About 30 years ago, I had been to a high school reunion in Connecticut and had stopped to visit my brother who lives near Galesburg, Illinois. I booked the California Zephyr from Galesburg to Davis, California, where I spent the night and caught the southbound Coast Starlight from there down to L.A. the next day,…
Veteran rail travelers know from personal experience that Amtrak’s long-distance trains often run late— sometimes very late—and rather than take a chance on making a connection, we’ll stay overnight and continue on our way the next day. The fact is, it’s risky to take an Amtrak schedule at face value and assume any given long-distance…
There’s almost no end to things that can go wrong on a railroad. Locomotives break down; boulders tumble down rocky slopes and block the tracks; several cars on freight train slip off the rails; an earthen embankment gives way and six feet of mud covers the tracks; heat kinks twist the rails out of alignment;…
I was the only sleeping car passenger on the platform when the southbound Coast Starlight arrived in Davis, California, spot on time at 6:50 yesterday morning. The door of the 31 car banged open and the car attendant, a feisty woman clearly approaching retirement age, called out, “Mr. Loomis?” I clambered aboard and, as…