A Positive Spin On Train Travel

That last blog headline said we'd try rail travel "without drama" Oops.

Now it's one thing to be a grouch, but worse to write like one.  There's enough in the world to feel bad about without a grumbling travel story - especially from a writer on vacation.  Besides, I like to say everything is an opportunity - everything.  Keep that in mind in this brief travelogue.

My wife and I were looking for a different method of travel.  She had a 28-year career as a flight attendant until 9/11.  Of the many trips in recent years, most were not for leisure, but to deal with declining health of family and funerals.  Planes are packed, confining, often delayed and John Candy could be sitting next to you, wafting his socks.  Our answer for a casual trip to Chicago was Amtrak - in a sleeper car.

Think of it: plenty of room, privacy, sight-seeing across the country, the rhythms of the rails rocking us to sleep, fine-dining with a view.  It would be so much better than my youthful adventure of hopping freights.  Time for mature comfort.

Boarding at Portland, we were lucky because later trains on the Empire Builder route were being delayed or canceled.  Besides weather problems, the demand for material to and from North Dakota's oil fields was nudging passenger trains down the priority list.  We had squeaked through at the right time.

It's dark this time of year as the train chugs up the Columbia Gorge and stays that way through the Rockies of Glacier Park.  Luckily, this train did not have Internet service, so the blackness and isolation gave us a chance to practice creative imagination of the passing scenery. The variety of vibrations and motion provided night time meditation and prayer rather than sleep.  If awake, any light at a crossing or on the distant hillside was exciting.  Daylight breaking at Whitefish brought renewed vigor.

From that point east, we had splendid opportunities to kick back and practice patience because long trains of black oil tankers began to roll past in the opposite direction. We could hear and feel them from the sidings we kept pulling into.  There are many of them across Eastern Montana and North Dakota and we can cheerfully report they all work just fine.  The phone app we had tracked our progress and there was plenty of time to do that as the hours slipped pleasantly past and kept adding up.

A highlight in North Dakota was seeing the customized Christmas displays of Williston. They might just be flares burning off gas from the scattered oil wells on the landscape, but to us they were glimmers of good cheer.  I could imagine a wagon train or Indians circling those fires, warming their chilled bodies while roasting a buffalo's rump.  I saw a cast of characters that could fill such a scene during a short stop in the Williston depot.   That interesting place is truly the new Wild West.

Inside our cozy quarters, we enjoyed fluctuating temperatures that allowed us to try different levels of clothing.  In doing so, we got to stretch and practice our balance as the train rumbled on to the next siding.  The rooms are designed with walls so close that bouncing off you won't break a hip or dislocate a shoulder.

There's a tight little private bathroom in which you can conveniently sit to do your business and shower at the same time.  The thin plastic walls allow travelers to share toilet sounds not only with your partner, but with the room next to you.  Our neighbors were hard-of-hearing, enabling us to sample vital communication.  For example, the elderly gent says, "What did you say?  I gotta take off these dang longjohns. What was that? Hey, I found your glasses, honey. What did you say?"



A couple will grow closer than ever on a train and can learn coordination skills while inching around the cabin, over luggage and around the other's elbows.  There's adequate time for reading while the jiggling train races along at over 70 mph - affording excellent eye exercise and evoking sympathy with vision problems in third world countries.  I was fortunate to maneuver into the top bunk, strapped in for safety and teaching myself how to hold off on those pesky evening bathroom visits.

Winding your way down the aisles gives you the thrills familiar to skateboarders.  And going through the coach cars, there are plenty of opportunities to bump into strangers.  If they have appendages in the aisle you can whisper a greeting if the limb is still intact. Eventually, you end up in the dining car.  Of course the menu is limited and no matter the selection, you come away with a fresh appreciation for home cooking.

Amtrak personnel are cordial, efficient folks - just like our young friend who is an engineer in the Midwest.  It is not their fault that three months ago Congress changed regulations that previously had given people trains priority over freights.  The nation's energy needs are certainly more important than the Vikings game in Minneapolis, or the wedding in Milwaukee, or my son's play in Chicago.  Not everyone on the train would agree with me as time not only slowed, but stood still.

That's what happened when we came to an abrupt stop when some early morning driver left his pickup on the tracks 30 miles north of Chicago.  Luckily he escaped and only three hours later, we rolled past a twisted piece of indistinguishable black metal.  Only the scattered wheels indicated it might have been a vehicle.  The lesson: never park your car on the tracks.

We eased into Chicago's Union Station at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday.  The actor we came to see was waiting for us, despite his 3 p.m. matinee that day.  Sure, we were 14 hours late and wobbly for a few hours, but we came away from our experience so much more knowledgeable.  We learned so much we probably don't have to do it again.

Riding The Rails Without The Drama

Among the more interesting misadventures of my youth was hopping freights from Montana to St. Paul.  It's the subject of a short story I'm working on and the idea was one of my more foolhardy decisions.

I come from a part of the country where they have an annual Hobo Festival and I've had the opportunity to meet and write stories about former "Kings" and "Queens" of the hobos crowned at that Iowa event.  Let's just say they're all a colorful lot, a few quite clever and some not rowing with both oars.  Some were authentic hobos - like Pasco Slim and Reno Blackey - but it seemed to me there were also a share of likely successful businessmen with Walter Mitty imaginations and annual acting performances - like Muscatel Mike and Sundance.  Real or fake, they all made hopping freights sound romantic and adventuresome.

Then I found a photo book on hobos and tramps that also praised riding freight trains as the true way of wandering.  A line that got me: "Once you've pissed out of an open boxcar, you're hooked."

So I did it with a pal and in summary, it was a dirty, dangerous and painful experience.  Along the way, strange characters with thousand-yard stares asking to hop in our wooden boxcar were rudely turned away in language to suit the occasion.  I'd read about cut throats on the rails, too.  I don't want to tell the entire story here, but I will admit that it is nearly impossible to pee from an open boxcar.  The motion, the vibrations and swirling dust make most everything miserable.

To break the boredom, we worked out a little dance routine and when the highway paralleled the tracks in North Dakota we performed for families running alongside.  Parents, worried what might be exposed from a freight train, tried to get their kids not to look, but we were rewarded with big grins and what appeared to be applause.  Then parents began to wave.

We made it - seriously bruised and coated with layers of heavy dust - awakened from a much-needed nap by a railroad detective in St. Paul who was surprised at our ability to explain and apologize for such a naive and illegal stunt.  We meant it when we said we'd never try it again.

I mention this because decades later I am about to ride the rails again.  This time I'll be with my wife and in a sleeper with two beds, our own shower and a real toilet.   None of that open boxcar stuff for this old gent, but I'll give a report on Amtrak's Empire Builder from Portland to Chicago soon.