduled to depart San Luis Obispo at 6:35 AM and we were hoping to experience some of the new equipment that Amtrak has been receiving for this service. However, a set of new Surfliner cars collided with a truck on an unprotected grade crossing few weeks ago, so this morning we board the same old Amfleet Business Class car that we've occupied on many other trips. Our stridently-voiced conductor repeated over the PA that we were to "have your tickets, OUT, that's O-U-T, when I come by; after that you will be FREE, that's F-R-E-E to move about the train."
The good news is that the full-length dome lounge car is in this consist, just ahead of the Business Class car. I would guess that this is a former Great Northern Super Dome from the pre-Amtrak Empire Builder. After settling into our Business Class seats and partaking of the complimentary Continental Breakfast, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal, we walked forward to the lounge car, purchased two breakfast sandwiches and took them up into the dome area to view the California coastline.
The breakfast sandwiches were nothing to rave about, but were filling. The coastline at sunrise was breathtaking. The heavy surf with wind-whipped spray caught the early rays of the sun.. Regular riders said that this was a most unusual morning and that this display of surf marked the waning of the storm that had just passed through the area yesterday. Campgrounds in the state and county parks along the route were under water from the high tides and pounding surf. To the southeast, the skies darkened and rain plastered the windshield of the dome, but soon we were once again under crystal-clear skies and heading directly east towards Santa Barbara as the rising sun burnished the water.
The front of the dome lounge area was occupied by a small group of passengers, quietly enjoying the show that nature was putting on for their benefit. They spoke in hushed tones while enjoying their breakfast as our heavy dome rumbled through this wild scene. They neatly cleaned up their breakfast debris and shared comments about the weather and the glories of nature this wonderful morning.
The reason we all huddled together up front? The youthful train crew, with an attitude, set up shop near the rear of the dome. The conductor and her male assistant had each taken over a table for four, filling it with the tools of their trade, a large carton of Krispy Kreme donuts, and a couple of large Pepsis. Their jackets and luggage spilled over to occupy one more table and two lounge settees, occupying the space of about fourteen passengers. The pair maintained a loud and boisterous conversation throughout the trip, interrupted only by personal phone calls on her cell phone. By the time her shift was completed in Santa Barbara, we knew more about her than we wanted to, including the fact that she didn't bath this morning nor put on her makeup, and her uniform was so uncomfortable (possibly due to excessive Krispy Kremes) that she felt like taking off all her clothes right here and now. I have rarely witnessed anyone so obnoxious on an Amtrak train. Reporting her to the conductor wasn't an option -- she was the conductor.
The rest of the trip into Oxnard was quiet and uneventful. Although the sky was clearing, the surf was still very high and a portion of an adjacent coastal road was covered with debris and closed to traffic north of Ventura.
We arrived at the beautiful new Oxnard station just a few minutes down at 10:15 AM, phoned Budget Car Rental, who picked us up at the station, and drove back the six miles to Ventura to the Four Points Sheraton on the marina. Setting up our portable office, we completed some Amtrak and Via Rail Canada bookings for our clients, then enjoyed dinner and entertainment by belly-dancers and dancing Greek waiters at the Greek on the Harbor Restaurant.
Saturday January 13, 2001
OXNARD TO SAN DIEGO
We returned our Budget rental at the Oxnard Airport and a pleasant Budget agent drove us to the Oxnard Amtrak Station. Amtrak 776, Pacific Surfliner (dubbed Smurfliner by the crew) for San Diego, departs Oxnard at 10:08 AM. Boarding announcements are made in two languages, but I was still confused by it and waited on the wrong platform area for boarding Business Class. Thankfully, I was not the only person to be confused, so boarding is rather chaotic. Today we had a full Pacific Surfliner consist, coach baggage control car, three coaches, coach café, Business Class car, a dead- head Business Class car, and locomotive. This was our first look at the new double-decked equipment, and it is impressive, with attractive blue carpeting and upholstery, reclining high-backed seats with adjustable headrest pillows, and two-and-one seating. After settling into the lower level of the Business Class car and setting up our work station at a table with four facing seats, we enjoyed our Continental breakfast with yesterday's USA Today and Wall Street Journal as the train entered a siding for the passage of the northbound Coast Starlight. The Surfliner cars are quiet and smooth riding. Before we knew it we were arriving in Los Angeles in less than two hours. Here the train is restocked and the crew is changed.
