Photos in this column by Steven R. Boyett, Dasha Clancey and Roger Colton
Okay, so it’s a trip report. But, it’s not just any trip. Sit back and read about what has become something of a tradition with this bunch of misfits that I call friends…
About seven years ago, a friend working at Pixar Studios in Point Richmond was talking about getting a group of friends together to take a trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The thought came along that they could take Amtrak’s “Sunset Limited”, get a couple of bedrooms, drink and play cards there and back.
And then I opened my big mouth. I suggested they could do the same thing aboard a private railroad car locally. Naturally, I didn’t expect them to take me up on the offer.
Silly me.
It has never been easy to fill one car, and two was really tough last year. A lot of folks have been in and out of work, being animators, artists, and etceteras. While I like this group, I was somewhat of a mind to make this the last such trip, and concentrate my efforts solely on groups (all paid in advance).
Taking a page from some friends in marketing excursions, I let these folks know that this would be my last public private car excursion.
From the start, some of them were going, and paid right away. Others? Well, there were teeth to be pulled.
The usual trip starts with a number of passengers we expect. The car I had planned to use, the “Tamalpias”, seats 16 passengers comfortably for a day trip such as the ride from Emeryville to Reno. It has a dining room table that will seat eight. Two seatings for lunch plus the crew meal can make for a long afternoon for the chef and the dishwasher. (Don’t worry, they are well paid for what they do.)
We usually have a chef, a bartender and a porter aboard. The car owners usually send a mechanical rider to attend to the car’s needs. For once, I decided I would go along in the role of steward and schmooze with the passengers. Add in a crew spouse or two and we find our car now holding 24 people; a bit more comfy than intended. Not to worry, however…
Our trips run up to Reno on a Saturday and back again on a Sunday. Friday afternoon is shopping and setting up the car for the weekend. If all works out right, we strip and clean the car Sunday night.
This year, I got a leg up on things by getting the bar supplies all ready to go well in advance. There used to a grocery delivery service here in the San Francisco Bay area known as “Webvan”. I miss these guys. It saved a half a day or more of shopping by being able to order online and have the stuff delivered right to the car. It came in these green plastic tubs.
When “Webvan” folded up shop, I managed to find these tubs on sale at a local grocery outlet for all of $3 each, and got ten of them. Not only do they offer clean and secure storage, they have great advantages above and beyond the usual cardboard boxes liquor is usually stored in.
So… I had shopped off and on in the weeks leading up to the trip, and had the bar supplies about 90 percent ready. I also use the tubs to store clean linens and the railroad silver I use for a trip. The trunk of my Buick can hold four of the tubs and the back seat, six more. Funny how that works just right.
At one on Friday afternoon, I’m in place for my chef and bartender to arrive and begin their own brands of magic. The pantry accepts the booze, sodas, beer, wine and etcetra; the kitchen all of the chef’s supplies.
So I leave them to their labors, and head back out to the suburbs in search of another treasure. If you think the Los Angeles freeways can be fun, I heartily recommend the MacArthur or Interstate 580 freeway eastbound leaving Alameda County on a Friday afternoon and evening. I think someone at Cal Trans (our beloved highway department) stayed up nights dreaming up the horrors that await unwary travelers along this route. Merges, junctions and lane reductions can make a thirty-mile trip take the better part of two hours.
My quest is to make it back to Livermore before my dry cleaners closes it’s doors for the night. In what had to be a karmic moment, I had the good fortune to locate some original Pullman porter uniform jackets on eBay on Tuesday afternoon. Making a generous offer, I had them overnighted to me so that I could get them cleaned and have the sleeves hemmed. (These jackets were worn by porters when greeting train passengers on the platforms before boarding.) Seems that these six had been in storage for some twenty-five plus years in what I can only call “mint” condition. My cleaners did not let me down, and I had two now in hand, ready to see service the next day.
Some last minute shopping and I’m back off to Oakland and the Amtrak coach yard. By midnight, I am snuggled safe and warm in a lower berth where I will sleep the next seven hours without the usual bumping by the third shift switching crew. Seems that someone got things right on the second shift before I got back, and most of the cars are all in place for the next day’s train to Chicago.
The “Tamalpias” sits in the Oakland Coach Yard getting ready for another trip with Porter Jeff Ferris.
