Loomis - All Aboard: the Complete North American Train Travel Guide

Amtraks California Zephyr prepares for the climb up Donner Pass in Californias Sierra Nevada mountain range at the Truckee River Canyon. PHOTO BY ALEX RAMOS

The Library of Congress has cataloged the third edition as follows:

Loomis, Jim.

All aboard : the complete North American train travel guide / Jim Loomis. 3rd ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-56976-309-4 (pbk.)

1. United StatesGuidebooks. 2. CanadaGuidebooks. 3. Railroad travelUnited StatesGuidebooks. 4. Railroad travelCanadaGuidebooks. 5. Copper Canyon (Mexico)Guidebooks. 6. Railroad travelMexicoCopper CanyonGuidebooks. I. Title.

E158.L59 2011

917.304dc22

2010036923

Cover and interior design: Jonathan Hahn

Cover image: The California Zephyr runs daily in each direction between Chicago and Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco. Arguably Amtraks most scenic ride, the Zephyr is shown here more than halfway through its east-bound journey, threading its way along rocky ridges as it descends into the Denver area. Photo courtesy of Mike Danneman.

Map design: Chris Erichsen

Copyright 1995, 1998, 2011, 2015 by Jim Loomis

All rights reserved

Fourth edition

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-56976-176-2

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

You get a real feeling of this country and the people in it when youre on a train.

H ARRY T RUMAN

These railroads are positively the greatest blessing that the ages have wrought out for us. They give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel!

N ATHANIEL H AWTHORNE,

The House of Seven Gables

I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.

P AUL T HEROUX, The Great Railway Bazaar

Index

This book contains a lot of information. All of it has to be accurate and current. And that means I had to do a lot of checking with people who have a large store of specific knowledge or immediate access to whatever it was I needed to know. Its just not possible to adequately thank all those people, but the very least I can do is acknowledge them as a group. I do so gladly and with gratitude. You know who you are.

Then there are the good-hearted folks who answered my questions and sent me information and double-checked what I wrote for accuracyand went through that drill multiple times. These include:

Harris Cohen, one of the very best of a new generation of leaders at Amtrak. If were lucky, hell be running things one of these days.

Ryan Robutka, genial go-to guy for VIA Rails long-distance trains, who had the answers almost before I finished asking the questions.

Sue Stilwell of S&S Toursfont of all the best information on the Copper Canyon experience.

Ross Capon, President Emeritus of the National Association of Railroad Passengers and all-around passenger rail expert.

Dave Randall, NARP board member, for his encyclopedic knowledge of passenger train equipment.

Adam Auxier of Altiplano Rail, who actually makes a living by riding around North America in classic railcars.

Charlie Treuhold, who keeps finding little details that need fixing and makes this a better book every time he does.

And my profound gratitude to both the professional and nonprofessional photographers who have allowed me to use their outstanding photos in this book. Please note their names as you turn the pages.

To all of these, and to the one or two I have invariablybut inadvertentlymissed, my heartfelt thanks.

Mahalo and aloha.

J IM L OOMIS

Haiku, Maui

When I was a youngster back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, my family would take an annual train trip from our home in Connecticut to either St. Louis or Florida, where grandparents would be waiting.

Those train rides were great adventures. I remember standing on the platform of the Hartford railroad station, waiting for the train to arrive. I would impatiently crane my neck for the first glimpse, being careful to keep behind the yellow warning line. According to my father (a master of hyperbole), anyone standing too close to the train as it rolled into the station ran the risk of being sucked under the wheels.

The anticipation was almost unbearable. But finally, a rasping monotone would blare out over the PA system: Your attention, please. Now arriving on track two

The platform came alive with that announcement; baggage carts rattled past, last-minute passengers ran up the stairs from the waiting room, and mothers anxiously corralled their kids. After the general confusion subsided, 30 or 40 people would be craning their necks. Still we saw nothing, just the tracks curving away beyond our line of sight.

Then, suddenly, a black steam locomotive materialized, bearing down on us, even appearing to accelerate as it loomed larger and larger. It always seemed so much bigger than I rememberedand noisier, although the locomotives bell, clang-clanging slightly out of rhythm, was somehow clearly heard above the din as the train rumbled past.

A train ride is still a great adventure for me. Im always anxious to board, always reluctant to get off. There is obvious irony, of course, in the fact that someone who loves rail travel has spent more than 50 years living in Hawaii, a place more than 2,000 miles from the nearest long-distance train. Strangely, it was for this very reason that my love of train travel was revived after so many years.

Back in the early 90s, a family reunion was being organized in Florida. While discussing plans to attend the event, I realized that neither my wife nor my daughter had ever really seen America. Both had been born and raised here in the Islands, and most of what they knew of the mainland was what they had seen from 30,000 feet. Neither had any real idea of how vast our country was.

Though I was not even sure it was possible, I suggested flying straight to Florida for the reunion but from there taking a train back to the West Coast. Then we would fly home to Honolulu. My wife, Paula, thought I was crazy and said so. Our daughter was six at the time, and Paula had visions of trying to occupy an active youngster in cramped quarters for hours on end. Eventually I worked out an itinerary that included overnight stops in Williamsburg, Virginia; Washington, DC; Chicago; the Colorado Rockies; the California Sierras; and, finally, San Francisco. My wife still wasnt completely convinced, but she agreed to give Amtrak a try.

We had a wonderful trip. Williamsburg was charming; Washington was inspiring (and, thankfully, cool for June); the Rockies and the Sierras were spectacular. Just as important, our train experience was all I had hoped it would be.

Since then, the train has become the preferred means of long-distance travel for our family. My daughter, in particular, has become a train enthusiast. Shes a grown woman with a family of her own now; but when she was about ten years old, we combined two of our passions into a wonderful three-week excursion. We logged several thousand miles on Amtrak as we followed the Boston Red Sox on one of their road trips, hitting Oakland, Seattle, Chicago, and finally home to Boston. Neither of us will ever forget it. We had a priceless opportunity for a special father-daughter time together, we saw magnificent scenery, we saw the Red Sox win six of seven gamesand we did it all by train.