After a 12:25 PM departure, the train slowed to a stop for track-work. A stewardess has boarded in Los Angeles and is serving complimentary box lunches to Business Class passengers: salami, cheese, salsa, chips, chocolate covered coffee beans, sugar cookies and wine. Additional items are available for sale in the snack car ahead in the lower level of the coach café car. We stop at attractive stations at Fullerton, Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine. The stewardess leaves the train at Santa Ana.
Gino, an Electrical Quality Assurance Inspector, is doing an onboard survey looking for passenger reactions to the new equipment, and passes out small survey cards to the passengers. He is having a somewhat difficult time in interesting some of the passengers in filling out a survey card; some of them are wearing earphones and engrossed in a movie shown on the small video screens on the back of each seat.
We fill out our surveys with compliments. The electrical outlets, for example, are at table height so one doesn't have to lean over and fumble under the
table as one does on the Amfleet and California car equipment. There are several handicapped seats on the lower level (usually reserved for those with mobility problems and the elderly) along with a serve-yourself coffee and tea setup, (duplicated on the upper level along with pastries), and a handicapped restroom. On this off-peak weekend day, the train isn't crowded so we are able to enjoy the quiet lower level without the through traffic that characterizes the upper level.
The conductor, part of today's pleasant and efficient crew, sets up a work station across the aisle from us just as I am inspecting my tickets and discover that the Oxnard conductor mistakenly lifted my return San Diego to Los Angeles ticket. When I bring this to his attention he immediately takes it to his assistant, who and quickly returns with my missing ticket.
We stop for a few minutes at the picturesque San Juan Capistrano station. The sun-drenched mission, palm trees, people dining al fresco at the station restaurant, and brilliant flowers make a statement: this is what Southern California is all about! The distant Santa Ana Mountains gleam with snow and the Pacific Ocean is blue and calm today. Although this is a fast train by Amtrak standards, California drivers on adjacent Interstate Five overtake and pass us.
On arrival at the mission style San Diego Amtrak Station, we taxi to the Westin Horton Plaza in the heart of down town, get into our concert clothes, and taxi to the Marriott Suites Hotel for dinner at its Renditions 12th floor restaurant. Copley Symphony Hall is next door, where we have tickets for the San Diego Symphony. Copley Hall is the former San Diego Fox Theater, once the second-largest movie palace in California -- after the San Francisco Fox. While San Francisco permitted the destruction of its Fox Theater in 1963, San Diego preserved their premier movie palace and converted it into a grand symphony hall. A vast building complex called Symphony Towers has been constructed around and over the old theater. This building contains office space as well as the Marriott Suites Hotel, whose lobby is on the twelfth floor, high above the Fox. Tonight marks our first visit, and we enjoy music by the French composer Rameau, as well as Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.
Afterwards, Westin's trademark Heavenly Bed awaits us.
Sunday January 14, 2001
SAN DIEGO TO LOS ANGELES
This quiet Sunday morning we taxi from the Westin to the San Diego Amtrak Station, a beautifully maintained structure dating back to the early years of the last century, and still sporting the logo of the Santa Fe in the colorful, Spanish-tiled walls and in an illuminated roof sign..
We had claimed the large bag we had checked from Portland to San Diego on our arrival here yesterday, containing our concert clothing. Now we would take that bag onboard with us, so we checked the other bag we had been carrying back home to Klamath Falls, containing our laundry, brochures, and other paraphernalia that always seem to accumulate while traveling. Taking advantage of Amtrak's liberal baggage policy gives the traveler considerable flexibility.
Picking up a cup of tea at the well-stocked snack bar, we investigated the equipment of the Pacific Surfliner spotted on Track 1 and were disappointed to find it was composed of a mix of shabby Amfleet and Horizon Fleet equipment. There was no dome lounge to break the monotony, however there was a Horizon snack car completely painted over in graffiti style with a Holiday Inn advertisement. Even the windows were covered making it a less than satisfactory vantage point for viewing the Pacific coastal scenery.
