The dome on the coast

One of the primary reasons to take this tour was the trip up the Pacific Coast in the dome of the Silver Solarium. It was definitely worth the wait. Soon after leaving LA the Coast Starlight route swings over next to the coast.  At first there is a row of not terribly large house between the tracks and the ocean.  I understand however that prices are in the millions.  As they say, location, location, location. Eventually there is nothing blocking the view of the ocean from the train.  At a few points the ocean is so close that a person sitting on the ocean side of the train can barely see the edge of the water.  There is one long stretch where a public campground provide sea side parking for RV's.  I understand there's a time limit however so not really possible to stay there long term. Around San Luis Obispo the tracks turn inland an the ocean view is gone. The climb up Cuesta grade has an attraction all it's own however. Mostly void of trees or even shrubbery, the view is only blocked by the rolling hills and curves of the rising terrain. One intriguing feature is a horseshoe curve where it's difficult to believe that you were on that track far below only about 18 minutes before. Also interesting is the huge prison that you look down on. Called the California Men's Colony, it was once the home away from home for Timothy Leary and a couple of the Manson Family members. Eventually the train enters the Salinas Valley where agriculture dominates.  Huge fields of vegetables stretch for miles and miles. At San Jose it would be possible to get off of an Amtrak train and continue on to San Francisco on a commuter train. Can't tell you much about Oakland 'cus I was sound asleep.

My day in Los Angeles

Amtrak 1 arrived in Los Angles an hour early on Friday morning the 9th, in other words about 4:30 AM. Conductor was on the PA as soon as we arrived so no sleeping.  I got up, got my stuff together and got off.  The First Class Lounge didn't open until 6am so I hung out in the regular waiting room for awhile. Once I had my luggage stored in the lounge I headed to Philippe the Original for breakfast. If you have a chance it's worth a visit, give it a try.  It's been in operation since 1908. Their main claim to fame is the French Dip Sandwich which they say they invented. After breakfast I visited the car rental desk, picked up my car and headed for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Since they didn't open until 9:30am I had to wait a short while.  Senior admission to the Museum was $9, parking was $12.  The first thing I did was visit the Pterosaurs exhibit. I had no idea that those creatures had such a diverse range of shapes and sizes.  I highly recommend it but it's a temporary exhibit which closes Oct 3rd. The rest of the museum is quite well done and worth a trip itself.

After the museum I drove several miles without benefit of a freeway to my next stop. I avoided the freeways just on general principles but also to experience  LA a little more closely.  My next stop was Venice where the daughter of a cousin worked. We figured out it had been about 1978 or 79 when we last met and she was just a little girl. During lunch I regaled her with several stories about her family that she had never heard. My plan was next to go the the LA Zoo but after a late start and getting lost twice the zoo turned out to be a bust.  They were near to closing time and the tram I had counted on to get me around had quit running for the day.  After a Walmart run I headed to the Amtrak Coach Yard to board my train. The charter car owner had made special arrangements for us to enter the yard and sleep on the cars the night before our departure.  Sitting up in the dome and watching the operations in the coach yard was a special experience.

Sleeping in a vintage roomette was a special experience as well but not necessarily a great one.  Those rooms were just not designed for all the luggage I had or for operating a CPAP machine at night.  Also, during the night the yard crews were adding our cars to the rear of the north bound Coast Starlight for the morning departure.  After the train was made up it had to be turned, which involved some additional maneuvers.  Some of my fellow passengers surmised that the switch crews were aware that there were passengers aboard and gave us a "special" experience.

Alpine, TX

Alpine, TX has a little more going for it than the average West Texas town. First is elevation. By the time we got to Alpine we were at about 4500 ft. And the mountains around it are over a mile high. This makes the hot and dry west Texas climate a little cooler and dry. And for a town of about 6000, in the middle of no where, it surprisingly has a university. Soul Ross State University was founded in 1917 and currently has about 2000 students. And maybe most important for it's economic well being, Alpine is also a gateway to the Big Bend Country including Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.

