The California Zephyr
November 14 2011
I just took a shower aboard the California Zephyr Amtrak Train heading East. We boarded the Zephyr yesterday morning about 9 am,, on Sunday morning, yesterday In Emeryville near Berkeley and Oakland in California. It is now about 10 am on Monday. My wife was very excited about this trip and I had been sort of struggling regarding it until I realized it was the subconscious association of my last trip through Arizona and finding out that one of my best friends had died last spring. Once I realized the subconscious association I was able to enjoy the trip. There were a couple of delays, the first one was because all the electrical in the sleeper cars where were are staying went out because of a computer glitch, so we had to stay longer in I believe Sacramento. We are now about 2 hours behind schedule but like they say these things do happen.
Presently, we have likely just passed over into Colorado. For years people have been telling me how much they enjoyed train rides. But what it took me back to was having fun when I was 17 going back and forth to Los Angeles going to a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico one year riding on what was then called the El Capitan. Even though I enjoyed it I didn’t have a compartment then and it was 18 hours. But then, I put up with all sorts of things gladly that I am less inclined to do now at 63. This time my wife booked the best accommodations available on the Zephyr in the Sleeper car, one for us and one for one of her friends since childhood. We wound up with a double which includes 110 AC electricity for charging up cell phones, shavers, computers and the like. So, you have everything but wifi. But if you have a smartphone with service sometimes along the way you can get good phone reception maybe about 50% of the time or less. But I enjoyed using the gps on my IPhone to locate the little blue flashing dot that always showed us where we were on the map as long as there was reception. Using the shower reminded me a lot of the shower in my motor home where the toilet and the shower is all together in the same tiny compartment. But it works fine. The easiest way to use the thing is to close the seat on the toilet, close the door and then fasten the shower curtain and then turn the water to warm and take a very quick shower. I found by leaving the bathroom door open afterwards the dry air here on the Utah Colorado Border quickly dries out the shower floor so you don’t track water around your compartment when you use the toilet facilities.
There is a train tunnel that my Daughter’s boyfriend calls Moffat Tunnel which is 6.2 miles long. The following is important to tell anyone riding a freight train like a hobo. If you go through this tunnel likely you will die from no air and only carbon monoxide if you aren’t inside a passenger train or in the driver’s compartment of a train engine because the air is so bad in that tunnel with no ventilation that it actually kills people not inside the train in their own air compartment. Carbon monoxide is what kills people when they breathe too much engine exhaust at one time from mostly gas or diesel engines.
I don’t usually sleep much at all when traveling in any moving vehicle: plane, train, car, truck etc. so last night was no exception but the moon was out and so it was exceptionally beautiful. In my life I have probably driven cars and trucks of all sizes as well as dualsport motorcycles between 250 and 650 cc. a total of about 1,000,000 miles all over the world. But I’ve got to tell you it is such a relief now at 63 to just look out of the window or talk to people or to spend some quality time with your family so much that I wonder why I didn’t discover this amazing way to travel in one’s own sleeping compartment with a toilet and shower room and electricity and an upper and a lower birth before now. In the biggest ones you can see out of both sides of the train to some degree if you are sitting right with your door and curtain open. You can wander to the dining car or snack car or dome car and see our amazing country all the way day or night.
The one caveat to this is the best time to travel on the Zephyr is not the summer time because as far as I can tell it is not air conditioned but then I could be wrong because I’m traveling in the fall.
Another sort of odd thing about traveling on the Zephyr at night through Nevada is you will be completely in the middle of nowhere with no lights anywhere for miles and miles and then you will see a power station. I remarked about this to a lady and she laughed and said, “Well. You know most of Nevada is sort of like Area 51 out here”. And then she smiled a knowing smile. So, if you ride the Zephyr at night across the Nevada deserts don’t be surprised when you see the same thing. There are many amazing tunnels starting with going over the High Sierras and some of them are to keep major drifts of snow from closing the railway during the heavy snow periods in the Sierra, usually between January and March or April. But with Global Climate change as we all know by now almost any weather pattern can now hit almost anywhere without any or at least not very much warning at all.
