Green Maned Lion
Engineer
The genesis for this trip happened a little over a year ago. I mean the dream of taking this kind of trip was many many years in the making, but the point where I started mapping out this trip and planning it as a reality happened in January of 2013, or thereabouts. I was still living in Pennsylvania at the time, had just found the right house to buy near my store in New Jersey, and was trying to do a better job establishing the business to be successful.
I know most of you don’t run your own businesses, probably because most of you know that the stress involved in it is such that you go close to going crazy. Either that, or you dream of it but your responsibilities preclude taking the risk. Well, I started one, and by now, it is approaching a comfortable level of success. But running your own business is all-consuming. And I had a nervous breakdown in January 2013 when I broke my ankle. I couldn’t get to work adequately. The world would go to hell in a hand basket.
To quote the late great Jack Lemmon in his masterpiece “How to Murder Your Wife”, I was “a delicate and highly complex mechanism and I’m being overwound… OVERWOUND!” So as I lay in bed in my parents house, unable to do much of anything, going absolutely nuts over all I was about to lose, my wife told me to shut my face. She told me I needed both something to look forward to, and a break. I had the points to make this trip without paying Amtrak a dime, I just never thought I could take the time off.
She told me she didn’t really want to go on a two week Amtrak trip, so she would be happy to mind the business while I was gone. I was going to go on an Amtrak trip for two weeks. I was going to forget my position as CEO, my business, my investors, profit, loss, and return on investment. She’d run the thing, and she wasn’t going to tell me anything until I got back. Period.
I wanted to go with somebody. After trying a few different names I settled on a friend I had taken a long road trip with about 8 years before, and he liked the idea of taking a lot of time and seeing a lot of the country. With a lot of planning, I laid out a trip. The rail fare cost me $208, and 70,000 points. I booked it almost a year in advance, maximizing the time I had to look forward to it and anticipate it. In railfan summation notation, PHL-NYP-CHI-EMY-SFO; SFO-OKJ-LAX; LAX-NOL; NOL-PHL.
My friend, whose name is Chad, flew in to Philadelphia International Airport from Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 7th. I met him at the airport and rode him to my house on the train. My bags were already packed- I was traveling fairly light. Since I walk with a cane, it had to all fit into a single roller bag since I have only one free hand.
And so on Saturday, March 8th, I dropped my wife off at our store, drove home, and together me and my friend Chad walked to the train station. Later, we arrived at Philadelphia 30th Street Station, and sat in the beautiful Club Acela lounge there until Northeast Regional #82 was called. The ride into New York was uneventful, and we arrived 2 minutes early in to the Big Apple. I gave Chad a brief tour around Penn showing him the Farley Building, Madison Square Garden, and the Hotel Pennsylvania, just so he could get the feel for where he was, and then we enjoyed a scintillating lunch at Papaya Dog on the LIRR concourse.
We waited in the club Acela until the Lake Shore Limited was called.
#49 Lake Shore Limited: Late, for sure.
The trip up the Hudson was scenic, as usual. I pointed out to my friend Chad where the Metro North train derailed at Spuyten Duyvil. I enjoyed a pretty good Salmon filet in the diner. The salad was typical Amsalad, the rice pilaf was meh, and the Vegetable Medley was not too bad for once. Nothing great but solidly good. I (no offense, Chad!) wished for a prettier dining companion. Eva Marie Saint would have worked. Also a drawing room.
We pulled into Albany, and my friend and I got out to walk the length of the consist. Our train consisted of two P42s, a heritage baggage, a Viewliner sleeper, two Amfleet II coaches, an Amfleet I lounge, four Amfleet II coaches, an Amfleet II lounge, a Heritage Diner, two Viewliner sleepers, and a Heritage baggage car.
We were riding in a roomette. Chad, who had never been on a train before this trip, found the room interesting. No real problem with the size, although I think he was a little turned off by the toilet in the room. Given my size and the fact that Chad and I are just friends, we both had our long walks over to the Amfleet coach restrooms. The particular Viewliner we were on wasn’t as decrepit as some, so it wasn’t a rattle box.