West Texas from the Sunset Limited

West Texas doesn't have much going for it, scenery wise. There are some Grand Vistas but after grand vista number 37 you don't pay as much attention. It doesn't have much in the way of train passengers either. The small town of Sanderson, TX used to be a crew base for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Freight trains would come in and stop long enough for one crew to get off and the next one to board. Many of the engineers and conductors that were based in Sanderson really enjoyed the small town life. But UP took over the SP and dropped Sanderson as a crew base and train folks there either made a really long commute or moved to El Paso. The depot, which had been a fine place in it's day, was still maintained by some longtime residents for the use of Amtrak passengers but it fell into further disrepair and became a safety hazard. UP finally tore it down and as we stopped in Sanderson I could see no sign of it not even a slab. And since we had no passengers to pick up or drop off, our stop was very short, “toot and scoot” I heard the conductor say on the radio.

My connection to the California Zephyr

I never rode the original California Zephyr, and I only rode Amtrak’s version of it once.  But I do have a connection to the train.  Several years ago the Austin Steam Train Association, where I volunteer, purchased a passenger car for use on their excursion train.  That car had previously been part of the original CZ.  I don’t know where it had been since it’s CZ days but all the markings on the outside that identified it with the CZ were gone.  I took on the job of restoring those markings.  In the process I did quite a bit of research on the car and on the train. 

Our particular type car had a bit of an unusual history.  It was built for the CZ as a 16 sectional sleeper. You won’t find a sectional sleeper on Amtrak. But recall some of those old movies where folks were sticking their heads out between curtains from an upper bunk. This was a sectional sleeper in the night time mode.  During the day there were two seats facing one another with walls between the sections. But only curtains protected you from the aisle at night. Each of the six California Zephyr consists had just one of this type of sleeper.  It was cheaper that a bedroom but more expensive than a coach seat. However they were not very popular I suppose and eventually they were all removed from service. During this time out of service, all the walls and bunks were removed, seats were added and they became just another coach, but with one difference.  At either end were large restrooms that were designed to serve overnight passengers. In the mens lounge area were small sinks for shaving and the ladies had dressing tables where they could sit down at a mirror and apply make-up.  Doing either one of those things on a moving train seems kind of risky to me but I guess it was useful. As well, each lounge had two adjoining annexes, the railroad name for a potty room. Our car was called the Silver Pine.

I was able to find the proper set of lettering to match the special design used on all the CZ cars.  Today we would call it a font but I doubt the term was in common use back when this car was originally painted. Perhaps printers used the term but not sign painters.  And I’m certainly not sign painter but I do know my way around a computer, a Macintosh at least. I found some pictures of the car from it’s earlier glory days when it had it's original lettering.  I could measure the car itself, scale a photo of the car to match that length then determine the width and height of the lettering by measuring it on the computer.  Easier to do than to describe. With that I was able to come up with a computer file that a local sign maker was able to use to cut vinyl letters to match the originals. The original metal sign boards were missing so we purchased new ones, cut to size by a local stainless steel supplier. Then I applied the vinyl letters to the sign boards in the comfort of my living room. It fell to someone else to climb up on a ladder and attach the signboards.

The Silver Pine on it's first trip to Burnet, TX

The other car ..

