Ispolkom
Engineer
Part 1: California Zephyr, Denver-Sacramento, May 29-30
Mrs. Ispolkom and I just returned from a quick one-zone AGR award trip from Denver to St. Paul, via Sacramento and Portland. All in all it was an excellent trip, with one big exception.
We flew Southwest from MSP to DEN, and it was as painless as flying can be today. The flight left from the younger, prettier, more petite of MSP's two terminals, and check-in and security lines were minimal. Heck, the TSAers weren't even glum. The wait at the gate was enlivened by a surprise marriage proposal organized by the gate attendant (though I thought that it would have been more entertaining if she had said, "No!"). The plane left late and arrived early, thanks to that Go-Fast Button, I guess. We even had an empty seat between us.
Our hotel was downtown, a long and expensive taxi ride from the airport, which seems to be located in southern Wyoming. The Doubletree Curtis is a whimsically redecorated old hotel. I supposed that I shouldn't complain, because our room was clean and quiet, and the front-desk staff was friendly and competent. It’s the hotel design I didn’t like. Each floor has a theme. Our floor, seven, was the “Laugh Out Loud” floor. I didn’t mind the comedy movie posters in the hallway, or the Dudley Do-Right figurine over the toilet. What wore on me was that the elevator would laugh at me every time the doors opened. Every time. Even at 6:30 a.m. After this hotel and the previous Doubletree we stayed at (the Wit, in Chicago, which had bird songs and aromatherapy in the halls) I'm getting suspicious of the brand.
Early the next morning we were showered and packed, and after breakfast at the hotel we walked down the 16th Street Mall to Denver Union Station. There is a free bus on 16th street that was already running at 7:15 on Saturday morning, but we could use the walk.
Denver Union Station is enormous but the California Zephyr was late so we had plenty of time to walk around the waiting room before the Zephyr backed in. We were among the last to board, taking room C in car 531, a Superliner II sleeper. Ice on this sleeper was in the drawer under the coffee maker.
The Zephyr certainly lived up to its scenic reputation. The train begins to grind up a 2% grade after leaving Denver, swooping up around curves as it climbs into the Rockies. The engineering involved is very impressive. At times we looked up and could see two loops of the railroad tracks above us, on one side, while the Great Plains stretched out to the horizon on the other. Soon the train was gliding along ledges high above deep valleys and in and out of dozens of tunnels. The sightseer lounge was packed, so we enjoyed the view mostly from our bedroom.
What we didn’t enjoy so much was the failure of all the toilets in our car. The vacuum system the toilet uses isn’t very effective at higher altitudes, and such failures aren’t unknown. Alas, we only discovered the toilet failure after we had used the toilet and discovered that it wouldn't flush. The resulting situation lasted for 20 hours, until our stop in Winnemucca, Nevada, the next morning. The sleeper in front of us, a rebuilt Superliner I sleeper, had no toilet failures, so we used their facilities.
The NPS Trails & Rails program started this weekend, and we had a very exhaustive (and exhausting) guide, who had something to say about every town and hamlet we went through. She was accurate as far as I know, even regaling us with the nearby Rio Blanco underground nuclear test. (The idea was to fracture rock with a nuclear blast to release natural gas. It worked, but the gas was too radioactive to use. It seemed like a good idea at the time.) Fortunately, she didn't have access to the train PA system, so when we tired of her we could go back to our room.
Lunch was beef and green peppers over rice with a chipotle-tomato sauce. The dishes were plastic, but we had metal utensils. For dinner I finally had the chance to order the bison meatloaf, with the same chipotle sauce. I'd been looking for this for the past year at least, but never found it as the special. It really was good, especially because the chipotle sauce had some heat to it.
We cut cards for bottom bunk. I lost, jack to three, and climbed into the upper bunk. We soon fell asleep as the train clattered through Soldier Pass.
When we woke the sun was coming up and the train was stopped at Winnemucca. I instantly knew that it was Winnemucca and not, say Elko, because I looked at the hills behind the city and saw a “W” made of white rocks on a hill. See, years of travel out West do teach you something.
The stop took a while, as we had more than made up the hour we were late when we left Denver. We watched as a guy pumped out our sewage tanks and (apparently) reset the toilet system. The bathroom was still fetid, but at least the toilet worked.
We had breakfast with a retired couple from North Carolina who announced that this was their first and last Amtrak trip. I said something about how I could understand how the toilet issue would make them think that, but it seemed a bigger problem was that they didn't like "just sitting around for so long." I'm not sure what they expected.
This was our first trip with a scanner, and it was interesting to hear the different styles of dispatchers and engineers. Union Pacific dispatchers and engineers were pretty formal, and always used the military phonetic alphabet, while Amtrak engineers and conductors seemed more laid back. We didn't understand much of what we heard, but we were both glad we had bought the scanner.