A medical emergency due to a passenger falling off the top step of one of the coaches onto the low level Albany platform resulted in an almost 40 minute delay leaving Albany. The train lost time from there, and by the time I woke up in the morning, we were several hours late. I wasn’t worried about the connection with the California Zephyr. We weren’t running late enough for me to worry about that. Worst came to worse, we’d get bussed or taxid or something. But we weren’t, we arrived into Chicago at about 12:30. Too late for Giordano’s, unfortunately. I enjoyed a surprisingly good chili-cheese dog at Gold Coast Dogs.
At 1:30 PM the California Zephyr was called and we were off on another chapter of our adventure.
#5 California Zephyr: The proof is in the padding.
I’ve ridden the California Zephyr twice before this, and tried a third. The first time I tried to ride it was on a Omaha-Columbus loophole trip; due to weather I got switched to the Southwest Chief. On the second, heading for Denver, I got stopped by a bridge fire at Osceola and got sent back to Chicago (seriously) and took the Chief to La Junta, rented a car, and drove the rest of the way to Colorado Springs (my actual intended final destination). The next time I rode it was that same trip, from Denver back to Chicago- the very night I found out that my parents house and been broken into while I was away, and that I had about $20,000 worth of watches and sentimentally priceless jewelry stolen from me.
To say I was wondering if me and this train are star-crossed lovers would be less than inaccurate. This trip suggested otherwise. We were boarded promptly, and moved through the schedule with the kind of precision one expects of a German train, or perhaps a Patek-Philippe wristwatch, or even a Soviet wrist watch. We arrived at nearly every station early enough to allow for smoking beaks, and had tons of time at the stops where smoking breaks were supposed to be. I was pleased that they have now started referring to them as “stretch breaks” by the way.
This allowed me to get some nice pictures of stations and some of the towns along the way. The car I was riding in was a Superliner II sleeper, with some level of Empire Class refurbishment aspects to it (missing carpeting in various places, including the bed, wood tone trim replacing carpeting along the lower half of the hallway trim, stuff like that). I miss the carpeting. I wish the damned fools would realize that the fully exposed latch handle for upper berths in roomettes is both dangerous and a liability mess.
The food was good enough. The scenery was spectacular. And we started that by being one of the first trains to back into the refurbished Denver Union Station:
We arrived into San Francisco nearly an hour early, so much so that we ended up taking an earlier bus across the bay.
San Francisco: The City By The Bay
The bus dropped us off, as it was supposed to, at the Ferry Building. Idiot that I am, I didn’t have enough small bills to pay for the trolley to the hotel I picked. I ended up sacrificing my lucky $2 bill to the cause. Oh well. Sais la vie.
Anyway, we caught an F-Market PCC car up Market street. I’m usually good at picking hotels. I outdid myself this time. It was perfect. The Hotel Whitcomb is a really nice hotel for those of you interested in staying in a historic hotel in mostly historic condition with nice rooms, nice decor, clean, and located well. How well? Market and 8th, right in front of the subway entrance for BART and the Muni Metro, easy access to practically all busses that run on Market and the Market street PCC car line. It was also an easy walk to the Powell cable car lines, with some decent restaurants nearby, and even better ones if you don’t mind riding transit. A 3-day passport was available from the tourist bureau right near the hotel for $23, giving us unlimited access to everything but BART, CalTrain, and the Ferries.
And beyond that, for those of you who like historic hotels, its a damned nice hotel! 11 foot ceilings in the hotel room. I really liked it.
We ate dinner that night at a little Indian place a few blocks from the Hotel. The food was excellent. They offered a reasonable range of spiciness and offered different levels for each dish depending on your tolerance for it. I had a coconut curry lamb dish that was phenomenal. I wish I remembered the name of the place, but I can’t for the life of me.
It was at this point, unfortunately, that I began to realize I was getting sick. It was becoming irritating and I actually went to a pharmacy and started buying some cold medicine. I don’t know why I get sick on wonderful vacation trips of a lifetime. Life can suck sometimes.
The next morning I went in search of breakfast, and ended up eating at a mediocre local or semi-local chain called Carl’s Jr. It was mediocre, although watching a performance between an irate homeless lady attempting to pay with coins and a cashier refusing to count them, and the manager backing up the cashier (I’d have fired both of them if I had owned the place). And then we promptly left the restaurant to ride the Powell-Mason line.
