Saturday / Sunday – Flagstaff to Chicago

It was a brisk 58° at 4:00 am Saturday morning in Flagstaff.  Against all odds, the Southwest Chief was running exactly on schedule, and I boarded car 430 and found my roomette, #4.  Lucy, the sleeping car attendant for my journey to Chicago, greeted me and explained the minimal technical details of the room – lights and air conditioning controls.  Everything worked.  The seats are wide and comfortable, recline nicely, and the seat opposite fits my feet perfectly.

The roomettes are for two, but you don’t have to share if you are traveling alone.  You pay a hefty fee for the roomette and a very reasonable coach fare for the transportation.  If someone traveled with you and shared the room, that person would only have to pay the coach fare.  The roomette is perfect for one, tight for two.  The two seats convert into a pretty comfortable bed (long enough, even for me) at night.  And there is an upper bunk that drops from above.  I brought my old portable GPS with me (for use in my rental car in NY), and I hooked it up to the window where it remained for the entire journey to Chicago.  I also turned my cell phone to GPS mode and got a wider view of where we were with that.  There is a single socket for plugging things in the room, but I had my trusty little traveling extension cord so I could have three things plugged in at the same time.  The GPS shows the train speed.  Our best speed between Flag and Chicago was 92 mph.

Breakfast on the train starts at 6:30 and is first come first served.  I had scrambled eggs and bacon with tea, sharing the table with a young girl (30ish) and an older gentleman both of whom were riding in coach.  They weren’t traveling together, but sharing is the norm in the dining car.  She was so hung over, she was shaking, and the only thing she wanted was a Bloody Mary.  He could have passed for homeless just about anywhere, bedraggled and scruffy to a fault.  She couldn’t form words, let alone sentences, and he immediately stared into his food and never said a word.  It was a quiet breakfast.

Lunch was a much more pleasant affair.  For lunch and dinner you reserve a time slot with sleeper passengers getting preference.  An attendant winds through the train before each meal time taking reservations.  Once you arrive in the diner, the matron, who rules with an iron hand, seats you where she thinks best.  I sat with three women, all traveling alone.  One was a hospice worker on her way home to Taos after a San Diego vacation.  One was a high school English teacher headed home to St Louis to get ready for a new school year.  And one was an office worker from LA heading to Pittsburgh to visit family.  We had good conversation, highlighted by the English teacher confirming my long-held belief that Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native is boring and incomprehensible.  She, like me, hates the book!

I spent the day napping, reading, and taking pictures out the window.  America is a fascinating place from a train.

I had dinner with two old guys on the way home to Philadelphia from a California family reunion. They were real characters.  My Amtrak Angus Steak Special was decent enough, possibly because I had indulged in a large gimlet in my room before dinner.  I brought a small thermos of gimlets with me and Lucy kindly fetched me some ice.  After dinner, Lucy converted my roomette to the nighttime bed and I was soon in dreamland.  I slept surprisingly well and woke at about 5 am – still dark as night.  I reconverted the bed to seats myself – there is barely room to stand when the bed is down.  Then I gathered what I needed and trudged downstairs (it’s a double decker) to the single shower in the car.  The shower is just big enough and the water was as hot as you would want it.

By that time it was breakfast again followed by more America viewing with an anticipated arrival in Chicago at about 4:00 PM.  By this time the train was running about thirty minutes behind schedule.

Tune in on Monday night (late) to hear about my adventure in Chicago and the train ride from Chicago to Albany, NY.

PICTURES FROM A DAY ON THE TRAIN (click to enlarge in new window)