I mentioned in my introduction that there would be a second car in our consist, the Silver Rapids, and that wasn’t just another 10-6 sleeper. I want to explain why is was special but first I need to give a little history of the California Zephyr. It was operated by a combine of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Western Pacific Railroads. Unlike the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and the Union Pacific (don’t the railroads love grand sounding names) none of the CZ guys owned track that ran from Chicago to the West Coast.  So they teamed up for a relay operation of a single train that would get you there without changing.  They called it the California Zephyr. Besides sharing the operation of the train, they shared the rolling stock.  Each railroad provided their own locomotives for movement over their portion of the route.  In addition each railroad contributed a proportionate number of the passenger cars. The Silver Solarium for instance was owned by the CB&Q. The Silver Rapids was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Wait! What? How did those guys get involved?  America’s railroad system was and is pretty much divided up by East and West. Despite the well known Transcontinental Railroad name, there was no company that owned track coast to coast.  Mostly you could count on the Mississippi River to be the dividing line. Take a train to Chicago or St. Louis or New Orleans, get off and take another train on a different railroad to LA or San Francisco or Portland or Seattle. But the CZ folks had a better idea.  What if you could board a sleeper in New York City and just stay on while it was switched to a train in Chicago and then go all the way to San Francisco*. This was where the Silver Rapids came in. It was built by the Budd Rail Car company to be identical to the CZ 10-6 sleepers but owned by the PRR.  It only ran one round trip a week and actually alternated between PRR and the New York Central trains. But it was still a one seat (or bed) ride from coast to coast.  There were other railroads that combined for similar operations, I’m not familiar with all of them, but never the less the Silver Rapids was a rare opportunity for a seamless trip. And it was one of the few passenger cars that regularly traveled completely across the country, making it pretty special.

* In the name of full disclosure it should be noted that the California Zephyr only ever went to San Francisco one time, for a ceremonial inauguration. The normal route was to Oakland where passenger were transferred by bus to San Francisco.  The trip south and then north around San Francisco Bay just took too long.

A trip of a lifetime, for me at least.

A little over a year ago, I encountered an opportunity to take an excursion on a dome/observation car from the California Zephyr. Not the current Amtrak California Zephyr, which is nice, but the original CZ operated by the CB&Q, D&RGW and Western Pacific, "America's most talked-about train." This was the tag line that was applied to the train back in the day. The dome observation car brought up the rear of the train and was the best seat in the house. There were four other domes in each consist but the tail end car was the one everybody noticed. The dome had coach seating but the seats were not assigned and people came and went. The round end observation lounge had individual movable chairs and directly under the dome area was a small buffet /bar with a seating area.  Also under the dome area were four bedrooms, the only revenue area on the car.

Of course the car I was going to ride in was not exactly like the original, over the years and several owners it had been modified.  The dome area was converted to a dining area with six tables for four. The buffet seating area was converted to additional bedrooms but the small bar remained. The porters area was converted to a galley.  And the trip was not going to be over the original route from Chicago to Oakland but rather from Los Angeles to Portland while riding behind Amtrak's Coast Starlight and then behind the Empire Builder to Glacier Park. Not many Amtrak routes could be said to challenge that combination for scenery, not even the original CZ route.

The trip was going to be very expensive so I thought about it overnight and went back to sign up.  Sure enough my hesitation got me onto the waiting list. But a month or two later I got moved to the passenger list and sent in my deposit. That was almost a year ago and I have been dreaming about the trip ever since. Now I am one week away from boarding my silver chariot and can hardly stand it.

However, the trip starts in LA and I have to get there first so my trip actually starts in just five days when I board the Texas Eagle for the trip to LA. A night and a day and a night on the Eagle and I'll be in La La Land. The Coast Starlight will not depart until the next morning but rather than a hotel I will be able to sleep on the train in the Amtrak coach yard and be part of the Starlight consist when it's moved to LA Union Station the next morning.

Silver Solarium

One other note, there will be 24 people plus crew on the trip so it's easy to see that we can't all sleep on the Silver Solarium.  There will be a second car, commonly known as a 10-6 sleeper, that will accompany us and will provide a home away from home for most of the passengers.  10-6 means that it has or had 10 roomettes and 6 bedrooms. A roomette sleeps one and a bedroom sleeps two.  Two of the roomettes however have been converted to a shower room and a community bathroom so it's really an 8-6 sleeper. Although not as glamorous as the Silver Solarium, the Silver Rapids has it's own special history which I'll write about later.