Riding the Cable Car was, of course, a lot of fun. I was impressed with the amount of enthusiasm with their job shown by the Gripman. I am too big and unstable to ride outside the car, but my friend Chad did it and enjoyed it. We rode the line to the end and then walked a few blocks to Fisherman’s Wharf. We checked out the area around the wharf and found an incredible museum. It was free to enter, and was themed on old fashioned coin operated entertainment. Player pianos, jukeboxes, dancing sets, 3D slide shows, things of that nature. It ended up costing me a fortune in coins. But oh my god.
Then I took a variety of busses to the Golden Gate Bridge. Since you have all seen pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, I will say only that pictures don’t do it justice. I will also say that I walked half of its length. According to an important sign I read, jumping from the bridge would be both tragic and fatal. Since it told me that, I didn’t jump from it. Maybe if it would have been fatal, but not tragic, I would have tried. I would have been even more inclined if it would have been tragic, but not fatal. But since it was both, I decided to just walk back to whence I came. But took this picture for you:
We then took a Bus to the J line light rail and rode that most of the way to where I had heard a good burger joint was. Unfortunately, the Breda equipment used showed a typical Italian level of reliability and broke shortly after boarding a wheel chair bound passenger who positioned himself on top of the moving stairs on the non-curb side of the car. The driver attempted to fix the problem by adjusting several things, including lowering the stairs the wheelchair was sitting on. The wheel chair became stuck in the stair well. Fortunately, San Francisco being a friendly city, people rushed to the passengers aid and four men managed to lift the power chair back into the car proper.
Anyway, they discharged us there, and I decided since we were only a few blocks from the restaurant I was looking for, we’d walk the rest of the way. Although I was starting to have respiratory problems related to the URI that I was starting to develop. On the way to that restaurant, I stumbled on another restaurant that looked better. I had a sort of San Francisco eggs benedict that was absolutely stunningly delicious.
By the time I was done with this, though, the URI was getting bad and I went back to the hotel for more medication. We had dinner at some local diner, and went to sleep. I was starting to get worried.
I woke up feeling awful, and doped myself up on Mucinex, advil, and I don’t remember whatelse. Being on vacation I took a shotgun approach, because all I wanted to do was make it through the day and enjoy the city. My friend Chad and I then went to a restaurant near the hotel called Dottie’s, which was really good. I had pancakes and wild boar sausage, which were both excellent- but! they also had DRINKABLE coffee. You know, not that dishwater stuff that people out in California drink, like they sell at Starbucks and other places of that ilk. No, real strong drinkable coffee that actually has a good amount of coffee flavor in it.
I then made a beeline for the Powell & Hyde cable car, which I rode with Chad standing on the outside of a car, until we got to Lombard St. I’m proud of myself. Even with a cold, I managed to walk all the way to the bottom and back up again.
We then rode the car back to Market St and caught the BART to the station I thought was closest to Jack London Square. I think I was wrong, but we did walk right by the CalTrain yard where they had some NJT comet cars awaiting conversion to Horizon specification. We then caught the Jack London Square ferry back to the Ferry Building. That made for a nice little side trip, and I can say I rode every form of transit available in San Francisco- bus, trolley bus, trolley, cable car, light rail, BART, and ferry. I had a nice local beer aboard the ferry, and it was scenic in its own right.
We then went to Fisherman’s Wharf again. I had an ice cream, which helped quell my increasingly bad sore throat. And then I saw something amazing. A Liberty Ship. The Liberty Ship was the mass produced freighter we built during World War II, without which we probably would have lost the war. This one was the Jeremiah O’Brian, and we did a full tour of it, including the engine room which was undergoing service and therefore the engine was building steam. Totally awesome.
We then went to the hotel, I redoped myself, and we grabbed a Powell-Mason car to Chinatown. We were a tad late, and some restaurants had closed. But we grabbed a good full meal at a restaurant in Chinatown. It was excellent, but not as good as some I’ve had in New York. I then completed my Cable Car running by taking the California line, went back to my hotel, and fell asleep.