It's been a couple of decades since I've been on the overland route through northern Nevada, and it sure is a lot of sagebrush, along with the occasional settlement or prison. Eventually things began to look greener, and we reached Reno. When I was last here, the California Zephyr had blocked downtown streets, but now a trench had replaced grade crossings. As we walked up and down the length of the train I noticed a woman with a dog on a leash running up and down. When we got the "all aboard" she and her dog got on our car. She was very confused, and kept asking where her car was. After ascertaining that she was in coach (it took six questions to get that bit of information), we sent her back through the dining car. Only then did we think a) she shouldn't have a dog on the train, and b) they really weren't going to like the dog in the dining car. Oh well, not my problem.
After Reno the train again began to struggle up a steep grade toward Donner Pass. There had been some snow in the Rockies, but by Donner Summit the snow next to the tracks was still several feet deep. Now tunnels mixed with concrete snow sheds, completely enclosed with occasional slits for light, not open like the ones on the Empire Builder route. (By the end of this trip we were connoisseurs of snow sheds.) We had great views of Donner Lake and of the mountains. I remember looking at snow shed so high up on the mountain when I visited Donner State Park, and now we were up there looking down. On this leg we had another Trails & Rails guide. This one had access to the train's PA system. I love noise-canceling headphones.
We had lunch with a couple of California Zephyr regulars (one commutes between a temporary programming assignment in Salt Lake City and his home in Davis). We happily traded AGR stories for an hour until we were told that they needed to turn our table. Mrs. Ispolkom and I returned to our bedroom, where we repacked our luggage into two pieces.
We arrived in Sacramento 45 minutes early. We checked our consolidated luggage for the day, and immediately set out for the California State Railroad Museum. I'd really recommend that anyone who has a chance visit this museum. Highlights included an old 12 section - 1 drawing room sleeper with the sections set up in various stages of use, and Lucius Beebe's private rail car. I'm no big locomotive fan, but even Mrs. Ispolkom was impressed by the enormous Southern Pacific cab-forward steam locomotive.
Our visit to Sacramento coincided with their annual jazz festival. We weren't willing to buy day passes for $45, but found that most acts were so well-amplified that you could hear just as well outside the venue. Mrs. Ispolkom got to attend mass at the Cathedral (a jazz mass, naturally), and we spent the evening listening to music and people watching.
We don't usually stay up late, so the Coast Starlight's midnight departure was not the best for us. We ended up at the train station about 11 p.m. and retrieved our luggage, and I felt pretty low. I was tired, and we still had at least an hour to wait, and I kind of wished that we weren't getting on another train. Whining wouldn't change anything, though, so I listened to some Bach on my mp3 player, the time passed, and eventually the Coast Starlight came clanging and thundering into the station. We boarded our sleeper (1430, bedroom E) and got two cups of ice from the styrofoam cooler at the corner by our bedroom. We mixed up a nightcap and I felt much better once we were moving again. And, hey, it was my turn for the bottom bunk.
Mrs. Ispolkom and I just returned from a quick one-zone AGR award trip from Denver to St. Paul, via Sacramento and Portland. All in all it was an excellent trip, with one big exception.
We flew Southwest from MSP to DEN, and it was as painless as flying can be today. The flight left from the younger, prettier, more petite of MSP's two terminals, and check-in and security lines were minimal. Heck, the TSAers weren't even glum. The wait at the gate was enlivened by a surprise marriage proposal organized by the gate attendant (though I thought that it would have been more entertaining if she had said, "No!"). The plane left late and arrived early, thanks to that Go-Fast Button, I guess. We even had an empty seat between us.
Our hotel was downtown, a long and expensive taxi ride from the airport, which seems to be located in southern Wyoming. The Doubletree Curtis is a whimsically redecorated old hotel. I supposed that I shouldn't complain, because our room was clean and quiet, and the front-desk staff was friendly and competent. It’s the hotel design I didn’t like. Each floor has a theme. Our floor, seven, was the “Laugh Out Loud” floor. I didn’t mind the comedy movie posters in the hallway, or the Dudley Do-Right figurine over the toilet. What wore on me was that the elevator would laugh at me every time the doors opened. Every time. Even at 6:30 a.m. After this hotel and the previous Doubletree we stayed at (the Wit, in Chicago, which had bird songs and aromatherapy in the halls) I'm getting suspicious of the brand.
Early the next morning we were showered and packed, and after breakfast at the hotel we walked down the 16th Street Mall to Denver Union Station. There is a free bus on 16th street that was already running at 7:15 on Saturday morning, but we could use the walk.
Denver Union Station is enormous but the California Zephyr was late so we had plenty of time to walk around the waiting room before the Zephyr backed in. We were among the last to board, taking room C in car 531, a Superliner II sleeper. Ice on this sleeper was in the drawer under the coffee maker.
The Zephyr certainly lived up to its scenic reputation. The train begins to grind up a 2% grade after leaving Denver, swooping up around curves as it climbs into the Rockies. The engineering involved is very impressive. At times we looked up and could see two loops of the railroad tracks above us, on one side, while the Great Plains stretched out to the horizon on the other. Soon the train was gliding along ledges high above deep valleys and in and out of dozens of tunnels. The sightseer lounge was packed, so we enjoyed the view mostly from our bedroom.