As the sun rises, so do I all set for a quick shower. Bad timing on the part of a coach yard laborer as he comes to fill the cars water tank for the trip. When he opens the tank vent, all of the air pressure escapes from the water system, and I am left standing in the shower with a head full of shampoo. The tank does not fill quickly and I don’t have the time to wait. So I towel off as best I can, and get ready for our departure.
As the Steward, I’m kind of the quarterback getting the team all set for the game. A quick check of the pantry and the kitchen show me that the bartender and the chef have things well in hand. The porter has been setting out snacks for the passengers, and getting ready to stow luggage in the master bedroom of the car.
At about 8:45 a.m., we roll on our way out of the coach yard headed for the first stop of the day at the Emeryville Amtrak Station. Normally, we find our car on the rear of the train. It’s a classic moment when the train comes to a stop with our private car right in front of all of the passengers waiting to board this train bound for Chicago. And we get to direct them for the long walk up to the Amtrak coaches and sleeping cars.
Not today. This time, we are the first of three private cars directly behind the Amtrak sleeping cars. Behind those other two cars are nine boxcars, probably full of US Mail headed for Denver and Chicago. So our eight passengers boarding here get to make the long trek down the platform along with everyone else.
But we certainly are ready. The bartender and the porter (Jeff and Jeff, or Ollie and Hello as they are most usually identified) are at the ready on the platform in their new blue Pullman Porter coats. I’m also suitably attired in my white dinner jacket as we greet our guests.
Jeff Ferris and Ollie Beaudry are neat and spiffy in their new jackets.
Chef Ben Heine takes a break between them.
This group includes six first time passengers aboard a private railroad car, and a few making their first train trip of any kind. Impressed they are by both the staff and the car.
At 9:35 a.m. we hear two blasts of the air horn on the front of the train and it begins to roll, seemingly without effort. It does not seem all that long before the train is up to speed at over sixty miles per hour along the shores of the San Pablo Bay. A quick first round of smart cocktails includes the usual Irish Coffees along with Bailey’s Irish Crème and Coffee.
Features of note along the way include the first of 18 tunnels we pass through headed for Reno, one of California’s most toxic EPA Superfund sites, the California Maritime Academy (part of the State College system) and it’s training ship, the Golden Bear, the new Carquinez bridge under construction, and the town of Port Costa. If you ever were forced to read Frank Norris epic, “The Octopus”, Port Costa should be familiar as it was the major port for sailing ships carrying California grain to ports around the world. Today, rotting pilings show were docks once stood and the town is more of a curiosity than a business district. Some fine restaurants and antique stores attract visitors, as does the bar in the Warehouse. It’s a hangout favored by local bikers, and I don’t mean anyone wearing spandex bicycle pants.
Martinez was once home to baseball god, Joe Dimaggio, and if you believe the bar room tales, also the place where the Martinez Cocktail (a.k.a. the Martini) was first poured. It’s the county seat for Contra Costa, and has a somewhat new Amtrak depot with a platform just long enough for us to fit without blocking a street crossing in downtown.
Here we do the show all over again and greet the remainder of our passengers. The crowd here is a veteran one with only one new passenger getting the show treatment. She is well up to the task, dressed for the role, and right at home being treated royally.
Miss Maureen Halderson with her escort Mister Steven Boyett await the
arrival of Train #6, the “California Zephyr”, on the platform at Martinez.
Leaving Martinez, we cross the longest railroad bridge west of the Mississippi over the Suisun Bay. Off on the right is the Ready Reserve or Mothball fleet. This used to be the home of Howard Hughes “Glomar Explorer” (a ship used by the CIA to retrieve a Soviet submarine from the ocean floor at the height of the Cold War), but now has the battleship USS Iowa as it’s most noted guest. Also docked here are various World War II, Korean Conflict and Vietnam era ships of all kinds including a helicopter carrier and a former Hawaiian inter-island cruise ship (seized by the IRS for back taxes).
The train reaches the highest speed of the trip (79 miles per hour) as it crosses the Suisun marshes. One spot of note at a spot known as Cygnus is a small fenced in area. It’s not all that unusual, except for the chain link fence topped with razor wire. That and it is about the size of a railroad freight car.
Which is just what it is. Think of one of the most toxic substances you can. Imagine if it caught fire just by being exposed to oxygen, and you have the chemical here — liquid phosphorous. In the mid-sixties, this car was one of several that derailed here one day. The only way to safely handle it was to dig a deep hole in what passes for ground here (mostly peat — yes, just like the peat moss you use in your garden), and put the car into it. Then they covered it with a whole lot of cement and fenced off the area. Possibly, the car is still burning, slowly, after all these years. So, the fence keeps the curious, man and beast safely away.