So, maybe a little later I will write more of the journey over the Rockies on the Zephyr. Later:
That night we arrived in Denver about 2 hours late. I had hoped to see Winter Park but we didn’t stop there because there was no one getting on or off and because we were 2 hours late so the train was off schedule. So, we noticed a place that had a ski lift and a lot of snow that seemed pretty nice and later the conductor told us after we passed through Moffat tunnel , that that had been Winter Garden. The tunnel has to be the longest tunnel I have ever been through. The say that it takes about 10 minutes going through it in the train to get all the way through it and that seems about right. The tunnel is under the Continental Divide where all the water on one side goes west and on the other side likely goes East in the direction of the Mississippi River. As we got deeper into Colorado we followed the Colorado River up towards the divide I guess it was an ideal route to build a railroad in the 1860s because all the horses and people building the railroad would need water all the time. So most of the time the railroad is built right along this beautiful River heading up into the Continental divide of the Rockies. It is a very beautiful journey and very spectacular any time of the year. I really enjoyed this journey even though the train is almost always moving some from side to side to some degree which can make it difficult to walk through the train. The other thing to think about is that if you have an upper deck sleeper, carrying all your luggage up to your room might be difficult also because the stairways are all very thin and steep. I had to help a lady in her 50s or 60s get her luggage up as she was blocking the way for about 20 people. I don’t think she ever would have gotten her luggage up if I hadn’t helped her. Also, there is a space when you enter the train where you can store your luggage. So, likely if you aren’t real strong on lifting you might have a small backpack with the minimum you need for your room and then leave your larger baggage on the first level in open storage. However, you can also check your luggage (under 50 pounds) so it travels in the baggage car away from public view. So, in some ways this is very different than flying in a plane. The biggest difference is nothing is searched on a train so it is more like riding in a bus in this way also. So, it is theoretically possible for passengers to be carrying firearms or knives. So, if this bothers you it is something to take into consideration when traveling on the Amtrak in the U.S.
However, almost everyone I met on the train was very friendly and enjoyed meeting new people. For some people this is one of the reasons they travel on trains because they like seeing the scenery and meeting new people. However, in most ways it is completely different than flying. Because nowadays when you fly you don’t get to see much of anything while looking down like you used to. As planes become bigger there are less and less seats by the windows now and they usually charge more for them. Also, if you are a very tall person like me who only is barely comfortable on an aisle seat if I want to see the scenery while flying I have to fly in small plane (6 passengers or less). So, if you ever really want to see the country and enjoy it coast to coast this is one of the ways to do it. I highly recommend the Emeryville to Denver part of the route that I and my wife and her friend took this week.
November 15th
The Brown Palace Hotel is a very historic part of Downtown Denver and if you are taking the Zephyr to Denver it is also pretty close to the Denver Train Station. It is a historic 1890s 4 Star Hotel with wonderful accommodations with a pub and one or more restaurants on the Lobby Floor. Though my son had to go out to make sure his car parking was covered in the presently 19 Degrees Fahrenheit weather at around 6 AM and thought it was a fairly brutal temperature, most everything has gone very smoothly for us all on this trip. While we waited for our son to arrive from another Colorado City, we walked to the Wells Fargo across the street which has on display a coach from the 1800s. I found out that Wells Fargo started out in San Francisco and slowly added business Eastward from there over the years. They also have a free small museum there with gold mining, telegraph and other historical stuff also in this Wells Fargo Complex which history buffs will love. From there we were within walking distance of the Denver Art Museum. As we walked towards the Museum we realized that we had to walk through a park that contained some of the "Occupy" movement demonstrators. It appeared that there encampment had been taken down and there were still many police cars "standing by" because protesters were within a block or so of the State Capitol building.