The next morning we were up very early, and caught a PCC car to the Ferry building, and caught a bus to Jack London Square. A somewhat late Coast Starlight arrived, heralding the next leg of the trip.
I know most of you don’t run your own businesses, probably because most of you know that the stress involved in it is such that you go close to going crazy. Either that, or you dream of it but your responsibilities preclude taking the risk. Well, I started one, and by now, it is approaching a comfortable level of success. But running your own business is all-consuming. And I had a nervous breakdown in January 2013 when I broke my ankle. I couldn’t get to work adequately. The world would go to hell in a hand basket.
To quote the late great Jack Lemmon in his masterpiece “How to Murder Your Wife”, I was “a delicate and highly complex mechanism and I’m being overwound… OVERWOUND!” So as I lay in bed in my parents house, unable to do much of anything, going absolutely nuts over all I was about to lose, my wife told me to shut my face. She told me I needed both something to look forward to, and a break. I had the points to make this trip without paying Amtrak a dime, I just never thought I could take the time off.
She told me she didn’t really want to go on a two week Amtrak trip, so she would be happy to mind the business while I was gone. I was going to go on an Amtrak trip for two weeks. I was going to forget my position as CEO, my business, my investors, profit, loss, and return on investment. She’d run the thing, and she wasn’t going to tell me anything until I got back. Period.
I wanted to go with somebody. After trying a few different names I settled on a friend I had taken a long road trip with about 8 years before, and he liked the idea of taking a lot of time and seeing a lot of the country. With a lot of planning, I laid out a trip. The rail fare cost me $208, and 70,000 points. I booked it almost a year in advance, maximizing the time I had to look forward to it and anticipate it. In railfan summation notation, PHL-NYP-CHI-EMY-SFO; SFO-OKJ-LAX; LAX-NOL; NOL-PHL.
My friend, whose name is Chad, flew in to Philadelphia International Airport from Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 7th. I met him at the airport and rode him to my house on the train. My bags were already packed- I was traveling fairly light. Since I walk with a cane, it had to all fit into a single roller bag since I have only one free hand.
And so on Saturday, March 8th, I dropped my wife off at our store, drove home, and together me and my friend Chad walked to the train station. Later, we arrived at Philadelphia 30th Street Station, and sat in the beautiful Club Acela lounge there until Northeast Regional #82 was called. The ride into New York was uneventful, and we arrived 2 minutes early in to the Big Apple. I gave Chad a brief tour around Penn showing him the Farley Building, Madison Square Garden, and the Hotel Pennsylvania, just so he could get the feel for where he was, and then we enjoyed a scintillating lunch at Papaya Dog on the LIRR concourse.
We waited in the club Acela until the Lake Shore Limited was called.
#49 Lake Shore Limited: Late, for sure.
The trip up the Hudson was scenic, as usual. I pointed out to my friend Chad where the Metro North train derailed at Spuyten Duyvil. I enjoyed a pretty good Salmon filet in the diner. The salad was typical Amsalad, the rice pilaf was meh, and the Vegetable Medley was not too bad for once. Nothing great but solidly good. I (no offense, Chad!) wished for a prettier dining companion. Eva Marie Saint would have worked. Also a drawing room.
We pulled into Albany, and my friend and I got out to walk the length of the consist. Our train consisted of two P42s, a heritage baggage, a Viewliner sleeper, two Amfleet II coaches, an Amfleet I lounge, four Amfleet II coaches, an Amfleet II lounge, a Heritage Diner, two Viewliner sleepers, and a Heritage baggage car.
We were riding in a roomette. Chad, who had never been on a train before this trip, found the room interesting. No real problem with the size, although I think he was a little turned off by the toilet in the room. Given my size and the fact that Chad and I are just friends, we both had our long walks over to the Amfleet coach restrooms. The particular Viewliner we were on wasn’t as decrepit as some, so it wasn’t a rattle box.