Although there were very few passengers in the waiting room, by the time we manhandled our luggage to the Amfleet Business Class car, we found that the one quarter of the seats which face forward on the ocean side were already occupied. Unlike the excellent box lunches served to us yesterday, for breakfast this morning there were only pastries, muffins, and apple juice. The apple juice was frozen. Sylvia is on a high protein diet, so we headed for the Holiday Inn snack car and purchased a turkey sandwich dated January 15, 2001. It seems to have been frozen and thawed, a least a couple of times. But after peeling away the sodden bread, there was some turkey and cheese to be found inside. On the positive side, the teabags were complimentary for Business Class passengers, as were the newspapers, last Friday's Wall Street Journal and USA Day Before Yesterday, both of which I had already read on Friday's and Saturday's trains.
As was the case in the dome lounge car on Friday, four tables in the snack car were taken over by train crew paraphernalia, but there were several tables still available. One passenger across the aisle from us bypassed the food situation entirely by ordering a Johnny Walker and Seven-Up.
Everyone is looking forward to the day when there is enough new Surfliner equipment to equip every train. But now you can expect to find one of four possible trains sets: the new Pacific Surfliner with its own stylish Business Class car, or California Cars with a Superliner coach for Business Class, or Horizon cars with a dome lounge snack car and Amfleet Business Class, or Horizon cars with the Holiday Inn viewless snack car and Amfleet Business Class.
We had work to do so we repaired to our seats and our laptop. There is a strong Sprint Digital Cell Phone signal all the way from San Diego to Ventura, so this was a good chance for e-mail and reservations. Before we knew it we were approaching Los Angeles, but were stopped just a couple of miles out of Union Station by "track work", at the same location where we had been stopped on Saturday on the way to San Diego. We never did see any men or equipment in this area, so I don't know what kind of track work was being accomplished.
We were met on arrival by Ted's brother George and taken to the Marriott Los Angeles, a short drive from the station, where we enjoyed an excellent brunch and were whisked to the Music Center in the hotel's black Lincoln Town Car. We had tickets for the matinee -- and closing performance -- of the Broadway musical, "Swing". Afterwards, we enjoyed a family dinner with Ted's niece, and her new husband, in Seal Beach.
This was the last day of our cultural tour of the West Coast, and we were ticketed back to Klamath Falls on Monday's Coast Starlight.
Monday, January 15, 2001
Los Angeles to Klamath Falls
Under sunny skies, we breakfast at the Marriott and taxi to the station just as Coast Starlight #14 is being called. We settle into Deluxe Bedroom C in the 1430 car, adjacent to the Pacific Parlour Car, and leave the station on time at 9:30 AM. We're on the left side of the train, which is the ocean view side. After a lengthy run through the industrial San Fernando Valley and the rugged Santa Susanna Mountains we reach the ocean's edge and are treated to a view of the Channel Islands, which appear, in this clear air, to be just a couple of miles offshore. We saunter for miles along the blue Pacific, whipped into whitecaps by a strong wind. Although smog had returned to the Los Angeles Basin within 48 hours of the recent sky-clearing storm, the California coast today is as clear as we've ever seen it.
The Coast Starlight has 241 passengers, close to its full capacity with its three coaches and two sleepers, in what we used to know as the off season. A few years ago, Amtrak cut service on this train to three days a week in January and February, on the grounds that it was not worthwhile to run the train daily. This experiment was fortunately never repeated. We travel on the Starlight at all times of the year and it is always well-patronized. Throughout our travels on this trip, we have always been seated with college students returning to various universities after the holiday break.
Finding two adjacent easy chairs in the Pacific Parlour Car, we viewed the California coastline north of Santa Barbara. As the first seating completed their luncheon, they returned to the Parlour Car, which soon filled up again, as we answered the second and final call for lunch. We again enjoyed the excellent salmon salad while conversing with a University of California graduate student who had just completed a seven-day bicycle ride from Berkeley to Los Angeles, and was returning to Berkeley with his bike in the baggage car.