Ken and Beth Mitchroney enjoy an Irish Coffee on the open platform
of “Tamalpias” as the train speeds along west of Davis.
Our next stop is in the small town of Davis. Home of another of the state’s universities, this one specializing in agriculture, and veterinary medicine. It’s also a city, fiercely into alternate transportation with bicycles taking the lead. (It’s also home to Murder Burgers — to die for — or so the signs say.)
A short time later, the CZ arrives in the state capitol, Sacramento. The classic station is one of the few remaining Southern Pacific structures of its kind still used as intended when built. The area is slated to under go redevelopment before the end of the decade. To the west of the station is a redevelopment victory with the Old Sacramento complex now drawing tourists instead of bums. The California State Railroad Museum is set to expand here with the creation of the Museum of Railway Technology set to occupy historic structures that once were the Sacramento locomotive shop facilities of the Southern Pacific. From the 1870’s up to the 1940’s, steam locomotives large and small were constructed for service across the Espee system as well as for other railroads. In to the 1960’s, passenger and freight cars were also built here, and until the late 1990’s, diesel locomotives were overhauled here. The MORT will allow the Museum and volunteers a place to restore and maintain railroad equipment under cover and offer visitors the opportunity to view the processes.
Leaving Sacramento, the train follows the historic Overland route as it heads east along the 1860’s transcontinental railroad line. Our next station stop is at Roseville, adjacent to the Union Pacific’s J.R. Davis Facility. This freight yard was rebuilt from the ground up in the late 1990’s and is actually several freight yards that work together to expedite than handling of cargo throughout the UP’s I-5 Corridor in all directions — North to Portland and Seattle; East to Chicago and then on via Conrail and Norfolk Southern to the eastern seaboard; West to Oakland and the Pacific Rim ports; and South to Southern California, Mexico and other southern destinations over the Sunset Route. It’s one busy place.
The small depot here recreates the look and feel of typical Espee stations from all over the west. Yellow or ochre is trimmed with brown and a green asphalt shingle roof for a classic look. Across the track is stored some of the snow-fighting equipment that is put into service during a typical Sierra winter. From flangers used to keep ice away from the rails, to the Jordan spreaders used to push accumulated snow back away from the tracks, to the big blowers, the Rotary Snow Plows. These machines can throw snow over 100 feet from the rails and see service only when the other equipment can not keep up with an unusually heavy snowfall. When they go into service, it is truly a site to see, and they draw railroad enthusiasts out into some of the worst weather, in hopes of getting that one good photo of them at work.
Meanwhile, back on board the “Tamalpias”…
We’re about to serve our first seating for lunch on this 1923 Pullman business car. Built for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, Car #33 served as the rolling office of a division superintendent. Aboard the car, there was a master bedroom with a full-sized bed for his use. His secretary, male, also had a room where he could attend to the necessary business at hand (with an upper and lower berth for sleeping). Another bedroom served as a guest bedroom (also with an upper and lower berth). The car also has a full shower for the use of the passengers. A formal dining room served eight people meals prepared by a chef in the kitchen aboard. A room for the crew has a smaller upper and lower berth than the other bedrooms as well as a shower. On occasions, a porter would join the chef aboard to serve as needed.
The first seating for lunch enjoys their Waldorf Salads in the dining room of the “Tamalpias”.
The rear of the car has an observation lounge and an open platform for viewing the railroad as a train traveled over the division. From here, the superintendent could see the railroad firsthand. In the day the car was in service, it was one of the last places a railroad employee wanted to be. If you were summoned, odds were high that is was to explain your actions or the inaction’s of your subordinates. A section of track may have drawn the complaints of passengers, or a customer may have had issues with the way his shipment was handled.
The “Tam” (short for Tamalpias, a mountain in Marin County, north of San Francisco) was retired from service by the Santa Fe in the 1960’s and sold to a private individual. From there it ended up a corporate possession, finally in the hands of a bank. A consortium purchased the car, and it has been in charter service for the last fifteen years. It’s wood interior is a moderate color, harking back to a day of civility. All of it’s systems have been upgraded to meet Amtrak’s modern mechanical standards, and it has traveled across the US and Canada. It can sleep eight passengers on longer trips requiring overnight travel.