A medical emergency due to a passenger falling off the top step of one of the coaches onto the low level Albany platform resulted in an almost 40 minute delay leaving Albany. The train lost time from there, and by the time I woke up in the morning, we were several hours late. I wasn’t worried about the connection with the California Zephyr. We weren’t running late enough for me to worry about that. Worst came to worse, we’d get bussed or taxid or something. But we weren’t, we arrived into Chicago at about 12:30. Too late for Giordano’s, unfortunately. I enjoyed a surprisingly good chili-cheese dog at Gold Coast Dogs.
At 1:30 PM the California Zephyr was called and we were off on another chapter of our adventure.
#5 California Zephyr: The proof is in the padding.
I’ve ridden the California Zephyr twice before this, and tried a third. The first time I tried to ride it was on a Omaha-Columbus loophole trip; due to weather I got switched to the Southwest Chief. On the second, heading for Denver, I got stopped by a bridge fire at Osceola and got sent back to Chicago (seriously) and took the Chief to La Junta, rented a car, and drove the rest of the way to Colorado Springs (my actual intended final destination). The next time I rode it was that same trip, from Denver back to Chicago- the very night I found out that my parents house and been broken into while I was away, and that I had about $20,000 worth of watches and sentimentally priceless jewelry stolen from me.
To say I was wondering if me and this train are star-crossed lovers would be less than inaccurate. This trip suggested otherwise. We were boarded promptly, and moved through the schedule with the kind of precision one expects of a German train, or perhaps a Patek-Philippe wristwatch, or even a Soviet wrist watch. We arrived at nearly every station early enough to allow for smoking beaks, and had tons of time at the stops where smoking breaks were supposed to be. I was pleased that they have now started referring to them as “stretch breaks” by the way.
This allowed me to get some nice pictures of stations and some of the towns along the way. The car I was riding in was a Superliner II sleeper, with some level of Empire Class refurbishment aspects to it (missing carpeting in various places, including the bed, wood tone trim replacing carpeting along the lower half of the hallway trim, stuff like that). I miss the carpeting. I wish the damned fools would realize that the fully exposed latch handle for upper berths in roomettes is both dangerous and a liability mess.
The food was good enough. The scenery was spectacular. And we started that by being one of the first trains to back into the refurbished Denver Union Station:
We arrived into San Francisco nearly an hour early, so much so that we ended up taking an earlier bus across the bay.
San Francisco: The City By The Bay
The bus dropped us off, as it was supposed to, at the Ferry Building. Idiot that I am, I didn’t have enough small bills to pay for the trolley to the hotel I picked. I ended up sacrificing my lucky $2 bill to the cause. Oh well. Sais la vie.
Anyway, we caught an F-Market PCC car up Market street. I’m usually good at picking hotels. I outdid myself this time. It was perfect. The Hotel Whitcomb is a really nice hotel for those of you interested in staying in a historic hotel in mostly historic condition with nice rooms, nice decor, clean, and located well. How well? Market and 8th, right in front of the subway entrance for BART and the Muni Metro, easy access to practically all busses that run on Market and the Market street PCC car line. It was also an easy walk to the Powell cable car lines, with some decent restaurants nearby, and even better ones if you don’t mind riding transit. A 3-day passport was available from the tourist bureau right near the hotel for $23, giving us unlimited access to everything but BART, CalTrain, and the Ferries.
And beyond that, for those of you who like historic hotels, its a damned nice hotel! 11 foot ceilings in the hotel room. I really liked it.
We ate dinner that night at a little Indian place a few blocks from the Hotel. The food was excellent. They offered a reasonable range of spiciness and offered different levels for each dish depending on your tolerance for it. I had a coconut curry lamb dish that was phenomenal. I wish I remembered the name of the place, but I can’t for the life of me.
It was at this point, unfortunately, that I began to realize I was getting sick. It was becoming irritating and I actually went to a pharmacy and started buying some cold medicine. I don’t know why I get sick on wonderful vacation trips of a lifetime. Life can suck sometimes.
The next morning I went in search of breakfast, and ended up eating at a mediocre local or semi-local chain called Carl’s Jr. It was mediocre, although watching a performance between an irate homeless lady attempting to pay with coins and a cashier refusing to count them, and the manager backing up the cashier (I’d have fired both of them if I had owned the place). And then we promptly left the restaurant to ride the Powell-Mason line.
