Winslow to Los Angeles via the #3 Southwest Chief, 12 hours 54 minutes
I board the train just after 7pm, looking forward to a good night’s sleep. Even though there are lots of empty seats, I’m assigned one next to a man who will not be getting off until 11pm. Not the end of the world, but slightly unusual. Typically I find Amtrak to be very good at giving overnight passengers an extra seat if there are seats to spare. I spend my time in the Sightseer Lounge car to get a little more privacy and to be able to stretch out. There are several groupings of three seats that can make a bed in a pinch. It is very common to see people sleeping in here at night. At 11pm the person sitting next to my coach seat gets off the train at the town of Kingman. I get up from my 3-seat bed and head back to the coach car to fall asleep.
The train pulls into the Los Angeles Union Station at 8am. I am staying at a hostel in Santa Monica and plan to get there using public transit. I’ve heard about LA’s car culture and am expecting their public transportation system to be a challenge but it is the exact opposite. The MetroLink light rail system makes travel here a breeze. I get to within 3 blocks of the hostel without ever going outside. My bed is ready, so I unload my luggage and tip-toe out. Someone is sound asleep in another bunk. I head to the community kitchen to bake a loaf of bread. I started the process in Winslow, adding water and yeast to a container of flour, salt and sugar. By the time I get to the hostel the dough is bubbly, with a yeasty smell. I transfer the dough into a buttered bread pan, let it rise for another two hours and then bake it for forty minutes. The loaves I make are small. I end up consuming one every two days. Baking on the rail allows me to have a constant supply of fresh, organic whole wheat bread.
Hostels are great for my kind of travel. Having access to an oven for baking bread and a freezer for refreezing my Amtrak cooler gel packs is essential, but the added benefit of low price and scheduled activities makes it an amazing bargain. I’m sure I am the oldest person here, but nobody seems to notice or care. I go back to my room to get ready for a walking tour of Santa Monica. The fellow who was sleeping is awake, so we talk for a while. He is from Serbia and is here to visit some friends. Our other bunk-mate is from Chicago and having a little vacation while working remotely.
The walking tour is very good. Our guide has lived here most of his life and knows his subject. He is very interested in movies and teaches a number of classes, including one about the Barbie movie. One of the stops on the tour is the gynecologist’s office used for the final scene. The tour ends near Venice, about a mile south of the hostel. My legs are tired so I split off from the group and find a restaurant where I can have dinner and watch the World Series with the Dodgers against the Blue Jays. I make it back in time to see a stand-up comedy act at the hostel. Some of the humor is over-the-cliff edgy and I feel a bit uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m the only one though because I hear lots of nervous laughter. When the show is over, though, I leave with several really good nuggets of humor. The night is young, but I need to get up at 4am to catch a train. I head to bed.
Los Angeles to San Louis Obispo via the #761 Pacific Surfliner, 5 hours 15 minutes
The ride back to Union Station is as smooth as my arrival. The entrances to the train tracks are all underground, but I need to go upstairs and find out what track I will be leaving on. It is worth the walk. The architecture of LA’s Union Station is a seamless blend of Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco. Built in 1939 just as the automobile and airplanes were challenging rail’s dominance, it was the last great railroad station built in the United States.
I could have taken the Coast Starlight all the way home, but this is an ideal time for me to try the Surfliner. It has stricter luggage requirements and I want to make sure my luggage will be acceptable. Surfliner luggage is supposed to be only 11 inches wide instead of the standard 14 inches. My luggage is approximately 11 1/2 inches wide. The reason this is the ideal time to try it is because if there is an issue, I can catch the Coast Starlight two hours later.
I’m on the Surfliner and life is good! One of the cars has lower level baggage racks that can accommodate bigger luggage. I even saw a fold-up bicycle there. Similar to the Superliner, the Streamliner has downstairs bathrooms, downstairs seating for disabled riders, and general seating for everyone else upstairs. It is smaller, though, and feels more like (and is) a local commuter run, only traveling between San Diego and San Luis Obispo.
The scenery along this route is stunning. It follows the coast so closely that I feel like I could put my hand out the window and scoop up sand. I catch myself humming the tune Ventura Highway, by the band America. We arrive in San Luis Obispo around 1pm. It is 85 degrees out and I have two hours to kill. Five blocks away I find an outdoor cafe. I’m still full from eating my chicken sandwich on the train but order an iced coffee and bowl of vanilla ice cream. Walking back to the station I discover that San Luis Obispo has a train museum. They are closed today, but there are some interesting old railroad cars outside. The photo below shows an old wooden boxcar, with the southbound Surfliner in the distance.
San Luis Obispo to Seattle via the #14 Coast Starlight, 28 hours 46 minutes
I wait for the train in the San Luis Obispo station to get out of the heat. It isn’t a grand station, but it still has early 1900s character, with wooden church pew style seating. The train is on time, and I have an empty seat next to me! We will see if my luck holds. Before nightfall we will be picking up more passengers in the Bay Area, east of San Francisco. During my visit in Winslow I walked a couple miles to the closest grocery store and restocked my cooler with produce. Tonight, my dinner is pesto pasta and a wonderful tossed green salad with lettuce, tomatoes, yellow peppers, avocado and hazelnuts. A very good dressing is made from restaurant packs of mustard and mayonnaise. I almost feel guilty eating in front of people.
Night falls and my luck holds out, with an empty seat next to me allowing for another nine-hour night of sleep. We arrive in Klamath Falls OR on-time at 7:30am, but our departure will be delayed until 10:30 due to the replacement crew arriving late and needing to get their required amount of sleep. Their train was at a standstill for a couple of hours during the night, waiting for freight trains, who rule the rail, to pass. I decide to turn this two-hour bug into a feature, and walk into town in the frigid 35 degree air for a leisurely breakfast. On my way, looking down I notice the ground is scattered with walnuts. Looking up I see what must be a walnut tree. Walking toward town I see the closest street sign; Walnut Avenue. Although California is the major supplier of walnuts ,Oregon does have a small commercial crop. Breakfast is good, and dirt cheap. I head back to the train station.
I still have an empty seat next to me but decide to find a table in the Sightseer Lounge car. After a couple of hours, the car starts to fill up. I notice a woman looking for a place to sit down, so I offer the other side of the table. Cindy lives on the East Coast but has kids and grandkids on both sides of the country. Lunchtime is approaching and my Amtrak cooler has the answer. I offer Cindy a chicken sandwich. I am thrilled with my cooler! It has proven to be worth its weight in sautéed chicken, pesto pasta, cheese, lettuce and veggies.
With the delayed departure from Klamath Falls, we arrive in Seattle at 10:15pm; about two and a half hours late. I’m fine with that and consider it on time-ish. When booking connecting trains I always allow a four hour gap. There is no connecting train here, though. I am home! At the beginning of my journey, heading through West Virginia, I thought that train travel had lost its appeal. Unrealistic expectations and forgetting to just “going with the flow” temporarily damped my mood. Once I surrendered to the sway of the train, I was in love again and excited about my next trip!