Leaving Roseville, we have climbed into the Sierra foothills, passing through some of the historic Gold Country. At our next stop in Colfax, trains of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad once traveled to Grass Valley and Nevada City. Our route is somewhat paralleled by Interstate 80 as we head for the Donner Summit. The original single-track railroad was modernized in the 1920’s with the addition of a second track on a lesser grade for the eastbound or up-hill trains.
Lunch today was a fine meal, prepare by our chef, Ben Heine. Starting with a Waldorf Salad, and homemade soup with tortellini, the entrée was a Tuscan style Steak with mushrooms, accompanied by snow peas and water chestnuts with garlic mashed potatoes. Dessert was tiramisu, prepared by Ben aboard the car. Selected beverages also complemented this fine meal. Our second seating was completed before we reached the Donner Summit and the three-mile long tunnel under the crest of the Sierra.
The CZ climbs east through the snow on the Donner Summit.
The crew enjoyed its meal as the train left our next stop at Truckee. Once a railroad and lumber town, today it is the gateway to the Lake Tahoe basin and some of the fine area ski resorts. Squaw Valley was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games (complete with Walt Disney supervising the opening ceremonies). The Espee ran many special trains here from both east and west.
The Truckee River flows from it’s exit of Lake Tahoe at Tahoe City through the town of the same name and then east past the sites of long gone paper mills through Reno and eventually empties into Pyramid Lake. Some of the best trout fishing in the state is found along the scenic stretch we travel along. During the early summer months, the occasional river rafters take advantage of white water, and occasionally moon the passing trains. Not today… It’s in the mid forties and snow on the ground in places.
All too soon, we are arriving in Reno. Time to finish up lunch and get bags ready to go for the shuttle bus to the hotel. While the CZ drops it’s passengers in downtown Reno, we’re headed one more stop to the east. Where once was naught but marsh and open fields, now is a thriving community almost 100 years old. In 1904, the Espee (as part of a change in its route and easing of grades) moved the division point on the railroad from Wadsworth to Sparks. Some buildings were taken apart and shipped on flatcars west to the new town site. The most notable was the station and division headquarters building that dated back to the 1870’s, and it still sits today right where it was moved to in 1904. Passengers waiting for the CZ here usually don’t realize the history they are exposed to.
The Espee was once the major employer in the area as the railroad based a major complex here. From east and west, trains would arrive and depart after being serviced, and crews changed. Large brick buildings housed the repair and service shops where skilled machinists, boilermakers, carpenters and other assorted craftsmen worked around the clock to keep the railroad running.
Today, the yard is different, but still busy. Trains still come and go, but the repair and servicing shops are silent. The roundhouse gave way to a freeway interchange in the mid 1960’s, and the shop buildings hold RV storage and other businesses. Crews still change here, with their trains still coming from the east and west as they have for almost 135 years.
As we come to a stop, the shuttle busses for the hotel are waiting just behind the station. In short order the passenger step off the “Tam” and then claim their luggage. We’re headed for John Ascuaga’s “Nugget” hotel and casino. While many folks prefer to stay downtown in Reno, this group has come to enjoy the “Nugget” and its own brand of hospitality. And as usual, I have family connections to the place. Various cousins worked for John way back when all there was here was a coffee shop out on “B” Street (now a trendy “Victorian Avenue”), and no casino.
No time to waste here. Everyone gets checked into their hotel rooms without incident. So… Ken Mitchroney, a veteran of almost all of the animation studios, has donated a unique vehicle to the National (a.k.a. Harrah’s) Automobile Museum. So… the bulk of the group is headed off to Reno to view it during a special after-hours tour. While the crew is hard at work finishing clean-up on the “Tam”, an exploration of the Citifare bus system takes us on the Route 11 (such a lucky number) along what used to be Highway 40. In the days before the Interstate, US 40 was a tough act taking travelers from Oakland over the Sierra on some interesting roads. A fair amount of it still exists today and lucky are those who attempt to cross the summit when weather permits and some great scenery awaits as well as some fun roads.
Next week: The trip continues along with more bemusing side bar information.
Michele survived her one-night trip to Honolulu, and was seduced in to returning later in the year by the gift of four room nights from the hotels she visited. So… I guess I’ll be off to Hawaii sometime in October or November. Not to worry as I’m already planning to visit a railway museum at Ewa. Oh, the pain… Oh, the fruity rum drinks…