What we didn’t enjoy so much was the failure of all the toilets in our car. The vacuum system the toilet uses isn’t very effective at higher altitudes, and such failures aren’t unknown. Alas, we only discovered the toilet failure after we had used the toilet and discovered that it wouldn't flush. The resulting situation lasted for 20 hours, until our stop in Winnemucca, Nevada, the next morning. The sleeper in front of us, a rebuilt Superliner I sleeper, had no toilet failures, so we used their facilities.
The NPS Trails & Rails program started this weekend, and we had a very exhaustive (and exhausting) guide, who had something to say about every town and hamlet we went through. She was accurate as far as I know, even regaling us with the nearby Rio Blanco underground nuclear test. (The idea was to fracture rock with a nuclear blast to release natural gas. It worked, but the gas was too radioactive to use. It seemed like a good idea at the time.) Fortunately, she didn't have access to the train PA system, so when we tired of her we could go back to our room.
Lunch was beef and green peppers over rice with a chipotle-tomato sauce. The dishes were plastic, but we had metal utensils. For dinner I finally had the chance to order the bison meatloaf, with the same chipotle sauce. I'd been looking for this for the past year at least, but never found it as the special. It really was good, especially because the chipotle sauce had some heat to it.
We cut cards for bottom bunk. I lost, jack to three, and climbed into the upper bunk. We soon fell asleep as the train clattered through Soldier Pass.
When we woke the sun was coming up and the train was stopped at Winnemucca. I instantly knew that it was Winnemucca and not, say Elko, because I looked at the hills behind the city and saw a “W” made of white rocks on a hill. See, years of travel out West do teach you something.
The stop took a while, as we had more than made up the hour we were late when we left Denver. We watched as a guy pumped out our sewage tanks and (apparently) reset the toilet system. The bathroom was still fetid, but at least the toilet worked.
We had breakfast with a retired couple from North Carolina who announced that this was their first and last Amtrak trip. I said something about how I could understand how the toilet issue would make them think that, but it seemed a bigger problem was that they didn't like "just sitting around for so long." I'm not sure what they expected.
This was our first trip with a scanner, and it was interesting to hear the different styles of dispatchers and engineers. Union Pacific dispatchers and engineers were pretty formal, and always used the military phonetic alphabet, while Amtrak engineers and conductors seemed more laid back. We didn't understand much of what we heard, but we were both glad we had bought the scanner.
It's been a couple of decades since I've been on the overland route through northern Nevada, and it sure is a lot of sagebrush, along with the occasional settlement or prison. Eventually things began to look greener, and we reached Reno. When I was last here, the California Zephyr had blocked downtown streets, but now a trench had replaced grade crossings. As we walked up and down the length of the train I noticed a woman with a dog on a leash running up and down. When we got the "all aboard" she and her dog got on our car. She was very confused, and kept asking where her car was. After ascertaining that she was in coach (it took six questions to get that bit of information), we sent her back through the dining car. Only then did we think a) she shouldn't have a dog on the train, and b) they really weren't going to like the dog in the dining car. Oh well, not my problem.
After Reno the train again began to struggle up a steep grade toward Donner Pass. There had been some snow in the Rockies, but by Donner Summit the snow next to the tracks was still several feet deep. Now tunnels mixed with concrete snow sheds, completely enclosed with occasional slits for light, not open like the ones on the Empire Builder route. (By the end of this trip we were connoisseurs of snow sheds.) We had great views of Donner Lake and of the mountains. I remember looking at snow shed so high up on the mountain when I visited Donner State Park, and now we were up there looking down. On this leg we had another Trails & Rails guide. This one had access to the train's PA system. I love noise-canceling headphones.
We had lunch with a couple of California Zephyr regulars (one commutes between a temporary programming assignment in Salt Lake City and his home in Davis). We happily traded AGR stories for an hour until we were told that they needed to turn our table. Mrs. Ispolkom and I returned to our bedroom, where we repacked our luggage into two pieces.
We arrived in Sacramento 45 minutes early. We checked our consolidated luggage for the day, and immediately set out for the California State Railroad Museum. I'd really recommend that anyone who has a chance visit this museum. Highlights included an old 12 section - 1 drawing room sleeper with the sections set up in various stages of use, and Lucius Beebe's private rail car. I'm no big locomotive fan, but even Mrs. Ispolkom was impressed by the enormous Southern Pacific cab-forward steam locomotive.
Our visit to Sacramento coincided with their annual jazz festival. We weren't willing to buy day passes for $45, but found that most acts were so well-amplified that you could hear just as well outside the venue. Mrs. Ispolkom got to attend mass at the Cathedral (a jazz mass, naturally), and we spent the evening listening to music and people watching.
We don't usually stay up late, so the Coast Starlight's midnight departure was not the best for us. We ended up at the train station about 11 p.m. and retrieved our luggage, and I felt pretty low. I was tired, and we still had at least an hour to wait, and I kind of wished that we weren't getting on another train. Whining wouldn't change anything, though, so I listened to some Bach on my mp3 player, the time passed, and eventually the Coast Starlight came clanging and thundering into the station. We boarded our sleeper (1430, bedroom E) and got two cups of ice from the styrofoam cooler at the corner by our bedroom. We mixed up a nightcap and I felt much better once we were moving again. And, hey, it was my turn for the bottom bunk.