A succession of storms moving off the eastern Pacific were hammering northern California’s citizenry with above-normal rainfall amounts causing localized flooding, the torrential downpours unrelenting for ten days total.
This is the ride that got away. It was the summer of 1987. I was supposed to take the California Zephyr from Salt Lake City to Oakland as the third leg of a weekend of train riding around the West (The first two legs were Oakland - Seattle on the Coast Starlight and Seattle - Salt Lake City.)
When I got to the depot, I learned the westbound Zephyr was running NINE HOURS LATE. Since I would have missed my flight back to New York, I had to make other arrangements. I got a room, and the next morning flew to Oakland. My consolation prize was renting a car and driving to Sacramento to tour the California State Railroad Museum.
Two years earlier I came through Salt Lake City on the Desert Wind. Amtrak was still using the Union Pacific deport, which was much nicer than the Rio Grande/Western Pacific station. It was fun to watch crews break down the arriving CZ into three trains bound for LA, Oakland, and Seattle. The platforms were wide open and there were no canopies to obstruct the view. Alas, that was a piece of history that will probably never be repeated,
Punctuality being a hallmark of a quality long-distance passenger-train operation, I don’t remember ever traveling on any passenger train that was running late due to such conditions as interference from freights (using the same set of rails), mechanical or electrical breakdowns or due to factors such as an on-track train derailment.
However, there was the one time when I was on my way with my mom and dad to the 1964 New York World’s Fair and our Pennsylvania Railroad train traveling on what is today Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, hit a motor vehicle at a railroad crossing. When the train came to a stop, in looking out the window to my side, I saw the impacted wreckage. Sometime later, I had heard that the vehicle had either gotten stuck on the track or flat broke down — one of the two. The occupants — a married couple (as I remember it) — had the presence of mind to get out of the car and away from the tracks, apparently. They made the correct decision by doing that, obviously and fortunately!
That is all I recall about that trip going there and coming back. I was 11 at the time.
This is the ride that got away. It was the summer of 1987. I was supposed to take the California Zephyr from Salt Lake City to Oakland as the third leg of a weekend of train riding around the West (The first two legs were Oakland - Seattle on the Coast Starlight and Seattle - Salt Lake City.)
When I got to the depot, I learned the westbound Zephyr was running NINE HOURS LATE. Since I would have missed my flight back to New York, I had to make other arrangements. I got a room, and the next morning flew to Oakland. My consolation prize was renting a car and driving to Sacramento to tour the California State Railroad Museum.
Two years earlier I came through Salt Lake City on the Desert Wind. Amtrak was still using the Union Pacific deport, which was much nicer than the Rio Grande/Western Pacific station. It was fun to watch crews break down the arriving CZ into three trains bound for LA, Oakland, and Seattle. The platforms were wide open and there were no canopies to obstruct the view. Alas, that was a piece of history that will probably never be repeated,
Punctuality being a hallmark of a quality long-distance passenger-train operation, I don’t remember ever traveling on any passenger train that was running late due to such conditions as interference from freights (using the same set of rails), mechanical or electrical breakdowns or due to factors such as an on-track train derailment.
However, there was the one time when I was on my way with my mom and dad to the 1964 New York World’s Fair and our Pennsylvania Railroad train traveling on what is today Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, hit a motor vehicle at a railroad crossing. When the train came to a stop, in looking out the window to my side, I saw the impacted wreckage. Sometime later, I had heard that the vehicle had either gotten stuck on the track or flat broke down — one of the two. The occupants — a married couple (as I remember it) — had the presence of mind to get out of the car and away from the tracks, apparently. They made the correct decision by doing that, obviously and fortunately!
That is all I recall about that trip going there and coming back. I was 11 at the time.