A block away from the park is the Art Museum and we went to see the native American section and the section of a very important Chinese Artist who passed away in 1953. This particular artist helped in moving Chinese artist training into the 20th century by exposing up and coming artists to very innovative and forward thinking and artistic thought of Europe and the rest of the world starting in the early 1920s after studying himself in Paris, France. He was considered a national treasure by Chinese governments starting in the 1920s through Mao Tse Tung. This is the only place in the U.S. that this display will be on view so if you are an art historian or just are interested in international art this is a "don't miss" kind of display. Since my wife has two art degrees and an MBA, she loved his art especially his drawings of Lions and the Tiger lying down with the bunny. She even bought a Chinese fan with the Tiger and Bunny on the fan there at the Art Museum. So, if you go to Denver by way of the Zephyr, the Brown Palace Hotel and the Art Museum are some of the fun things to do on your trip.
Note: The word "Zephyr" actually means "West Wind" or in this case the wind off of the Pacific Ocean which I think is a great name for the train.
A couple of days later: I went to meet my son in Ft. Collins to help him move back to California. So we loaded up his car with his stuff and mine and we planned to share the driving back to California. As we drove past Denver on Hiway 25 I noticed the speed limits go from 75 to 70 to 65 to 60 to 55. As we left Denver it went back up to 75 again. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of the (slow down to 70) sign I saw on one curve but I wasn't fast enough with my Iphone to get the picture. (Since the fastest you are ever allowed to drive by the law in California is 70 this kind of sign (slow down to 70) is something you would never see there.
Later, we drove by Colorado Springs which is a very interesting place because of the Cheyenne mountain facility that you see on the "Stargate" TV show as well as the Air Force Academy there.
As we drove further south the sun set and we saw a 360 degree sunset. My son remarked that he had never seen one of these before. I said the first one of these I saw was when I was 17 in Santa Fe at a private school there. But I had mentioned these 360 degree sunsets that you sometimes see in Colorado, New Mexico and some other states sometimes. It was amazing when we started to see the sunset brightly turning the clouds to our east golden and then it started forming a band of color all around the horizon.
Note added July 5th 2014:
I realized that this 6.2 mile tunnel (about 10 to 15 minutes to get through) on the Continental divide that if you had a SCUBA tank with at least 1/2 hour of air you likely could be a hobo and make it through to the other side as long as you didn't freeze to death at that altitude if it was night or winter. But, of course you also would need a working regulator with mouth piece and would have to either hold your nose or wear a mask that would cover your nose so you wouldn't automatically breathe the air with carbon monoxide in it and die.
Also, what if the train stopped in the middle of the tunnel by accident or rockfall for an hour or two? Then you also would be dead.
end note.
Note: The word "Zephyr" actually means "West Wind" or in this case the wind off of the Pacific Ocean which I think is a great name for the train.
A couple of days later: I went to meet my son in Ft. Collins to help him move back to California. So we loaded up his car with his stuff and mine and we planned to share the driving back to California. As we drove past Denver on Hiway 25 I noticed the speed limits go from 75 to 70 to 65 to 60 to 55. As we left Denver it went back up to 75 again. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of the (slow down to 70) sign I saw on one curve but I wasn't fast enough with my Iphone to get the picture. (Since the fastest you are ever allowed to drive by the law in California is 70 this kind of sign (slow down to 70) is something you would never see there.
Later, we drove by Colorado Springs which is a very interesting place because of the Cheyenne mountain facility that you see on the "Stargate" TV show as well as the Air Force Academy there.
As we drove further south the sun set and we saw a 360 degree sunset. My son remarked that he had never seen one of these before. I said the first one of these I saw was when I was 17 in Santa Fe at a private school there. But I had mentioned these 360 degree sunsets that you sometimes see in Colorado, New Mexico and some other states sometimes. It was amazing when we started to see the sunset brightly turning the clouds to our east golden and then it started forming a band of color all around the horizon.
Note added July 5th 2014:
I realized that this 6.2 mile tunnel (about 10 to 15 minutes to get through) on the Continental divide that if you had a SCUBA tank with at least 1/2 hour of air you likely could be a hobo and make it through to the other side as long as you didn't freeze to death at that altitude if it was night or winter. But, of course you also would need a working regulator with mouth piece and would have to either hold your nose or wear a mask that would cover your nose so you wouldn't automatically breathe the air with carbon monoxide in it and die.
Also, what if the train stopped in the middle of the tunnel by accident or rockfall for an hour or two? Then you also would be dead.
end note.
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