Returning to the Parlour Car after lunch, we found it set up for the wine tasting which was to begin when the train left San Luis Obispo. We actually arrived in San Luis about fifteen minutes early and had plenty of time to walk up and down the platform while the train was watered, the baggage off loaded, and new passengers were boarded. This is also a crew change point. While spring flowers had not begun to bloom yet in San Luis, the hills and mountains surrounding the town were green from the recent rains, and provided a magnificent backdrop to cactus plants and the eucalyptus and palm trees flourishing in the uniquely soft-yet-brilliant sunshine of Central California.
We left promptly at 3:13 PM to begin the climb up the Cuesta Grade and around the Horseshoe Bend. This is a scene that we never tire of, and these wild mountains appear in many Amtrak advertisements. Today the air is so clear that we can catch glimpses of the Pacific Ocean as we reach the higher portions of the grade. A coyote runs away from the train, then stops on a hillock to stare down at us. Threading through a series of tunnels, the Starlight begins the long gradual descent past the burgeoning communities of Santa Margarita, Templeton, and Atascadero -- then a short stop at the Paso Robles station. Oil wells, the oak-studded hills of Camp Roberts, and fields with winter vegetable crops are the scenery through the Salinas Valley.
The track south of Salinas is one of the few sections of Union Pacific track with the full speed limit of 79 mph, but the track condition is so bad that bouncing and lurching is at its worst here. We have made dinner reservations for 6:45 PM, expecting by then to be north of Salinas onto a slower and smoother riding section of track.
RIDE QUALITY. We have always assumed that the condition of the roadbed was mostly responsible for the ride quality of passenger cars. However, some of our friends at Amtrak have suggested that the rolling stock itself determines the ride. Our recent experiences with newer equipment the California Cars between Sacramento and Emeryville, and Pacific Surfliner cars between Oxnard and San Diego -- demonstrate that these new cars are much smoother riding and quieter than even the Superliner II equipment on the Coast Starlight. And they are all much smoother than the Amfleet coaches still used on the Pacific Surfliner routes.
EQUIPMENT USAGE IN CALIFORNIA.
California Cars: these are double decked cars used on the Capitol trains and the San Joaquin trains on the San Jose-to-Sacramento and Bakersfield routes. We also find some of these cars on the Pacific Surfliner route. They consist of coaches as well as food- service cars with very extensive menus and seating areas.
Pacific Surfliner: this name is used interchangeably for trains and equipment on the San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo routes. They consist of double-decked coaches, business-class cars, and snack-bar coaches. The snack bars are on the lower level and have more limited menus and table seating than the California Cars.
We were still in the dining car when the train reached Gilroy, where we sat next to the Cal Train terminal for several minutes. Our table mates are two first-year students at University of California at Davis. They had taken the Starlight to San Luis Obispo to visit relatives. This was their first trip on the Starlight and they were enjoying it, although they did say that they have driven it in half the time. We are finished with our delicious dinner (Sylvia chooses Prime Rib while Ted opts for the red snapper) before we start rocking and rolling on the Gilroy-to-San Jose high speed tangent, arriving about twenty minutes down.
We have our car attendant make up the bedroom after dinner, then settle in for a good night's sleep as we make our way to Oakland and Emeryville in fits and starts. I notice that we leave Emeryville about a half hour behind schedule, but the next thing I know the alarm is going off at 6:15 AM in the vicinity of Mt. Shasta City. This means that we are about on schedule. Our attendant advises that we will arrive in Klamath Falls at 8:00 AM, which is just a few minutes behind. I ask him if there is any explanation for this and he replies that it sometimes just happens, while cautioning that we are not there yet.
We have a glass of juice in the Parlour Car while waiting for breakfast. The diner opens a few minutes late at 6:37 AM, but once inside, the service is prompt and the meal excellent. As dawn breaks, we see the shadowy outline of Mt Shasta, and as we pass Grass Lake we can see snow on the ground.
Returning to our compartment we find that it has been made up while we were breakfasting. Michael Duran is quiet and unobtrusive but performs his duties unfailingly, as if he had been trained by the Pullman Company. As I write this we have just crossed the California-Oregon border and are speeding towards our home as the rising sun reddens the green Oregon landscape. We will be able to get a full day's work in today!