Riding the Cable Car was, of course, a lot of fun. I was impressed with the amount of enthusiasm with their job shown by the Gripman. I am too big and unstable to ride outside the car, but my friend Chad did it and enjoyed it. We rode the line to the end and then walked a few blocks to Fisherman’s Wharf. We checked out the area around the wharf and found an incredible museum. It was free to enter, and was themed on old fashioned coin operated entertainment. Player pianos, jukeboxes, dancing sets, 3D slide shows, things of that nature. It ended up costing me a fortune in coins. But oh my god.
Then I took a variety of busses to the Golden Gate Bridge. Since you have all seen pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, I will say only that pictures don’t do it justice. I will also say that I walked half of its length. According to an important sign I read, jumping from the bridge would be both tragic and fatal. Since it told me that, I didn’t jump from it. Maybe if it would have been fatal, but not tragic, I would have tried. I would have been even more inclined if it would have been tragic, but not fatal. But since it was both, I decided to just walk back to whence I came. But took this picture for you:
We then took a Bus to the J line light rail and rode that most of the way to where I had heard a good burger joint was. Unfortunately, the Breda equipment used showed a typical Italian level of reliability and broke shortly after boarding a wheel chair bound passenger who positioned himself on top of the moving stairs on the non-curb side of the car. The driver attempted to fix the problem by adjusting several things, including lowering the stairs the wheelchair was sitting on. The wheel chair became stuck in the stair well. Fortunately, San Francisco being a friendly city, people rushed to the passengers aid and four men managed to lift the power chair back into the car proper.
Anyway, they discharged us there, and I decided since we were only a few blocks from the restaurant I was looking for, we’d walk the rest of the way. Although I was starting to have respiratory problems related to the URI that I was starting to develop. On the way to that restaurant, I stumbled on another restaurant that looked better. I had a sort of San Francisco eggs benedict that was absolutely stunningly delicious.
By the time I was done with this, though, the URI was getting bad and I went back to the hotel for more medication. We had dinner at some local diner, and went to sleep. I was starting to get worried.
I woke up feeling awful, and doped myself up on Mucinex, advil, and I don’t remember whatelse. Being on vacation I took a shotgun approach, because all I wanted to do was make it through the day and enjoy the city. My friend Chad and I then went to a restaurant near the hotel called Dottie’s, which was really good. I had pancakes and wild boar sausage, which were both excellent- but! they also had DRINKABLE coffee. You know, not that dishwater stuff that people out in California drink, like they sell at Starbucks and other places of that ilk. No, real strong drinkable coffee that actually has a good amount of coffee flavor in it.
I then made a beeline for the Powell & Hyde cable car, which I rode with Chad standing on the outside of a car, until we got to Lombard St. I’m proud of myself. Even with a cold, I managed to walk all the way to the bottom and back up again.
We then rode the car back to Market St and caught the BART to the station I thought was closest to Jack London Square. I think I was wrong, but we did walk right by the CalTrain yard where they had some NJT comet cars awaiting conversion to Horizon specification. We then caught the Jack London Square ferry back to the Ferry Building. That made for a nice little side trip, and I can say I rode every form of transit available in San Francisco- bus, trolley bus, trolley, cable car, light rail, BART, and ferry. I had a nice local beer aboard the ferry, and it was scenic in its own right.
We then went to Fisherman’s Wharf again. I had an ice cream, which helped quell my increasingly bad sore throat. And then I saw something amazing. A Liberty Ship. The Liberty Ship was the mass produced freighter we built during World War II, without which we probably would have lost the war. This one was the Jeremiah O’Brian, and we did a full tour of it, including the engine room which was undergoing service and therefore the engine was building steam. Totally awesome.
We then went to the hotel, I redoped myself, and we grabbed a Powell-Mason car to Chinatown. We were a tad late, and some restaurants had closed. But we grabbed a good full meal at a restaurant in Chinatown. It was excellent, but not as good as some I’ve had in New York. I then completed my Cable Car running by taking the California line, went back to my hotel, and fell asleep.
The next morning we were up very early, and caught a PCC car to the Ferry building, and caught a bus to Jack London Square. A somewhat late Coast Starlight arrived, heralding the next leg of the trip.
